- Most Valuable Player: Kobe Bryant
- Rookie of the Year: Kevin Durant. By default. Only other 19 year old rookies to ever average 20 points are Lebron and Melo.
- Most Improved Player: Andrew Bynum was the leading candidate until his injury.
- Coach of the Year: Rick Adelman will not win it either, which brings us to...
- The Houston Rockets. I picked them to go to the Finals, and might have been right if not for Yao's fractured leg. Still though, their record setting 22 consecutive wins was the league's running headline for a while, and the emergence of Scola and Landry make them a likely candidate to make some noise this year and contend next year.
- The Portland Trail Blazers. I had them correctly finishing third in their division, and named Roy and Alridge as the next great duo. Is there any team that has a more promising future with Greg Oden coming in next year to anchor in the defense and open up the floor for teammates on offense?
- The Spurs tend to wear down towards the end of the season. Now, the West is wide open thanks to injuries to Ginobli, Horry, and Barry.
- Dirk Nowitski is not good enough for the Mavs to win. They apparently realized this and traded for Jason Kidd, a proven veteran who knows how to win in the playoffs.
- The Orlando Magic will win the Southeast division. It is hard to believe that Miami was the preseason favorite here, but Turkoglu's emergence as a big time player led Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis to the top of the East.
- The Boston Celtics will win 60-70 games. This seems like a given now, but remember that before the season many were unsure as to whether the Boston Three Party would have enough support to take the East so easily.
If you read this much, then you will be happy to know I was completely wrong on some predictions as well:
- The Memphis Grizzlies will finish ahead of the New Orleans Hornets. Could I have been more wrong?
- The Chicago Bulls will win the Central Division. Instead, they self-destructed amongst all the trade rumors, contract years, and fired Scott Skiles on Christmas Eve.
- The Philadelphia 76ers are still rebuilding. They made a late season run and are suddenly an up and coming team.
Always fun to see how predictions turn out. Now that is over with, stay stuned for some playoff predictions.
