Revisiting Our 2012/13 NBA Predictions

Back in October, eight members of the Hoops Rumors writing team submitted their predictions for the coming 2012/13 season. Considering those predictions were made at a time when the Lakers were viewed as a potential juggernaut, the Timberwolves were relatively healthy, and there still seemed to be a chance that Andrew Bynum and Derrick Rose would see the court at some point, some of our picks look worse than others.

With the season coming to an end though, and all the major awards having been handed out, we’ll take ownership of all our picks, rounding up some of the highlights and lowlights of the bunch. You can view our full list of predictions right here.

The Good:

• It wasn’t a hard pick to make, but five of us had LeBron James winning the league’s Most Valuable Player award, while another two chose Kevin Durant, who finished as the runner-up.
• We did fairly well on Rookie of the Year as well, with three of us picking eventual winner Damian Lillard, while the other five went with runner-up Anthony Davis.
• We didn’t do quite so well as a group on Sixth Man of the Year, but Ryan Raroque correctly predicted that J.R. Smith would take home the hardware.
• Michael Pina called Paul George as the NBA’s Most Improved Player.
• We’ll have to wait to see whether the Heat ultimately come out of the East, but seven of us had Miami in the NBA Finals, while Zach Links and Daniel Seco both identified the Pacers as the team the Heat would beat in the Eastern Finals.
• Zach and Daniel, making their picks just days after the James Harden trade was consummated, also correctly predicted that the deal would make the Rockets a playoff team in the West.
• Michael and I both had the Spurs coming out of the West, meaning my predicted Finals matchup (Heat/Spurs) remains in play.

The Bad:

• As a group, we were relatively bullish on the Timberwolves and Jazz — each team received five votes for a playoff spot in the West, but ended up in the lottery.
• The 76ers earned the highest projection for a team that missed the postseason, having been placed fourth in the East by Chuck Myron and Alex Lee.
• Perhaps if it hadn’t been for Russell Westbrook‘s knee injury, a few of our predictions out West would look better. Six of us had the Thunder advancing to at least the Western Finals, while none of us had the Grizzlies in the series.
• We also underestimated the Knicks; only two of us had them finishing higher than sixth in the East, and no one projected them to place higher than fourth.
• I think our choices for Most Improved Player were fairly good across the board (particularly Chuck’s Andray Blatche pick and Zach’s Omer Asik selection), but the fact remains: Besides George, none of our picks were even among the top five vote-getters for the award.

The Ugly:

• “Ugly” is an appropriate descriptor for the Lakers’ season, and just about everyone misfired on them. That’s particularly noticeable when looking at our Western Conference Finals picks — seven of us thought they’d play in the Western Finals and four of us expected them in the NBA Finals.
• Sixth Man of the Year is a difficult award to project since it often relies so heavily on a coach’s lineup decisions. But given the decline in production by players like Jason Terry and Antawn Jamison, many of our choices look especially off.