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Bold NBA predictions for 2025: Thunder turn title-favourites after trade

The NBA season isn’t quite at the halfway point, but with three months of games already played and the new year approaching, it seems like a good time to look ahead and make some bold predictions for the season remaining based on what we’ve seen so far.

There have been plenty of surprises: Did anyone forecast the Cleveland Cavaliers as the best team in the East? Did anyone anticipate that Philadelphia would be one of the worst? Or that the Milwaukee Bucks would be one of the worst and one of the best in the space of three months?

There have been other pre-season predictions that have panned out well. If you were one of the many to anticipate that the Oklahoma City Thunder would be the best team in the Western Conference, take a bow. Similarly, if you were of the mind that Nikola Jokic would once again be leading the very short list of potential MVPs as he guns for his fourth win in five years.  

But there is a lot of season left, which means there’s plenty of time to still be wrong about things:

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Michael Grange:

The Oklahoma City Thunder will make a trade, and that trade will propel them to their first NBA championship

The Thunder are the best team in the NBA so far this season, and also not good enough — as constructed — to win the NBA championship. This is classic ‘two things can be true’ territory. 

Before games Friday night, the Thunder have a 24-5 record, a nine-game winning streak and are 3.5 games ahead of second-place Houston in the West. But, as the Thunder showed when losing to the Dallas Mavericks in the playoffs last season or in the finals of the NBA Cup last week to Milwaukee, they could use some additional three-point shooting (they are 19th in percentage and 15th in makes) and if it came in the form of some size at the wing, that would be great.

The Thunder have the means to add a Dorian Finney-Smith or Cam Johnson, or even go hunting for bigger game, if motivated. This should be the year OKC cashes in some of their future draft capital (they potentially have access to 11 first-round picks over the next three drafts. Not all will convey due to various protections, but you get the picture) to make sure as many holes are plugged heading into the playoffs as possible.

The Thunder are an excellent team with an MVP-level star in his prime in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Add one more piece and they will be champions.  

It’s not wrong to predict that the Boston Celtics will repeat as NBA champions, but it’s not automatic they come out of the East

For all of the Celtics' championship qualities — two superstar wings in Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, quality veterans in Jrue Holiday and Al Horford still bringing it, and all-world glue guy Derrick White keeping it all together — any number of elements could bring Boston down: their over-reliance on the three ball, the brittleness of Kristaps Porzingis or simply the grind of having played into the last week of May or beyond for three-straight seasons.

At this stage of the year, we’re too far in to suggest the Cleveland Cavaliers aren’t Finals-worthy material. They have the NBA’s best record, the league’s top-rated offence and just two years ago were the NBA’s best defence (and seventh-best currently), so they are certified threats to Boston.

Anyone else? Don’t sleep on the Orlando Magic. They have the NBA’s third-best defence (were second last season) and have remained in the top four of the East even though their two best players — Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner — have missed considerable amounts of time with oblique injuries. Banchero will be back shortly, and presuming Wagner isn’t out too long, the Magic will give the East’s elite all they can handle, enough that I predict either Cleveland or Orlando — and not Boston — will represent the East in the NBA Finals.

Zach Edey becomes Canada’s second rookie of the year award winner

Granted, not all that bold a prediction given that the "Pride of Leaside" was the 9th overall pick by Memphis last June, but given that even this time last year, as Edey was plowing his way toward a sweep of the end-of-season player-of-the-year awards for the second consecutive NCAA season, there were plenty of talent evaluators who wondered if it would translate to the NBA.

Edey’s put that concern to rest. He’s averaging 11.1 points, 7.9 rebounds and 1.1 blocks on 59.5 per cent shooting for the Grizzlies, who are in third place in the West.

Since coming back from an ankle injury that kept him out for 12 games, Edey hasn’t missed a beat, including putting up 21 points and 16 rebounds and adding two blocks against his hometown Toronto Raptors on Thursday night.

He seems to have found himself in an ideal situation in Memphis, where there is plenty of runway to contribute, but no pressure to play outside of himself. Elsewhere, there aren’t any rookies making stronger cases (although Edey’s teammate, Jaylen Wells, will be in the conversation) and that he’s doing it as part of a winning team will help Edey’s case.

Blake Murphy:

The Spurs trade for De’Aaron Fox

Things have not been going well in Sacramento this season, with the Kings unable to take the step to the next level after two encouraging seasons with the Fox-Domantas Sabonis core. Fox declined an extension this off-season for largely CBA-related reasons — he will be eligible for an even larger one this summer — but recent reporting from The Athletic suggests Fox and his new Klutch representatives are at least probing what the plan is to get Sacramento where they need to go.

If the sides can’t find common enough ground, the Spurs are perfectly positioned to take advantage. While they’ll surely be careful cashing in their combination of picks, prospects, and solid players on reasonable deals, the natural co-star alongside Victor Wembanyama is likely to be a dynamic guard, and Fox fits the bill. Wembanyama is already affecting games to a Defensive Player of the Year level on one end, and a down-ballot MVP level on the other, so it shouldn’t be long now before the Spurs say hey, he’s ready, let’s go for it.

This would, obviously, be a setback for the Kings, who will have to hope (if it gets to this point) that they can fashion a win-win trade with San Antonio that lets them remain competitive around Sabonis and company.

Dylan Harper makes a lottery “loser” very happy

It would be almost impossible for any prospect to play well enough this season to knock Cooper Flagg from the No. 1 selection in the 2025 NBA Draft. This isn’t suggesting Dylan Harper will; Flagg’s floor and ceiling are both just too tremendous. The Rutgers guard will, however, establish himself as the clear No. 2 prospect in a very good, top-heavy draft class, making the team that “only” lands second in the lottery pretty content with their “bad” lottery luck. 

At six-foot-six and 215 pounds, Harper’s ability to get deep into the paint with speed and physicality should translate to the NBA level, and while he’ll need to expand his three-point range (like most guard prospects), his ability to generate free-throw attempts and finish in close should make him a productive scorer early. He’s also an advanced passer for the position if you project him as a two-guard, where he should be a pretty good defender as well with his athleticism and compete level.

Remember, even finishing dead last only gives you a 14-percent chance at Flagg. That expands to a 27.4-percent chance at landing Flagg or Harper, which feels a little less depressing than tanking an entire season for a 1-in-7 shot at a lone generational prospect.

The NBA re-examines how the G League operates

As a G League sicko, it’s been great to see the league evolve over the years to where every team has an affiliate, teams truly value the extra reps young players can get, and winning programs can point to their G League system as a key to their long-term developmental successes. With that said, the NBA and NBPA may need to look at some tweaks, based on feedback I’ve heard from scouts and executives around the league, and from my own eyes.

The issue isn’t that the play is bad, because it’s not. However, with three two-way players per NBA roster and the NBA skewing ever younger with the last few standard NBA roster spots, most of the promising play in the G League comes from players already on NBA rosters. That’s great, to an extent; it’s good developmentally, and local fans will want to see players with an attachment to the NBA club. At the same time, it’s made the pool of available players for 10-day contracts or two-way signings perilously thin. Even expanded use of Exhibit 10 bonuses — which can up the G League salary from $43,000 to up to $120,500 for some players — can’t compete with European deals to keep unsigned players in the G League en masse.

There will always be some names of interest, your T.J. Warrens and Frank Kaminskies looking for their quickest path back to The Show. And the easy answer is paying players more, which goes against capitalistic principles, even for a league that isn’t intended to be profit-generating. Still, an example like the recent G League Winter Showcase being far more about trade chatter than actual G League players of interest suggests the league may need to brainstorm ways to keep the G League player pool intriguing, even if the primary purpose remains assignee development.

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