What we Learned from week 1

1.  Andrew Bynum is still good.  In his first two games back, he's been the best player on the floor twice.  If he can keep this up the question will move from if the Magic want to give up Howard, to whether the Lakers want to give up Bynum.

2.  The Clippers have some problems, they play absolutely no defense, and they don't box out, and an their offense is having some trouble getting into their rhythm.  The offense will come with time, and so will the rebounding but the concern is the defense.  Looking at their roster it's clear why they are bad defensively; they're slow at the perimeter and bad inside with the exception of Deandre Jordan.

3.  The Heat and Thunder are much better than everyone else.  It's tempting to throw the Bulls into this but I'm going to stick with teams that are undefeated.  For teams that want to win the championship, they need to start fixing up their roster to find a way through these teams.

4.  The Kings are in a bad situation.  I anticipated Tyreke Evans and Demarcus Cousins doing extremely well for them this year and it looks like that might not happen (although I'm not rescinding my prediction yet.)  I was right that Cousins would do well on the court, but underestimated his immaturity.  He's been shunned by the team and he's demanded a trade.  As for Tyreke, either he's just in a slump, or last year wasn't a fluke.  Only time will tell but I hope it's not the latter.

5.  James Harden, and Marcus Thorton are both really really good.  Marcus Thorton has appeared to be his teams best player, and James Harden has been his teams second behind none other that Kevin Durant (maybe Wrestbrook too.)  He's giving the Thunder a big 3 that competes with that of the Heat.

6.  Dwight Howard really wants out.  He's had bad production and it doesn't appear to be lack of talent but lack of effort, the only way Dwight would not try is if he doesn't want to be there.

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.