Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images

Pre-season predictions are a bit of a fool’s game. Whenever you go back and look at them at the end of a season, you realize the prognosticator went horribly wrong in more than one place. Always, always, always you find that there are a few injuries and trades that completely change the landscape of the league. But I’ve gone ahead and done them anyway.

Eastern Conference

1. Orlando (65-17)
Turkoglu, Rafer, Lee, and Battie for Vince, Jameer, Bass, Barnes, and Anderson? Unreal. And they made it to the finals last year. This team is ludicrously talented and can handle an injury at any position.

2. Cleveland (64-18)
Almost want to give them more than this. A fantastic team last year and they’ve replaced Ben Wallace with Shaq, Wally Szczerbiak with Parker, and Sasha Pavlovic with Moon. Each is a huge upgrade.

3. Boston (54-28)
Love Sheed/Daniels. Disappointed they gave up Powe.Can’t give them 60 because I don’t believe K.G. is what he was.

4. Washington (42-40)
Wanted to rank them higher, but how are they going to stop anybody? Plus, with this Jamison injury, it seems like they’re fucking cursed or something.

4. Atlanta (42-40)
They’re a better team than last year, but so are a lot of teams. Thus, the record drops a bit. Only way they leap up is if they get more out of Marvin Williams and Josh Smith.

6. Chicago (41-41)
Deng, Salmons and Miller for a full year? Good. Losing Ben Gordon? Bad. Ceiling is much higher but I don’t trust VDN.

6. Miami (41-41)
I feel a bit uneasy with this pick – if they just emphasize Beasley more, they should get more wins. Not confident in J.O. at the 5 spot anymore, though. Wish I was.

8. Toronto (40-42)
They’re better, mostly because Jose will be healthy but also because the bench is much stronger with Nesterovic, Jack, and Johnson. Turk will make the offense much better, but it’s not great to have another poor defender playing heavy minutes. If they hit the 50-win mark Bryan Colangelo’s talked about, Jay Triano deserves to be the first Canadian NBA Coach of the Year.

8. Philly (40-42)
One less than last year. Losing Andre Miller hurts, but Eddie Jordan’s system will mitigate some of that. If Brand’s back to 20/10, this total will be higher and my fantasy team will be amazing.

10. Detroit (38-42)
I like Kuester and can’t wait to see what this team is like on offense. Offense is only half the game, though. High on Will Bynum here, but Stuckey is Dumars’s guy.

11. Indiana (34-48)
Last year’s rookies should be very effective, but Hibbert needs to learn not to foul. They would have improved had they not significantly downgraded at each key bench spot.

11. Milwaukee (34-48)
I just can’t see Skiles’s bunch any lower than this. Realize they’ve lost Sessions, Villanueva, and Jefferson, but they also didn’t have Redd or Bogut for the majority of last season. They’ll be scrappy and they’ll beat teams they shouldn’t.

13. New York (31-51)
They don’t really have 31-win talent, but I dig D’Antoni. He got ‘em to to 32 last year, somehow, and I can’t justify a big drop with a healthy Gallinari.

14. New Jersey (26-56)
Patience, Nets fans. They’re on the right track. It’s just not enough yet, unless Terrence Williams has a ROY-type season. They’ve got the two most important positions in the game locked up, though.

15. Charlotte (24-52)
They’re really, really trying to make the playoffs, but it’s not happening. Chandler’s not who he was, Diaw’s out of shape, and Raja Bell just got hurt. Larry Brown and most of the roster will be absolutely miserable in a couple of weeks and it’ll stay like that for most of the year. Love D.J Augustin, though.

Note on the East: Yup, that’s a tie for the last spot in the playoffs, with 2 games separating 4th from 9th and 8th from 10th. As I’ve said before, the East will be interesting in April.

Western Conference

1. Lakers (63-19)
If Artest picks his spots on the offensive end like he has never done before, they could hit 70. But he’s never done that before. Bynum may have an All-Star season, but I’m a bit scared of Ron-Ron disrupting that beautiful offense. Still, I’d pick ‘em to repeat.

2. San Antonio (55-27)
Jefferson and McDyess are amazing acquisitions, but Manu’s health is the most important thing for the Spurs. Hope RJ is content with more corner 3’s and less isolations than he’s ever had in his life, ‘cause that’s what is needed here. Absolutely a title contender if everyone holds up.

3. Portland (54-28)
I dropped Denver’s record below even though I expect them to sustain their play. With Portland, they’ll improve, but it won’t show up in their record. Don’t pay attention to anything anybody’s saying about Andre Miller right now, unless you think he’s worse than Sergio Rodriguez.

4. Dallas (51-31)
Using Nobel Peace Prize logic here – they could be great or they could be awful, but I’m going to be optimistic and pencil them in for a 50+ season before it starts. They’ve got so much talent that I don’t care about bigger teams bullying them. Expect Gooden and Dampier to be exchanged for superior players before the deadline.

5. Denver (50-32)
I like Lawson and Afflalo more than I like Dahntay and Kleiza, but it’s going to be awfully tough to match last year’s win total.

5. Utah (50-32)
Boozer’s back. Weird, huh? ~32 minutes a game for him, Millsap, and Okur, I guess. You know how these guys have been for the past couple of years, right? They’ll be like that.

5. New Orleans (50-32)
Last year’s team shouldn’t have won as much as they did, with that putrid bench. That bench has been upgraded for this go-round but it’s going to be really tough to get extra wins in the West, even with another MVP-level season from Chris Paul.

8. Phoenix (42-40)
I’m counting on a good 82 games from Steve Nash, Grant Hill, and Amar’e Stoudemire landing them the 8th seed. Wait a minute, what have I done?

9. Clippers (40-42)
If it wasn’t for Dunleavy, I’d have them in the playoffs. Really solid group of players on this team, but will it perform at the standard of the sum of its parts?

10. Houston (36-46)
I’m going to watch them play as many games as possible, but the majority of these will be losses. They’ll run teams up and down the court and they’ll defend them hard. They just don’t have the scoring punch to make the playoffs in the West.

11. Oklahoma City (30-52)
I’m rooting for them 80 times a year. Absolutely love their core, but their bigs are Krstic, Collison, Etan Thomas, B.J. Mullens (he’s going to have to earn “Byron”), Serge Ibaka, and D.J. White. The big leap will happen, but we’ll have to wait a bit.

12. Minnesota (28-54)
It’s going to take a while to learn Rambis’s modified triangle, plus Kevin Love is out for the beginning of the season. Their wings suck, but they’ve got great young guys in the frontcourt and at the point guard spot. I like their future, but they’re going to lose a lot of games.

13. Memphis (26-56)
I’d put them right at the bottom if I was ranking these teams in terms of entertainment value. Could have the least assists of any team in NBA history, but there’s legitimate talent here that keeps them out of the cellar. Unfortunately.

14. Golden State (24-58)
This saddens me. This fucking saddens me. Randolph and Morrow need to be set free. There’s so much damn talent here, but it’s all such a mess and Nellie hates defense. I hope I’m wrong, but I see this year being a spectacular failure. See that? I didn’t even mention Stephen Jackson!

15. Sacramento (15-67)
Yay, Tyreke Evans! Now, back to being completely shit.

Note on the West: See the big drop-off before the 8th playoff spot? That’s the inspiration for the series I’ve started writing. Phoenix, Houston, and maybe Oklahoma City coming soon.

Wagman went through and did playoff predictions, too. You can call me a pussy (he did), but I’m not going to do that until the regular season’s over. Once you have two good teams playing against each other, it’s a different game. The differences are less to do with overall talent and much more to do with match-ups and, to some degree, coaching. When we get there, I’ll check back in. The Lakers have still got to be the favourites to win it all, but… it’s October 24th.