The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Opening night: Orlando 102, Milwaukee 83.

The Bucks outrebounded Orlando 48-42.

That pretty much sums up the positive stuff.

I’m not going to get too much into this game, since I’m not really prone to overreacting to what happened on one given night, but there are a couple of things I wanted to mention.

Yi looked a lot lot lot better than I thought he would. Good coaching move by Krystkowiak by cross-matching Yi and Desmond Mason at the outset so that Yi guarded Turkoglu instead of Rashard Lewis. Hedo eventually lit it up, but not while Yi was on him.

I thought Yi looked pretty good on defense, and fairly tentative on offense but he took advantage of his opportunities. Yi shot 4-5 and two of his three turnovers weren’t really his fault — one was a travel when Mo gave him the ball in a bad spot on a fast break, and the other was either a great defensive play or a perfect example of what is wrong with the NBA and the way they call offensive fouls, depending on your perspective.

After how hot Orlando shot the ball in the 3rd quarter there was no way the Bucks were going to win, but I would have liked to see them fight back a little better. But it’s only one night.

But one night is all I need to be able to say that Bobby Simmons and Desmond Mason should not be splitting minutes. Simmons should be starting, finishing, and playing most of the minutes in between.

It’s not the end of the world. Teams wont shoot 55% from 3 every night, nor will they always make 26 free throws to your 22 attempts.

Remember the Scottie Pippen “Time Warp” Nike commercial from several years ago? The really strange, vaguely racially-influenced, where Scottie laces up his Nike’s and is suddenly transported to the ’50′s, where all of his opponents become white guys with black, horn-rimmed glasses who are so unathletic that Scottie can blow by and dunk on them before they can even turn around?

Well, I was poking around YouTube and in honor of opening night, I have to share this — a Nike commercial from a couple of years ago, highlighting Yi and (I guess) a couple of other guys. You gotta love the Yi goaltend that starts the action.

Also, I hope Yi really does the post-dunk move that he flashes right in the face of his opponent in the end of the commercial. That would be worth both the technical and the fight it would start.

In celebration of kicking off the new season, the Bucks are giving away a free lunch at the Bradley Center on Wednesday, October 31st from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.  Lunch includes Milwaukee-based Palermos pizza and Midwest Airlines cookies.  Bucks.com has more.

Charles Gardner reports that Desmond Mason and Yi will fill out the starting lineup on Monday …. well, lets just say that I guess it matters more who finishes the game, and I hope Simmons and Villanueva get that nod.

I can sort of see the logic of Mason over Simmons — if they are equal defensively, then bring the more potent offensive player off of the bench. I just think that logic is wrong, is all, but there may be more to it than you or I know. After a year away from the game, maybe Simmons isn’t ready to play very many minutes, so why not pace him.

Starting Yi, though, is a little more questionable, although if they do need to get him a quota of 20 minutes, starting him will make it more palatable for him to spend the 4th quarter on the bench. This might be a good matchup for Yi to get started — Rashard Lewis is playing out of position for Orlando, and he can’t stick anybody.

The Bucks are going to finish in fourth place in the division this year. However, they could be anywhere between the 5th best and 12th best teams in the conference, so there is plenty to think about for this season. Here’s a player-by-player look at what we can expect to see on the court this season (listed in order of salary):

Michael Redd: He is in his prime and has raised his game a little bit every season. Hopefully this is the year that his teammates bring enough offense to allow him to reduce his load a little. Despite his reputation, Redd is more than just a standstill jump shooter — he got to the line very effectively last season, and it would be nice to see him add a wrinkle to his game by dishing the ball off on his drives more often. Redd will never be much of a defensive player, but at least his offense has always been good enough to make his court contribution net-positive unless he has to stick the best opposition (Iverson and Kobe are two guys who have always absolutely killed him). The bottom line is that Michael Redd is a solid star — not someone who can carry you to the championship, but a star nonetheless.

Bobby Simmons: Hopefully the real Simmons finally shows up this season. When healthy, he is a tough, physical defender (think a sane Ron Artest with 80% of the ability) and an excellent three-point shooter. Simmons played hurt for most of his first season with the Bucks and never really got on track, but he’s an important part of the puzzle this year. Simmons is the only starter who can be considered a plus-defender and he is also a good rebounder for his position, so getting him back into the lineup addresses the Bucks’ two major weaknesses.

Mo Williams: I’ve never really bought into the whole “pure point guard” vs. “shoot-first point guard” thing for two reasons: first, the most important thing is for the team to score more points than the opposition and, second, there isnt really any good way to objectively measure how good a passer a player is. Assists, for example, has as much to do with the point guards’ pass as it does with the finishing ability of the recipient and the decision of the official scorer. So does Mo shoot too much? Last season he took the 5th most shots per 40 minutes of all point guards (behind Arenas, Parker, Cassell and Davis) with 16.87, but the difference between him and the #21 point guard (Stephon Marbury) was only 2.81 shots per 40! That’s less than 1 per quarter! Also, Mo had several games where he was the only starter in uniform, so his scoring was necessary. No, his shooting was fine. Mo’s new contract is reasonable given his production and age, and he still has room to improve. Point guards often take years and years to reach their peaks, so while Williams will most likely plateau as a slightly below-all-star level player, there is always the outside chance that he could have a Chanuncey Billups-like career.

Desmond Mason: Don’t expect much production from Mason, as his game has really slipped in the last couple of years and he’s no longer good enough to be a full time starter. However, this signing provides good value for several reasons. He fills an important role as the backup small forward, and may be needed for as much as 25 minutes a night depending on Simmons’ health. He wont complain about not starting and should provide bursts of energy off the bench. Also, his contract is only two years, so he could be a valuable trade asset next season. Finally, he is a quality person who wanted to sign in Milwaukee. As long as the team doesn’t ask him to do too much on the court, this was a good signing. Should they wind up needing for him to start … that’s trouble.

Dan Gadzuric: After being misused by Terry Stotts and suffering through a simply awful season, it was hard to believe that Danny G was even an NBA player at all at times. It seemed like everything he touched bounced off his hands last year (making me wonder if he was playing with some kind of lingering finger injury) contributing to a lousy shooting percentage, high turnover rate, and dropoff in his rebounding. He also fouled too much, but that’s typical for him. I’m glad to see that Coach Krystkowiak is thinking about playing him at power forward, where his rebounding will be a big plus and maybe matching up with players closer to his size will help him rush less and concentrate more on holding onto the ball. He can’t possibly be as bad as he was last season, but he’s never going to play up to his contract, which has 4 years and $25 million remaining.

Andrew Bogut: While it’s pretty clear by now that he will never reach the level of some other young centers like Amare Stoudemire or Dwight Howard, hopefully Bogut will make the leap this year to a sort of “best of the rest” category. Bogut is younger than many people may realize — still 1 year younger than Patrick Ewing was in his rookie season — so there is still time for Bogut to mature physically. He is bigger this season and looked very good in the preseason, and hopefully that will transfer into a more agressive, physical game — because that’s what this team needs. They are depending on him to be their best rebounder, and an extra one per quarter would make a huge difference. I would also like to see Bogut shoot more. He shot 55% from the floor, which for a good offensive player (except for Shaq) means he isn’t shooting enough because he passes up too many difficult shots. At some point, Bogut’s game will have to make a big jump to justify being the #1 pick in the draft, and hopefully that jump comes now. But if he only improves his rebounding, then that will be enough to make him one of the best non-all-star true centers in the game.

Jake Voskuhl: Should Danny G drop the ball again this season then Voskuhl will see some playing time, but hopefully that wont happen. He’s not very good defensively, an okay shooter, not a particularly special rebounder … well, he’s a #3 center. What do you expect.

Charlie Bell: This is the exact opposite of the Desmond Mason signing. His contract is for very reasonable dollars but way too long (some other time I’ll write about why matching his contract was really, really dumb). If anything, Bell deserved even more money up front (considering how well he played the last two years for the minimum) but a 5 year contract to any role player, especially one who is 28 years old, is not a wise move. In the other anti-parallels to the Mason signing; Bell is effective on the court, doesn’t want to be here and showed up to camp out of shape (logically, though, he didn’t work out in the summer lest he injure himself while he had no contract, so that’s not a problem, and he is a quality person who just doesn’t want to be on the Bucks any longer). If Bell plays like he did the last two seasons he will be a valuable backup to both Williams and Redd who pulls his weight on the court and also who’s ability to play multiple positions allows a great deal of roster flexibility. However, I wonder what happens if he struggles on the court and never stops playing this whiny “I hate the Bucks” game. We don’t need the backup guard to be a distraction. I’ve been knocking Bell for a long time now, and I really do want him to succeed, but I just can’t shake the feeling that his head isn’t all here.

Yi Jianlian: Superstar or bust? 19 or 23 years old? The questions don’t end with this guy, and I think that finding out what we have here will cause some major growing pains — and some losses. I’m afraid that Yi’s rookie year will look a lot like Adam Morrison’s: he gets force-fed minutes, he has a few scoring outbursts but is lacking in other facets of the game, and his defense will be so bad that he costs them games. Hopefully Yi shoots better than Morrison. Yi had one 12-rebound preseason game, but also one where he was repeatedly beaten for baskets and boards by Kenyon Martin (he of the microfracture surgery on both knees). Hopefully Yi has enough of a mean streak that he will brush off the bad games, toughen up, take advantage of his size and deliver some punishment. I hope he’s not too soft for that.

Charlie Villanueva: It’s tough to figure out what to do with guys with Charlie V’s skill set. Such a tantalizing combination of shooting and distributing ability but too weak to play power forward and too big/slow to play small forward. Toronto dumped him because they couldn’t use him with Chris Bosh and now they have the same problem with Andrea Bargnani, and Lamar Odom has bounced back and forth between the forward positions with multiple teams. Villanueva is a double-double machine when he’s healthy and motivated, and one wonders if the force-feeding of minutes to Yi will hurt Charlie V’s attitude and intensity. Because of all the question marks — some of which are beyond Villanueva’s control — it’s tough to say that the Bucks can depend on him. hopefully he can play 10 mpg at small forward, get 35 mpg overall, and put to rest the questions about who won the TJ Ford trade.

Michael Ruffin: I’m glad to see the Bucks kept him instead of Samaki Walker. Ruffin is one of the most comically bad offensive players in NBA history, but at least he knows it and stays out of the way. He can rebound and play tough D, and given the amount of offensive talent on the team he fills some needs. Gadzuric will always have those occassional nights where he gets 5 fouls in 4 minutes, and Ruffin can step in as the third power forward or (undersized) center for a few minutes at a time. He’s a good signing as an 11th man.

Royal Ivey, Awvee Storey, David Noel, Ramon Sessions: If any of these guys are playing much than things have gone awry. Ivey will be at the end of the bench for defense at the guard spots, and Storey was signed as a #3 small forward in case Simmons can’t go and Mason is pressed into the starting lineup. David Noel would be best served spending the season in the NBDL trying to fill out his game. The same could probably be said for Sessions, as he would be better off playing 25 minutes a game somewhere else rather than 2 mpg here.

The best-case scenario for this team is that Bogut turns into a big-time rebounder, Yi brings high-percentage scoring and Charlie V becomes a multi-position threat. In terms of overall talent, this team could be the second deepest in the East (behind Chicago), which is exciting because the top 8 players are under 30 years old and under contract for at least 3 years. However, if the rebounding doesn’t sort itself out and Yi struggles, then the team’s lack of defensive presence could cause it all to fall apart. This team can win anywhere from 35 to 45 games. They could even win a playoff series (in a perfect world, I could see them beating Detroit or Cleveland). But they could also really collapse. So, here’s my fearless prediction: 42 wins, 8th seed in the playoffs.

One major scare averted. Andrew Bogut’s sprained left wrist will keep him out of one more preseason game, but an MRI showed nothing more than a sprain. The team is being cautious, calling him questionable for the season opener, but Bogut says otherwise:

“I’m not missing the opener; I can guarantee that,”

Hopefully this passes soon, since the lefty hook is his best offensive weapon.

Back in July I wrote a Central Division preview, and now it’s time for an update. My basic premise is the same: This division has 3 of the 4 best teams in the conference, and in the end the Bulls are going to be the Eastern Conference champions.

This article refers to IPM, which is available here.

1: Chicago: The Bulls survived their first “scare” of the season as Joe Smith finally played in the last 3 games of the preseason. However, that’s about as bad as it gets for them. This team is good, deep, and can match up with anyone.

The question everyone has about the Bulls is, “Where is the low-post scoring going to come from.” I think that is such a tired argument. While the Bulls don’t have an Eddy Curry, their offense is designed around their talent perfectly well. The offense is predicated on movement and doesn’t stagnate around a post player who needs his touches. This is a top-10 offense and will get plenty of inside points from their rotation of big men, plus the ever-expanding game of Luol Deng. The usefulness of Ben Wallace as a post player cannot be underestimated, either. Of course Wallace never shoots on inside plays, but he is an exceptionally good passer who can get touches and quickly get rid of the ball without the offense losing its flow. It’s not like the Bulls offense is simply whipping it around the perimeter. They get post touches, just not shots or points.

In my efforts to pinpoint one “bust out” player this season, all my numbers point to Tyrus Thomas. Thomas amassed an amazing number of rebounds, blocks and steals in his limited minutes last year, and his defense was spectacularly good. Thomas’ defensive IPM ranked as the 9^th best in all of basketball, and his combined IPM was third best on the Bulls last season. Clearly he has the defensive ability and the athleticism to be a star, he just needs the offensive game. Well, he has shot 54% from the field and 72% from the line in the preseason; both major improvements from last year. Watch out.

The one major worry is Ben Wallace , his game has obviously started to slip, as he has seen several years of declines in points, rebounds and blocks. However, some of his skills have remained in full effect , namely his ability to avoid committing fouls. He makes defense so much easier for his teammates because of his ability to challenge and harass shots without fouling, which frees up his teammates to play much tighter on their men , knowing that if they get beat, Wallace has their back. However, that cannot continue forever, and should Wallace suddenly have trouble staying on the floor, that could prove to be the Chicago achillies heel.

The Bulls have a lot going for them, but most of all is the consistency on the coaching staff and in the front office. The end result is a team that is extremely good, well-constructed, and ready to make a run to the finals. I call it a 55 win season.

2: Cleveland: I’m sure that the GM’s of every other NBA team are praying that the Cavs win their stare down with Dan Fegan over Anderson Varejao. Fegan and Varejao are demanding a $10 million/year contract, which would throw the Cavs well into the luxury tax realm and would set a precedent that no other GM wants to see: $10 million/year to a guy who averaged 6 points and 6 rebounds per game. But here’s the thing: in terms of how valuable he is to the Cavs, Varejao is worth that kind of money.

Varejao was the 8^th best defensive player in the game last season, by defensive IPM, and was the key to one of the best team defenses in the league. Defense was the real reason the Cavs made it to the finals last year , LeBron James was the only thing they had going for them on offense. Varejao came off the bench but was always on the court in the 4^th quarter, led the league in charges taken, and was an annoying pest that had a habit of coming up with big loose balls and offensive rebounds. This team needs him badly, because other than LeBron and about 20 good minutes a night from Zydrunas Ilgauskas then this team has nothing. Of course that’s not quite true , Drew Gooden is pretty effective offensively, and Daniel Gibson’s hot playoffs may not have been a fluke, but the overall talent level here is a problem.

I always felt that this team was set to take a step back as their best player had no offseason (yet again) and there’s no help on the roster for him, but without Varejao and (to a lesser extent) Sasha Pavlovic, who is also holding out, the Cavs will be looking at a much worse regular season. They’ll win 50 with Varejao, 45 if they don’t resign him or fail to do something else to bring in some help for LeBron.

3: Detroit: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this team looked old and slow at the end of the year. They hammered Orlando in round 1 of the playoffs, jumped all over the Bulls for 3 games, and then hit the proverbial wall. For a while it looked like the Bulls might be able to get back into the series; and then after 2 close wins, Cleveland lowered the boom on them.

The concern was how run down the Pistons lineup looked at the end of the playoffs. Chauncey Billups had a horrible postseason , which doesn’t bode well as he signed a new contract , and Rasheed Wallace typically had his mind on the officials more than the game, as he shot 5-14 and unsurprisingly got ejected from the season-ending loss after fouling out (in a nice show of team spirit, Richard Hamilton did the same thing). It’s not a good sign for the oldest starting 5 in the league to roll over like that. They also lost Chris Webber, and now depend on a tag-team of Nazr Mohammed and Antonio McDyess to man the middle. So who backs up the other 4 starters?

Joe Dumars is trying to remake the roster while still remaining competitive, so there isn’t much in the way of proven help on the bench. After Lindsey Hunter and Jason Maxiell, the bench is made up of rookies Rodney Stuckey and Arron Afflalo. But the guy to watch out for is Amir Johnson.

Johnson turned pro out of high school a couple of years ago and was a second round pick. He’s a 6’9″, 210 pound forward who put up absolutely sick numbers in the NBDL and in very limited NBA minutes has performed well (he got only 2 games of 20+ minutes last year, but responded with double-doubles in both). He was a free agent this offseason, but the Pistons thought enough of him to resign him to a 3 year, $11 million contract. He’s the guy to watch for — you heard it here first.

I’m so sick of this team , constant whining at the officials, perpetual “we get disrespected by the media/fans/officials/coaching staff/caterers” complaining, and that dammed PA announcer “¦ This starting lineup is too old and the bench is too young, and this is the year that they slide. I hope I’m right. They are still a playoff team, but I don’t think they win more than 44.

4: Milwaukee: I’ll write a longer Bucks preview in a couple of days, but suffice it to say that this team is pretty much guaranteed the 4^th spot in the division. They could be anywhere from the 5^th to the 12^th best team in the conference, but they are sandwiched between three playoff teams and one rebuilding job. Anywhere from 32 to 42 wins will leave the Bucks in this spot.

5: Indiana: Larry Bird, are you still around here somewhere? The Pacers are stuck with the payroll of a team in a 3-year championship contention window ($52 million committed for 2009/10) but the talent level of a lottery team. It’s tough to rebuild when you owe over $100 million over the next 4 years to 3 players that nobody else would want , Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy and Jamaal Tinsley.

The result of having a front office that either doesn’t know what it is doing or doesn’t know what it wants to do is this team: their best player is going around saying he wants to be traded, their big free agent signing is Travis Diener, and they brought 3 guys off their bench in their last preseason game that I have never heard of.

This team is going nowhere, and I think they will spend the season trying to figure out how good their young guys are (Danny Granger, Ike Diogu, and Shawne Williams) and how to get rid of everyone else.
My guess is that they remain somewhat competitive for a couple of months, pull the trigger on a Jermaine O’Neal trade, and crater after that. I’m looking for 32 wins this year.

After 2 years of questions such as, “if you win a division at under .500, are you still eligible for the lottery?”, the Atlantic got all shook up the day that KG arrived. It went from a division most notable for what a colossal screwup most of the teams were to the home of the most interesting story in the Eastern Conference: What will happen in Boston?

1: Boston: What can I really say about the Celtics that hasn’t been written already? They made the biggest, most visible moves in the offseason, transforming themselves into a powerhouse with a 3-4 year window to gun for a title. But the trade came at a cost , the team has almost no bench whatsoever and should injuries short-circuit them then all they will have to show for it will be no draft pick and a $76 million payroll.

Most of the “What if one of the big 3 gets hurt” questions center around Ray Allen, as he is the oldest member of the Garnett/Pierce/Alen triumvirate, and has already had injury problems (including offseason surgery on both of his ankles). Allen is also at an age where most big shooting guards just mystifyingly “lose it” (remember when Mitch Richmond went to Washington?), but he has always depended less on his athleticism and more on his sweet jumper, which won’t desert him. Obviously, if Garnett gets hurt then this team is sunk, but the same can be said for most title contenders about their best player.

After putting together the Big 3, Boston had solid pieces left to fill out their starting 5 (serviceable Kendrick Perkins and Rajon Rondo, a first round revelation who provides excellent defense). However, the rest of their roster is a mess , partially because they didn’t have any money to spend to make it better, but part because they made some big mistakes. First of all, they used the midlevel exception on James Posey and Eddie House. House is a decent, if one-dimensional, player who has one of the highest shots-per-minute rates in NBA history. But why not go after Charlie Bell, instead? I know the Bucks would probably have matched an offer to Bell, but his ability to score would make him a perfect counterpart at point guard to Rondo, and his defense would fill in well behind Allen. Posey is terrible , he has gotten worse and worse in the last couple of years, and was even suspended by the Heat last year for not being in shape. So why not sign Ruben Patterson instead? Nobody wanted Patterson, and he wound up signing with the Clippers. Their other signings, Dahntay Jones and Scot Pollard were pretty awful as well, but the C’s only had the minimum available to get them.

I’m going to assume that the Big 3 stays relatively healthy, and that should propel this team pretty deep into the playoffs. They do have the schedule advantage of being in a weak division, so have a good shot at the #1 seed. I think that in the end the Bulls’ youth and depth will overwhelm the Boston star power, but it should be a very exciting fight. The Celtics win 57 and cruise to the Eastern Conference Finals.

2: Toronto: Funny roster. Besides Chris Bosh, the Raptors don’t have a single player who makes you say; “Oh yeah, he’s good.” But they have about 10 guys who make you say, “You know, he’s not bad.” While they won an extremely weak division last year, this team is good enough that it wasn’t a fluke.

Bryan Coangelo has completely remade the roster in the past season, and was most lauded for his acquisition of TJ Ford as the key to the Raptors’ rise. I’m not so sure that was truly his best move, though , as I wrote in this post, Ford wasn’t so much better last season as he had been with the Bucks except that his assist rate went way up , remarkably coinciding with him playing with better finishers than the Bucks had. No, it was the same TJ, just in a much better offensive system for his game.

The real genius of Coangelo is what he did with the roster beyond Bosh and Ford , every single player is a pretty nice pickup (except for Kris Humphries). Anthony Parker and Jorge Garbajosa were terrific European imports, and Jose Calderon has Toronto fans calling for TJ to be benched. I really liked the acquisitions of Juan Dixon and especially Carlos Delfino, and Radoslav Nesterovic even chipped in with a solid year. Jason Kapono got a ridiculous contract that they will regret in 4 years, but he should be pretty valuable next season.

One difficulty for this team will be trying to figure out what to do with Andrea Bargnani. While his sweet shot needs to be on the floor, trying to figure out where is a problem , it’s kind of like the same issue they had with Charlie Villanueva. Obviously he can’t play power forward with Bosh cemented there. His shooting is plenty good to play the 3, but his size/speed combination leads to a lot of defensive problems there. He is big enough to play center, and would create offensive mismatches there, but he cannot rebound at all. Seriously , he only got 6.3 rebounds per 40 minutes last season. I always complain about the Bucks’ lack of rebounding, but their entire frontcourt , Bogut, Villanueva, Gadzuric, and Voskhul , all averaged between 9.5 and 11 rebounds per 40 last year. Bargnani at center will make the coaching job much more difficult. One interesting thing to look at is Bargnani’s 82games.com page , when he played power forward his PER was equal to that of his counterpart but when he moved to small forward or center, this opponent went to town on him. This all probably means more minutes in the middle for Bosh than the team would really prefer.

But the Bargnani question is a minor one, and the Raptors will be just fine this season. They should be back in the playoffs, with a minor improvement on last years’ record. I’m looking for 47 wins.

3: New Jersey: When you have a hall-of-fame point guard, your team can only get so bad. Last season they suffered through the loss of Nenad Kristic, and survived using a patchwork frontcourt featuring guys like the immortal (sarcasm) Mikki Moore and the immortal (not sarcasm) Cliff Robinson. Richard Jefferson had an injury plagued year, and was awful when he wasn’t hurt. Lawrence Frank wouldn’t let things get too bad, though, and Vince Carter and Jason Kidd carried the load. Eventually this roster isn’t going to be able to get it done any more, and I think that decline starts now.

The aging of the roster can be seen in the decline of the team’s defense. People seem to think that with Kidd-Carter-Jefferson that the Nets are a run-and-gun bunch, but they actually have been one of the slowest paced, defensive-oriented teams around. That started to change last year as they were pretty much average in both offense and defense (I had them as the #14 offense and #18 defense). No doubt part of this was because of the frontcourt injuries, but some of it may be due to a general slowing down of the rest of the team’s talent base.
The Nets get Kristic back, which will help them on both ends of the floor, but nevertheless they spent the offseason trying to upgrade their big men. Futilely, I might add. After years of using no-offense, tough defense Jason Collins in the middle they decided to back him up with Jamaal Magloire, who is an upgrade in no way except rebounding. Then they drafted Boston College center Sean Williams, already a well-known head case who finished his college career by getting kicked off the team. Why take a risk on a guy like that?

The Nets find themselves at a kind of lousy crossroads. Not good enough to make much noise in the postseason, too much talent to get bad enough to go young and play for the draft. I think they slump to 38 wins and fall out of the playoffs, which would probably unfairly cost Lawrence Frank his job.

4: New York: I just love this team.

Once again, the highest payroll in the NBA couldn’t result in any more than another lottery pick for the Bulls. Isiah Thomas’ plan for rebuilding the Knicks with expensive superstars has only resulted in a roster filled with expensive players. He even wussed out on his theory about accumulating expiring contracts as trade bait, waiting until Jalen Rose and Anfernee Hardaway were in the final seasons of their contracts and buying them out instead of trying to trade them. Glass-half-full Knicks fans trumpeted Eddy Curry’s “break out” season as one bright spot, but actually Curry did nothing different than in previous years other than stay on the court longer , he scored at the same rate as before but played 7 more minutes per game than his career average. He shot a career high percentage from the field (but a career low from the line) and contributed his usual lousy rebounding, mind-bogglingly weak passing, and nonexistent defense. He played 35% more minutes per game than the season before and scored 43% more points per game. Not exactly an amazing jump in his production.

To Isiah’s credit, he has drafted a pretty good frontcourt to surround Curry , David Lee and Renaldo Balkman are high energy, dirty work players who are spectacular rebounders and, in the case of Balkman, a shockingly good defender. Lee and Balkman were a large factor in the Knicks leading the league in rebounding , strong praise, especially considering how weak a rebounder Curry is. The rest of the lineup has problems, particularly with the decline of Stephon Marbury. In addition to his game slipping, Marbury seems to be descending into some sort of delusional egomania (last year’s “The way how this world is right now, we need more people like me” quote, saying that he would like to finish his career in Italy, and his bizarre series of television interviews this offseason).
So of course the Knicks added Zach Randolph, an acquisition which I cast my doubts upon earlier this season. I think that Curry paired with Randolph will make for such a poor defensive unit that they will have a hard time staying on the court and that there wont be enough shots to go around to keep either of them happy.

The circus continues in Madison Square Garden, as the front office mayhem continues to make as many headlines as the players. I think that James Dolan has an ulterior motive at work in the way he has run this team, and I will write a longer post about it later this week (hint: on Thursday, Cablevision shareholders will vote on the Dolan family’s buyout bid to take the company private). But I think that the overall talent level of this team is debatable, and the distractions far too many to overcome. This team will not be any better than it was last year, even with Zach Randolph. They win 35.

5: Philadelphia: Normally when you trade away a superstar you get screwed in the deal. The Sixers, however, did pretty well on the Iverson trade. Not for the quality of players they got back, but for the roster flexibility they get next season. As for what that means for this year, though “¦ well, it will be a long season in Philly.

Billy King’s reign of error has one more season in luxury tax land, but after this season they will drop well below the salary cap as Chris Webber, Aaron McKie and Kevin Ollie’s contracts finally expire. What that does mean, however, is that Philadelphia will probably just cruise along without making much noise this season, just waiting until after the season to remake the roster.

After Iverson left, Andre Iguodala was a revelation in more ways than one , he showed off a much more varied offensive game than people knew he had, and it became clear that you can only go so far with Andre Iguodala leading the way. Samuel Dalembert has the center position locked up and Andre Miller provides a steady hand at point guard. The forward positions are in a state of flux. Thaddeus Young will probably get the nod at small forward (and has a chance to be a really good player in a couple of years) and power forward is pretty much an open competition between Shavlik Randolph, Reggie Evans and draftees Jason Smith and Herbert Hill.

Well, a $72 million roster doesn’t get you much these days, does it. The Sixers have a long road ahead of them. To their credit, they didn’t fold last season after the Iverson trade, and hopefully they will keep fighting this year, knowing that the roster should get a big influx of talent this offseason. However, the roster has way too many holes and this season they will struggle to win 30 games. If they are serious about rebuilding, though, hopefully it starts with getting a new GM.

If you’re lucky enough to be a suite holder at the Bradley Center you’re going to get the opportunity to use valet parking this coming season.  Just pull up to the southwest corner of the stadium and walk on in.

Although I am bitter that there won’t be valet parking for my bike, I think overall this is a good addition.  Anything that increases the revenue for the BC and Bucks without jacking up the price of tickets is a positive.

Ah, the Southeast. Warm, sunny weather. Laid back people. Several average basketball teams, each with major flaws , especially at power forward. Except for Atlanta, who lacks pretty much everything except a ton of power forwards. This is a funny division — the only one without a good championship contender, but Atlanta might be the best “worst” team in any division. There should be plenty of entertaining games in this division, but no hardware come June.

1: Washington: You know the old saying, “The best defense is a good offense”? Well, last year the Wizards proved that one true until the injuries piled up. Washington had the 6^th best offense in the league (by IPM) last year, but the 26^th best defense. It all seemed to be working as the Wiz cruised into mid-March at 34-25 and were thinking about the #1 seed in the East. However, injuries to Caron Butler and then Gilbert Arenas sent the team into a tailspin. They finished with a 6-13 face plant, with all 6 wins coming against non-playoff teams. The hobbled Wizards were then crushed in the playoffs by Cleveland.

Washington’s identity was built around the eye-popping play of Gilbert Arenas, who might be the deadliest late-game player currently in the league. However, Caron Butler may have actually been their most important player, as he raised his offensive game to All-Star level and was also one of their best perimeter defenders (but that’s all relative to his teammates. Butler’s defense was pretty average). The whole no-defense policy will continue for at least another year as defense-allergic Antwan Jamison and limited Brendan Haywood make up the starting frontcourt. Tragically, co-starting center (and frequent wrestling opponent of Haywood) Etan Thomas’ career is in doubt after requiring surgery to repair a heart defect, which will press first round pick Oleksiy Pecherov into action sooner than expected.

The Wiz didn’t do anything of note with their roster, mostly because they were already right at the luxury tax line and they will also have to break the bank next offseason to extend Arenas’ contract. They let bust Jarvis Hayes go and resigned DeShawn Stevenson and Andray Blatche, so their 8 man rotation returns virtually unchanged.

The Wizards had a system that worked last year , score enough to keep it close until the 4^th quarter, then give it to Gilbert and get out of the way , and they are going to try it again. Assuming that Arenas comes back at full strength (and there is no reason to believe he wont) then this team is the class of the division. They should win 50, but that shaky defense makes them ripe for a first-round playoff upset.

2: Orlando: A couple of months ago I wrote that if the Magic wanted a scoring small forward then they should have tried to trade for Corey Maggette instead of signing Rashard Lewis. I still think that is true, and if they hadn’t committed so much money to Lewis then they might have been one of the few teams able to put together a somewhat reasonable offer for Kobe Bryant. Oh well, we’ll never know. Instead the Magic used all their cap room on Lewis and failed to address their real needs , power forward and shooting guard.

Last year Orlando had a very oddly-composed roster. Their top seven players were either centers (Howard and Darko Milicic), small forwards (Hidyaet Turkoglu, Grant Hill and Trevor Ariza) or point guards (Carlos Arroyo and Jameer Nelson). This made it very difficult for them to field a balanced team , they never could find the right player to pair with Howard, couldn’t use their small forwards together because none of them shot well enough or was quick enough to play the 2, and couldn’t use Arroyo and Nelson together because they were too small for the 2. It resulted in a team that was awful offensively, but at least because of the emergence of Howard played very well defensively. However, that roster imbalance caught up to them eventually, and they were dispatched with ease by Detroit in the first round.

After losing Milicic because they elected to sign Rashard Lewis (to a totally ridiculous contract) they still have a logjam at small forward and completely failed to address the gap at power forward. They signed Adonal Foyle intending for him to tag-team with Tony Battie at the 4, only to learn that Battie will miss the season with a torn rotator cuff. They also did nothing to fill in the shooting guard spot, apparently assuming that JJ Redick will be ready to step in as the starter. However, it appears that the college knock on Redick , that he’s not athletic enough , has carried over into the pros. While Redick shot okay his rookie year, his numbers of rebounds, blocks and steals were sorely lacking , which is a good indicator of ones athleticism.

By adding a 20 point per game scorer in Lewis, the Magic did address their most pressing need , scoring ability. This should not be one of the worst offenses in the league any more. However, they are so thin at power forward that Dwight Howard will have to pretty much do all the work himself, which probably won’t lead to many more wins or get the team any farther than it did last season , an improvement to 45 wins this year and another first round playoff exit.

3: Charlotte: For a short while, it appeared that the Bobcats were ready to make their big splash, fill up their salary cap, and make their move for the playoffs this season. But they made one big misstep , and now an early injury has short circuited their season before it began.

Michael Jordan showed he was serious about spending some money on draft night when they traded Brandan Wright for Jason Richardson. This was a big move because it allowed Gerald Wallace (who they would resign to a very reasonable contract) to concentrate on his natural small forward position and would banish Adam Morrison deep on the bench. But here is where Charlotte screwed up , before resigning Wallace, they should have jumped all over Anderson Varejao and tried offering him a contract in the 4 yr/$40 million range. Cleveland is right up against the luxury tax and should they have let Varejao go, he would have given Charlotte great depth at power forward , a defensive specialist alongside the offensive minded, defense-impaired Sean May and Walter Herrmann. However, Charlotte took the easy route , resigning Wallace and then using the remainder of the cap lavishing a bizarre 6 year, $27 million contract on shooting specialist Matt Carroll (think Charlie Bell without the ballhandling ability or defense , no wonder Bell is pissed) and trusting that May and Herrmann could handle the power forward position.

That plan lasted 1 week into training camp. May tore up his knee and will miss the season, so Herrmann becomes the de-facto starter. That puts tons of pressure on defensive maven Emeka Okafor and, an even bigger problem, will make Gerald Wallace spend some time at the 4. But now Charlotte is saying that Adam Morrison will likely miss the season with a knee injury. Morrison was so bad last season that he was on the short list of answers to the question “who was the worst player in the NBA last year who saw regular playing time?” (with the answer being either Morrison, Antonie Walker or Brian Scalabrine). For a shooting specialist, Morrison showed no shooting ability, putting up a lovely 37% from the field and unremarkable 71% from the line. He couldn’t rebound or pass either, averaging 3.9 rebounds per 40 minutes and 2.8 assists/40. At least his defense was comically bad, though. He was awful in every sense of the word, and can already pretty much be written off as a bust. On the bright side, Charlotte’s insistence on playing him nearly 30 mpg cost them several losses , so at least the team was better than their record last season. However, now that he is hurt, Charlotte has to wonder who will replace his meager production.

Charlotte was poised to make a big leap this season, but the injury bug has already started to hit them and unless they can get a solid 35 mpg from Walter Herrmann they will have to settle for a little hop. They now have a nice starting 5 , a developing point guard, an established 2 guard, a near-star at small forward and a dominant defender in the middle. A little turn of good luck somewhere could propel them to 40 wins and keep them in the mix for the playoffs.

4: Miami: The Heat put together the lamest championship defense since the 1999 Bulls. On one hand it wasn’t their entire fault as injuries claimed most of the roster. On the other hand, though, the roster was fatally flawed, and it seemed like motivation was a problem , other than Dwyane Wade and Alonzo Mourning, the whole team seemed content to half-ass it until the playoffs. You could sort of tell on opening night that Miami wouldn’t be around in the end when they started their title defense by losing 108-66 to the Bulls.

Predictably, Shaquille O’Neal promptly hit the DL to rest up for the playoffs, and the rest of the roster was on cruise control as well. Jason Williams always seems to be disinterested, and Antoine Walker was simply unconscious all season , but I don’t mean that in a good way. Walker’s game completely collapsed, as he set career lows in points and rebounds, and only shot 25% from 3 point range but still managed to fire up 4 per game. How many bricks can you lay before you give it up?

The one bright spot was Dwyane Wade, who simply did everything for this injury- and motivation-plagued team. He was the best player in the league until a shoulder injury ended his season, and he is not supposed to be back until mid-November at the earliest (ESPN recently reported that Wade would be unavailable until January, which Pat Riley denies). Honestly, probably the most amazing thing about Wade’s season was that he lasted as long as he did, given the constant punishment he takes with his all-out playing style. I thought it was interesting that Miami used their first round pick on a shooting guard this season , maybe they are thinking that the only way to keep Wade in one piece is to eventually reduce his minutes?

The luxury tax-strapped Heat had an oddball offseason as they tried to use the midlevel exception and the star power of Shaq and Wade to raid the Bucks’ roster, but would up being played like suckers instead. First Mo Williams made noise about loving Miami until the Bucks raised their contract offer, and then Charlie Bell inked a deal that was eventually matched by Milwaukee (much to Bell’s chagrin). Miami wound up doing little more than signing Smush Parker and sensibly picking up Alexander Johnson to be their backup power forward. Other than that, this team is about as shallow behind it’s superstars as Boston.

It makes me laugh how media types keep referring to Miami as a place to go “to compete for a championship.” While in a perfect world , everybody healthy, motivated and in shape , the Heat can throw out an imposing lineup, in reality they are so full of holes that “¦ there are more holes than solid sections. Because of the “I’ll be there for the playoffs” mentality Shaq is becoming less and less of a factor in the regular season, plus this year has the distraction of an increasingly bitter divorce. When Wade will be at full strength is an open question, and behind Udonis Haslem and Mourning the roster is made up of a bunch of has-beens and never-will-be’s. I can’t imagine them getting Shaq and Wade together more than 50 times this season, and those other 30 games will be rough. I don’t think they win more than 37.

5: Atlanta: You’ve got to love a team whose idea of adding veteran leadership is drafting Shelden Williams and Al Horford. The continuing front office mess in Atlanta hamstrung yet another offseason for the Hawks, as their warring ownership group is court-ordered to agree amongst themselves on any player moves that involves anything more complex (or expensive) than draft picks and minimum-salary signings. As a result, the Hawks wont agree on anything and so were forced to shoot down a 3-way Kevin Garnett trade that would have netted Atlanta Amare Stoudamire. Oh well, so much for that.

So that means the only thing that GM Billy “who needs Chris Paul?” Knight could do is draft Horford and Acie Law. Horford is supposed to be as close to a sure-thing contributor at power forward as can be, which Atlanta needs since it appears that Marvin Williams is never going to be able to fill the bill and that Shelden Williams is already as good as he is going to get. I don’t like players like Law, though , point guards who spring onto the scene based on one good college season and people say things like; “he’s more of a born leader than a point guard” and “he’s got a habit of hitting big shots.” Last guy I heard described like this who got taken around the 10^th pick in the draft was Reece Gaines. Remember him?

The Hawks better hope I’m wrong about Law, because he’s pretty much all they’ve got at the position. Speedy Claxton’s game fell apart, and Tyronn Lue won’t bring home many wins. The rest of the roster is theoretically pretty talented , at least, they have a ton of guys who were high draft picks there. Joe Johnson had a mildly disappointing, injury-plagued season after his bust out the season before, and Josh Smith asserted himself as one of the most talented and most immature players in the league, as Smith put up all-star numbers but also got a 2-game suspension from his team for throwing a temper tantrum on the bench. As far as bench talent, Marvin Williams, Shelden Williams, and Josh Childress were all between the #2 and #15 picks in the draft, and the quietly effective Zaza Pachulia holds down the center position.

But this is still a roster of talented guys who have never done anything. And if the Hawks don’t get their management/front office situation settled, they never will. It’s going to be yet another 32 win season in the peach state.