BASKET TALKS

Early NBA 2019-20 Season’s MVP Predictions

The most precious award for any individual in the NBA is the Most Valuable Player’s award. Every player wants to win this award at least once in his NBA career. But as we all know it is very difficult for any player to perform consistently throughout the season and even if you manage to do so the competition is so high that you might not win the award even after a great season. So we will talk about a few players who are in the MVP conversation before the start of a new NBA season.

Stephen Curry

After the Kevin Durant’s injury in the post season, Warriors have shown us what they can do without 2 times final’s MVP. But unfortunately for them, their season ended with another critical injury to Klay Thompson. Klay is expected to return around the all-star break. So this Warriors team has to find a way to win the games without their star player. This is where Stephen Curry can play an important role for them. The 2X MVP and the only unanimous MVP has a full potential to carry this team along with Draymond Green & D’Angelo Russell. When asked about the next season’s load management, Curry replied,”Hell Nah!” which gives us an idea about his mentality going into the next season. And independent of who wins the MVP next season, we can expect Curry to have one of the best season of his career.

LeBron James

You can not complete the MVP conversation without mentioning LeBron James. Even though the previous season was a disappointment for the Lakers, LeBron had a pretty decent season even with the injury he had during the January. For some other players 27.4 PPG, 8.3 APG & 8.5 RPG would have been an excellent season, since we are talking about LeBron here, even at this age we can say that those number were decent and we expect more form him. So if Lakers want to win a championship LeBron must have another MVP caliber season.

Kawhi Leonard

We have already seen the consistency of Kawhi Leonard in the last season where he averaged 26.6 PPG, 3.3 APG and 7.3 RPG. Even-though his stats are surely above the average NBA stats, he was not good enough to enter the MVP conversations. Now that with the duo of Paul George & Kawhi Leonard, the Clippers have the best chance to win the NBA title this season, the only question about Leonard is that can he bring his best during the regular season and win his first ever MVP award?

Giannis Antetokounmpo

The reigning MVP will have much more expectations this season as he carried the Bucks to the best record in the NBA. Giannis was unstoppable in the last season where he averaged 27.7 PPG shooting 57.8% from the field along with 5.9 APG and 12.5 RPG. He dominated the previous season and there was no doubt that he will win his first ever MVP. If he manage to produce the same level of basketball again in the upcoming season, there is no doubt that he will be the league’s MVP again.

James Harden

James Harden had a great season where he averaged 36.1 PPG, 6.6 RPG and 7.5 APG. He became the first player after 1987-88 to average more than 35 PPG in a single season. He is 2nd on the list of consecutive 30+ point games behind Wilt Chamberlain(65 Games) where he scored 30+ points in 32 consecutive games breaking the record of 31 games set by Wilt Chamberlain. But all these stats were not good enough as he failed to win back to back MVP awards.

Other players who are worth mentioning

There are other players who also have potential to be the Most Valuable Player in the upcoming season. I have picked up 5 of them below:

Anthony Davis
Paul George
Kyrie Irving
Nikola Jokic
Russell Westbrook

Who do you think will win the Most Valuable Player’s award next season?

Possible Western Conference Playoff Contenders

Los Angeles Clippers

With Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson injured and out for the majority of next season, there is no doubt that Los Angeles Clippers is one of the strongest contenders to win not only the Western Conference but also the championship in the upcoming season. With the dynamic duo of Paul George and Kawhi Leonard along with Lou, Beverly and Montrezl Harrell Clippers have the best chance to win the NBA title. So it is be obvious to have them not only as a playoff contender but also as a championship contender.

Los Angeles Lakers

The combination of Lebron James, Anthony Davis, Boogie, Kyle Kuzma along with Rajon Rondo, Danny Green and KCP is going to be interesting to watch. If Lebron and Anthony stay healthy, there is no doubt that the Lakers will qualify for the playoffs and possibly to the next rounds. Lakers are even considered as a championship contender along with Clippers. So we will wait and watch how two Los Angeles teams battle for the possible championship.

Denver Nuggets

We have already seen the chemistry between Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic along with Garry Harris, Paul Millsap and Mason Plumlee working really well for Nuggets. Even though they are not considered as a championship caliber team, in my opinion this team will occupy one of the top 5 spots in the Western Conference.

Portland Trail Blazers

Even though this team was swept by the Warriors in last season’s Western Conference Finals, the addition of Hassan Whiteside will help this team a lot. Along with Lillard and McCollum, Seth Curry will play an important role as a scorer when these two guys well be on bench. Zach Collins will also be an important asset to help Whiteside. I expect them to occupy one of the top 6 spots in the Western Conference standings.

Golden State Warriors

Even though the build of the Warriors is very different than last 5 seasons, they are very strong contender to make it to the playoffs. And if Klay Thompson gets healthy before the playoffs, they can make it to the Western Conference. But I think with all the other teams in the Conference, Warriors will get a spot between 6 to 8. And if Klay gets healthy around the all star break, it will be interesting to see how the Warriors approach the second half of the season. Willie Cauley-Stein will be a key in this Warriors run. A healthy Warriors team will definitely make it to the playoffs.

Houston Rockets

The most important thing that will decide this team’s fate is the in game chemistry between James Harden and Russell Westbrook. If it works well, we will see this team occupying one of the top 4 spots in the Conference standings. But if this duo didn’t work, it will not be easy for them to make it to the playoffs.

San Antonio Spurs

San Antonio has tied the NBA record for the most consecutive playoff appearances at 22. So it will be interesting to see whether they can break that record this season. The duo of LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan will be the very crucial if this team want to make their record breaking playoff appearance. Along with these two guys, their other guards like Derrick White, Dejounte Murray and Patty Mills will play important tole in this team’s success. Rudy Gay will be an important asset as well.It will be interesting to see how Tim Duncan works as Greg Popovich’s assistant. But I think this team will make it to the playoff for the 23rd consecutive season.

Utah Jazz

The addition of Mike Conley will help Donovan Mitchell a lot since he won’t have to handle the basketball like he used to do it in the past. It will be very interesting to watch the duo of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert along with Mike Conley and Joe Ingles. I think the Jazz will make it to the playoffs this season if the chemistry between these four guys work well.

Other than these teams, there are two more teams I would like to mention and I think they have sufficient talent to make it to the playoffs but the only problem is that both these teams lack in experience. So the only question is that whether they can work hard enough to compete with the 8 teams I mentioned.

New Orleans Pelicans

With Anthony Davis trade, the pelicans have obtained very talented young prospects and with the first pick in the 2019 draft, they already have a Superstar in Zion Williamson. So it is just a matter if time before we see this team fighting in the Western Conference Finals.

Dallas Mavericks

The duo of Kristaps Porzingis and Luka Doncic definitely has a bright future but the only question is that can they play up to the level of Western Conference? If they do that, they will definitely qualify for the playoffs this year. I am sure that this team would have made it to the playoffs if they were in the Eastern Conference.

So the question is which 8 teams will qualify for the playoffs for the upcoming season in this very competitive Western Conference? Predict your 8 teams!

Free Agency 2019

Every NBA fan was talking about this off-season even before the past NBA season was ended. And as expected, this off-season has shuffled the league like never before. Many NBA experts say that the league is now balanced as each team is trying to build around its best two players. We’ll talk about this strategy and how this NBA free agency has affected the league.

From playing with 5 all stars, The Golden State Warriors were not able to win the championship because of injuries. These injuries were so bad that by the end of the season only Stephen Curry and Draymond Green were the only remaining starters and after his quad injury, DeMarcus Cousins was not very consistent with his performances. If it wasn’t for Klay Thompson’s ACL injury, Warriors might have forced the Game 7 in the NBA finals.

After the end of the past season, everybody knew that this year’s free agency is going to be league altering. But nobody anticipated crazy moves like Paul George’s move to Clippers, KD and Kyrie playing together in Brooklyn, D’Angelo Russell to warriors and many other moves that potentially made the upcoming season very interesting. Many ‘Dynamic Duos’ are formed in this off-season. We’ll talk about them in a while.

LeBron James & Anthony Davis

It all started with Anthony Davis going to Los Angeles Lakers. Even though it costed almost all young prospects, Lakers were very keen to get AD on their team. After the all star break, everyone in the NBA was talking about this trade. The Lakers chemistry was affected by this and in the tough Western Conference, if you lose your focus even for a week, you will be thrown out of playoff contention. That’s what happened with the Lakers.

In case of Pelicans, Anthony Davis put his image on the line to play with LeBron and the Pelicans were no longer the same team and eventually ended at the bottom of the Western Conference.

Soon after the end of this season, Pelicans traded AD for Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Josh Heart and three first round picks including 4th overall pick in 2019. And the stage was set as LeBron and AD became the first duo of the 2019-20 season.

Kyrie Irving & Kevin Durant

As soon as the free agency opened, Kyrie and KD announced their decision to sign with the Brooklyn Nets. Even though Warriors were planning to offer a max contract to KD, he didn’t waste his time to choose Kyrie over Steph. And according to some reports, KD left Warriors because he felt like he was playing under Steph’s shadow. But in my opinion, he wanted to lead his own team and no matter how much love he got at Oracle, Warriors will always be the Steph’s Team. This might be the primary reason why KD left the Warriors. Nets agreed to the sign-and-trade deal where they traded D’Angelo Russell for KD to the Warriors. And a duo of Kyrie and KD was formed.

Now the question is that with the injury to KD, how much Kyrie can bring out of this nets team. With the Achilles injury, we can say that KD will be out for next season. So it will be difficult to understand how the chemistry of Kyrie and KD will work.

Paul George & Kawhi Leonard

According to some sources, after this free agency the Clippers have the best chance of winning the NBA title next season. After winning the NBA title recently, Kawhi has proved that you don’t need a super-team to win an NBA title. Even though the odds were against the injured Warriors, Leonard’s Raptors had tough playoffs where they were on the verge of elimination in both semis and conference finals. But it was a brilliance of Kawhi Leonard along with Lowry, Siakam and bench players the Raptors emerge victorious first against Sixers which could have gone either way and then winning the conference title against the MVP Giannis and his Bucks after trailing 2-0 in that series. After that series against Bucks, everyone knew that Kawhi only means business here and only a championship will do it for him. And not only did he win a championship, but he had also won a Final’s MVP award.

On the other hand, PG13 had a MVP caliber season which unfortunately ended in a series where they looked like overmatched against the backcourt duo of Lillard and McCollum. And I think Paul wanted to leave OKC because of Westbrook’s dominance in the team. He opted to play with Kawhi because he doesn’t react much, he doesn’t have any impossible requirements and he only means business.

In my opinion this is the most exciting duo we will be watching in the upcoming season.

Stephen Curry & Klay Thompson/D’Angelo Russell

With Klay Thompson injured, Warriors needed a shooter and a ball handler along with Stephen Curry. And they picked D’Angelo Russell to be that guy. Even though Russell is not as good as Klay on both ends of the floor, he can at least take some burden off from Steph. Russell has to hold his new team along with Steph until Klay returns.

One of the best back-court duos of all the time has to work efficiently after the return of Klay. But till then, for most of the season Russell has to give his best to keep Warriors in the Playoff contention. It will be interesting to see how Warriors manage this with two point guards.

James Harden & Russell Westbrook

Two former teammates in OKC where Harden was a secondary player after Westbrook before he joined Rockets to change their fortunes along with his. Both of the Guards have highest usage rate for past 3-4 years. So it will be interesting to watch how Mike D’Antoni adjusts his strategy for these two guys.

This trade can be a double-edged-sword for the Rockets. Even though they were former teammates, their fortunes have changed now so it will be difficult for them if things won’t work as expected.

Other Duos We Will be Looking for in the Upcoming Season

Luka Doncic & Kristaps Porzingis

Jamal Murray & Nikola Jokic

Giannis Antetokounmpo & Khris Middleton

Damian Lillard & CJ McCollum

DeMar DeRozan & LaMarcus Aldridge

Donovan Mitchell & Rudy Gobert

Ben Simmons & Joel Embid

Kemba Walker & Jason Tatum

Tell us what you think about these NBA duos and which one of them is your favorite.

Also tell us what you think about the upcoming NBA season and which team has the best chance to win a title this season.