The NBA season starts on Tuesday October 24, 2023 with two games. The Los Angeles Lakers will play the Denver Nuggets, and the Phoenix Suns will play the Golden State Warriors. These are the first games of the season and the defending champs will be taking on LeBron James and the Lakers, and Stephen Curry and the Warriors will play Devin Booker and the Suns.
The Denver Nuggets were last year’s champions, and they had the runner-up MVP, Nikola Jokic. They are back with basically the same team to try and repeat. The last team to go back to back champions was the Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018. The Golden State Warriors could also do very well this year after bringing in veteran future hall of fame point guard Chris Paul to team up with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green. One team who will likely not do very well this season is the Portland Trail Blazers. Star Point Guard Damian Lillard wants out, which hurts chemistry, but also last season they went 33-49 which could be even worse this year.
One name that will be talked about all season long is Victor Wembanyama, also nicknamed Wemby. He was the first overall pick in this year’s draft, taken by the San Antonio Spurs. He stands at seven feet five inches, and he plays almost like a guard, which is unheard of. He has had the most hype around him since Lebron James did in 2003 when he was drafted first overall. Mike Levitan thinks “Wemby is going to be a big impact for the Spurs and will win rookie of the year.” Wemby might be the favorite to win rookie of the year this year, but there is another player who is eligible, Chet Holmgren. Holmgren was taken with the second pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, but got hurt and is eligible for the award this year.
There are also some rule changes this year in the NBA about resting players. Commissioner of the NBA Adam Silver said “The Player Participation Policy is something that the NBA, the National Basketball Players Association and individual players and teams all want to return to the principle that this is an 82-game league.” This idea was proposed so people could see the star players play the games they attend especially since teams charge more if a visiting team has a star player people want to see and they pay just to have him sit out.
This NBA season should be very interesting with a total of 82 games, and lots of competitive teams. We will just have to wait and see who takes home the title in June this year.