Few would choose a team that had never won a National Basketball Association championship to emerge with the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy – but that’s exactly what happened during an exciting and unprecedented 2022-23 season, which will bring even more thrills to Strat-O-Matic gamers upon its fall release.

Indeed, it’s an era with many new stars in the NBA, so it only seems fitting that the Denver Nuggets, led by Finals MVP Nikola Jokic, emerged as league champions for the first time in the franchise’s history – ousting another upstart finals contender in the Miami Heat . Jokic, already a two-time regular season MVP, continued to prove why he’s one of the league’s most complete players, notching 24.5 PPG and 11.8 rebounds in addition to his committed team play and seemingly endless energy.

The Heat squad, led by the ageless Jimmy Butler, wasn’t picked by many experts to make the finals, but a tremendous regular season by the star (22.9 PPG) as well as superior board-crashing and shooting by young Bam Adebayo (20.4 PPG and 10.2 rebounds) proved this team will be in the title hunt for years to come.

The season saw six teams eclipse the 50-win mark – one of whom was Cleveland, whose 110.6 points allowed was the best mark in the NBA. The defensive player of the year was center Jaren Jackson Jr. of Cleveland, who swatted away an average of three shots per game, and allowed just 46.9 percent of shots at the rim.

Earning regular season MVP honors was another first-timer in Joel Embiid of Philadelphia, who averaged a whopping 33.1 PPG as well as 10.2 rebounds, a season as dominant as any in league history. Five other players also averaged more than 30 points during this scoring-happy season: Luca Doncic of Dallas (32.4), Damian Lillard of Portland (32.2), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of Oklahoma City (31.4), Giannis Antetokounmpo of Milwakee (31.1), and Jason Tatum of Boston (30.1). See if you can lead any of these stars to even more prolific numbers as you take to your board game or laptop. Distributing the ball like no other was James Harden of Philadephia, who averaged 10.7 APG; the most assists were logged by Trae Young of Atlanta with 741 dishes.

If all that scoring wasn’t enough, more eye-popping stats were logged on the defensive end as veteran Domantas Sabonis of Sacramento finally became the NBA leader in rebounds, crashing the boards for 12.2 RPG after years of being one of the most underrated big men in the game.

The Rookie of the Year for the 2022-23 campaign was #1 draft pick Paolo Banchero of Orlando, who did it all in his first season: He averaged 20 points per game; he also logged 15 games of at least 25 points and 40 games of at least 20 points, both achievements the most among rookies. The power forward also dished out 3.7 APG to go along with 6.9 RPG, proving he’s a youngster who can do it all.

Tops in three-pointers was Luke Kennard, who hoisted up treys at eye-popping 49.4 percent accuracy for Memphis and the Los Angeles Clippers.  Coming off the bench to win Sixth Man of the Year honors was Celtics guard Malcolm Brogdon, who averaged 14.9 PPG, 4.2 RPG and 3.7 APG. See if you can mix and match the new stars along side likely Hall of Famers in LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Seth Curry, and Chris Paul as you put your basketball acumen to the test with Strat-O-Matic’s unparalleled game play.

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Requires Version Strat-O-Matic Basketball 2022 or later

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