OTP SPORTS: 2003-04 NBA PREVIEW


Will Larry Brown be able to handle having players that can actually shoot? Will Allen Iverson be able to handle not having Larry Brown, but having a teammate who can actually shoot (and wants to in the clutch)? Can Jeff Van Gundy teach the Rocket guards how to pass? Will the post-Stockton-to-Malone Jazz break 80 points a game? Will LeBron match Tracy McGrady’s rookie numbers and still be called a disappointment? Will anyone pay attention to something other than the Kobe trial before the playoffs? Will Shaw run out of nicknames beginning with the Big? All this and more coming soon to a court near you....


THE FAVORITES: Will win the championship if....

(1) Lakers: ....Kobe is free & Shaq is healthy. Shaq rules the paint, Shaq rules the paint. But the Spurs won the West, the Spurs won the West. Shaq came back in shape, Shaq came back in shape... Any prediction that short of the obvious two pitfalls the Lakers will fail is wishful thinking.

WESTERN CONTENDERS: Will take advantage of a Lakers disaster if....

(2) Spurs: ....at least 2 of their 3 perimeter Euro-stars raise their games to the next level & Rasho fills Robinson’s void at least on offense. Hedo Turkoglu manages to accomplish something that successive Turkish governments have failed at for years, getting Turkey considered part of Europe.

(3) Kings: ....Miller, Divac, Webber, Stojokovic, Christie, Bibby and Jackson are healthy throughout their playoff run. There’s no reason in particular why the 20 games a year they are at full strength can’t be during the playoffs.

(4) Timberwolves: ....Spreewell is still a shut-down perimeter defender & Garnett rubs off on the Kandi Man. Whether or not this T-Wolves team threatens the top contenders over the next couple of years is really a question of what happens quicker - Olowokandi’s development or the veteran backcourt’s decline.

(5) Mavericks: ....Fortson & Bradley become a dominant rebounding/shot-blocking combination OR the NBA starts scoring by fantasy points. Combined shots per game last season of the Mavericks projected starting five: 88. Combined shots per game last season of entire Mavericks team: 85. Take away some hair, add some pot - and you’ve got the TrailBlazers of a couple of years ago - with similar disappointing results.

WESTERN PACK: Will make the playoffs if:

(6) Suns: ....Stoudemire does not regress from his break-out rookie season OR they get descent center play out of their latest Euro experiment at center. As long as Marbury continues his new-found romance with passing, they will be an entertaining donut team - which is what the Suns are supposed to be - right?

(7) Trailblazers: ....figure out how to get Randolph and Wallace on the court together as much as possible & either Stoudamire or McInnis remembers how they used to play point guard. Everybody loves to talk about how the Blazers collapsed when their chemistry went south, but the reality of the matter is that the Blazers ceased being contenders when Sabonis, who was a dominant talent even past-his-prime, lost one more critical step. Another season of an abudance of talent at 2-through-4 wasted by ineffective play at center and the point.

(8) Rockets: ....run the offense through the very tall, sweet-shooting, agile Chinese man rather than gunning up 3s & Get steady play at forward. The odds are that Jim Jackson will provide steady play at small forward, supplemented by defensive specialist Adrian Griffin. The mess is power forward, where their potential third star, Eddie Griffin, will be spending at least the beginning of the season working out “personal issues." Left with the fragile and board-phobic Maurice Taylor as a running mate, Yao may have to wait one more year before camping out in the postseason.

(9) Supersonics: ....Radmanovic has a breakout season & Jerome James does as well. Led by Ray Allen’s Everlasting Gobstopper of a shot, the Sonics perimeter players are good enough to get them into the playoffs. However, they better not miss, because its anyone’s guess as to who in the Sonics mediocre frontcourt will consistently get a rebound or slow down one of the conference’s super-dreadnoughts.

(10) Grizzlies: ....the Wright-Tsalkidas-Swift combo forms an effective center rotation & Mike Miller matches his hype. I don’t envy Hubie Brown the task of figuring out how to divide 96 minutes a game between Miller, Shane Battier, James Posey, Wesley Person, Troy Bell, Dahntay Jones and Michael Dickerson (the poor man’s Grant Hill). On the other hand, I’m not the Logo, so I’ll just shut up now.

WESTERN LONGSHOTS: Will be watchable if...

(11) Warriors: ....Dunleavy develops OR Van Exel plays instead of pouts. Between Murphy’s shot and Richardson’s quicks, a motivated Van Exel is good enough to keep them competitive. But the odds are that the team does not recover from losing its two big guns from last year, and that their new point guard will be screaming for a trade by the end of the calender year.

(12) Nuggets: ....Anthony is ready to score 18-20 a game right away & Marcus Camby is healthy for 2/3 of the season. No matter what, the Nuggets will be more watchable than last year’s plucky bunch which excelled at ugly ball. And heck if Camby is actual healthy for most of the season, and Andre Miller regains his mojo, they would be competitive for a playoff spot - in the East.

(13) Clippers: .....Quentin Richardson rediscovers his shot & either Jaric or Dooling develop ahead of schedule. Forget about the “success” of the Clippers off-season. Elton Brand is still a top 5-power forward, but the supporting cast around him is erratic at best. Positive thinking can’t bring the ball up the court and create open shots.

(14) Jazz: ....you watch old footage of Stockton-to-Malone OR Keon Clark suddenly turns into a young Shawn Kemp. Despite the gritty, fundamentally solid play of Harping, and the potential of Kirlenko, it is going to be a long, long season in Utah.



LEASTERN PRETENDERS: Will lose in the Finals if....

(1) Nets: ....‘Zo is 75% of the old ‘Zo & K-Mart shakes off last years Finals. The Nets should move to Brooklyn. In one fell swoop, the franchise would regain its street cred and New Yorkers wouldn’t have to feel guilty about abandoning the woeful Knicks to watch entertaining basketball. That being said, if the Mourning gamble works as well as the Mutumbo gamble did last year, the continued development of Jefferson and Martin will not hold off the Pistons or Pacers, let alone steal them a game or two in the Finals against what will undoubtedly be a tougher Western foe this year.

(2) Pistons: ....Larry Brown decides making 3-point shots is consistent with “playing the game the right way” & the young perimeter players buy into the system. We all know how talented Brown is at getting the most out of hard-working, smart, second-tier players (see Snow & McKie), and that he can also to a lesser extent improve the game of passionate, undisciplined superstars (see Iverson). But what we haven’t seen is Brown maximizing the talents of softer, skilled players who are less adept on defense (see Tim Thomas, Kukoc, Van Horn). Can Brown adapt his plan to the talents of Billups, Hamilton and Okur? If not, they won’t ever take the next step.

(3) Pacers: ....Pollard & Foster make up for the loss of Miller’s toughness, and Carlisle molds the talented swingmen into a consistent supporting cast. At what point do Al Harrington and Jonathan Bender go from being not-yets to nevers? Well, it’s only fair to see how they do with decent coaching. Isaiah - great point guard, great prophet, as a coach, not-so-hot.

EASTERN PACK: Will make the playoffs if....

(4) Magic: ....McGrady’s back holds up. This is no longer a one-man band. It what seems to be a running theme this season, the top two players in the supporting cast play at the same position, but if they figure out how to use Howard and Gooden at the same time, they get to the second round this time.

(5) Sixers: ....The frontline holds up. Its time to let go of the idea of the Sixers as a defensive team. In the past three years, they’ve replaced a front court of Mutumbo, Hill, Lynch, and Geiger with Coleman, Thomas, Robinson and Jackson, in each case gaining offense and losing defense. The Sixers have to rely on their backcourt for defensive pressure, which is why their playoff runs the past couple of seasons skid to a halt whenever Snow and/or McKie lose a step with an injury.

(6) Hornets: ....Tim Floyd is not as inept as his Chicago record. A healthy Hornets squad can compete within anyone in the East. It is also an oxymoron. Two years ago it was Mashburn, last year Davis. The bench, with the acquisition of Darrel Armstrong notwithstanding, it paper-thin and will again keep this team mired in the Eastern pack.

(7) Bulls: ....Curry and Chandler keep developing & Rose doesn’t have a meltdown. The Bulls look to be two years away from challenging for the East, but with the best young bigs in the conference will get half way there this year, and perhaps farther if Pippen is healthy for the playoff run.

(8) Raptors:...Vince is healthy & Moiso or Bosh develops into a shotblocking force. The odds are that by midseason, the “what happened to Vince Carter” talk will be replaced by “when did Antonio Davis get that old” talk.

(9) Celtics:...Raef Lafrentz looks for his shot & Vin Baker’s comeback is real. The Celtics physically have one of the strongest frontcourts in the conference in Battie, LaFrentz and Baker. Mentally is another story, and the odds of both of their talented underachieving big men finally achieving is a long shot.

(10) Wizards:...A big (Brown or Haywood) & a swingman (Hayes, Hughes, or Jeffries) develops this season. Arenas will earn his paycheck, and so will Stackhouse if his injury isn’t too severe. The key will be whether or how the collection of lottery picks pans out. The sweet shooting Hayes will most likely force his way into the rotation and be part of the solution. Whether the light-bulb goes off inside Kwame Brown is a whole nother story.

(11) Knicks....McDyess is healthy and 90% of the player he used to be OR Mutumbo can give them 20 minutes a night of vintage Deke dominance. Neither of these rosy scenarios seems likely. Fortunately for the rest of the league, the Knicks quick-fix approach, nor their status of least bang-for-the-buck professional sports franchise, doesn’t seem to be ending any time soon.

EASTERN LONGSHOTS: Will be watchable if...

(12) Cavaliers: ....LeBron is on the court. Enough LeBron. If Ilgauskas stays healthy, this team has an outside shot at a playoff spot. But when the big Z is out of the game, the Cavs collection of blacktop all-stars (Miles, Wagner, Davis) will give Paul Silas nightly headdaches.

(13) Heat: ....they spend the entire game on a fast break. Who doesn’t like swingmen - with their athlteticism and versatility, they are much more enjoyable to watch then the lumbering giants or point guards that dunk once a season, but Miami’s plan to put 4 on the court (with a power forward, mind you not even a real center) at the same time isn’t going to get them very far. The good news is that some team that needs a guy who can score might be able to trade a lumbering big-man for Eddie Jones or Dwayne Wade in the middle of the year.

(14) Bucks: ....If they find a legitimate starting power forward or center. Between Redd, Mason and Thomas they’ll score, but they will easily be the worst defensive team in the league this season. Write it down - the Mavericks will break 150 points against this team.

(15) Hawks:...If they have the Theo Ratliff of 3 years ago in the paint the whole year. By the middle of February, Stephen Jackson will be shooting somewhere around 40%, half the frontcourt will be on the IL, and Terry and Abdur-Rahim will be routinely combining for more than 50 points in blowout losses.

WESTERN CONFERNECE FINALS: Lakers over Spurs
EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: Nets over Pistons
FINALS: Lakers over Nets