NBA predictions season are here. Plus, Beef Court & the New York Liberty reach the finals!

The Bounce Newsletter  | This is The Athletic’s daily NBA newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Bounce directly in your inbox.

LeBron James and Bronny James shared an NBA court together last night. Granted, it happened in a preseason game, so it doesn’t technically count, but the image exists. Everyone’s cold, dead, cynical internet hearts should still think this is cool.

We Love Bold!

Bold predictions for all 30 teams are imminent

If you haven’t perused The Athletic yet today, why not? We’ve got some gold on there today, especially if you like to partake in bold predictions. We went around our stupendous NBA staff for takes on all 30 teams, and I’m sharing five of my favorites here.

Perhaps you’ve wondered to yourself, “You know, Zach tends to throw a super scientific rating meter on these things. I wonder if he has one for this.” Are you sitting down for this? I do. We’ve fine-tuned the new Sure Likelihood of Prediction Meter, a.k.a. the SLOP Meter. It’s a scale of 1-5, carefully engineered for one emoji to signal low likelihood and five emojis being damn near a guarantee.

Brooklyn Nets trade Cam Johnson and Dorian Finney-Smith: With a $15.4 million player option for next season, I assumed Finney-Smith would be on the move at some point in the next year. I hadn’t really considered the rebuilding Nets moving on from Johnson, though. The 28-year-old can really shoot the ball (39.2 percent on 3s for his career) and would definitely bring some intriguing assets back. I’m with Jared Weiss on this one. SLOP Meter: 🤝🤝🤝🤝

Philadelphia 76ers will start Ricky Council IV by midseason: Jared also made this prediction, but I don’t know if I can roll with this one. We know Joel Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey are starters. I’d assume Caleb Martin and Kelly Oubre Jr. will also start. Council was a solid rookie story at the end of last season, and he can really play some defense. But the 23-year-old is unproven as an offensive weapon. Maybe he starts in a pinch, but not seeing it just yet. SLOP Meter: 🤏🤏

Jalen Johnson will average 20 points per game: I’m rolling with fellow Ricky Davis enthusiast John Hollinger here. I was firmly on the Jalen Johnson hype train coming out of Duke. I never lost faith, and he emerged last season in Atlanta, dropping 16 a game after he averaged 4.9 in his first two seasons. With Dejounte Murray now in New Orleans, I think this is a lock. SLOP Meter: 🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣

Charlotte Hornets will win more than 30 games: Color me intrigued with Mike Vorkunov’s prediction. The Hornets must improve by 10 wins to get this one. LaMelo Ball (23 years old) missed 60 games last season, and everything went wrong for Charlotte. They now have highly regarded longtime assistant Charles Lee running the show and a brand new braintrust and ownership. Possible … if healthy. SLOP Meter: 🐝🐝🐝

Cody Williams will make a run at Rookie of the Year: I love Tony Jones throwing the 19-year-old out of Colorado into the mix. He was my second-favorite 2024 draft prospect behind Steph Castle (19), and this is an extremely weak rookie class, with Zach Edey (22) and Reed Sheppard (20) leading the BetMGM odds. Williams can really play and should get a chance to join the Jazz rotation early. SLOP Meter: 🎷🎷🎷🎷

I’ll have some bold predictions of my own before the season begins. 🔮

Beef Court!

The case of DeSean Jackson vs. Jeff Teague

Ah! The confidence of a professional athlete! It can be a truly remarkable experience. It can also end up getting people to think they sound completely delusional in a way they simply can’t accept. That happened recently with former NFL wide receiver DeSean Jackson. With a Super Bowl ring and three Pro Bowl selections, the former Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver had a fantastic 15-year NFL career. I bet he feels like he can do just about anything athletically. Personally, I feel like I could sweep Brie Larson off her feet, but feeling something doesn’t make it true.

Recently, Jackson was on Lou Williams’ podcast “The Underground Lounge.” In it, Jackson mentioned the idea former NBA All-Star and current All-Star podcaster Jeff Teague could not guard him as a defensive back in a football scenario, but he said he could get a bucket or two on Teague. Williams immediately disagreed by using this great line: “It’s different being in the water with that shark and seeing them on the Discovery Channel.”

Jackson said he sees Teague playing around too much, and it makes him feel like he could play in the NBA. Williams fired back with “not if Jeff Teague is your example. Jeff Teague will bust your ass.” Williams eventually told Jackson it’s fine to feel like you could be in the NBA, but not by using Teague as a measuring stick. Williams tagged his point by saying Payton Pritchard would eat Jackson’s lunch and reminded Jackson, “He’s a 5’8 whiteboy.” (For clarity, Pritchard is listed at 6’1, but that’s technically here nor there.)

Should Jackson believe he can beat Teague? Beef Court is in session! 🧑‍⚖️

The case for DeSean Jackson

He’s a world-class athlete, remains incredibly fast, can jump and has great hand-eye coordination. The 37-year-old Jackson once beat Chris Webber on the TV game show “Hole in the Wall,” but I can’t find the episode online. That show has nothing to do with basketball, though.

The case for Jeff Teague

It’s pretty straightforward, so let’s get to listing:

• Actually played in the NBA … for 12 years!
• At 36 years old, he’s a year younger than Jackson.
• Teague is also about five or six inches taller – this matters some.
• He’s been an All-Star (2014-15 season). That matters a lot.
• In 826 NBA games (600 starts), Teague averaged 12.2 points, 5.6 assists and 1.1 steals. Would he even let Jackson dribble much?
• I couldn’t find any record of Jackson playing high school basketball. The word “basketball” isn’t even on his Wikipedia page.

Teague addressed the claims on a recent episode of his hit podcast “Club 520” (NSFW) and told a pretty damning story about Jackson. According to Teague, former Hawks teammate Josh Smith tried setting up a game between Teague and Jackson about 15 years ago, when Jackson was bragging about being able to hoop. Smith was going to bet Jackson $50,000 on the potential matchup, and split the winnings with Teague. Jackson then declined. Teague also said Jackson, at another time, was DM’ing him. Jackson apparently moved the goal posts from beating Teague to simply scoring on him, and wanted to “do it for content.”

Verdict: 🧑‍⚖️ Are you out of your damn mind, DeSean?! The Beef Court sides in favor of Jeff Teague. You also couldn’t beat his brother, Marquis Teague, who played briefly in the league. It’s just an absolutely ridiculous claim. You’re not Tee Higgins or Myles Garrett, who can hoop but also wouldn’t beat Teague.

WNBA Playoffs

Aces’ three-peat bid ends as Liberty advance

All season long, we wondered if the Las Vegas Aces would be could win their third straight title. Even as they struggled to mirror last season’s stride and dealt with injuries, the power of A’ja Wilson still made it seem very possible. Then, the Aces ran into the buzzsaw that is the New York Liberty before even reaching the finals. On Sunday, the Liberty embraced their own destiny with a 76-62 victory to eliminate the Aces.

After shutting down the defending champs for most of the game, New York outscored Las Vegas 23-11 in the fourth quarter to secure the finals berth. Sabrina Ionescu continued torching Las Vegas with 22 points in the win. Breanna Stewart had a rough shooting game (8 for 21), but 19 points, 14 rebounds, five assists and four blocks got it done. The Liberty have made the finals for the second straight year and sixth time in franchise history. Who are they going to play? We don’t know yet!

The Connecticut Sun kept their season alive at home with a 92-82 win over the Minnesota Lynx. Connecticut lit up the Lynx by shooting the lights out, and Alyssa Thomas’ 18 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds helped overcome Napheesa Collier’s 29-point, 13-rebound effort. The Lynx and Sun head back to Minneapolis for a do-or-die Game 5.

The Lynx haven’t been to the finals since 2017, when they beat the Sparks to win the title. Minnesota has four championships (the kind that don’t get moved to Los Angeles) and six WNBA Finals appearances. The Sun haven’t been to the Finals since 2022, have twice visited since 2019 and are 0-4 in WNBA Finals appearances. Connecticut’s 439 regular-season wins are the second-most by any WNBA team without a title. First on that list? New York, with 482.

We don’t know who will win Game 5 Tuesday night, but we know the Liberty will await.

Watch the WNBA playoffs on fubo.

Bounce Passes

Paolo Banchero is looking to have a monster Year Three.

Does Kyle Kuzma regret not getting himself traded to Dallas? Hear from him, yourself.

Most-clicked in Friday’s newsletter: Dan Brown went behind the scenes of Steph Curry’s “marathon” media day.

📫 Love The Bounce? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters.

(Top photo: Jacob Kupferman  / Getty Images )