Checking up on Fanster’s NBA picks–Terry Porter Coach of the Year?!?

It doesn’t matter what the outlet is…newspapers, radio stations, websites, blogs. When a season is starting in any sport, these outlets feel compelled to make predictions on how things will go. It’s an interesting read, and honestly it’s fun to prognosticate what you think will happen during the course of a given season.

But isn’t funny how almost nobody goes back to review their picks and criticizes themselves for being so far off? Now that the Draft is out of the way, and all the smoke has cleared from the 2008-09 NBA season, we thought it might be fun to look back.

Back in the fall, we here at Fanster took a shot at the upcoming NBA season. A team of Vince Marotta, Greg Esposito, Jeff Dean (formerly of XTRA Sports 910) and Suns’ blogger Steve Fan laid it all out on the line and predicted what would transpire over 82 games, the playoffs and who would win the MVP, Rookie of the Year and Coach of the Year Awards.

All four participants correctly predicted 7 out of 8 Western Conference Playoff teams. Vince had two in their actual spots–the Lakers first and the Rockets 5th. Greg Esposito had only 1, picking the Rockets 5th. While Jeff correctly had the Lakers 1st and the Spurs 3rd, and Steve Fan had only the TrailBlazers correctly predicted 4th.

As far as the Suns go, all four panelists predicted the Suns would make the playoffs. Oops.

Over in the East, Steve Fan and Vince each had 7 of 8 Playoff teams identified, while Greg and Jeff each had 6. Vince had correctly predicted four of the teams in their actual finishing order (Cleveland, Boston, Orlando and Chicago). Steve Fan had two (Cleveland and Boston), Greg had one (Philadelphia) and Jeff didn’t correctly predict any team in their actual spot in the pecking order.

We also took a shot on who would win the Finals. Kudos to Greg Esposito, who all the way back in November predicted that the Lakers would beat the Magic (he had them winning in six)! Nobody else even had either participant in the Finals correct. Vince had the Spurs over the Celtics, Jeff thought the Hornets would down the Cavs, while Steve Fan had that reversed, with Cleveland topping New Orleans.

Two members of the panel, Jeff and Steve Fan, each correctly predicted LeBron James to win the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award, while Vince had Chris Paul winning it, and Greg picked Dwight Howard.

Vince was the only person who had Derrick Rose of the Bulls winning the Rookie of the Year Award. Greg picked Greg Oden, while Jeff and Steve Fan each had Michael Beasley winning that particular piece of hardware.

And finally in the Coach of the Year category, Vince was again the only participant correct, as Mike Brown of Cleveland won the award. Jeff had picked Byron Scott of New Orleans and Steve Fan had Nate McMillan of Portland winning the award. But the best pick of all went to Esposito, who predicted Terry Porter of the Suns would win the Coach of the Year honors, and we all know how that turned out. Sorry Greg, but that kind of takes a little bit of the luster off of correctly picking the Lakers to beat the Magic in the Finals.

Hey, if nothing else, at least we’re accountable here at Fanster.com.

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Tags: Fanster, NBA Predictions