MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Cavs’ rare heights and more fearless NBA season predictions

As we prepare for a new NBA season, let’s fast forward for a second to Christmas, because there’s a fascinating story here involving the league’s schedule.

You see, Christmas games are perhaps the league’s marquee in-season event (although the NFL is trying to cut in on the NBA’s  business). Essentially, the NBA takes its 10 most marketable teams and throws them on the big screen for a quintuple-header to entertain the eggnog-addled masses. Every year when the schedule comes out, there’s something of a buzz around which teams and players made the Christmas cut. Of late, there’s been another element because of the undercurrent of “Who’s next?” going around the league the last few years.

LeBron James and Stephen Curry can’t carry this thing forever. But even though we’re going on nine years since the 39-year-old James or 36-year-old Curry won a Most Valuable Player award and three since either appeared in an NBA Finals, they still are doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to getting TV eyeballs. To a lesser extent, the league is asking the same from 36-year-old Kevin Durant.

This year, the league is asking James and Curry to lift their proverbial sled into the sky on Christmas night, featuring the Los Angeles Lakers–Golden State Warriors in the most visible time slot despite neither team looking like a realistic title contender. Their two teams are also first and third in national TV appearances this season.

It’s not that James and Curry can’t deliver — as we witnessed most recently in Paris — but there’s a reality of time and age here. They’re both in their late 30s and no longer among the game’s five best players. Meanwhile, the three players who combined to win the last six MVP awards — Nikola Jokić, Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo — each will be 30 by March; while they’re not exactly near retirement, we’ve probably already seen the absolute peak for each.

So again … who’s next? It seemed to some we had an obvious handoff point in the 2024 playoffs. In one corner, we had Jayson Tatum (age 26) and Jaylen Brown (27) leading the Boston Celtics to the title; in the other, we had the brilliant Luka Dončić (25) and the ebullient Anthony Edwards (23) facing off in the Western Conference finals.

And waiting in the wings, of course, is the San Antonio Spurs’ impossibly dimensioned second-year pro Victor Wembanyama, who has already become one of the league’s must-see players and could interject himself into the MVP race as soon as this season.

Those players account for nine of the 10 teams selected to be part of the league’s marquee Christmas schedule, with the Knicks being the 10th because they’re New York. (They’re good, too, but they’re on the schedule even when they aren’t.) They also account for several of the teams the league featured in its tipoff ad … one that notably features Edwards (and, a bit bizarrely, co-stars the perennially injured Kawhi Leonard).

It leaves you to wonder about the one team and player who didn’t make that cut. That would be Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who finished second in last year’s MVP voting, and the Oklahoma City Thunder, who were the Western Conference’s top seed and figure to be so again.

It’s pretty clear the league and its TV partners are more excited about Edwards, for instance, which makes me ask … are they making the same mistake with Gilgeous-Alexander that they did with Jokić?

The NBA-TV complex spent basically zero effort hyping Jokić while he was winning back-to-back MVPs, not until it belatedly realized he was by far the league’s best player. Unfortunately, that wasn’t until about halfway through the 2023 NBA Finals.

Gilgeous-Alexander can’t quite claim to be on Jokić’s level yet, but we could be headed to a similar place. Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t as telegenic as Edwards, but he’s also a lot more likely to be playing in June. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where the league’s TV partners ignore him all year and then complain about ratings for an Oklahoma City conference finals or finals. It’s not just the Christmas snub, either — 10 teams have more national TV run than the Thunder this season.

I’m going through all of this because it’s time for my fearless predictions for the coming season, and my big one is this: It’s SGA’s time.

He finished second in MVP voting a season ago and will be pushing Jokić and Dončić for that honor this year. However, Gilgeous-Alexander has two big advantages in his favor: First, his team is very likely to have the best record in the West, perhaps by several games; and second, he’s likely to play more games than Dončić, in particular.

As a result, my first bold prediction is that Gilgeous-Alexander will win MVP, despite not being on the league’s push list.

GO DEEPER

Hollinger: Expect Thunder to run away with West, but can Suns blaze a trail?

But I have plenty more to discuss. For starters. I’ll note that I’ve given myself a tough act to follow, because a year ago, for whatever reason, this exercise went a lot better than I expected. (Translation: I actually got some stuff right.)

That included the miraculous feat of correctly predicting the Most Improved Player winner and naming Boston as the eventual champion. I also correctly predicted the LA Clippers’ and Chicago Bulls’ direction shifts, the Timberwolves winning their first series in 20 years and the West regaining its historic dominance over the East. Even my misses (Wembanyama making the All-Star team, Tatum winning MVP, no coaching changes by the All-Star break) mostly weren’t off by much. The only glaring miss was my Coach of the Year pick. (Taylor Jenkins’ Memphis Grizzlies won 27 games. Oops.)

So let’s try this again. I’m trying to avoid the Captain Obvious stuff and bravely delve into more questionable territory, even with the increased risk of it ending in disaster. With that said, here are the rest of my fearless predictions for 2024-25:

Every West Play-In game will be in California

Let’s start with my boldest geographically focused prediction ever (also possibly my only one, but still). The Play-In Tournament home teams will be the seventh- and ninth-place finishers in each conference, with a subsequent final game hosted by the loser of the No. 7 vs. No. 8 game.

I’ve projected three teams from California — the Warriors, Lakers and Kings — to finish seventh, eighth and ninth in the West, respectively, and I have a fourth California team (the Clippers) on the fringes of the Play-In race. Thus, it doesn’t seem like a big stretch to think every West Play-In game will be played in the golden state. We can narrow the geographic band even tighter, to a 90-mile stretch of Northern California, if the Warriors and Kings are the seventh- and ninth-place teams and the seventh-place finisher loses the first game. Those two arenas are separated by fewer than 90 miles.

Five coaching changes by All-Star break

I predicted last season that we wouldn’t have a coaching change before the All-Star break; at the time, I couldn’t have foreseen the newly hired Adrian Griffin warranting one of the quickest hooks in recent coaching annals. Other than the Milwaukee situation, we almost got there before Washington let Wes Unseld Jr. go in late January. One other coach (Brooklyn’s Jacque Vaughn) was let go the day after the All-Star Game, and those were the only three changes all season. (Five more jobs opened in the summer.)

This year, I expect more tumult in the coaching ranks. Just go through the 22 teams that didn’t make a change in the past 12 months. There are way more warm-to-hot seats being held by coaches who are far enough into their tenure for the honeymoon phase to be over but not established enough to be “made men” in the mold of an Erik Spoelstra or Joe Mazzulla.

I think five of these jobs turn over by the All-Star break in February. I’m not going to try to project which five, other than to tell you only about half the league’s jobs feel truly safe. Prepare for some turnover.

East will give us first 50-loss Play-In team

In the short history of the Play-In, we have never had a 50-loss team qualify. Believe it or not, the current record here is not held by a team from the East, but by the 2021-22 San Antonio Spurs team that went 34-48 and limped into 10th place in the West.

I’m pretty sure nine East teams can get past 34 wins without breaking a sweat. Is there a 10th? On paper, it’s not looking good: The bottom-six teams in the East all seem more than capable of losing 50-plus games. I’m projecting my 10th-place team in the conference to land at 32 wins and the other five teams to fall several games short of even that modest threshold.

Speaking of which:

Trae Young talks with Hawks coach Quin Snyder during a break in play against the Sixers. (Dale Zanine / USA Today)

Atlanta will be in East Play-In once again

Living in Atlanta means never clearing your calendar the week of April 15. The Hawks have played four Play-In games in three years and have a great chance of adding two more.

Atlanta is seemingly on an island in the East hierarchy, well behind the eight teams that each won at least 46 games a year ago yet far more talented than the bottom six teams in the conference vying to be the worst Play-In team in league annals. Injuries to good teams may mess this up, but on paper it seems entirely plausible the Hawks finish in ninth place without a team within five games of either side of them.

Rookie of the Year will come from outside of top five

The last seven Rookies of the Year were drafted first, first, fourth, third, second, fourth and first. It feels like we might get something very different this season.

In a draft with no obvious superstar, the top two picks are likely to be off-ball role players in their initial pro season, while the players picked third, fourth and fifth face obstacles to getting enough minutes to really factor into a Rookie of the Year race.

With relatively little distinction between the first dozen or so picks, I’m calling my shot here: We’re going to get somebody from deeper on the board who emerges to win the award. Maybe it’s ninth pick Zach Edey, seemingly getting a starting job on a silver platter for a relatively solid team. Maybe it’s 11th pick Matas Buzelis, who had a strong summer league and should get plenty of run on a rebuilding Bulls team. Or maybe it’s somebody truly out of left field, like second-round pick Malcolm Brogdon winning it in 2017. In a draft that wasn’t star-studded at the top, I’m going to take the field over the first five picks.

Wemby, Jalen Williams will be first-time All-Stars

One of these predictions is in the “duh” category, but let’s talk more about Williams. He might be the most important player to watch in the entire league this year. His ability to soak up extra possessions and give the Thunder a legitimate second on-ball creator will dictate not only their immediate viability as a contender but also the bigger picture strategy of whether the Thunder need to trade from their draft pick asset pile to get Gilgeous-Alexander more help.

The interesting thing about Williams is that he has a great chance of making the All-Star team even if he doesn’t pass this test with flying colors. Between the uptick in usage he’s likely to see with Josh Giddey’s departure and the fact that coaches will be searching for any reason to put a second Thunder player on the team if, as I expect, they’re ahead of the pack in the standings, Williams has a pretty open pathway to an All-Star bid. That’s true even in a conference where it’s been notoriously difficult to break through.

GO DEEPER

A stronger, more confident Victor Wembanyama hopes to apply offseason lessons he learned

East will not have a first-time All-Star

When you look at how many elite players in the East have already made at least one All-Star team, it’s tough to come up with somebody who might crack the roster for the first time. The key stars on Boston, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Milwaukee, New York and Indiana have all made it, as have Paolo Banchero, Trae Young, Zach LaVine, Scottie Barnes and LaMelo Ball.

Who’s left? The only realistic hopes would seem to be Franz Wagner (likely to have the designated “Magic guy” spot usurped by Banchero), Derrick White (“I like you but not like that”) and Evan Mobley (possibly fourth in the Cavs’ All-Star hierarchy).

Amen Thompson will win Most Improved Player

In the wake of last season’s successful prediction that Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey would win the award, I have no choice but to attempt to repeat the feat. Scanning rosters and eyeballing candidates, I’ve settled on Thompson.

I think perception will play a big role here. Thompson’s rookie season didn’t really register with fans, partly because he missed the beginning of it and only played 62 games, starting just 23.

However, he was a very successful rookie when he played. Check out these splits as a starter: 13.5 points, 9.9 rebounds, 58.4 percent shooting, two assists for every turnover and nearly two “stocks” (steals + blocks) per night. He’ll have to become more threatening as a shooter (8 of 58 from 3 … yikes), but that’s the one area in which young players can sometimes make great progress.

With Houston possibly stepping up as a more serious playoff contender this year, and Thompson likely to receive a lot more playing time in the bargain, I expect him to become a more prominent name in the national discussion. Whether that’s enough to get him an award like this remains to be seen — usually it’s an out-of-left-field, never-saw-it-coming-type season that wins this honor. But if there’s a Maxey-ish-type year out there that maybe we could see coming, I think Thompson has the best chance of delivering it.

Amen Thompson directs traffic as Detroit’s Marcus Sasser defends last season. (Troy Taormin / USA Today)

Kenny Atkinson will win Coach of the Year

I have to make amends for last year’s Coach of the Year pick, so let’s try this again. The honor is often really a “most undervalued team” award, given to the coach of the team that beat preseason expectations by the widest margin. This is true to the point that the guy many think is the best coach, Miami’s Spoelstra, has never won the award.

Enter Cleveland and Atkinson. I discussed this in an earlier piece, but I think the prediction market has weirdly undervalued the Cavaliers, especially as a regular-season juggernaut. Additionally, Atkinson is in position to generate a big share of the credit for this as a first-year coach, as he is the one obvious change on a roster that returns all 10 rotation players from a season ago. If he can actually do some cool stuff on the sideline, so much the better.

Cavs will make conference finals

Break out your Mark Price and Brad Daugherty throwback jerseys! With a deep, talented team built for the regular-season grind, better health than a year ago and perhaps some extra juice from the coaching change lumped on top, I think the Cavs have a chance to match the most successful non-LeBron James season in their history — the 57-win seasons the Price-Daugherty crew put together in 1991-92 and 1988-89.

Projecting good things for the Cavs this season isn’t hard, but where this prediction is taking a leap of faith is in the playoffs. Can Cleveland really be expected to beat a team like New York, Philadelphia or Milwaukee in the second round?

Possibly … if the Cavs can show a bit of a learning curve from their last two postseason misadventures, and if their opponents aren’t at full strength. I’m relying a bit on history here to put some wind at Cleveland’s back, since there’s a decent chance a higher-ceiling team like the Knicks or Sixers will be injury-softened by May. But this space isn’t for “vanilla predictions,” so let’s go out on a limb. Cavs it is.

GO DEEPER

Hollinger: Predicting the top of NBA’s Eastern Conference, with one big surprise

Celtics will top Cavs in East finals

This is where I get off the Cleveland train, especially if Boston has a healthy Kristaps Porziņģis by the time the playoffs roll around. Cleveland showed it can hang with Boston in Game 2 of the second round this past spring before injuries hollowed out the Cavs’ roster, but there’s still a big gap between “hanging” and “winning four times.”

The Celtics won the East by 14 games a year ago and were never challenged in the postseason. Yes, that was partly driven by opponent injuries. I expect the second round and conference finals to be a bit more daunting this time around. Nonetheless, Boston has to be an overwhelming favorite to advance, especially once you consider mid-to-bad-case scenarios. Put another way, the Celtics are the only team I could see having an injury to a top-three player and still make the NBA Finals.

Thunder will beat Mavs in West finals

This is probably the postseason series I’m looking forward to the most, and it’s still seven months away and not guaranteed to happen. It’s a possible matchup of the top two guys on MVP ballots and could be part of a recurring series of postseason encounters over the next several years. Last season’s series was a barnburner, the best one of the playoffs; it ended with a net margin of zero and hinged on a wild Dallas Game 6, fourth-quarter comeback.

Last season’s Mavs were a near-perfect antidote for the Thunder, but roster changes to both teams may give the Thunder the upper hand this time. They have more perimeter defenders to harass Dončić, another big man in Isaiah Hartenstein to help their glaring rebounding deficit and, above all, more understanding of what it is they need to do in a high-level series like this. Dallas, meanwhile, doesn’t quite have the perimeter defense it did a year ago to handle the Thunder’s dribble attacks.

Celtics will top Thunder for title

Repeating is difficult in the NBA, as the last six years have shown, but I think Boston will end the trend of defending champions faltering. The Celtics were head and shoulders above the league last season, so they have a bit of room to take a step back and still maintain a leg up.

The Thunder are the team that matches up best with the Celtics on paper, able to throw multiple elite perimeter defenders at Tatum and Brown. However, in a finals series, one would also bank on Boston’s greater experience offering an intangible advantage. I will say I give the Thunder the second-best odds of winning it all, but unfortunately, I can only pick one team to win it.

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(Top photo of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Donovan Mitchell: Kirk Irwin, Sean Gardner / Getty Images)