Team by Team analysis and thoughts:
The following are my thoughts a week or so in to the 2015
season about the present and future of a bunch of teams….
The Houston Rockets = If there’s anything the beginning
of the season has told us it’s that this team is desperately in need of a
healthy Dwight Howard. They do not look
good without him. Harden struggles
without the big guy in the middle to draw some attention. In fact, I’d say the beginning of this season
has illustrated all the flaws in Harden’s game.
He turns the ball over a lot. He
constantly forces up contested 3s. If
you stay in front of him and do not foul him you can force him to take wild
drives to the basket punctuated by a desperate attempt to invite the ref to
blow the whistle. When he’s on he is
incredibly hard to stop but if things aren’t going well for him his inclination
to settle for long chucks gets the better of him. The Rockets were up big on Miami the other
day and endured a historic collapse. It
never makes sense to see too much in any one particular game but that was a bad
loss. Amazing though what a difference
Howard made when he came back. Suddenly
a Swiss cheese defense is capable of stopping somebody, and suddenly teams
can’t load up on Harden so much without being susceptible for lob dunks and
rebounds. It’s no coincidence that
Harden’s improvement has coincided with Howard’s return to the floor. I don’t have a ton of confidence in Howard’s
ability to stay healthy so while this team is a threat, I don’t see them as a
legitimate contender.
The Miami Heat: The concept of penetration, followed
by lobs to Whiteside has some potential.
In the first half of their game against Houston I was questioning
everything about this team. In the
second half you saw why people are excited about their upside. I do think it was partly the horrible defense
that Houston played that made Miami look so good. At least you could see the blueprint for
something dangerous. Winslow played
incredibly good, hard-nosed d against Harden and even hit a couple big
shots. It’s the former that makes people
excited and it’s the latter that worries me a bit. But for the first time I was able to see a
glimpse of why people are so excited about him.
He’s got the toughness, and size, and strength that I see in Jimmy
Butler. He’s got a professional body and already seems like he understands the
pro game. Hopefully he can make the leap
of learning to shoot that Butler made.
Hire a great shooting coach Winslow!
Speaking of shooting, Bosh is a really good player. He opens everything up for this team. It’s a shame that Wade never developed a 3-point
shot. If he had or could it would
prolong the effectiveness of his career by years. At this point he’s a bit of feast or famine
probably depending on how his body feels night to night. How he goes, this team will go. The Heat have great upside and that’s what
makes them exciting to people but they could also go south quickly in the next
year or two…
The Orlando Magic:
They are looking like they are playing hard and interesting but
unfortunately they will still not win too many games. With the way they are playing they are going
to be involved in a lot of close nail biting types of games and their over all
point differential will probably end up being pretty good. Their games are going to be competitive and
close and yet they’re still going to lose regularly. They just don’t have the experienced closers
to win at the end of games consistently and their talent level isn’t quite
there yet. I feel like they’re one or
two players (or a huge leap from someone they already have) away from winning a
lot of games. I’ve watched a few games
now and the other team (the Bulls for instance) has just been a tiny bit better
them for the most part. But they did
break through against Toronto. I really
like the way Orlando has been playing but they struggle a bit to score. Vucevic and Harris are consistent and Oladipo
can get hot but after that it’s a bit hit and miss. At the beginning of next year they’ll be able
to look at their margins of loss and they can have hope that they’ll be able to
make the playoffs. One problem they need
to solve for sure as that they currently have Napier in the game far more than
they should (he played a lot in their game against Houston). They definitely need a different backup
because I’m just not seeing that guy as a viable NBA player with consistent
minutes at this point. Skiles seems like
he’s having some difficulties with Peyton such that he needs to get him off the
court a bit much. They have CJ Watson so
I don’t see why he doesn’t get all the backup point guard minutes. Watson played a lot with Napier where Napier
was the 1 and Watson the 2. Just figure
out someone else to play the 2 and cut Napier’s minutes please. All the pundits seem to love Mario
Hezonja. I just don’t see it right now
(I agree with Jalen Rose on this one).
He looks tentative and scared and he absolutely cannot play any d
yet. He’s got good size and an ok
looking shot and he can dribble so I see some potential for being competent to
good but people were going on about him as if he should have been picked much
higher. They raved about his balls and
his complete lack of fear. He looks
scared and unsure to me. It’s going to
take a while before that changes. In one
sequence against the Raptors DeRozan torched him twice in a row and they he got
switched onto Corey Joseph who blew past him like he was a red cape and then
Scott pulled him from the game. The last
thing I’m wondering about Orlando is what the heck happened to Channing Frye’s
game? He was really good two years ago
for Phoenix…
The Los Angeles Lakers: They are just terrible. They play no defense and their offense is
totally crappy. They’re way too
concerned with keeping Kobe happy. He
gets way too many touches. He goes
nowhere and takes bad contested shots.
There’s no plan in the short term or the long term as far as I can
tell. Everything basically happens on
their team via one on one isolation ball.
They’ve got more chuckers on one team then I can remember just about
anyone one team having…and not the fun to watch kind of chuckers. Louis Williams and Nick Young are Kobe all do
the same thing and not very well at this point.
I feel bad for D’Angelo Russell.
I suspect he’s years away from being good but he may have landed in the
wrong situation. Hopefully it doesn’t
derail his career. Julius Randle seems
like he has potential but he’s undersized and is really going to have to
improve his shooting in order to reach his potential. Clarkson seems okay. I just feel like this team has over-valued
their young players and I don’t see much of a future beyond drafting or signing
someone really good.
The San Antonio Spurs: Aldridge looks extremely willing to pass,
almost too much so. Perhaps he’s
overcompensating initially and will be more aggressive later in the season when
he’s more comfortable. Kawhi is
awesome. It seems like the team is
transitioning to him being their focal point.
His only weakness at this point seems to be that he’s not much of a
passer. He doesn’t take many bad shots
but at some point he’s going to have to improve his ability to drop passes off
when he makes a move. He’s okay at swing
the ball but not very good a directly setting people up to score. I don’t see him making teammates better on
offense other than by his ability to score.
This is nitpicking though because there’s no better two way player out
there right now except perhaps Lebron and his d just is not nearly as
consistent as Leonard’s. Tony Parker
looks perilously close to being cooked.
He’s not nearly as quick as he was and unfortunately his game was so
dependent on being able to race pass players into the paint. There’s hope because his finishing was never
dependent on his hops but it’s a rapidly fading hope. He seems slightly pudgier than he used to be
as well. Parker’s inability to penetrate
has made the Spurs offense more of an alternating post ups kind of thing and
moving off those post ups than it used to be.
The free wheeling penetrate and kick game is just not going to be there
as consistently without Parker as an offensive mismatch. In basketball every tiny step counts as it
leads to eventual defensive breakdowns and a slight loss of speed can change a
defenses ability to maintain its comfort level.
Are the Spurs better off with Patty Mills at the point? It’s possible but I just can’t see Pop
changing the line up this year. The
spurs also have no over the top finishers (and haven’t really since Robinson)
and this makes their game more 2 dimension than 3 dimensional. They’ve compensated with ball movement and
cuts but having someone who can finish over the top for lobs is something that
would open things up for them. What are
you gonna do though. You can’t have
everything. They’re still going to be
really really good and I give Pop the benefit of the doubt at this point in
that he’s probably not too worried about how they look now rather than
achieving whatever concept he’s working towards come playoff time. They won’t lead the league in wins but
they’ll probably win enough to have home court in the first round which seems
about all they’re shooting for. With
them there’s always a bigger picture in mind….
The Boston Celtics: Sullinger is never going to be
more than a deep bench guy. He’s got the
classic shoots just well enough to keep shooting but not well enough that you
actually want him to shoot. He had a
great shooting night against Washington (9 for 13 for 21 points) but it’s those
games that fuel the terrible shooting nights in which he way over values his
ability to shoot (3 for 10 the game before in Indiana). I experienced this early on in my basketball
watching days with Charles Oakley. He
was always a competent shooter but not nearly as good as he thought he was and
often the worst thing that could happen was when he hit his first shot and
suddenly decided he was the best shooter on the court and should put it up at
every opportunity. I’m not too excited
about Olynick’s future either. He has moments,
as do most of the players on their team.
Basically it’s a team full of nice bench players. They all play hard and have a nice style
about what they are trying to do.
Stephensen can obviously coach and players like him and respect him and
play hard for him. I just don’t see much
of a future here except for the fact that the Nets mortgaged their future by
giving the Celtics all their future pics.
The future of the Celtics is yet to be determined in future drafts. Marcus Smart is the one guy on their team who
has some potential to be a bit more. He
plays really hard and is tough. It’s
hard to know who on this team will be a starter when/if they get good…
The Toronto Raptors: are a bit of a mystery to
me. They’re good, but I don’t see much
of a ceiling. Similar to last year
they’re starting off great but I see other not so good similarities between this
team and last year’s team which fell off a cliff the second half of the year
and especially in the playoffs. Carroll
is an excellent addition but he’s dealing with planter fasciitis which always
has the potential to derail a player’s entire season. Toronto benefits from continuity at the start
of the season but as other teams coalesce and get better they just stay the
same. There’s not much room for
improvement. Their only real upside is
that Jonas Valanciunas will make a huge leap.
I suppose that is possible but I wouldn’t hold my breath. He seems pretty destined for ok to good NBA
basketball player. He’s still
surprisingly young though. At some point
I feel like Masai Ujiri will blow it all up and start over in his own
image. Since he’s come to Toronto he’s
just been tinkering with what was already there. He seems like the kind of guy that has a
bigger picture in mind and at some point he might want to bring those ideas to
fruition. As it is they are a very nice
professional basketball team that is fairly fun to watch and will make the
playoffs and will not get to the championship…
The Philadelphia 76ers: finally have reason to
hope? Okafor looks really good and Noel
is not bad especially in conjunction with Okafor. That’s 2 NBA quality players. They’ve got to hope that Saric is really good
and that he comes over soon and they need to use the draft picks they end up
with next year wisely. But there could
be a bunch of them depending on how records end up. One more season of terrible basketball and
they might actually be able to put an NBA level product out on the court, or at
the very least they’ll be worth watching.
That’s my big problem with this whole concept. I don’t really care if a team is bad as long
as they’re interesting to watch and this team has not been worth watching for
years and won’t be this year. Practically
no one other than Okafor and Noel will be on this team in a year or two. Okafor has a better jumper than I thought and
he has real moves and can move physically quite well and he’s big. There’s no reason he can’t be a competent
player on defense. For now, Noel makes
up for some of those shortcomings on that end.
If Embid comes back and if they draft well next year and if Saric comes
over this could actually be a good team.
Does that make years of sucking completely worth it? Pretty much only if they end up with a
championship team. Otherwise there are
much quicker ways to achieve NBA competitiveness than by totally tanking. The tanking plan always depended on lottery
luck which they haven’t really gotten unless you count the ability to pick
someone who is hurt and can’t play so they can be in the lottery the next
year. What they’ve done doesn’t upset me
but it certainly doesn’t interest me very much either. I do agree with Bill Simmons when he says
it’s a great way to have a terrible record and yet still keep your job as a
GM. You can always say it’s all part of
a long term plan until it isn’t…
Milwaukee Bucks: may have been over hyped a bit. They’re still interesting and more so as
Jabari Parker returns from injury but it’s still all potential. I don’t really like the signing of Greg Monroe.
He’s a nice player but what makes their team interesting is how
unconventional they are. Greg Monroe is
pretty boringly competent as an NBA player.
I like the idea of 5 interchangeably tallish dudes on d and he pretty
much ruins that. He does, however, have
the ability to get you a bucket when you need one. If he had a jumper I could better see him
fitting with this team. I suppose
Milwaukee only has so many options to sign free agents. They’ve gotta take what they can get. I think I would have rather kept Brandon
Knight then get Michael-Carter Williams but neither player is gonna make or
break ya. Really the entire potential of
this team revolves around Antetokounmpo and Parker and Henson and
Middleton. The rest doesn’t impress me
too much. I still think they’re a few
good decisions and a couple years away from scaring Lebron very much…
The Portland Trail Blazers: are definitely better
than I thought they’d be. I wasn’t sure
what would happen when Lillard was expected to dominate more without Aldridge. He’s still a bit feast or famine depending on
whether he’s on or not. The season
started off and he couldn’t hit shots and they looked bad but he’s gotten hot
and that opens things up. He’s always
seemed a bit of a chucker to me rather than a distributor and so an
Aldridge-less team will be both good and bad for him. Good because he can shoot as much as he wants
and he’ll keep them in, and win, some games that way and bad because he will
definitely shoot them out of some games by missing a lot of long 3s. C.J. McCollum is way better than I knew. They’ve got some shooting and Terry Stotts is
a good coach. I still can’t see them
having enough to make the playoffs but they’re actually fun to watch. I can’t quite make out what Meyers Leonard is
going to be but he’s definitely surprised me.
He’s worked hard enough that he’ll have a long career (I didn’t really see
that coming). Portland isn’t going to
blow anyone away but at least they’re entertaining and their backcourt gives
them a future to look forward to should they draft well in the future…
The Detroit, Pistons: look good right now. Drummond was such a coup for them in the
draft. I can’t believe he fell so
far. He’s big and fast and athletic and
fairly coordinated. That kind of size
and speed is pretty much can’t miss.
It’s just a matter of how much a player can get better and how far they
can take their talent. He’s definitely
someone you can build a team around. The
real question here is, “is Reggie Jackson a starting point guard on a winning
NBA basketball team.” The answer to that
question will determine how far this team goes considering the contract they
gave him. I’m just not sure what I
think. He seems just so hit and miss to
me. On certain nights and at certain
times you’d answer that yes he is but other nights his shot is erratic and he
doesn’t pass well or often enough and you wonder how far they can get with him. Eventually Brandon Jennings will come back
from injury and he’s even more erratic.
Perhaps between the two of them there’s enough at the point to build a
team. I just don’t trust either player. They both think they’re a bit better than
they are. It’s possible it could all
work though. KCP’s game has really
expanded. I’m impressed by how much
better he’s gotten. Markief is also much
better than I thought. I know he’s very
sad and upset about being separated from his brother but he should really thank
Phoenix for sending him to Detroit. The
consistent playing time in Detroit is going to make him a lot of money in the
future. Detroit has started off really
well but I still see them right on the bubble of the playoffs when all is said
and done. I wouldn’t be surprised if
they make the 7th or 8th seed and I wouldn’t be surprised
if they’re another year away. They’ve
got a lot of legit role players but I just don’t really believe in anyone too
much beyond Drummond. Van Gundy can
really coach though and no matter what happens this season, with Drummond,
their future is bright…
The Phoenix Suns: have a professional level team but
there’s not a lot of potential to get significantly better beyond hoping that
someone like Alex Len or Jon Leuer or Devin Booker or Archie Goodwin or TJ
Warren takes some kind of unexpected leap.
Good luck with that. Worse than their
lack of potential to get better is the fact that somehow the Suns are not
really that exciting or interesting anymore.
They’re missing an energy that teams that are focused and together and
caring exhibit. What is their plan in
both the short term and long term?
Chandler fits their team now but it puts Len and Leuer on the bench
playing less and improving more slowly.
Wouldn’t they be better off taking a step back and just playing all
their young guys and seeing what they have and building their team via their
picks? Losing Markief Morris to Detroit
for basically nothing was not good. He’s
actually a good player. Chasing free
agents this season was ill advised. And how
did they lose both Dragic and Thomas?
Why not at least keep one of them?
Thomas is on a cheap contract and is a very effective bench player. The over all plan just doesn’t make any sense
to me. Chandler shouldn’t be on this
team. I suppose his presence keeps
things more professional so on that level he helps. Without Chandler Morris would probably still
be crying about his brother publicly instead of bottling it up inside where it
manifests itself only in his lackadaisical play. Chandler can still play but he seems wasted
in this situation. Chandler has Marcus
seems totally disinterested. He launches
a lot of bad 3s and has none of the fire he exhibited in previous years. He just seems like a grumpy whiner who is no
longer putting up the numbers to make that kind of behavior worth putting up
with. They have to trade him at this
point. He’ll never forgive Phoenix for
dumping his brother and he’s not professional enough to play well when he’s
pouting. I’m not sure if there’s much of
a market for him at this point beyond Detroit but there’s probably someone
willing to take a chance on him as long as Phoenix doesn’t expect too much in
return. He does have real talent. The Suns don’t really have a choice at this
point and they can’t really blame anybody but themselves for their
predicament. It was obvious he was going
to quit when they traded his brother.
The biggest problem with the Chandler signing is that it makes it harder
for the Suns to tank which is probably what they should be doing this year. How the Suns went from intentionally tanking
to super exciting and then unexpectedly good and then to really trying and
being unexpectedly unexciting and not so good in such a short time is kind of
crazy. A couple years ago they played
with so much passion and effort and had a mold breaking lineup and now they’re
going through the motions and are kind of boring. The power ups in Phoenix have never really
been able to take the next step though so it’s no surprise. They always cheaped out a bit when they could
have taken a leap. Had they paid Joe
Johnson perhaps they would at least have a championship under their belt. The future does not look too bright here
beyond the possibility getting lucky in the draft next year…
Los Angeles Clippers: could be a little bit nicer to
Deandre Jordan especially considering his indecision and last second change of
heart pretty much saved the future of their team. Had he left they probably would have had to
break it all up and start over. Would it
kill them then to throw him the ball now and then in the post? He’s really not that bad down there (every
time he gets it I’m a bit surprised how competent his post moves look) and
periodic straight post ups would definitely keep him more focused and
involved. It’s crazy how well Jordan
moves and how athletic he is considering how big he is. His role to the hoop and the high post lob
from Griffin is such a demoralizing weapon.
It’s the thing only thing that a team like San Antonio is missing. Over the top play off of penetration in the
lane is such an effective weapon when you’ve got an athletic big man. If only he could hit a free throw. On a Zach
Lowe type note, I think the new Clippers center court logo is terrible! It’s very distracting. Griffin is looking really good this year and
so complete as a player. He does so many
things so well. He’s really eliminated
the hitch in his shot. What is it about
him that everyone seems to hate? Perhaps
it’s just his face? He always looks
exasperated. He plays physical but
complains about physical play. That’s a
bad combination if you want other players to respect you. I think if he played through the contact
without complaining so much and making faces other players would respect him
more. Chris Paul still looks like he’s
yelling shit at DeAndre all the time. I
love the way Paul plays but he’d be so annoying to have on your team (other
than of course the fact that he’d give you lots of easy buckets with great
passes!). He’s really an ideal point
guard who can pass really well but can also score when you need it. He’s got a few weaknesses though. He’s got the tendency to pound the rock a bit
too much and dominate play especially towards the end of games and some times
his competitiveness works against him. I
know his ferocity is important to him.
It’s a tough sport for little guys and consequently you have to play
with more of an edge than the big folks but he’s often his own worst enemy. He’ll complain about even obvious stuff and
it seems like he’s even said in interviews that he’d take advantage of any
opportunity he can fair or not. He’s
definitely the dude at the park who fouls the shit out of you and complains
when you call it or makes a total bullshit call and just will not let it
go. Even when things are going well Paul
and the other Clippers don’t seem to be having any fun out there and being so
high strung is not good when games get close and tense. It tends to feed the “we’re going to fuck
this up” mindset. Their epic collapse
last season against the Rockets was a great example of this. Their entire team freaked out and tightened
up when Houston made a run. They
really needed someone to chill the whole
team out. They had the series completely
won and just one or two more careful and deliberate professional possessions
would have won that series for them.
Instead there was a lot of “I got this” crap and a lot of screaming and
yelling and panic from their whole team.
That’s why Paul Pierce was such a good pick up this year. He seems like the kind of guy that tell Chris
Paul to chill the fuck out. He’s good
for a clutch shot or two as well. As
great a floor general as he is I just don’t feel like Paul can be the most
powerful voice on your team. He gets too
emotionally caught up in the moment. Doc
Rivers tends to feed this mindset as well with his own antics so it’s a good
thing that they signed Pierce. Really
the whole team has to learn to not care so much about the reffing. If you shut up and play things have a
tendency to even out for the most part in the end. I don’t really see how bitching ever helps
get calls and it feeds the mania and panic of their team. This falls on Doc as much as the players. If he could tone it down a bit he might be
able to convince the players to do so as well but his tendency to get over the
top upset by the refs sweeps everyone else up into that mindset as well. Props to Doc the GM this year though. He killed himself last year by having a team
dependent on dudes like Turkoglu who shouldn’t be in the league and Big Baby
who should be glued to your bench and used only in case of emergency. Hawes as well wasn’t a guy you should depend
on. Now there are actual ball players in
their second unit. Josh Smith and Paul
Pierce coming off the bench is a vast improvement. They’ve got some question marks with
Stephenson and Rivers and I’ve always felt like they were way too dependent on
Jamal Crawford to score. He’s the kind
of chucker that when he’s on he’s great but if he misses his first couple shots
you should get him out of the game and not put him back in. Crawford tends to play too much and is too
much of an offensive focal point when he’s on the floor. Even when he’s on it’s all 1 on 1 which is
good for a 2nd team when you’re searching for buckets but is bad
when there are other good scorers out there standing around and watching him
dribble. For instance against the
warriors somehow Crawford got up 15 shots and only made 4. Perhaps he should have stopped shooting
somewhere in there but that’s against his nature so it’s really up to the coach
to stop him by taking him off the floor.
The big danger for the Clipper’s title hopes is at point guard where if
Chris Paul gets hurt they need Austin Rivers to step up. Props to Austin for proving he may be an NBA
player after all but he’s still so inconsistent and still can revert back to
his days of utter incompetency in an instant.
Fortunately they can always run their offense through Blake Griffin as
his play making abilities at this point and second best on the team to only
Paul. On a final note (this is way too
much Clipper talk), a lot of what happens may end up depending on Lance
Stephenson which is not necessarily a good thing. I noticed during the Suns Clips game that
Born Ready was snatching easy defensive rebounds from DeAndre. Big men do not like this and DeAndre gave
Stephenson a pretty withering look. Just
minutes later Pierce is in the game (5:58 2nd ¼) and Pierce lets
DeAndre call him off a rebound and actually pulls his hands back so he’s in no
danger of taking a free rebound from the big man. Pierce understands the big picture of making
the big man happy and Stephenson just wants his and is willing to fight his own
teammate for an extra rebound. It’s a
small thing but it’s indicative of what I worry about as far as the Clipper’s
title hopes…
The Charlotte Hornets: Spencer Hawes has an amazing mustache and
that is almost all I have to say about this team. They’re strikingly mediocre. Whatever chances they had to make the
playoffs went down with Michael-Kidd Gilchrist’s injury. There’s not a whole lot going on here that’s
worth watching. They’re not terrible but
they’re certainly not good. Did I
mention that Spencer Hawes has an amazing mustache?
The Washington Wizards: What the hell happened to
Randy Whitman in the offseason? This
team looks completely different. They’re
finally running which was a no brainer given that’s Wall’s greatest skill. They’re going small and shooting so many more
3s. At times they look like they could
challenge Cleveland when all is said and done and then sometimes they just look
bad. Most of the bad comes on the
defensive end where they’ve had a few embarrassing games. If Wall is on they tend to look
fantastic. If he hits a few jumpers
their offense really opens up and they’re hard to stop. If he starts off with some bricks things get
congested and they have a tough time scoring.
Beal can look amazing for stretches and then he disappears. I don’t really know what to think of their
chances. They’ve got a high upside but I
just don’t see them being consistent enough to reach it. You know what they could really use? Kevin Durant…
The Oklahoma City Thunder: It’s still the same old
thunder. That’s a great thing and a bad
thing. It’s great because they’re
healthy and this team is very tough to beat when Ibaka, Durant, and Westbrook
are healthy. It’s a bad thing because
they still rely almost exclusively on either Westbrook going one on one off the
dribble or Durant doing his weird semi post up 20 feet from the basket and then
facing his defender and going one on one.
Versus the Raptors the other night there was one important stretch where
Westbrook took a wild ride to the rim and missed, then Durant settled for a
contested baseline jumper and then Westbrook went to the rim again for a
miss. At no point did any other player
on the court consider that they might possibly receive a pass from either one
of those two. When it works this team is
great. When one of them is off they’re
sunk. No one else gets involved and
everyone just stands around watching.
The Thunder are still surviving on pure talent. It just happens to be really really great
talent. I’ve seen signs lately of using
Ibaka more in pick and rolls and dumping to him quickly and not as a last
resort at the elbows. They just need to
figure out a way that they can all be involved in a play at the same time
without one of them having to just take a possession off hanging out in the
corner. Like the controversy with the
Bulls I really don’t care who is the best player on this team and they
shouldn’t either. Both Durant and
Westbrook are great and neither should be the focal point. I don’t often agree with Charles Barkley but
he mentioned early in the OKC Bulls game about how he wishes OKC would take
what they do opening games (i.e. passing the ball and running an offense) into
the 4th quarter. They
definitely have a tendency to tighten up and go all 1 on 1 when the game is on
the line. They need to try some more end
of the game team ball so that teams can’t load up on their stars. The turn taking at the end of games makes
them too predictable. Durant could use a
little work playing off the ball. The
tendency is to blame Westbrook for the offense but Durant sometimes leaves
Westbrook high and dry. He tends to want
to receive the ball in a static position and it puts no pressure on the defense
until he actually has the ball in his hands.
If Durant could learn to rub off screens and cut more they’d be so much
more dangerous. Then, even if he didn’t
get the ball, he’d suck so much attention that other things would open up. KD’s other weakness I’ve noticed lately is
that ironically he is not a good defender when his man cuts. He tends to fall asleep and can be caught
ball watching. OKC’s other dilemma is
that they don’t really have a 5-man lineup.
They start Roberson who simply is not a good starter for a championship
team. His shooting is terrible. It would really help if they could figure out
who should be on the floor at the end of games.
Never the less, this team is so talented that they can overcome all
their deficiencies and win the title.
They will scare anyone they meet up with in the playoffs…
The Chicago Bulls: It’s just a matter of time for
Doug McDermott. Most of his problems as
a pro seem to have been mental. He can
get good shots (which is a talent in of itself) and they look good coming off
his hands. He’s finally catching up with
the speed of the NBA game. The whole
Rose Butler controversy seems really stupid to me. Where is the evidence that Butler and Rose
don’t get along or that Chicago is going to trade Rose? The media can be full of shit sometimes. It’s easy to make stuff up based on little to
no facts. Just because something makes
sense to you and “feels” right to you doesn’t mean it’s true. Does Brian Windhorst have any fact to back up
his assertion that the Bulls are “moving on” from Derrick Rose? If so, he hasn’t stated any. Maybe he’s right and maybe he’s wrong. It just seems way to easy to speculate and
make up any truth you want. Do Rose and
Butler really dislike each other?
Nothing they say publicly seems to indicate that they do. As long as you’re not too wild with your
assertions eventually you will be right about something. It’s a strange way for so called journalists
to operate. There are no repercussions
for anything you say. If Rose stays with
the Bulls and everybody lives happily ever after Brian Windhorst will never
have to retract his story and declare he was wrong. He’ll just move on and throw some more
spaghetti at the board until something sticks and when it does we’ll all marvel
at how right he was. It’s common
practice. Like in OKC too much is made
here of who is the best player on the team.
Who cares? No single player needs
to be the focus. “who is the face of the
franchise?” really only matters to the media and the PR department. It shouldn’t matter to anyone on the
team. The more great players you have
the better you’ll be as long as their egos are in check. Another problem with the Bulls is dilemma of
Pau. He’s just not nearly as aggressive
in the NBA as he is in international play.
He looks a bit tired and passive so far this year and I’m not sure his
offensive value makes up for his defensive shortcomings anymore. It’s a close call. As Noah’s health improves I think they might
be better off giving him some of Pau’s minutes.
In fact, I’d probably start Noah over Pau. Pau would be great off the bench where he
could come in and launch some shots immediately. I’m not sure how his ego would handle that
though. The Bulls are hard to
predict. Along with Cleveland they have
the highest upside in the east but I have a hard time seeing them achieving
their potential and I just can’t quite figure out why that is so…
The Utah Jazz: This team was definitely over hyped in
the offseason. Rudy Gobert does not look
like the game changer he was the 2nd half of last year. Is it because he’s tired from playing in the
European championships this summer or is it because the league is figuring him
out a bit. Either way he doesn’t seem
quite as quick to cover ground this season.
He’s the key to their team. At
times towards the end of last year it looked like teams could barely get a shot
off. I’m just not seeing the stifling d
this season. Other than their defense
the Jazz don’t have a lot going for them.
They gave up huge scoring games to Portland and OKC. Against Philly and Indiana the defense was
much better but those teams struggle to score to begin with. Shots are not easy for the Jazz to get and to
make. Hayword is a very good player but
he can’t carry an offense. Nevertheless
Utah is currently 4 and 2 and they’ll be right on the bubble of making the
playoffs in the West…
The Brooklyn Nyets: All I have to say about this team
is that they proven they’re worse than the Lakers. At this point of all the franchises in the
league I think the Nets are in the worst position now and in the future. I just can’t get myself to watch them. Thank goodness they’re blacked out of my
league pass. I just read about Lopez
leaving a game with more foot troubles.
If he goes down that team may never win a game. What’s makes them so depressing is that they
can’t tank because they may never have a pick in the draft again after the last
few years of horrible GM desperation moves.
This team is too depressing to think about any further…
That’s it for now.
I’ll get to the other teams soon….
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