NBA season is here! Preview, predictions and more

Before we get to Yahoo Sports’ 2022-23 NBA season preview — complete with in-depth analysis, awards projections, playoff picks and more — a refresher course on a league emerging from a summer of turmoil …

Since the Golden State Warriors won the NBA championship in June and their stars joined the short list of trios to win four titles together, the league has been mired in an endless cycle of staggering news stories.

Tuesday’s opening-night slate — the Philadelphia 76ers at the Boston Celtics at 7:30 p.m. ET, followed by the Los Angeles Lakers at Golden State, both on TNT — will at least provide a respite of actual basketball.

The sport has never been more exciting, its depth of talent never so deep. Yet, the summer was filled with drama that had little to do with the game itself. It almost makes you wonder if the NBA prefers it that way. Or, at least, its promotion of superstars and the rise of player empowerment both embrace the soap opera.

Not even a league that has deftly transformed itself into a 12-month headline factory in recent years would want the kind of public relations that bookended this summer. The NBA did not even make it to free agency before the wife of Miles Bridges — one of the biggest names on the market — shared disturbing images of an alleged assault that resulted in a domestic violence charge against the unsigned Charlotte Hornets star.

The weeks leading into training camp revealed an investigative report that confirmed Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver’s history of alleged racism, misogyny and other hostile workplace misconduct, followed by another that resulted in the yearlong suspension of Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka for multiple team violations, including reports of an allegedly improper relationship with a female member of the team staff.

[ Rohrbach: NBA failed victims of Sarver’s harassment • Udoka put Celtics in no-win situation ]

League and team representatives did not exactly cover themselves in glory when addressing these topics.

We could hardly digest the breadth of misconduct across the NBA before Warriors forward Draymond Green — a member of that aforementioned trio — violently punched ill-prepared teammate Jordan Poole during a practice. Golden State’s leaders appeared more upset by the notion that video of the incident leaked than they were about the incident itself. Green will be in uniform for the Warriors on opening night.

[ Goodwill: Green strained equity he built in Golden State • Devine: A Warriors future without Green? ]

In between that series of alarming events were the kinds of persistent hot-stove rumors the NBA surely covets, even if they resulted in embarrassment for the league’s brightest stars and biggest media markets.

Kevin Durant requested a trade from the Brooklyn Nets in the hours before free agency on June 30. Three days earlier, Kyrie Irving received permission to seek his own sign-and-trade exit strategy. As the calendar turned to August without momentum toward a deal, Durant reportedly demanded the Nets fire head coach Steve Nash and general manager Sean Marks if they did not trade him. Two weeks later, he rescinded his ultimatum, as both sides agreed to “move forward with our partnership.” Irving had long since come to the same realization that no team was willing to meet Brooklyn’s asking price for him and picked up his option.

[ Goodwill: ‘Culture’ alone won’t solve Durant conundrum • Time for Steve Nash to find his voice ]

Across the country, the Los Angeles Lakers were in a similar state of disarray all summer. Amid reports that LeBron James “has no interest in going another year with Russell Westbrook as his teammate,” the two did not bother to greet each other when they both attended a Lakers game at Las Vegas Summer League. The summer was filled with leaks of Westbrook trade speculation and James’ alleged involvement in them. And just like the Nets, the Lakers hosted media day with players who vaguely discussed their disgust in them.

Lost in a truly bizarre offseason was the fact the NBA fielded an All-NBA first team full of stars 27 years old or younger for the first time since 1955. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, Jayson Tatum and Devin Booker, in addition to second team All-NBA selections Joel Embiid and Ja Morant, all play for contenders that comprise a quarter of the league and quietly went about their business this summer.

Elsewhere around the NBA a handful of small-market operations — the Atlanta Hawks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Minnesota Timberwolves and New Orleans Pelicans — made claims to enter the title conversation. Only, it has all been masked by a string of news so bad each headline obfuscates the last. We can hardly keep up. The majority of the league has been enveloped by narratives driven by negativity from few among its ranks.

Now, we get to watch the games. Let’s hope basketball is the story now. The NBA should prefer it that way.

The 2022-23 NBA season begins Tuesday. Here are Yahoo Sports’ predictions and season preview. (Graphic by Michael Wagstaffe/Yahoo Sports)

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Your guides to the 2022-23 NBA season

Goodwill: Recapping all the NBA drama before a much-needed hardwood refuge

On a private plane headed to San Francisco, NBA commissioner Adam Silver was catching up with a long-lost friend he hasn’t seen in months.

Larry O.

Larry had been asleep for a few months and needed Silver to fill in some blanks before arriving at Chase Center. Silver and his golden friend usually make some rounds before the playoffs but as custom, the two part after the Finals and reconnect in October before the new season begins.

Edited for clarity, a transcript obtained by Yahoo Sports on their (fictional) conversation … [ read more ]

Devine: Reintroducing the 2022-23 NBA title contenders

As training-camp scrimmages give way to preseason play, the onset of live games against actual opponents allows the NBA’s 30 teams to start figuring out what they actually are — and, more importantly, how that reality compares to what they imagined they might be.

For some, the mounting evidence will serve as a cold-cup-of-coffee reminder that even the best-laid plans of the best-paid decision-makers often go astray. For others, though, the results will support summertime optimism that they’ve got what it takes to walk the long road to championship glory. While the NBA hasn’t quite reached commissioner Adam Silver’s brass ring of near-perfect parity, the rise of a new generation of stars and the return of a slew of injured ones has produced plenty of teams that can harbor reasonable hopes of winning the whole friggin’ thing — perhaps more than in any season in recent memory.

According to BetMGM, seven teams enter the season with championship odds of 15-to-1 (+1500) or better. All seven feature at least one All-NBA-level game-breaker and a talented supporting cast; they also all feature some major questions that will need to be answered for them to reach the top of the mountain.

With opening night less than two weeks away, let’s get reacclimated with the NBA’s expected upper echelon by considering the cases for and against each of those top seven teams hoisting the Larry O’B come season’s end, working our way down from the suddenly precarious favorites. … [ read more ]

Jake Fischer’s intel notebook

Be sure to follow Fischer’s regularly scheduled intel notebooks for the latest from around the league. His first collection of news nuggets details the Miami Heat and Atlanta Hawks’ interest in veteran swingman Jae Crowder, and other relevant news and notes from Boston, Memphis, Dallas, Utah and Houston

There is one noticeable lynchpin absent from the Suns’ core that came two wins shy of the 2021 NBA championship. The day before training camp, Phoenix announced the franchise and Jae Crowder agreed to the 10-year veteran remaining away from basketball activity while both sides worked toward finding a suitable trade for the 32-year-old swingman.

Three weeks later, and now days before the regular season tips, Crowder still stands as the main transactional domino front offices across the league are waiting to see fall. The Lakers’ flirtation with trading Russell Westbrook has seemingly dissipated for the time being. The trade deadline garage sale that’s expected to free impact veterans like Myles Turner and Jakob Poeltl from rebuilding teams is a ways away.

Word of Crowder’s availability has circled among league decision-makers since June’s draft. The understanding among NBA personnel is that Crowder has since requested a trade from Phoenix, and the Suns have been happy to oblige. With Crowder’s three-year, $29.1 million deal expiring at the conclusion of this 2022-23 campaign, the Suns, sources said, are unwilling to offer an extension of similar value that Crowder is once again commanding. It’s akin to the deals of fellow mid-tier rotation players Maxi Kleber and Larry Nance, who — at 30 and 29, respectively — signed three-year, $33 million and two-year, $21.6 million extensions this offseason. [ read more ]