82 Things to Watch For This NBA Season (Pt. 3)

Also see: Pt. 1 | Pt. 2

In part one of my five-week NBA season preview, I looked at what we can expect from some of the biggest stars in the league for the upcoming NBA season. In part two, I examined some of the players you can expect to see have breakout seasons.

But no NBA preview would be complete without a comprehensive, and sure to be wrong, set of predictions for the postseason awards. As we continue our countdown of the 82 to watch for this NBA season, we take a look at the preseason favorites to win some of the NBA's most prestigious awards.

55. G Kobe Bryant
54. G Chris Paul
53. F LeBron James
52. F Paul Pierce
51. C Dwight Howard

First Team All-NBA

How important is it to have a First Team All-NBA player on your roster? Over the past 18 seasons, only the Houston Rockets in 1995 won the NBA title without having a First or Second Team All-NBA player on its roster (Hakeem Olajuwon was Third Team All-NBA that season).

Often times, you will see a coach without a star player try to sell to the media that "team ball" is the best way to win a championship. To some degree, it is true. After all, not having a star player leaves that team with no choice but to play well as a unit if they want to have any success.

But while "team ball" is a great concept, history has shown us that it is a lot easier to close out a playoff series when you can ride an All-NBA superstar.

Probably not so coincidentally, each of the five teams represented above (Lakers, Hornets, Cavs, Celtics, and Magic) had good success last season. If these five players can play at their highest level again this season, you can expect to see each of their teams competing for an NBA title once again.

50. G Deron Williams
49. G Dwyane Wade
48. F Kevin Garnett
47. F Tim Duncan
46. C Amare Stoudemire

Second Team All-NBA

While being Second Team All-NBA is nothing to sneeze at, it isn't much of a guarantee that it will help you win the Larry O'Brien trophy, either. While 16 of the past 18 NBA champs have had a First Team All-NBA player on its roster, only six had All-NBA second team players (mainly because their best players were busy occupying spots on first team, but still).

Nonetheless, of the 45 players that have been named to the All-NBA second team this decade, only two of them have played for teams that have failed to reach the postseason.

"Team ball" takes another blow here as it once again proves that having a superstar makes all the difference in the world when trying to close out big games. Four of the five teams listed here (Jazz, Celtics, Spurs, Suns) have a very good odds of making the playoffs again this season.

The fifth team, the Miami Heat, is surrounded by the biggest question mark of any team heading into the regular season. They could just as easily win 25 games as they could 55, but the smart money says that if D-Wade ends up on this list, the total will be much closer to the latter.

45. G. Derrick Rose
44. G. Russell Westbrook
43. F. Kevin Love
42. F. Michael Beasley
41. C Greg Oden

All-Rookie Team

While making an All-NBA team all but assures that your team will make the playoffs, being selected to the all-rookie team means almost the opposite. In fact, since 2000, there have been almost as many All-Rookie players to play on last place teams (15) than there have been playoff teams (17).

The good news for the Bulls, Thunder, Timberwolves, Heat, and Blazers is that in that same span at least one player from every All-Rookie team has played for a playoff team. If these five players can live up to the expectations, expect one of these teams to jump back into the forefront of their conference playoff race.

40. G. Kobe Bryant
39. G. Chris Paul
38. F. Kevin Garnett
37. F. Tim Duncan
36. C. Dwight Howard

All-Defensive Team

There may be a lot of clichés thrown around in sports, but there's one that will never die: defense wins championships.

You can get tired of hearing it all you want, but the phrase has been uttered as long as people have debated sports, and will continue to be uttered as long as there are sporting contests to debate.

But there's no debating this: only those same 1995 Rockets have won the NBA title without having a player on the All-Defensive team in the past 18 seasons.

The '95 Rockets were either severely underestimated, lucky as hell, or both, but they prove my point. You'd better have an all-word defender in your lineup if you want to compete for an NBA title.

35. Nate McMillan, Portland Trail Blazers, Coach of the Year

There are three factors that Coach of the Year voters seem to favor over anything else when it comes to selecting a winner:

1. Coaching a team that wins more games than anyone predicted them to win the preseason.
2. Coaching a young team to the playoffs.
3. Coaching a team that drastically increases its win total from the previous season.

In my opinion, the Blazers seem poised to accomplish all three of those things this season. McMillan has the challenge of successfully inserting a potentially game-changing big man in Greg Oden into the lineup of a team that won 41 games last season. He needs to figure out a way to get this offense flowing, and figure out a way fast. The Blazers first five games are against the Lakers, Spurs, Suns, Jazz, and Rockets.

If Portland can weather the early scheduling storm and stay confident and healthy, McMillan has the coaching and leadership ability to lead this team to a 50-win season and their first trip to the playoffs since 2003.

34. Bryan Colangelo, Toronto Raptors, Executive of the Year

You know how the Spurs can only win titles in odd numbered years? That's how Bryan Colangelo is with the Executive of the Year award.

He won the award in 2005 for his work with the Phoenix Suns, mainly for bringing in Steve Nash, then again in 2007 with the Raptors, his first full season with the team.

When Colangelo took over half way through the 2005-06 season, he inherited a 27-win team with more holes in its lineup than legit NBA players. About a year and a half later, only two players, Jose Calderon and Chris Bosh, remain from that team.

With the finalization of the team's overhaul coming this offseason when the Raptors traded for Jermaine O'Neal, Colangelo has now put the Raptors in position to have their first 50-win season in franchise history.

33. Lamar Odom, Los Angeles Lakers, Sixth Man of the Year

No one knows for sure if Uncle Phil is even going to bring Odom off the bench this season, but my guess is that it's not going to take many games before Andrew Bynum forces his way into the starting lineup. Once that happens, the move that makes the most sense for the Lakers would be to start Bynum and Pau Gasol together and bring Lamar Odom off the bench.

That lineup allows the Lakers to come out and set the tone defensively with Andrew Bynum to start the game and switch to Lamar Odom for some instant offense off the bench.

Odom has shown that he doesn't necessarily thrive when he is asked upon to be the number two scoring option, but he certainly has the offensive ability to take over the game for short stretches at a time. If he can carry the scoring load to start the second and fourth quarters while Kobe takes his usual breather, he could help fast-track the Lakers to a lot of victories this year, as well as take home the award for Sixth Man of the Year.

32. Dwight Howard, Orlando Magic, Defensive Player of the Year

Superman stole the show last year at all-star weekend in New Orleans. If you didn't realize before that weekend how much of a superstar Howard is, you certainly did after. This is the year Howard could take the first step towards carving his name alongside some of the all-time great NBA centers.

After a pretty underwhelming (it's a word, I looked it up) Olympic Tournament, where Howard was basically a victim of the trapezoid lane, he now returns to his comfort zone at Amway Arena where he's free to roam the paint and create havoc in the lane for opposing players all season long.

There seems to be no ceiling for Howard, who has upped his scoring and rebounding numbers from one year to the next in each of his four NBA seasons. I fully expect Howard to continue his progression defensively as well and improve on his already impressive two blocks per game from a year ago, all while continuing to be one of the league's top defensive rebounders.

Though Kevin Garnett was a worthy recipient of the award a season ago, the novelty of the Celtics turnaround has worn off and they are now expected to be great. If Garnett's numbers slip even slightly, the voters will likely look elsewhere to crown someone the title of best defensive player of the year.

Superman is ready to hold that title.

31. LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers, MVP

It's LeBron's time.

Though the voting may have been close last season, Kobe Bryant spent most of the year as the frontrunner for league MVP. Despite great seasons by both Chris Paul and LeBron James, neither could wrestle the award away from Bryant.

It was like the voters had decided early on that Kobe deserved to be a league MVP, and Bryant reaffirmed their beliefs with a tremendous season.

LeBron now finds himself in a similar situation. The public has been waiting patiently, quietly hoping that LeBron can do something special. Can he average a triple-double? Can he match Michael Jordan's 36-8-8 season?

Since he played his first game back in 2003, everyone has been wondering how good LeBron James will end up being. Now at 23 (he'll turn 24 in December), with five seasons under his belt, a trip to the NBA Finals, and Olympic gold already to his credit, LeBron may finally be entering his prime.

Think about that for a second. This is a player who has gotten 27-7-7 over his career and he may not have had his best season yet. For those of us who thought that when LeBron entered the league he was going to be a once in a lifetime player (I say "us" because I know I'm not the only one), it may finally be time to answer our question: how good can LeBron be?

If he can elevate his game to all-time status, a big but not unreasonable "if," the league and its MVP voters will be happy to present King James his first MVP trophy. It's only a matter of time before LeBron plays a season that will be remembered as one of the all-time greats, and I say there's no time like the present.

It's LeBron's time.