Denver Nuggets in the West and Milwaukee Bucks in the East. These are the two main favourites, also according to bookmakers, for the NBA championship which will start when it is the night between Tuesday and Wednesday in Italy. One, Denver, is the reigning champion team with one of the best players in the league, the Serbian center Nikola Jokic, the other, Milwaukee, is the one that seems to have strengthened the most after the trade that brought a champion of the caliber to the Bucks by Damian Lillard, who will team up with Giannis Antetokounmpo, someone who, like Lillard, is considered among the best 75 players in the history of the NBA.
Behind them, among others, the two all-time greats, the teams that for decades, in the eyes of fans, were authentic symbols of the league, namely the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. It goes without saying that among the yellow and purple there is LeBron James, who will play the 21st championship of his professional career and will try to overturn the predictions, as he already did last season, when the Lakers were not so well regarded and instead reached the finals of the Western Conference, defeated by Denver who then took the champions’ ring by beating Miami (another surprise team) in the Finals.
Boston, on the other hand, has two stars in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, to whom they have added a point guard of the caliber of Jrue Holiday, who is also excellent as a defender, to form a title-winning quintet. Danilo Gallinari is no longer there, who never played in the green and white due to a serious injury in the national team and who was sold to Washington.
Holiday himself could be one of the members of the next, and authentic, Dream Team, the one to form which, in view of the Paris Games, LeBron launched a real appeal after the fourth place at the World Cup which the Americans were burning to death . So, barring accidents, the real phenomena will go to the Olympics: in fact, in addition to James, people of the caliber of Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving and Joel Embiid have already joined. The latter chose the American one from the three passports available to him (he also has those of France and Cameroon). It is not at all certain, however, that Paolo Banchero will be there, although the promise of a place in the 12 for Paris was one of the factors that convinced him to choose the USA rather than Italy. To deserve a place among the ‘Martians’ he will try to play an excellent season with the Orlando Magic after being ‘rookie’ of the year in the one that ended in June.
The championship will begin with two super challenges such as Denver Nuggets-Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State-Phoenix Suns (the Arizona team is the fourth main favorite according to the ‘bookies’) but it should also be remembered the important novelty of the “In Season Tournament “, which includes four games scheduled for each of the thirty franchises in the league. The new tournament will open on November 3rd, with the Final Four scheduled for December 7th to 9th. It is, to make it clear using football terms, a sort of second competition, or ‘Coppa Italia’, to make the season even more stimulating.
But this will also be the debut championship of one of the most anticipated prospects in history, second only (perhaps) to LeBron James when he was a freshman. The phenomenal Frenchman Victor Wembanyama has landed in the NBA, in San Antonio to revive the Spurs. His potential is something we’ve never seen before, we’ll have to see what role coach Greg Popovich will have him play in given that ‘Wemby’, due to his physique and talent, can do everything. The only doubt is about his physical fitness, as the 19-year-old from Le Chesnay is not used to such a tight pace of matches.
And the Italians? In addition to Gallinari, who will try to carve out space for himself in Washington and in the meantime has chosen 88 as his new jersey number without anyone in America having any objections, there is Simone Fontecchio as a small forward for the Utah Jazz. For the Pescara native it will be an important year after a first NBA season full of ups and downs. In any case, it will be fun for him too.
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2023-10-22 11:28:08
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