Nothin’ but Net: 2014-15 Season Preview Part 1
Philadelphia, PA (SportsNetwork.com) – We are just days away from the start of yet another NBA campaign.
In one week, everyone starts off equal. It won’t take long for the herd to be thinned and the Sixers and Spurs to veer off in opposite directions.
It is now time for tradition. Let’s rank the top 30 teams, starting with – spoiler alert – the 76ers, and work our way to No. 1 (hint: it may not be San Antonio).
To further the drama, we shall spread the league over two days. First up, the non-playoff teams, although these do not represent the 14 worst teams in the league.
The Eastern Conference is once again top-heavy, but a little stronger overall than last season. The Western Conference is a clown car with 11 legitimate playoff contenders.
And away we go …
30. PHILADELPHIA 76ERS
When general manager Sam Hinkie started the rebuild plan, people looked at this season as a turning point. Nerlens Noel would be back after missing the entire 2013-14 campaign. Plus, they’d have two first-round picks coming in to bolster the roster. That would basically amount to three lottery picks arriving at the same time. Philly fans could get on board with that.
Oops.
Joel Embiid, the No. 3 overall pick, will be sidelined most likely for the season with a broken foot. Dario Saric, acquired in a pretty shrewd draft- night trade, which also brought back the team’s first-round pick it gave away for Andrew Bynum, has two years at minimum left on a contract overseas.
So, to sum up, the Sixers will have nothing but second-round picks contributing this season with Noel and reigning NBA Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams, who, did I forget to mention, had shoulder surgery in May and will miss the start of the season.
The starting lineup opening night could be: Noel, Tony Wroten, Hollis Thompson, Luc Mbah a Mute and maybe Alexey Shved.
That’s right, this season’s Sixers will be worse than the one a season ago, a team so bad and embarrassing to the league the board of governors is going to change how the lottery works to avoid such obvious displays of tanking.
(I totally understand the board of governors going to these lengths. I also understand the Sixers being upset this change will occur in the middle of their rebuilding plan.)
At least last season’s Sixers featured three professionals in Evan Turner, Spencer Hawes and Thaddeus Young. All are gone, replaced by barely serviceable NBA players.
This Sixers team will finish with the worst record in the league. Is the 1973 team’s 9-73 mark, the worst single-season NBA record of all time, in jeopardy? Probably not, but it’s almost impossible seeing them top last season’s 19 wins.
29. UTAH JAZZ
The Jazz also are in a rebuilding situation, but they have infinitely more talent than the Sixers. Their foundation consists of decent youngsters like Gordon Hayward, Enes Kanter, Alec Burks, Trey Burke and Derrick Favors. Throw in a pair of strong first-round prospects like Dante Exum and Rodney Hood, and the Jazz have the preliminary ingredients of a solid stew.
But those ingredients need to slow-cook in the Crock-Pot. Serve it too early, and you’ll give everyone food poisoning. This is not to say the Jazz will make you throw up this season, but they aren’t ready for serious consumption.
Quin Snyder is the new coach, but Utah is a ways away from anything meaningful.
Exum will have the largest spotlight shone on him among this crew. Not many knew much about his game other than Youtube highlights. I’m a fan, but it might be rough riding for the Aussie early. Hood is a good shooter. They should compete for solid minutes this season and the five other above- mentioned talents are a good starting point. However, this team doesn’t have a can’t-miss guy unless Exum flourishes early. It’s possible, but slow and steady Jazz fans.
28. MILWAUKEE BUCKS
It’s easy to forget that through all of the tanking debate last season, the Bucks finished with the worst record. Forget the Sixers, the Bucks were the largest dumpster fire in the NBA last season, so things changed in Milwaukee.
Jason Kidd was hired to be the head coach and I should have saved the phrase “dumpster fire” to describe his departure from the Brooklyn Nets and hiring by the Bucks.
Kidd staged a power play for more control in personnel in Brooklyn. Mikhail Prokhorov said “do svidaniya,” so Kidd is now in charge of the Bucks.
But Larry Drew was already the coach of the Bucks, so Kidd took a job with a team that already had a coach. That would be two no-no’s Kidd committed in terms of being an employee and a member of the coaching fraternity.
Kidd started as a joke leading the Nets, then got better at the job. The situation is astronomically different in Milwaukee. Prokhorov spent billions to make the Nets contenders. The Bucks, who sold for half a billion less than a year ago, are working their way to respectability. The pressure will be lighter on Kidd.
The Bucks nabbed Jabari Parker with the second overall pick and have the most NBA-ready prospect from the draft. The favorite for NBA Rookie of the Year should score plenty, but will he get any help?
Giannis Antetokounmpo grew two inches and was playing some point. Larry Sanders and Ersan Ilyasova can’t be worse than last season. This group could be fun to watch at least. Parker and Giannis (I’m not re-typing Antetokounmpo every time, grammar be damned) are an extraordinarily versatile set of building blocks.
27. MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES
One year ago at this time, I had the Wolves making the postseason. One year later, Kevin Love is a Cleveland Cavalier, Rick Adelman is retired and the Wolves are lottery-bound.
Minny made the correct move in flipping Love for Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett, the last two No. 1 overall picks. Love wasn’t staying in town, so Flip Saunders and Co. got a strong haul for him.
Jettisoning a top-seven player in the league will obviously set the team back. Wiggins and Bennett may not revitalize the Timberwolves immediately, but Wiggins will in time.
What makes the Wolves moderately interesting is that there is big-time scoring talent in the Land of Lakes (not the butter). Nikola Pekovic is an above- average center, Kevin Martin will score close to 20 points per game, Corey Brewer is still a capable wing and Ricky Rubio is … flashy.
Wiggins’ development will take center stage, but this is a gigantic season for Rubio. He’s due a contract, wants a max one, should never get a max one, but probably will get a max one. Rubio took steps back last season and looked downright terrified to shoot the ball. He needs to display some more skills than solid defense and showy passes.
The Wolves have decent talent, but if they couldn’t make the postseason with Love, how will they without him in the loaded Western Conference? They won’t.
26. ORLANDO MAGIC
This group confuses me some.
There is a lot of quality young talent on this roster, some you know (Aaron Gordon, Nikola Vucevic, Victor Oladipo) and some you don’t (Elfrid Payton, Tobias Harris, Andrew Nicholson, Moe Harkless).
The ones you don’t know are capable scorers, but Payton is different. The Magic gave the first-round pick the team got in the Bynum trade back to Philly to get this guy. They love him and they should. He’s going to be a relentless defender in the NBA even if he doesn’t score a point until Christmas. Pairing him in the backcourt with another great, athletic guard in Oladipo could make for some nightmares for the opposition.
Vucevic is a double-double machine. Harris’ career has flourished since leaving Milwaukee. Gordon is going to put on some shows of athletic insanity and his shooting has looked good in the preseason. Everyone else can be competent bench players.
Problem is, no one is an alpha dog and NBA teams need one. Payton might be that. He’s a great dark horse NBA Rookie of the Year candidate. Gordon could grow into it, but neither feels to me like the type of reliable star a team needs to thrive.
There’s a lot to like with the Magic, but not enough to get really excited. They need that mega-watt star.
25. SACRAMENTO KINGS
Trivia question: What was the only team in the NBA last season that had three players average at least 20 points per game? Obviously, since the header for this portion reads SACRAMENTO KINGS, it would be those eternally lottery-bound Kings.
That stat does not help this group one bit considering one of those three is now the backup point guard for the Phoenix Suns – Isaiah Thomas.
Another was Rudy Gay, the poster boy of hatred for the analytic crew.
The third was DeMarcus Cousins. He’s still there and I’m advocating a push to make him the starting center for the Western Conference All-Star team. He puts up gigantic numbers and I truly believe his experience with Coach K and Team USA this summer at the FIBA World Cup will do him wonders. He’s going to mature.
However, when a team essentially swaps Thomas for Darren Collison, who is, under no circumstances a starting point guard in this league, things decline.
Sacramento, for that simple reason, took steps backward in the offseason and that’s terrible when the team was terrible last season. Ben McLemore underwhelmed in his rookie season. Nik Stauskas was brought in to possibly replace him already.
Head coach Mike Malone appeared exasperated one day into training camp last season. He constantly threw his players under the bus to the media and can’t get them to play defense. The Kings finished in the bottom-third in the league last season in both opponents’ scoring and opponents’ field-goal percentage.
Throw in the fact that Gay is still going to chuck, they massive downgraded the point guard position and there isn’t a ton of talent anywhere else, the Kings might actually be worse than last season.
24. BOSTON CELTICS
There are a lot of great pieces in Beantown. Jared Sullinger, Kelly Olynyk, Avery Bradley, Jeff Green, Evan Turner, Brandon Bass and Tyler Zeller are decent NBA players.
There is even quality balance to the C’s roster. Sullinger, Olynyk, Bass and Zeller comprise a nice interior nucleus. Turner, Bradley, Green and Gerald Wallace make for a handy wing group.
The point guard position is where things get interesting.
Rajon Rondo will start the season in street clothes and a sling after falling in the shower. When he returns, is he going to stay in Boston? He’s a free agent at the end of the season and trade rumors never die with Rondo. He has a reasonable deal and it would just be a rental since he’s free this summer.
Do the Celtics want to keep Rondo long-term? He’ll be 29 in February, but has injury history. Boston wants a huge haul in return for Rondo, which might be tough to get since it would be a rental, but Rondo does have value to a contender. Problem is, most of the best teams in the NBA have stud point guards.
Further compounding the drama around Rondo is that the Celtics drafted Marcus Smart in the first round. He’s going to be sensational and a great two-way player. Smart and Bradley could be one of the best defensive backcourts in the league.
Danny Ainge has a lot of decisions on his plate when it comes to Rondo. He’s done well stashing some quality young bigs. Smart and even James Young were nice draft choices. It’ll come down to what to do with Rondo.
23. LOS ANGELES LAKERS
Kobe Bryant will be back. He’s going to score a lot again because he’s going to have a chip on his shoulder bigger than the Hollywood sign. ESPN ranked him as the 40th-best player in the league. No one has faith in the Lakers. Kobe is angry and will be determined.
It won’t matter. The Lakers are bad, especially on defense. There isn’t one player currently on the Lakers’ roster whom you could even generously describe as adequate defensively.
Byron Scott was brought in as head coach. He’s done a decent job in various stops but hasn’t had significant success in a long time. Plus, he’s more old school than beta max, which may not translate well into today’s game.
Mike D’Antoni led this team to the lottery and L.A. lost Pau Gasol to the Chicago Bulls. The new additions were Carlos Boozer (amnestied by those same Bulls and at the end of the rope), Jeremy Lin (still a decent playmaker and shooter), Ed Davis (big fan, actually) and Julius Randle (also, a big fan).
The rest of the roster is populated by Steve Nash, who, if Boozer is at the end, Nash is so far past the end he can’t see the end, and a hodge podge of journeymen who all had career seasons playing for D’Antoni. His offensive system along with an indifference to defense means he could get 10 points per game out of a ketchup bottle.
The Lakers will get a handful of wins thanks to Kobe’s sheer force of will, but this will probably be Bryant’s worst Lakers’ team.
22. INDIANA PACERS
The 2014-15 Indiana Pacers – from the penthouse to the outhouse. Print that on the season tickets.
Paul George’s freak leg injury and Lance Stephenson’s free-agent departure means this Pacers team is going to miss the postseason. Losing both of your best players, and, the only true playmakers on a team that struggled badly offensively means it’s lottery city in May.
The Pacers plan to play hard and not “tank.” That’s fine and with veterans like David West, Roy Hibbert and George Hill, a wonderful defensive-minded head coach in Frank Vogel and some interesting youngsters we haven’t seen much, so Indiana will show full commitment every game.
But the talent isn’t there to make any series noise. Rodney Stuckey and C.J. Miles were brought in to replace Stephenson collectively, now they have to replace both Stephenson and George. Not happening.
In fact, I’m a believer that this Pacers group as we know it is done being contenders. Therefore, I’m advocating trading West. He’s a proven winner and leader who is still effective at both ends of the floor. He should be mildly attractive to a contender.
If the Pacers can find fair value for Hibbert, they should explore that as well. Who knows who Hibbert is anymore. He looked great early in the regular season, but when the Pacers started to circle the drain in April, Hibbert’s game collapsed like a Jenga tower.
The offense, which was problematic under the best of circumstances last season, will now go through Hibbert and West, and that does nothing to soothe concerns.
Indy will be a team no one really wants to play with the defense and size, but talent is what wins and the Pacers have very little this season.
21. DETROIT PISTONS
This squad burned me badly in the past.
Two seasons ago, I named them the best bad team in basketball and last season, I picked them for the playoffs. The Pistons have not made the postseason in either of those instances, so I’m backing off the Detroit train.
The three-man big combo of Josh Smith, Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond stunk. They can’t play together and it’s so obvious new head coach and franchise grand poobah Stan Van Gundy is toying with bringing Monroe off the bench.
That’s just a sample of the problems the Pistons face this season.
Monroe signed about 25 minutes ago. He gambled on himself, signing a one-year contract that will send him into unrestricted free agency in the summer.
There were rumblings from Grantland’s Zach Lowe that Monroe doesn’t want to be with the Pistons if Smith is there. Monroe denied and good thing because Smith’s contract makes him virtually untradable unless the Kings lose their minds once again like they did with Gay.
Brandon Jennings is a shoot-first point guard, so there will be clashes with that. Jodie Meeks was signed as a free agent and his back is broken. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who could really emerge in his second season, is also hurt. There is almost depth up front if Van Gundy keeps that big-man trio together.
But there is some reason for optimism in Motown. Drummond is turning into one of the game’s elite centers and his time in Barcelona with Team USA will help. Like Cousins, Drummond should’ve learned something about winning and professionalism with the game’s best this summer.
Drummond is great on the interior, but Van Gundy needs to find the best lineup for this team to win some games. If that’s Smith at the power forward and Monroe on the bench, so be it.
Van Gundy is a great coach. He’s feather-ruffler so making the tough call on Monroe or Smith will be easy for him. (It also might be easy because Monroe seemingly has no, nor does he want, a future in Detroit.) The Pistons will be better, but not playoff better.
I learned.
20. NEW YORK KNICKS
Phil Jackson’s offseason was hard to describe.
There was good. Getting Carmelo Anthony locked into a long-term max contract before the salary cap explodes in two summers was good. Acquiring Jose Calderon was good. Drafting Cleanthony Early was good. Quincy Acy has been good.
There was bad. Jackson was publicly spurned by his first coaching choice, Steve Kerr. He settled on Derek Fisher, but at least the triangle is back en vogue (not the R&B female trio).
The Knicks should be in the mix for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, but this team has some of the same flaws it exhibited in missing the postseason in 2013-14.
Amare Stoudemire, Andrea Bargnani, Samuel Dalembert and Jason Smith are the primary big men in the rotation. That’s not great, but the best news about the 2014-15 Knicks is what lies ahead.
Cap space.
Assuming the team doesn’t bring back Stoudemire or Bargnani, that’s a ton of cash available this summer. Do any free agents want to sign long term in the summer of 2015 if the cap goes up to $80-$90 million in the summer of 2016? Maybe not, but the Knicks will be flush with cash. It’s still a desirable location. It’s New York City for goodness sake. The Zen Master is there. Melo, too.
If everything broke well, the Knicks could secure the eighth playoff spot in the East. If not, no biggie, there’s a lot to look forward to in Madison Square Garden.
19. NEW ORLEANS PELICANS
Last season, the Pelicans made the moves to make the playoffs. Trades, signings, you name it, they tried.
Their best group – Jrue Holiday, Tyreke Evans, Eric Gordon, Ryan Anderson and Anthony Davis – played a combined 259 games of a possible 410. That’s where the Pelicans’ season went down.
All are expected back. Holiday and Anderson missed the most time. Anderson was having a great season, averaging almost 20 points per game until he severely injured his back/neck.
Is that fivesome playoff-worthy? Probably not in the Western Conference, but definitely in the Eastern Conference. This all comes with the caveat that everyone must stay healthy.
The Pelicans had one more big move in them this summer – the acquisition of Omer Asik. Once Dwight Howard landed in Houston, the Rockets couldn’t make the two fit, so Asik will man the center spot, which moves Davis to the power forward. That will be better for the Unibrow in the long run, avoiding some of the battle scars of banging with bigger, stronger pivot men.
And this season will be a huge one for Davis. He was, at times, amazing in the World Cup. Most believe Davis will improve on last season when he made his first All-Star team and averaged 20.8 points, 10.0 rebounds and 2.8 blocked shots per game, the latter which led the league.
Holiday is one season removed from an All-Star berth. Anderson was unconscious before getting hurt. Davis will probably get some MVP votes this season. That leaves it up to Gordon and Evans. That should scare Pelicans’ brass some. Also, there’s not a ton of depth in New Orleans, so any injury will derail the playoff push once again.
18. DENVER NUGGETS
Here is my pick for team with the biggest win improvement total from last season. In Brian Shaw’s first season at the helm, the Nuggets went 36-46. Shaw fought with Andre Miller, JaVale McGee got hurt early, same goes for Nate Robinson and the campaign hit the skids quick.
Also, Danilo Gallinari missed the entire season with a knee injury. During the 2012-13 season, where George Karl guided the team to a third seed in the West, Gallinari averaged 16.2 points per game, which was second on the team.
The team brought back Arron Afflalo after two seasons in Orlando. They only gave up Evan Fournier and got back an 18.2-point scorer last season with the Magic.
Then, there’s Kenneth Faried. He should’ve been the MVP of the World Cup for Team USA. He’s armed with a new contract and should be overflowing with confidence.
Denver even had a nice draft night getting
And we save the bombshell for last …Gary Harris and Jusuf Nurkic. This roster is deep. If the two rookies get minutes, Shaw could go 12 deep. And, Shaw, like the ratings for “Cheers,” will be better in season two.
The Nuggets would be a playoff team out East, but the West is just too strong.
17. HOUSTON ROCKETS
The Rockets won a lot of regular-season games last season, but never clicked. They got bounced quickly from the playoffs despite home-court advantage and things didn’t get better in Houston in the offseason.
Once LeBron James signed with the Cavaliers, most thought Chris Bosh would head to the Rockets to be the stretch four they desperately needed. He stayed with Miami for crazy money.
Then Chandler Parsons scooted across the state to the Dallas Mavericks. Hard to say the Rockets erred in not matching Parsons’ offer sheet from the Mavs, but either way, he’s gone.
The Rockets have two mega-stars in Dwight Howard and James Harden. Trevor Ariza was a nice replacement for Parsons. He actually plays defense. So, too, does Patrick Beverley, the starting point guard in Houston. Terrence Jones is the other starter.
That’s not a wonderful group surrounding the stars. I’m pro-Ariza in a big way, but the real issue in Houston is the lack of depth. They acquired Jason Terry, who hasn’t had a good season since 2011-12 and, at 37, improvement doesn’t always come with age.
And there seems to be a disconnect between Harden and Howard. It worked last season, but the scoring won’t be the same without Harden, Lin and Asik. Defense should improve in Houston, but I worry about this team.
Only eight squads a conference make the playoffs. There are 11 contenders in the West and for most of the offseason, I had the same eight that made it last season. I do feel like the Rockets will take a step backward and in the ultra-competitve Western Conference, that means missing the playoffs. Kevin McHale is on the hottest seat in the league.
The Rockets don’t work for me.
Until Wednesday, when the 16 playoff teams are ranked. Again, it’s not the best 16 teams in the NBA, but it’s who is going to the postseason.
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