Monday, November 9, 2015

I'm an NBA junkie...

I’m an NBA junkie so I listen and read way more commentary than is good for me.  There are certain trends I’ve picked up on that have started to bother me a bit.  I think it makes sense to get on a soapbox and sell a narrative when you’re trying to get hits but I think there’s some folks that need to tamper down expectations a bit.  The following is a list of the trends I’ve noticed that bother me the most:

1. Anthony Davis.  The dude is a really good basketball player but let’s all relax a bit with the he’s moments away from being the greatest player on the planet patter.  I’d like to see him prove it and carry the hornets because as far as I can tell that team is not good and as talented as he is I just don’t see him being so good that he can carry them to the playoffs.  They’re going to lose a lot of games.  They’re extremely banged up and even healthy none of their parts make much sense together.  Davis is going to have a lot of bad nights where he feels pressure to do everything and he’s not there yet.

2. The Rockets.  I’m not saying they won’t be really good but I’ve been hearing a lot of juggernaut chatter and I’m not buying it.  Harden will have off nights.  He tends to take a lot of awful shots and he’s often talented enough to make them but on nights when the ref doesn’t blow the whistle and the step back threes don’t fall he can come vaguely close to sucking.  Howard will get hurt.  And let’s relax with the Ty Lawson was the 2nd best free agent move after Lamarcus Aldridge talk.  He can be good.  But he’s not a great player and he’s got a lot of baggage.  It’s not as easy and as much a given over coming alcoholism as sports prognosticators would have you believe.  Beyond that there’s a lot of depth but it’s a bunch of guys that could be really good or just okay.  Not many of them have proven much to me.  On good nights players like Corey Brewer can seem good but other times they can seem barely capable of prime time basketball.  I’m just not buying that they’re so good.  Their depth will help them in the regular season but I’m not buying their main guns.


3. The draft.  Everyone likes to go on about their guy in the draft and go over the top with how much they love him.  The guys pundits are too in love with so far as far as I’m concerned are Hezonja and Winslow.  I’m not going to make the mistake of going the opposite way and saying they’re not going to be any good eventually but let’s all relax.  Hezonja hasn’t done anything anywhere yet and right now he seems like a bit of a chucker.  He’s a bit more arrogant and bombastic than your average European prospect and I think that characteristic has really titillated the analysts out there.  Maybe he’ll figure things out and maybe he’ll end up being a poor man’s J.R. Smith.  Winslow is similar.  Everyone’s going on about what an incredible steal he was.  Right now he looks extremely offensively challenged to me.  Maybe he gets a ton better and turns into Jimmy Butler but he may never develop an offensive game and until he does he not extremely useful out there for the heat.

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