The new NBA Season: Potentially the best one yet
October 25, 2022
The 2022-2023 National Basketball Association (NBA) Season started October 18th and has the potential to be the greatest basketball in the NBA’s 76-year existence.
On paper, this season has the potential to be the best season the NBA has had this century, based on pure talent, standpoint, and competitiveness. Teams that were just outside the playoffs or lost in the first round made sacrifices for their future teams to make winning moves. This was at the cost of declining or already poor teams, as the Cleveland Cavaliers (8th out of 15 in the Eastern Conference last season, missed the playoffs) got former 2-time All-Star from the Utah Jazz, Donovan Mitchell. Mitchell will be paired with first-time all-stars last year Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen. The Minnesota Timberwolves (7th out of 15 in the Western Conference, made the playoffs) also traded for another Jazz all-star, Rudy Gobert. Gobert is a defensive cornerstone that will significantly raise the Timberwolves’ chances of winning a championship. Several other teams, mostly in the Eastern Conference, had existing contenders bolstering their roster.
The NBA this year is in a unique place in the sense that several teams have a realistic chance of winning a championship. In fact, since 2019, no team has made the Conference Finals (Semifinals) two years in a row. This year, Las Vegas predictors only give the highest likelihood teams to win-the Golden State Warriors and Boston Celtics-each less than a 15% chance to win a championship, which is historically low for favorites to win a championship.
The battle to win a championship will also be met with 11 of the 75 best players in the NBA all-time. The players on this list consist of mostly established talent. There is also a wave of young talent around the NBA that cannot be considered on this list but are Hall-of-Fame talents. These players that are not included on this list are players who are mostly young talent. Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets, 27), Luka Dončić (Dallas Mavericks, 23), Ja Morant (Memphis Grizzlies, 23), Devin Booker (Phoenix Suns, 25) in the Western Conference and Jayson Tatum (Boston Celtics, 24) and Trae Young (Atlanta Hawks, 24) in the Eastern Conference. Older players (over 30) like Jimmy Butler (Miami Heat, 33) also play a significant role in talent.
With this overflow of talent, you can expect players well over 30 who will face problems with declining athleticism, as many people face around that age. This could realistically be the last year of peak level talent coming from some NBA 75 Players such as Damian Lillard (Portland Trail Blazers, 32), Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors, 34), Kevin Durant (Brooklyn Nets, 34), and LeBron James (Los Angeles Lakers, 37).
Speaking of LeBron James, he is often declared as the number two player of all-time in the NBA, with four championships. 25% of NBA fans consider him the best player of all time, ahead of 90s great Michael Jordan, who had six championships. James has the edge over Michael Jordan in every standard statistical category in his playoff career, as well as the regular-season season stats other than steals. Any category top 10 Jordan is in, James is also in as well.
So, what might it take for James to surpass Jordan in the eyes of NBA fans? This year, James will be only the 9th player ever to play 20 years in the NBA or more. Additionally, as of October 19th, James will break the points records and gain position in the top 10 leaderboards of assists (passes to another player leading to points) and steals (taking the ball from a player on offense as a defensive player).
If James maintains last season’s averages without missing games, He will currently stand 1296 points behind NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. If he kept last season’s scoring pace, he would shatter the record in Los Angeles against the Houston Rockets on Monday, January 16th. James would also be realistically on pace to move from 7th all-time to 4th all-time in assists (passes leading to another player getting points) on Sunday, January 22nd against the Portland Trail Blazers. Additionally, he would move up two spots to 8th all-time in steals on Saturday, February 11th against the Golden State Warriors.
With these changes in all-time leaderboards and James being first all time in points, it would not be irrational to say that this year LeBron James will have a historic year that will cement his legacy.
This year, if there was one year to start watching basketball, now would be the time to do so.
