ESPN.com's annual Summer Forecast always is one of the most important season-specific bookmarks in the NBA area of my browser. It's only August, and here in the Midwest, all you have to do is poke your head outside during the afternoon to be reminded that the NBA season is still a ways off -- two months and 10 days, to be exact. Yet the summer forecasts are something I will refer to again and again over the next nine months.
Whether or not the predictions prove accurate doesn't matter. What's important is that we establish each team's reasonable expectations for the coming season, and these baselines will inform our work from here on out.
