What was learned from Christmas

1.  Once again I'll say this, the Lakers are still very good.  They went against a Bulls team who had the advantage of not having to integrate many new players in and didn't have to learn an entirely new system, and they barely lost.  This would be pretty impressive naturally but with Bynum out it's outstanding.  The Lakers are absolutely still contenders.

2.  The Heat are the team to beat.  They play defense, they run the floor, they can move the ball well, they can isolate you, they get the ball inside, their in great shape, they get second chances, and they don't give them up.  The Mavericks may be the defending champions but the Heat are the team to beat.

3.  The Knicks still have the same glaring flaws, and some new ones.  First of all, they may have added a great shot changer in Tyson Chandler, but that doesn't make up for the fact that pretty much no one else on that team understands that defense matters too.  Additionally, they have terrible backcourt play (worse than last season) during the celtics rally in the fourth courter the real problem was their offense wasn't facilitated well at all.  They pretty much had Melo running the point and I think anyone understands someone who can't pass can't play point guard.  Additionally, Dantoni is a bad coach.  Some say he is a great offensive coach but he's not even that good of an offensive coach, Dantoni's teams score a lot because they have terrific offensive players.  First Carmelo Anthony, and Amare Stoudamire are supposed to score a lot, what would be impressive is to get them to play defense.  Additionally, late in the game he made poor decisions, why Jared Jeffries, one of their few players who plays defense, was not in late in the game, confuses me.  Even though they came out with the win, Dantoni won by just having a very talented team, not good coaching.

4.  The Celtics are still good.  They may have lost but honestly, the Celtics looked like the better team.  First of all, on that last play Carmelo wasn't really fouled, but even if, they were extremely competitive with the Knicks despite being without one of their best players in Paul Pierce.  They may not end with the greatest regular season record but watch out for them in the playoffs.

5.  The Thunder will be very good this year.  No need for explanation, they will be one of the best in the west.

6.  Mark Jackson is a very good coach.  They did get killed but quite frankly, the Clippers are a much more talented team than the Warriors and there is nothing that Mark Jackson could do about that, but he had Biedrens looking better than Jordan, and David Lee looking better than Blake Griffin.  This is really the first times I've watched the Warriors actually be effective in the half court set.  Generally Warriors games look like high skill pickup games and Jackson appears to have already changed that culture.  Additionally, they were able to play defense on a very good team, and that was a smart and ballsy decision to pull a Hack-A-Shack on Deandre Jordan.  I really liked what I saw out of him and I think he will be a great coach.

What We Learned from Preseason

1.  The Clippers are very good.  The Clippers beat the lakers twice and not only did they win but they displayed team work, and Blake displayed terrific improvement.

2.  Don't count the lakers out just yet.  Although they lost, they showed that the question "Are the Lakers still contenders?" Is a dumb question, they can absolutely compete.

3.  The Mavericks understand that they are old.  They didn't play some of their old players, not because of injuries, but just to give them a rest.

4.  The Heat are really REALLY good.  The Heat showed that in all that time other teams were talking about how to bring in Chris Paul, and Dwight, they were working on getting better, and they came into camp in great shape and they are going to be much more fearsome than last year.

Players who will under-perform

Amare Stoudamire

           Amare Stoudamire has always been tremendously injury prone.  With this shortened season one of two things will happen, either Amare will be overplayed and his poor little knees will give in on him, or he will lose a lot of minutes and possibly not get injured.  Additionally, they didn't really address their backcourt issues so the ball will probably be in Carmelo's hands a lot, and while Carmelo is a great scorer, don't look for him to get Amare the ball too often.

Deron Williams

          In the past Deron Williams has been one of the best point guards in the league, and don't get me wrong, he still is.  However, in Brooklyn Deron Williams is the only player.  Maybe Humphries will up his numbers to 14 but without Brook Lopez, Deron Williams just doesn't have anyone to pass to. Not only does he not have anyone to pass to, but playing crappy basketball for a team that can't even imagine making the playoffs in their wildest dreams won't exactly drive Deron to have an MVP output.

Gerald Wallace

         The Trail Blazers have a terrific back up small forward in Nicolas Batum who is not only young but also in a contract year.  The Trail Blazers will be giving him more minutes so he feels like he really has a place in their organization, and he'll probably fill those minutes with terrific play.  (Generally players play well in contract years.)  Additionally, even if they didn't have Batum, the season would kill Gerald Wallace.  He's 29 years old and plays an extremely physically demanding style, he will burn out quick in this season.  He might still do O.K. on steals and maybe boards, but don't expect any more than 12 points a game from him.

Paul Pierce

        He's old so he's probably not overjoyed about playing back to back to back to back... and also, the Celtics are not going to be at the same level that they usually are and when that happens Pierce tends to have a little less determination.

David Lee

         No explanation necessary, he's just not a great player.

Serge Ibaka

         Saying he will under-perform may be a bit of a stretch, because Serge will certainly not take a step backwards; However, there is a common assumption that Serge will make a Kevin Love, or Lamarcus Aldridge level jump.  But he won't do this.  Those players made their jumps because their teams lost key offensive players and they were asked to essentially become the teams entire offense (Kevin Love was just asked to become the team).  Serge Ibaka however does not have the same fate, They pretty much have the same squad as they did last year and Serge will just be asked to continue improving his defense.

Metta World Peace

         

         Just wanted to say it.

Also, something of note, pretty much all of the old players will have declines this season because of the condensed schedule, but I don't wan't to explain each one of their problems.  This year youth will rule the League

Players Due For Better Seasons Than Their Projections

1.  Dwight Howard

a.    Upside:  Dwight Howard averaged 22.9 points, 14.1 rebounds, 2.4 blocks, 1.4 steals, and 1.4 assists per game all while shooting 59.3% from the field.  That 1.4 steals is deceptively good, because although it doesn’t appear to be that significant, you have to remember that he is a center, generally centers get about .5 steals a game so you’re getting an extra steal every game from your center.  Think of it Dwight Howard to the average center is like Chris Paul to the average PG in terms of steals.  Additionally that 2.4 blocks, you may look down the list of centers and notice that there are a lot of centers who get you a lot of blocks and therefore you could just wait and get someone later, but what you forget is that generally, to get a shot blocker, you make a very substantial sacrifice in terms of points.  (Javale McGee, Deandre Jordan, Andrew Bogout, do I really need to go on?)  Additionally you can’t understate those rebounds.  He was second in the league behind only Kevin Love.  Also, looking at his field goal percentage you may say that there are other guys who make a lot of shots, but they don’t take as many shots as Dwight so his high field goal percentage sort of washes out your bad field goal players more, and taking a step back, it means he scores more than those guys too.  Also, if he does get traded to some place with a great passing point guard, expect him to get at least 25 ppg while shooting an even better field goal%.  Also, Dwight Howard pretty much never misses a game.

b.    Downside:  Dwight shoots an atrocious field goal percentage and he shoots a lot of field goals.  You may think you can cancel his bad FT% out with someone like Steve Nash (91.8%) but you can’t.  Steve Nash averaged 3/3.3 pg where as Dwight was 7/11.8 so in combination they are only 10/15.1 which is about 66% so you’re better off just throwing the FT% Category.  Also, Dwight Howard can only be played at Center and therefore it is harder to do your lineups when you have him.

2.    Blake Griffin

a.    Upside:  Anyone who has watched 20 seconds of clippers basketball understands that Blake Griffin is a terrific basketball player, and he can score and rebound effortlessly.  Also, if you watched  his preseason games you probably noticed, he has been working hard this summer.  His handles looked more like a guard than a power forward and he appears to have developed a mid range game.  I genuinely doubt that there will be a player in the league capable of guarding Blake Griffin.  He’s just become too athletic and talented, additionally, the clippers just got Chris Paul so you know he’s going to catch some alley-oops, look for him to get 24-27 ppg this year.  Additionally because of his new-found handles like a guard, he may have the ball while facing up this year and therefore he will get more opportunities for assists.  (he had seven against the Lakers)  and he will continue to get steals.  His Rebounding was there last year and he will likely continue to rebound well.

b.    Downside:  First off, he doesn’t play that great defense.  While he will get you steals, he’s not getting you that many blocks, but perhaps he was working on that this summer too (although it’s very unlikely.)  Additionally he shoots a bad free throw percentage with a lot of free throws.  His free throws are similar to Dwight but to a lesser extent.  Also, while this isn’t a glaring concern, he was injured his rookie season and you always have to be concerned about injuries re-occuring.

3.    Tyreke Evans

a.    Tyreke Evans had a tremendous rookie season, being the first player since Lebron to average over 20 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists during his rookie season.  He was able to get to the basket and create high percentage shots with relative ease.  Additionally he now has shooters around him (Marcus Thorton, Jimmer, Donte Greene). So he can dish it out for assists, or in to Demarcus.  Additionally, although his team is crap, the kid plays defense, gets 1.6 steals per game and you can expect that to go up this season.  Also, he can play both PG, and SG thereby making you more flexibility.  Lastly, don’t let this be too much of a deciding factor but Tyreke trains with the same guy as Derrick Rose and Russel Wrestbrook, and they both blossomed in their third season and this will be his third season.

b.    Last year Tyreke was not very good.  He was injured for most of the season and when he wasn’t injured he wasn’t very good.  However it’s all easily explicable.  Tyreke was injured for part of the season and he was recovering for the rest of the season.  Tyreke will look like he did with is rookie season only with a much improved shot.

4.    Javale McGee

a.    Upside:  Javale McGee is a great shot blocker and his numbers are very good in that category.  He also shoots a great field goal percentage and gets a lot of rebounds.  Additionally, although he only averaged about 10 points a game last year, he had many games with good scoring outputs where he wasn’t just getting lucky or anything but he was playing good offense.

b.    Downside:  He shoots a bad FT% (although he doesn’t take too many free throws) and although he showed offensive output occasionally, there was no pattern to his good scoring nights, so his issue wasn’t necessarily his minutes, or touches, but probably his offensive effort, or desire.  Also, he can only play center so it’s hard doing lineups with him.

5.    Greg Monroe

a.    Upside:  Greg Monroe is the only low post player on the Pistons (Unless perhaps you think Ben Wallace still has that) so no one will steal his rebounds, touches, or most importly, his minutes.  In the last few games of the season when Monroe was getting his minutes, he was averaging about 17 points and 11 rebounds all while shooting an outstanding FG% and getting 3 or 4 assists.  Additionally they just brought in Brandon Knight and if he does well, I bet the Pistons will commit to their young players and actually build a team around them that’s catered two their two young players.

b.    Downside: A large portion of these assumptions are based on hope and faith rather than factual evidence.  Although Greg Monroe Played well when he got his minutes, there was a reason he didn’t get his minutes every game.  First off, he easily gets in foul trouble, second, they had the same bigs last year so we can’t just expect everything to be different.  Well, as for why we can expect things to be different, he’s moving towards his prime, the rest of the team is moving away, and they have a new coach.  Although I must say, it was very hard to put him above Demarcus Cousins.

6.    Demarcus Cousins

a.    Upside:  Demarcus Cousins is a prolific scorer and he has already demonstrated it.  Towards the end of the season Demarcus Cousins became close to a 20/10 guy, and they unloaded Dalambert so he’s likely to get even more time.  Additionally, he get’s steals.

b.    Downside:  He shoots a terrible FG% and a Terrible FT% and as a big man you just can’t have a bad FG% (that’s how I decided to put him below Monroe), but perhaps this year that will change because more of his points will be created by Tyreke rather than him having to post up for every basket.  Also, like Monroe, he was missing minutes a lot because of fouls.

7.    James Harden
 d                     a.  Upside:  From last year it was very clear that James Harden is a complete player, he can               create his own shot, he can shoot, he can defend, he can create for others, he can pretty much do everything. The only reason he didn't average a lot is because he didn't get enough minutes, so look for him to do well again.
                        b.  Downside:  There isn't really a downside to him.  I guess he doesn't get that many blocks, and there are concerns of if he will get his time this season, but the kid is nice, expect a good season from him.


     Demar DeRozen

a.    Upside:  The kid can score, and he’s going to get the opportunities to do so.  Last year DeRozan averaged 18 ppg with Leandro Barbosa and Bargnani as his two only helpers in scoring.  This year he’ll be better offensively and he’ll get more touches (Leandro is old, the Raptors are starting to realize Bargnani is a liability in every aspect other than scoring.)

b.    Downside:  With the exception of a decent amount of rebounds, a decent amount of steals, and a decent field goal%, Derozen does nothing else.  Generally your scorers excel in at least one category other than scoring.  Additionally, his partner at shooting guard, Leandro Barbosa,  is in a contract year and therefore he may have a breakout season.