The NBA season may be a few weeks or days ahead, but a lot of people are so excited about the start of the season that they start to create predictions for various teams and players.
Some of the predictions that people make can be ridiculous, while there are some that are justified by facts or by simply observing the movements and decisions of players and teams.
In this article, we will explore a few of the plausible and crazy predictions about what will happen in the upcoming 2022-2023 season of one of the most popular sports associations in the world.
These predictions can be advantageous for those who frequently bet on basketball games, and some of them would even place their bets on sports betting websites and online casinos.
There are many ways for them to pay for bets, although PayPal is one of the best ways to pay at online casinos because of its hassle-free payment system.
In the NBA, predictions can be faulty, as the season is long and anything can really happen in the league, but predicting the outcome can still be quite fun and exciting for sports bettors and basketball enthusiasts.
So, without further delay, here are our predictions for the upcoming NBA season.
The Golden State Warriors Will Become the Champions Once Again
The Golden State Warriors have been pretty quiet during the offseason, and although some fans think that this is a disadvantage for the team, there are still a lot of people who believe that the quietness of the Warriors is the key to them becoming champions once again .
Although the Warriors lost important role players like Juan Toscano-Anderson and Damion Lee, they still have their core players like Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Jordan Poole, and Andrew Wiggins.
On the other hand, Draymond Green, another key player for the Warriors, is expressing his desire to get a max deal from the team, which the front office is not really willing to do since they already pay so much for other players.
So, it is likely that Green will be traded, but the Warriors may also negotiate a deal that the front office and Green can agree on. With still having one of the best starting lineups in the NBA, the Warriors have a very strong chance of getting a two-peat this season.
Ben Simmons will be traded again
Despite being traded to the Brooklyn Nets last season, Ben Simmons never actually suited up for the team because he was dealing with back issues, although some fans have speculated that Simmons’s ego was also at fault for his absence on the court.
During the 2021 NBA Eastern Conference semifinals between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Atlanta Hawks, Ben Simmons performed so poorly that the 76ers lost the series, and the fans have heckled him in the stadium and even on his social media accounts.
Because of the backlash Ben Simmons has received from the 76ers, he chose to sit out the rest of the 2021-2022 season, although some sources have stated that Simmons was suffering from back issues.
Then, near the end of the said season, Simmons would be traded to the Nets alongside Seth Curry, Andre Drummond, and two first-round picks in exchange for James Harden and Paul Millsap.
However, since Simmons hasn’t played for the Nets yet and will most likely decline in terms of performance, Simmons will possibly get traded again.
The Nets will keep Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant until the end of the season
If there isn’t a big drama going on at the office of the Brooklyn Nets right now, then Ben Simmons would most likely still be on the team until the end of the season.
However, the drama that unfolded between the front office of the Brooklyn Nets and the Durant/Irving duo may be too much that the team would most likely rebuild anytime soon.
But, despite their best efforts to trade Durant and Kyrie during this year’s offseason, the people at the Nets’ front office just can’t shake those two NBA All-Stars off.
So, it is highly likely that Durant and Irving will remain as Nets players until the end of the season, although they most likely won’t be playing and would opt to sit out.
Joel Embiid Will Win the Elusive MVP Award
There were many chances throughout the recent seasons for 76er’s Joel Embiid to be the NBA Regular Season MVP, but the prestigious award wasn’t really meant for him to have during those seasons, as he would often get injured and lose a lot of playing time , which then prevented him from getting enough points and games played that are needed to be MVP.
But, for the 2022-2023 season, we have high hopes that Embiid will finally be able to get the elusive MVP award.
As the 76ers keep getting better and better in terms of lineup or roster, we should expect Embiid to have more support and thus get a bigger spotlight in the NBA and with the media.
With enough traction, especially if the 76ers get the first seed in the Eastern Conference, the chances of Embiid winning the MVP are high.
LeBron James’s Decline Will Begin
LeBron James is arguably the most popular NBA player that is still in the league today, and although it is impressive what he has done in recent years despite being in the age where a lot of players retire, we may possibly see the decline of King James this season.
Last season, he was able to average 30.3 points per game, although he was suffering from a few injuries that led him to only play 56 regular season games.
In addition, James’s team, the Los Angeles Lakers, didn’t even make the playoffs last season, as the offense and the flow of the game heavily revolved around him and another star player, Anthony Davis, who was also injured for most games.
Because of the number of injuries stacking up and James’s durability starting to show cracks, it is highly likely that LeBron won’t be the same as before. But, because LeBron James is considered one of the best basketball players of all time, his “mediocre” performance would still be better than most players in the NBA today.
And these are the predictions that we have for the upcoming 2022-2023 NBA Season. Of course, these are just mere predictions and may not happen during the season, but it is always fun for fans, the media, and sports betting enthusiasts to predict what will happen in the NBA.
