6. Miami Heat 

Record: 48-34

Power Rating: 7 

Both Bam Adebayo and the Heat organization have expressed a desire to see him have more opportunities to become more of a scoring presence. He averaged 14.8 ppg in 18 playoff games last year and you’d certainly expect more on the offensive end from your second best player, especially given Butler’s injury history.

This is another placement I can’t imagine would be very popular if anyone was actually reading this, but I believe the couple of teams I have ahead of the Heat look strong and there are several reasons to believe the Heat won’t win as many games as last year. First off, Kyle Lowry is a year older and is coming off of a year where he struggled with injuries. Personally, I don’t see him being the player he was a couple years ago for a full 82 game season and he isn’t the only star player on the Heat who could be unable to do so. The last time Jimmy Butler played 60 games or more was back in 2016 when he was on the Bulls.

With Lowry being at the playing level at this point in his career he appears to be at, The Heat are going to struggle to perform like they did last year, specifically when Jimmy Butler isn’t on the floor which is likely to happen quite a bit. I I don’t see Bam Adebayo being able to generate enough offense to be the best player on the floor for a high number of games. Sure, some nights it might be Tyler Herro, but he’ll create more holes on defense that can’t be filled as easily if Jimmy happens to be out and I really don’t see Herro being ready to be able to be even a second  best guy on a high-end winning team where he’s surrounded by role players on a nightly basis. 

And no, I didn’t forget about Heat culture and their innate ability to develop great role players like Max Strus and Duncan Robinson out of the wood-work: those types of players don’t win competitive games unless there’s constantly surrounding stars. Therefore, while I think this team is very arguably more of a playoff threat when fully healthy than at least the first two teams I have ahead of them, I don’t think all of their key players will be healthy consistently enough for this team to perform at the level they did last regular season, as the east wasn’t nearly as strong as it is looking right now. 

5. Toronto Raptors 

Record: 49-33

Power Rating 7

After improving in points, rebounds, assists, steals, 3p% and FG%, Pascal Siakam was named to the All NBA Second team last season and has continued to grow each season. 

While some would maybe argue the notion of the Raptors having more wins than the Nets, Cavs, and Heat this season is absurd, I’d argue it’s absurd to sleep on the Toronto Raptors this year as the Vegas Odds on their over/under seem to indicate. It’s at 45.5 which to me could be free money as the Raptors won 48 games last season and if anything only added to their roster. Also, their entire core is young and all five of their starters can put down at least twenty points on any given night which I’m not sure can be said for literally any other team.

Not only do I not think the Raptors can’t possibly be worse than they were this season, but I also strongly believe that they can only get better from here. Even as the older veteran in their core, Siakam seems to only keep getting better at 28 and I don’t see that stopping this year. I also believe this to be especially true for last year’s Rookie of the Year Scottie Barnes, who was a contributing player on a playoff team which can only indicate big things for the 21-year-old forward. This team is also freaky in their length and switchability on defense, which makes them a very tough match-up for undersized, less physical teams who operate poorly on defense.

Furthermore, this team has solid returning role-guys like Precious Achiewa and Chris Boucher in addition to their core 5 of VanVleet, Siakam,  OG Anunoby, Gary Trent Jr., and Barnes. They’re also bringing in rookie big man Christian Koloko who could prove to be a force in the paint as well as Otto Porter Jr., a long-time veteran contributor who most recently helped the Warriors win a championship. In fact, the more I talk about this team the higher I want to rank them, so I’ll reel myself in here by saying I can really only see the upside of the Raptors team as is for the time being, which I don’t think can be easily said about most other teams in the NBA.