NBA Preview

Having seen only 3 games to bias my opinions, I present to you my predictions for the current season.


East

1. Orlando – East Champion
Reason for eventual failure: Vince Carter still plays for this team. Miami can’t stop Dwight; they can’t beat Boston, though. All gonna depend on the seedings.

2. Miami
Reason for eventual failure: Supporting cast is absolute garbage, except Chris Bosh. And he doesn’t defend, rebound, or score in the paint.

3. Boston
Reason for eventual failure: They’re just so old. They’re too old.

4. Atlanta
Reason for eventual failure: Brought back the exact same team that failed horribly last year.

5. Chicago
Reason for eventual failure: Carlos Boozer’s fragility.

6. Charlotte
Reason for eventual failure: Relying on D.J. Augustin with a coach who actively despises young point guards.

7. New York
Reason for eventual failure: D’Antoni and Amar’e will reunite to finish among the league leaders total points, apostrophes and amount of dunks allowed to opposing big men in playoff games.

8. Milwaukee
Reason for eventual failure: Bench is too thin, offense is probably a year away from clicking.

9. Cleveland
Reason for failure: Antawn Jamison never has quite enough in him for any substantial runs, plus Jamario Moon and Anthony Parker are starting.

10. Philadelphia
Reason for failure: This team seems maxed out, which is kind of shocking considering they are pretty young.

11. New Jersey
Reason for failure: Devin Harris is somehow a better real-life player than he is in real-life. No, that’s not a typo. I don’t really understand.

12. Washington
Reason for failure: Just feels mismatched and weird; rookie point guards rarely deliver right away.

13. Indiana
Reason for failure: Lotta whites. Too many.

14. Detroit
Reason for failure: This is a terrible roster.

15. Toronto
Reason for failure: This is one of the worst NBA rosters I have ever seen.





West

1. Los Angeles – Champions
Reason for success: Still too deep and too big, still have the best center and best guard; and once every three games the best power forward.

2. Portland
Reason for eventual failure: Greg Oden’s bust shadow looms too deeply.

3. Oklahoma City
Reason for eventual failure: Still too young and a little too small to take it all the way. Jeff Green and James Harden may be good “fits” but they’ve yet to show they are talented enough to justify their draft positions.

4. Dallas
Reason for eventual failure: Dirk Nowitzki, rinse and repeat.

5. Utah
Reason for eventual failure: C.J. Miles is beyond a weak link in this offense; Jefferson and D-Will probably won’t fully gel until next season; Kirilenko’s hair.

6. San Antonio
Reason for eventual failure: Splitter, Healthy Tony Parker and George Hill inject some life, but Duncan just isn’t Duncan anymore.

7. Phoenix
Reason for eventual failure: Same old song.

8. New Orleans
Reason for eventual failure: Legitimately trying to convince teams that Emeka Okafur is a valuable playoff weapon.

9. Denver
Reason for failure: Seems like they’ll cling to Melo and bad chemistry for a little too long, setting up a complete dismantling by the deadline.

10. Houston
Reason for failure: As good as Scola and Aaron Brooks are, Yao Ming has to stay healthy all season for them to make any noise

11. Los Angeles Clippers
Reason for failure: Starting five can match up with anyone, but they seriously cannot survive an injury, and they are the Clippers, so they will have one.

12. Memphis
Reason for failure: Looks a better on paper than they really are. Probably the best video game team, besides maybe Golden State.

13. Golden State
Reason for failure: No idea. I could easily see them as the 6-seed. Just don’t think they’ll play enough D over the course of a game.

14. Sacramento
Reason for failure: Little too many solid players, Tyreke and Cousins probably not ready to carry them yet. If they hit their lottery pick this year, they could build a long-term contender.

15. Minnesota
Reason for failure: Kahn.



Finals: Lakers over Magic

MVP: Dwyane Wade

Rookie of the Year: Blake Griffin



Biggest Reaches

East: Cleveland

Antawn Jamison has carried competent teams before, Mo Williams can still shoot and handle point well enough, Andersen Varejao is still the most annoying big man in the league (in a good way) and J,J. Hickson could blossom. Keep in mind that during his 7 years with Cavs, LeBron James made every teammate he played with worse, with the possible exceptions of Mo Williams, who got better at shooting threes but worse at shooting twos, and Delonte West, who repaid the favor by sleeping with Momma James. Without LeBron dominating the ball with his patented “Careen into the right side of the lane blindly and hope for a foul call” offense, I could easily see these guys outperforming their exceedingly low expectations.



West: Utah

Tough to figure this conference out, lots of talented teams at different points. Tyreke/Cousins feels like it’s a year away, Blake Griffin makes me want to take the Clippers, but they are the Clippers so I can’t. Hard to pick Houston and Denver to miss the playoffs, but a healthy Chris Paul should be enough to push Ariza/West into a first-round playoff loss, even though the decision to pair CP3 with Emeka Okafur is still one of the most baffling front office moves of the past few years. But Utah feels like a team that could absolutely punish people with a Jefferson/D-Will pick-and-roll game, feisty perimeter defense and great coaching. Still, picking a team with C.J. Miles starting to compete in a brutal conference is unsettling.


Biggest Wildcard: Carmelo Anthony to Knicks

A Carmelo Anthony trade to New York would drastically alter both teams. It would signal Denver going into rebuilding and most likely dealing Chauncey and sending them well into the bottom of the West, and it would rejuvenate the Knicks and turn them into a regular season contender. Yes Stoudemire’s defense would still cripple their playoff chances, but they’d be fun and wildly competitive in the regular season.





What wouldn’t shock me:

Just to hedge my bets, here are some things I’m not predicting but I’m not so sure about.

1. San Antonio collapsing. I could see a healthy Clippers team taking that spot, a Melo-full Denver or a wildly entertaining Golden State team sneaking into the playoffs.

2. Charlotte regressing with Augustin at point and missing the playoffs. An uninteresting Sixers team or an uninteresting Pacers team plus Danny Granger making the postseason.