1. Cleveland
2. Milwaukee
3. Washington
4. Chicago
5. Miami
6. Boston
7. Atlanta
8. Toronto
I see the young up-and-coming groups taking a step-forward (in the bucks case a leap) this year. I think Giannis is ready to be a dynamic player already, I see something like 19/8/4 while being a great defender, Monroe to be better than he ever has now playing his true position, everyone will be better this year and if Jabari's healthy and the player they drafted then I think they could win 55 games, honestly
I'm not a beal fanatic but I do think he'll have by far his best year so far, and moreover I expect Porter to take a big step forward and be a very effective small-ball 4 in their new style. Wall will also be even better than he has and lead this team in a big way.
I don't see great health in chicago but I think they'll have fewer struggles than Miami. Is whiteside really that guy and can he stay out of trouble? Almost everyone on the heat is a health risk, Even if you get 60 good games from Wade, will everything with Bosh really be okay? Can Dragic/Deng stay healthy? Cause their bench got better but it's still not good. Just me but I see a lot of health struggles again bogging them down.
Celts got a little more talent and most of their guys should be a little better. Smart could be ready to do a fair bit more and with Stevens at the helm I think they'll be at least 5 wins better.
Hawks fans will go crazy and I don't blame them but I'm far from convinced Thabo will be/stay healthy, If Al goes down they'll be lucky to get this seed, and with Korver at his age if he lost a step from the injury creating the separation off of screens and such will be much harder meaning he won't draw the attention he did and I think that really hurts them. Probably harsh but almost everyone's older and they'd be extremely lucky to have the level of health they did last regular season.
Raptors, idk, I don't like Dwayne Casey I guess? They should be higher than 8th and be able to maintain a similar record to last year I just think they suffer the rest of the middle-bottom teams getting much better.
Blast away. Feel free to bring up in a 9 months if its horribly wrong because I will if it's incredibly correct,
. IMO the Kyrie/Bron ISO heavy Cavs would have still lost handily in the finals and Kevin Love would have been benched for the majority of the second halves, we just have good excuses now because the undermanned Cavs won 2 games... but not acknowledging that it's two very different teams(Cavs with everyone healthy vs. that 7 man line-up). Better players but subtraction by addition(you lose some defense, still ISO heavy offense)
