The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

I just realized that I let the season begin without finishing my thumbnail preview. Well, I’m going to wrap it up real quick and then give my playoff picks:

1- Cleveland: It bugs me a little that Mo Williams has been touting how committed he will be to defense with the Cavs in his preseason interviews since that sort of seems to confirm that he was more interested in getting his numbers up with the Bucks than in creating a winner. However, if you look back, Williams said the same stuff every year with the Bucks only to see his defense get worse and worse as his offense got better. He’s the same guy no matter what jersey he wears, only he will probably look better on D this season because of the guys behind him.

With LeBron James as the most dominating force in the game, I think this season the title winds up in Cleveland.

Last year: 45 wins

Lose 5 more games from the decline of Ilgauskas and Ben Wallace.
+6 wins from having Anderson Varejao on the team for a whole season.
+6 wins because LeBron is unstoppable.
+2 wins from Mo Williams.
+1 win because JJ Hickson was a steal.

This season: 55-27

2- Detroit: This is the year the Pistons show their age. That’s what I was saying before the Iverson trade. Now I feel that they are embarking on a sort of, “maybe it wont work, but this season will be exciting and we save gobs of money in the offseason” plan. The Iverson trade was yet another savvy move by Joe Dumars. This team is way too old and Dumars is rebuilding the correct way (letting his young guys ease into the lineup while the older players have contracts set to expire around the same time).

Last year: Won 59 games.

Lose 4 games because their starters are either way too old or inexperienced.
Lose 3 games because Allen Iverson is not the same player any longer, and it will take time to get him integrated into the system.
Lose 2 games because they actually intend to use Kwame Brown.
Win 3 more games because Amir Johnson is a stud (not so sure about Rodney Stuckey yet).

This year: 53-29.

3- Chicago: People seem to think that the Bulls don’t have a whole lot of talent on their team because they don’t have any muscular Dwight Howard-types. But they have 7 recent top 10 picks on their team! How much more talent do you need? They quit on Scott Skiles and didn’t play nearly up to their talent level after pretty much the same group won 50 the year before. This team is already good — and it helps that it took 1 game to realize that Derrick Rose is the real deal.

Last year: won 33 games.

Win 1 more game because they started slowly every season under Skiles and don’t have him any more.
Win 8 more games because they quit on their coaches last year and didn’t play anywhere near their talent level.
Lose 3 more games because hiring Vinny Del Negro was stupid.
Win 5 more games because Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah are improving, and Kirk Hinrich and Luol Deng are much better players than they showed last year.
Lose 4 more games by force feeding minutes to Derrick Rose — he has to have some growing pains. No matter how great Chris Paul was his rookie year, the Hornets were still a sub-.500 team.

This year: 40-42.

4- Milwaukee: My Bucks previews are here and here. While I have been mighty impressed with the teams’ play so far, I still think my original prediction of 38 wins and no playoffs will turn out to be correct. A 12 game improvement is still nothing to sneeze at.

Last year they won 26 games.

This year they win 3 more simply by not having Krystkowiak as head coach (they blew 17-point 3rd quarter leads to the Knicks twice! In one of those, Isiah Thomas didn’t make a single 4th quarter substitution!)
They win 3 more by having an above average coach in Skiles.
They win 2 more because Michael Redd sucked last year and shouldn’t be that bad again.
They lose 5 games because Mo Williams is better than their other point guards (they were 2-15 in games that Ramon Sessions played. Lets wait until he’s played some meaningful minutes before judging him.)
They win 3 more games because the “chemistry” and “offensive flow” is better with Ridnour than with Williams. If you believe in that sort of stuff.
They win 4 more games because Jefferson is an upgrade over Simmons.
They lose 1 more game because Mason was surprisingly good last year.
They win 1 more game because Alexander simply has to be better than Yi. He won’t get 40% of his close-to-the-basket shots blocked, right?
They win 2 more games because Bogut’s career trajectory has shown moderate improvement every year.

This year: 38-44.

5- Indiana: I’m just not a believer in what Indiana is doing. I think the Bayless for Brandon Rush and Jarret Jack trade was a joke, and I wonder how while TJ Ford has done nothing but put up better and better numbers for his whole career, the fans of his teams never want him around. The seasons that Troy Murphy and Mike Dunleavy had last year screams “fluke” to me. This team is nothing but a bunch of guys who collectively make you shrug and say, “yeah, he’s not bad, I wouldn’t mind him as my 6th or 7th man.” I just don’t see it working.

Last year: Won 36 games.

Lose 2 games from the loss of Jermaine O’Neal (it would be more but O’Neal hasn’t cared much about playing hard for the Pacers for years).
Win 1 more game from replacing Jamaal Tinsley with TJ Ford.
Lose 2 games because Mike Dunleavy comes back to earth.
Lose 3 games because they don’t have any shooting guards on the roster. A Jim O’Brien coached team without a 3-ball gunning shooting guard? How is that supposed to work?
Win 1 more game because Danny Granger is pretty good and getting better.

This year: 31-51.

That completes my thumbnail previews for the season. I think the final standings will look like this (and it already looks like Memphis might be a bit better than I give them credit for):

The Eastern Conference:

Boston 57
Cleveland 55
Detroit 53
Orlando 49
Philadelphia 48
Toronto 47
Washington 45
Miami 41
Chicago 40
Milwaukee 38
Atlanta 36
Indiana 31
Charlotte 31
New York 25
New Jersey 22

And the Western Conference:

Utah 58
New Orleans 56
Lakers 54
Houston 53
San Antonio 48
Portland 47
Phoenix 47
Dallas 46
Golden St 39
Denver 36
Sacramento 33
Minnesota 29
OKC 26
Clippers 23
Memphis 17

Who wins all the marbles? Cleveland over the Lakers.