The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

(This article refers to IPM, which is available here. IPM is described in the file, “What is IPM” and the article references “06-07 Team Predicted Wins”)

It’s time to start previewing the season! I’m going to cover one division every few days for the next month, and I’m starting with the toughest neighborhood in town (and home of the champs), the Southwest.

1: San Antonio: It’s becoming difficult to write about the Spurs , it seems like all they do every offseason is tinker a little with their bench, add 1 or 2 veterans who take less money than they could have gotten elsewhere, and add a European import that only they were smart enough to take a chance on. Well, that sums up this offseason as well.
They added Ime Udoka to spell and eventually replace the rapidly declining Bruce Bowen and traded Luis Scola for Vassilis Spanoulis, who was a highly effective guard in Greece before clashing badly with Jeff Van Gundy in Houston. The problem for the Spurs in this deal is that adding Scola to the Rockets makes them much better, but Spanoulis should fit in well as a backup to Tony Parker.

San Antonio may have only had the third best record in the league last year but they were the best team. According to my statistical measure, IPM, San Antonio underachieved by 3 games last year while both Phoenix and Dallas overachieved. (On a side note, I would guess that the Bucks were the only team to sweep the Spurs last year). It should be more of the same for San Antonio this year.

Typical boring old excellent Spurs. This is the best team and the best run organization in the NBA. The only thing they have to worry about is the age of their bench and the only thing they couldn’t withstand would be a serious injury to Tim Duncan. They return their top 9 players from last year (not counting Robert Horry, who returns but whose role has significantly diminished) and added a couple of potentially valuable parts. The Spurs should cruise to a 60 win season and I think they will win the championship again.

2: Dallas: The whole “Nowitzki shouldn’t have won the MVP because of his poor playoffs” argument drives me nuts. First of all, why does the perception of 6 poor games nullify the achievements of the previous 82? Secondly, Dirk wasn’t that bad , he averaged 20 ppg and 11.5 rpg in that series, and single-handedly won game 5 for the Mavs (down 9 with 3 minutes to go, a 3 possession stretch went Dirk 3-Dirk blocks a layup-Dirk 3-Dirk assist to Harris, and then Nowitzki made 4 free throws down the stretch to ice the game). The perception of Nowitzki having a bad series is masked by the fact that Avery Johnson’s coaching job was completely overmatched by Don Nelson. Nowitzki had 2 bad games in that series , game 1, when Nelson’s D was designed to keep the ball away from Dirk and Johnson never reacted, and game 6 when Dallas had no chance from the opening tip, losing by 25. Dirk was the MVP last year. Period.

The Nowitzki-blame game masked the real problem for Dallas last season , they weren’t nearly as good as their record. They overachieved by 10 games last season and, more importantly, seriously let up on defense at the end of the season. For the season I rank Dallas with the 10^th best offense and 2^nd best defense, but for the final couple of weeks of the season they fell off to the #26 offense and #7 defense. Part of this is normal energy conservation for a team heading into the playoffs, but the bottom line is that they weren’t playing hard (but still winning a bunch of close games) entering the playoffs and couldn’t get it going once they got there. That’s bad coaching.

What does it mean for this year? The Mavs did the right thing and didn’t shake things up, resigning Stackhouse and adding Eddie Jones and Trenton Hassell when Minnesota bought him out. They are expecting a breakout season from Devin Harris, indicated by the fact that they signed him to a contract extension despite their long commitment to Jason Terry. The team has a lot of dead weight on the payroll ($23 million to Michael Finley and Shawn Bradley this season) but a good rotation that has 10 solid, established veterans. Avery Johnson has gotten the Mavs to play serious defense for him, and that fact combined with the urge to remove the stain of last seasons’ playoffs should keep this team playing hard all season.

However, they won’t win 67 again , you can’t overachieve like that two years in a row, especially while playing a schedule that is heavy on games with San Antonio and Houston. I’ll guess 59 wins.

3: Houston: Many people seem to have the Rockets as the sexy pick to topple the Spurs this year, but I have my doubts. I thought they could make a run last season, but this roster has lots of problems , namely too many variables for a championship contender. Of course, starting with Yao and McGrady is a great start, two of the top ten players in the game when they are healthy. However, Yao has never made it through a whole season, and McGrady’s chronic back problems make him day-to-day every single night. Shane Battier has locked down the small forward position, playing his usual excellent defense but suffered through a fairly poor year offensively. But the other two positions are huge question marks.

The Rockets added Luis Scola, who has been one of the best players in Europe for several years and have turned over the starting power forward position to him. He projects to be a solid addition, but honestly, who knows? Can you really depend on any rookie to contribute? Point guard is an even bigger mess. They have clearly tired of Rafer Alston, and brought in a truckload of potential replacements. Steve Francis and Mike James , who have only found success chucking up gobs of shots for bad teams , and Bob Sura (???) are the leading candidates to replace Alston, as well as first round pick Aaron Brooks.

Just for the heck of it, the Rockets primary bench scorer Bonzi Wells also returns, and presumably he intends to play this season instead of just sitting around because he can’t get along with his coach. Oh, one other change; Jeff Van Gundy gave up on the team and they brought in Rick Adleman to replace him.

So Houston begins this season with championship aspirations but only two “sure things” among its top 8 players , Battier and backup power forward Chuck Hayes (well, 3 if you include Dikembe Mutombo elbowing someone in the face) , while the starting lineup contains questions about the health of its best players, the ability of its power forward, the identity of its point guard, and the motivation of its bench scorer. At least when they changed coaches they went to Adleman, who runs a system that is completely different than Van Gundy’s both offensively and defensively. They will be more entertaining than they were last year, but I don’t think they will be better. 48 wins.

4: New Orleans: After two years in the friendly confines of Oklahoma City, the Hornets lose their incredible home-court advantage and return to the Big Easy, which greeted the team with a collective yawn when they were there before Hurricane Katrina. I think this team might be in for a shock , they aren’t as good as they looked the last couple of years.

They quickly lost Peja Stojakovic last season, but that may not have actually hurt them all that much , his game has really slipped, and he is massively overpaid. He has back problems and has reached an age where injuries and declining athleticism take their toll. They signed Morris Peterson to play alongside Peja, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that becomes more a signing to replace him. The frontcourt is a strength, where David West has established himself as an underrated, solid player and Tyson Chandler busted out in a big way.

However, I think that Tyson Chandler’s breakout was more about Chris Paul than Chandler himself. Chandler has always been a spectacular rebounder (averaging between 13.5 and 14.5 per 40 minutes ever since be turned 21) and dunker but is so clumsy with his hands and footwork that he could never create enough to improve his offensive game. That all changed with Paul dishing to him. Suddenly Chandler was getting free for 3-4 alley-oops per game, and his shooting percentage skyrocketed to almost 63%. But it’s not like Chandler was doing anything different (besides staying on the floor more than he had with the Bulls), he just had a point guard that could see scoring opportunities better than anyone else could.

Chris Paul is one of the best players in the game , a case could be made that he is the best pure point guard in the league right now , but I don’t think his greatness is enough to improve this teams prospects much. The rest of the roster behind Paul, West and Chandler is pretty blah, and they have to deal with the double whammy of playing in a new city before uncertain fan support and having to play the toughest schedule in the NBA with a steady diet of San Antonio, Dallas and Houston coming to town. But Paul alone is enough to keep them competitive on most nights. 37 wins.

5: Memphis: Is Memphis much better than it was last year? They got outrebounded by 20 in a preseason game against a Spanish League team the other day. So I’m thinking they’ve got a ways to go.

The Grizzlies spent their cap room this summer obtaining two players who have never seen any success in the NBA , Darko Milicic and Juan Carlos Navarro. Navarro has been a solid guard in Europe for several years and, even more importantly, is very close friends with Pau Gasol. However, at 6’3″ Navarro is a tweener, and Memphis has a glut of point guards already. It appears that Darko’s chance at stardom was washed away while he was buried on the bench in Detroit, as questions about his motivation and attitude have crept up on him. He’s only 22 and you can’t teach 7’1″, so it must be worth the 3 yr/$20 million risk that he will figure it out eventually, right? Just ask the Lakers how that’s worked out for them with Kwame Brown.

The Grizzlies have been roundly praised for drafting Mike Conley Jr, but I have my doubts about this signing. Point guards , Chris Paul and Magic Johnson excepted , always struggle their rookie year, so it’s a little unfair to expect a 20 year old Conley to pay dividends for a while anyway. But Conley has to drastically improve his shooting to reach his potential and I’m not so sure he can “¦ because he shoots left handed but he is actually not left handed! It’s no big deal for athletes to use their non-dominant hand to gain an advantage , switch-hitters do it all the time, and Phil Mickelson is right handed but learned the golf swing by standing opposite his father and doing the mirror image of his swing , but Conley’s left handed shooting is terrible. He was a 30% 3-point shooter in college. So why make the game harder on himself by shooting with his off hand? Complicating matters is the presence of Kyle Lowry , he started his rookie season on a hot streak before getting hurt after 10 games so the Grizzlies owe it to themselves to try and see what they got in their 2006 first round pick.

The Grizzlies’ other big move this season was the signing of Marc Ivaroni as head coach. He’s got a lot of work to do to help this team move up in this division. I’d say their goal would be 33 wins , if they avoid a 50 loss season then it will have been a success.