All Time Team

A few other bloggers might get behind this, and if they do, I’ll post their thoughts up here!

First to do so is the phenomenal Celtics blog, Red’s Army (do you realise how difficult it is for me to put ‘phenomental’ and ‘Celtics’ together?). Read his All Time Celtics team…

FOULEDOUT have the All Time Nets team up…

Irish Warriors listed their All Time Warrior Team…

Have a look at Waiting For Next Year’s All Time Cavs Team…

Picking An NBA Finals winner – Yelling It From The Mountain

Next on the list of NBA Finals opinions is DMtShooter of Five Tool Tool…

Here’s the thing about picking an NBA Finals winner right now — it’s kind of like picking a horse to win a race without knowing where they are at the gate. (For the sake of argument, imagine that none of the horses is Secretariat.) So even if you love a horse, do you really love him on the farthest in or out position?

We can pretty much assume that the favorite will come from the West, so that’s where your winner is coming from, right? Not necessarily… what happens if a Boston or Detroit (or even a Cleveland with LeBron going into Uber Mode?) has a 4-game sweep, while the Western champion goes seven? Well then, the Eastern champion can then easily steal a game or two early, and voila… there goes that prediction.

But let’s assume that nothing happens along those lines, and the champ is whoever survives the West. Right now, there are 9 teams for 8 spots, and the 9 seed as I write this (Denver) is 2.5 games out from a 4 seed. I’m not even sure you can predict who is going to make the playoffs, let alone advance… but let’s toss out a few teams as being Unworthy.

Denver — Not enough defense, and since that comes from the stars (Anthony and Iverson), it translates on down. Golden State — See Denver, and both teams have coaches that have never shone on the highest stage. Houston — Still trying to figure out how to play both Ming and McGrady, and unlike any of the other top teams, deficient at the point guard position. Dallas — I’m not a fan of the Kidd trade, because he’s not the guy that he used to be, and unless he starts shooting like he isn’t, well, him… they’re just going to lose with him in half-court.

Five to go, and here’s where it gets back to that pole position problem. New Orleans probably doesn’t have the stones to get it done in their first year in the league, but they’ve got the Conference’s best player this year (shh) in Chris Paul, and just enough other good players to be dangerous. In the end, their lack of a home-court edge kills whatever chance they might have. They are the last of the Final Five that seems like an easy choice to be out.

San Antonio, Los Angeles, Utah and Phoenix. Well, if Utah gets San Antonio, they lose, because Parker gets back as much as Williams gets, and Duncan makes their bigs disappear, and Bowen has enough left to make Korver go poof. But if they miss the Spurs and someone else takes them out, maybe they go all the way… because they have the bigs to match up with the Lakers, and Williams will torch the Lakers nearly as much as Kobe touches Utah, and Utah’s bench isn’t bad either, and Korver can get loose against the Laker Show…

The Spurs are the defending champs, but that usually isn’t a winning equation for them, since they tend to lose when they defend. Kurt Thomas was a nice little pick up, and when they’ve got Duncan, Ginobili and Parker they are damned near indefensible. But in a 7-game series with the Lakers, Kobe will overcome Bowen enough, and Gasol will give them enough of a fighter’s chance…

Phoenix? Wild card. A motivated Shaq is always a powerful thing, and the sudden release of Marion could be the morale boost they need to do damage. Also, maybe this finally wakes up Boris Diaw, and they’ve had playoff success against the Lakers in the past, mostly because Nash carves them up and Amare’s defensive struggles haven’t been an issue against the Laker bigs. Finally, Raja Bell gives Kobe some trouble, and you’d have to think that Shaq could turn it on a bit against that team, if he can still do it against anyone. But we know they can’ t beat the Spurs.

Finally, the Lake Show. Probably the most talented team in the league now, thanks to the Gasol fleecing, with the coach that’s won it more than any other. But they haven’t been together for very long, they could easily mess up bringing Bynum back, and it’s not like Kobe hasn’t turned up small for them in the very recent past, or froze his teammates when things aren’t going his way. Defensively, they aren’t good at all at point guard, which is a huge problem when faced with the likes of Paul, Williams, Nash and Parker, and of all of the top contenders, they seem to me to be the most likely to stumble early, because they’re still going to getting their rotation sorted out.

If I had to bet on any team, it’d be the Lake Show; there’s a reason why Coach Philip has all of those rings, after all, and in crunch time, they put Kobe on the other team’s point guard and enjoy a quantum leap in defensive effectiveness. Also, I like their bench a lot; Jordan Farmer has been aces, and when Bynum returns, either he or Lamar Odom joins that unit, which is just kind of crazy, really. Luke Walton is also a perfect bench guy, and even Radmanovic can do some damage in small doses. They go deeper than most, especially Phoenix.

But in the tightest and best playoff race in recent NBA history, there’s really no way to call this before the horses come to the gate. Check back in April, when we know more — and, probably, know nothing at all.

Still more opinions to come… stay tuned – same bat-time, same bat-channel…

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NBA Mutterings With Malice

Well hell… it sure has been an interesting time over the past week. Damon Stoudemire to the Spurs, Gasol to LA, and then Shaq to Phoenix. I’ll focus on the impact that has in a later post…

Around the NBA…

• LA fell short against Atlanta, losing an 8 point lead, and basically throwing away the game in the final minute – eventually losing 98-95.
  Arriving in Atlanta at 4am from a NJ game the night before doesn’t help much…
  Five games into a 9 game road trip they have lost to Detroit (89-90); destroyed Toronto (121-101); won in Washington (103-91); beat up New Jersey (105-90)… then the loss to Atlanta. If the Lakers are to stay in touch with the best-of-the-West, they really need do better than .500 on this trip, which means they must win at least 2 of the last 4 games of this roadtrip. The good news is who they play – at Orlando, Miami, Charlotte, Minnesota.
• The Cleveland Cavaliers are playing some good basketball at the moment… well… to be truthful: LeBron James is playing some good basketball at the moment, and the Cavs are along for the ride, even tho’ they lost by 15 to Houston today. The bottom line with Cleveland is that even if they can get even a little support for James, they’re not a realistic chance in the East. Even tho’ the Cavs are in 4th spot in the East, they are ten-and-a-half games behind Boston.
• On that, how bad is the East… still? Despite the presence of Boston and Detroit, the East remains an absolute graveyard. As it stands at the moment, there are only 6 games with winning records – that means that if the playoffs were held today, two teams below .500 make the playoffs (currently Atlanta/New Jersey). The gap from 1st to 8th is 18.5 games.
  Compare this to the West, where there are 10 teams above .500 – and the gap between Phoenix and 8th place Denver is 4.5 games… and only 1 game back finds 9th/10th place teams Houston and Portland.
• Despite Chicago having a 19-29 record, and being 19.5 games behind the Celtics, there’s definitely been a bit of improvement. That’s the beautiful thing about playing in the East, you can have a 19-29 record, be almost 20 games behind the top team – and yet still have a shot of making the playoffs. And the Bulls are right on the cusp…
• Bizarre. Even tho’ Shaq’s been traded, the NBA is still going to go ahead with the mini-replay of the last bit of the Atlanta-Miami game.
  Recap: Shaq was ejected even tho’ he only had 5 fouls. Miami lost.
  However – in the replay neither of the newly-minted Heat players Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks will be allowed to play.
  So the Heat will be sans O’Neal/Marion/Banks. All-Star Joe Johnson doesn’t think the replay should occur at all.
  But it will.
• It’s likely that recently traded guard Javaris Crittenton will see court time, but unlikely to be at the expense of Mike Conley or Kyle Lowry. He’s considered to be a combo-guard at Memphis, and will get playing time in the two slot. That could cause time issues for Juan Carlos Navarro…
• Rumors now abound that the T-Wolves are going to put Antoine Walker on the trading block…

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