The NBA's regular season tips off on Tuesday night which means this is the last day to get out all one's predictions. And Stephen A. Smith kept a special one to share on this morning's First Take. It was so shocking that he had to ask if his colleague Brian Windhorst was ready to receive it.


"You ready for this, Windy?" Smith said. "If Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis are healthy ... I'm picking the Dallas Mavericks to go to the Finals."

If your first reaction to this bold pick is to calclulate the odds that both Davis and Irving will be healthy for the playoffs, know that Smith is aware of the situation.

"That's a big if in terms of health to Kyrie," he said. "Health to Kyrie, obviously health to Anthony Davis, that's asking a lot."

Irving is currently working his way back from a season-ending ACL tear he suffered in March. Davis had offseason surgery to repair a detached retina in his eye. Irving has not played more than 60 games in any of his last six seasons. Davis has played more than 56 games in a year once since COVID.

But Smith believes that the Mavericks can serve as kryptonite to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the West. After the blockbuster Luka Doncic deal last season, Dallas lost its second Play-In game and thus didn't have have a chance to force a series. Expectations this year are loftier as the shock of such a deal gets further in the rearview window. The Western Conference is deep, though, so if the Mavs are to make a run through the Thunder, odds are it would come in an earlier round of the playoffs.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Stephen A. Smith Reveals Surprising NBA Finals Prediction.