The NBA -- It's FANtastic

The NBA has just returned from their All-Star weekend and I couldn’t be more excited. That may seem like an odd thing to hear from someone around this time of year, especially one who hasn’t always been the biggest fan of the NBA. Most people refer to the time after the Super Bowl and before the NCAA tournament begins, as the dead period of sports. Well, for all those people out there (myself not being one of them) take a look towards the NBA. There is some good stuff going on there. I was slightly prompted to write this blog after noticing that my roommate had DVR’d the All-Star game the other day. Nobody gets excited about All-Star games in any sport, right? Let alone records them so that they don’t miss any of the action. I also noticed that I was very much into the Suns-Lakers game. Now, I still have a hard time watching an entire game through, but I admit, I am much more interested than I ever have been and I’m greatly looking forward to the playoffs. I’ll also temper this enthusiasm by saying I’d still probably choose a big time college game over the NBA.

With that said, let’s look at what the “association” has going for it these days. First, it has an abundance of extremely likeable stars, which I think is an underrated aspect of sports. Fans want to identify with and like the players they’re rooting for. While all of Major League Baseball’s players are currently being questioned about possible steroid use, the young guys in the NBA are running around the court smiling and putting on a show. LeBron, Chris Paul, Melo, Wade, Dwight Howard, Bosh, Deron Williams, Brandon Roy, etc, are all very likable, talented, AND young players. That’s not including the veteran guys like Nash, KG, Shaq, Pierce, Duncan, Iverson and so on that are still roaming the landscape of the NBA. If you took a look around All-Star weekend, there were guys that people really wanted to root for. Heck, even Kobe has rebounded and has gained some support from the fans. All in all, this is probably the best group of players the NBA has had since Magic, Bird, MJ, Isiah, and Barkley were running around out there.

More importantly though is the quality of basketball that is being played combined with the excitement of some of the potential playoff match-ups. In the East, you have two extremely elite teams; even teams that people would say have a chance to beat a Western conference team in the final. I know Miami won the championship a couple years ago, but no one really thought they had a chance and for the entire season, there was never any serious thought given to an Eastern team winning a championship. I am genuinely excited for the possibility of a Boston-Detroit conference championship and I think whoever came out of it would be just as likely to win a title as the team that came out of the West. (Note: prior to the All-Star game, Boston was 16-0 against Western conference teams.) I think they’re two regular season games this year are a good indication of what a 7-game series could be. The Celtics have three veteran guys who have never won anything and are extremely motivated to win a championship and more importantly extremely willing to do anything to win. Their desire and the way they play cause the guys around them to play the same way. It’s a very infectious thing and it makes them a very fun team to watch. Detroit is the team that’s been there many times before and has the veteran guys who’ve proven they can win. They also play a slightly less boring style of basketball, which helps in making me want to watch them. In addition to the usual suspects, they have some nice young guys, Stuckey, Affalo, and Maxiell, who are playing bigger roles for them that may put them ahead of where they’ve been.

There are two young, exciting teams behind them that are most likely a year or two away from being on their level but nonetheless are exciting to watch and have pieces that can make for difficult match-ups. The Magic have the next best dominating big man in the sport (Howard), a very good wing player (Lewis), a couple nice young guards (Nelson, Arroyo, Bogans), and one former role player that has emerged into a very good player (Turkoglu). Toronto has the poor man’s Steve Nash (Calderon), a host of good wing players who shoot the ball (Parker, Delfino, Kapono), and a great, yet underrated post player (Bosh). The last team in the East that can bring some interest to the party is Cleveland. The Cavs has one thing that no other team in the East (or all the league for that matter) has. His name is LeBron and he is the best player in the sport. (Sorry Kobe) We all saw what he could do last year as he single-handedly, with a very little help from Boobie Gibson, led his team to an Eastern conference title. They have exactly the same team, as his management has done nothing to help him out, so who’s to say he can’t do it again this year? My only thing is that I think the other teams are better this year. Obviously Boston is an elite team, but Detroit is also probably a bit better than they were last year.

Now to the West, which for years has been the superior conference and, from top to bottom, still is. The competitive balance in the conference is ridiculous. There are so many good teams and trying to pick out the best team or predict who will come out of the playoffs is near impossible. Ask a bunch of experts to predict the best team in the West and you may get 5 or 6 different answers. First of all, one of the following teams; Denver, Houston, or Golden State will not make the playoffs as a 50-win team. Second, most of the good teams in the West have gone out and made significant improvements, or at least moves (I’ll come back to that) to their teams. Anyway you look at it the Western conference playoffs have a chance to be as exciting and unpredictable as anything we’ve seen in a while.

At the top of the conference you have the Suns. One of the best regular-season teams for the past couple years, who’ve gotten very close the last two years to winning the conference title. Many of the same parts are there, but now they’ve just added the most dominating big man in the last 15 years. Is he past where he was during his prime? Absolutely, but can he make the Suns into a championship team is the real question. They probably maxed out their potential as they were constructed with Marion. They were going to win 60+ games and win a couple rounds of the playoffs, but lose to a tougher team. Now, they have a physical presence in the post that will bring a bit of toughness to the court if nothing else. He’ll still command some double teams which will open the perimeter up for all their shooters (Nash, Barbosa, Bell, Diaw, Hill) and not allow teams to focus so much on Stoudamire. Throw in the fact that they can throw the ball to him in the post when things slow down in the half-court postseason style of basketball. Watching Nash throw him an alley-oop last night in the second half gave me plenty of reason to think there are plenty of easy baskets for him to get which will give the big fella even more reason to get up and down the floor. In the postseason I think they’re more dangerous now with Shaq. The Lakers may be the most dangerous team in the West, but also the most uncertain. Kobe’s finger is a bit of a concern (41 point effort not withstanding) and nobody knows when and if Bynum will be back, nor how good he’ll be upon his return. With Bynum, they have two very good 7-footers and Gasol’s presence allows Bynum to really just focus on defense and rebounding. He doesn’t have to be a bona fide scoring option. Kobe is still the most clutch player in the league and has the ability to go off for 50 any night in the playoffs. Odom as a 4th offensive option is a very nice piece to have, but how he responds to that role needs to be determined. They have a bunch of nice role players as well in Fisher, Vukavic, Radmonovic, and Farmar.

The Spurs are the most consistent team of the past ten years. Everyone keeps saying they can turn it on once the postseason starts, but they are getting older each year and eventually that catches up to you. Their lockdown defender (Bowen) looks very old and doesn’t find himself on the floor in crunch time anymore. Horry, Finley, and Barry are older and not playing very well. Parker, Duncan, and Ginobili are still a very formidable trio and they have the best coach in the game, but it remains to be seen if they have the supporting cast to prevail from a loaded conference. Dallas was a team that absolutely needed to make a trade, but they may have ended up making the wrong one. They changed their style of play a couple years ago and ended up winning the conference. After having the NBA title taken away from them, they’ve seemed to become a little stagnant. They have one of the most underrated, up and coming stars in Josh Howard and a superstar in Dirk, but other than that they lack an identity. Dirk is still a 7-footer who does none of the things 7-footer’s do. Howard and Terry are guys that thrive in an open court game, and they had a young, promising point guard in Harris whose game closely resembled Tony Parker. They want to play the Spurs style but they lack the low-post presence of Duncan. Dirk doesn’t play that type of game. So, getting Kidd may not have been the right move for them. Instead I think they should’ve kept Harris and tried to get a low-post scorer instead. They gave up their best young chip to make a run at this season, and I don’t think they’re that close this season to a title.

The most intriguing team out West may be the Jazz. The only move they made came earlier in the season when the traded for Kyle Korver, a pure shooter to put on the wing. Other than that, they’ve relied on the process of developing talents and allowing players to grow together. Their core group of Boozer, Okur, AK, and Williams has played together for 3 years now and looks very comfortable together. Boozer has become a top-level post guy and Williams is one of the best point guards in the game. Their ability to run the two-man game like Malone and Stockton used to obviously make them dangerous. Throw in the fact that you can throw 3 shooters around them and I don’t think there are many teams that want to see them in a long series. As witnessed in last years playoffs, they can definitely make a run and now that they’re another year older, I think they might have what it takes. The team that I think everyone is rooting for is the Hornets. You have the New Orleans storyline, which makes them a feel good story and then they may have the most likable, exciting player in the whole game. Chris Paul has taken the league completely by storm, causing fans in Atlanta and Milwaukee to only dream of what could’ve been. Paul has been absolutely dominant this year. Throw in David West’s emergence as an All-Star and they have a nice little thing going. The only question about them is how they will handle the newness that is the playoffs, especially with so many quality, veteran teams out there. They have a nice nucleus with two good shooters (Peterson and Peja) on the wings with a defensive, rebounding presence in the middle (Chandler) and two All-Stars, but the experience is what may keep them from advancing far. If there was not so much other depth in the conference, I would feel much more comfortable backing them, but I can’t feel confident based on the other teams in the conference. Then you have the three teams battling for two spots. All of these teams are currently playing over .600 ball, so it’s pretty hard to imagine one of them not being in the playoffs, but it’s going to happen. Last year we saw what Golden State can do if they get in, Denver may be one of the most indefensible teams, with Melo and AI as the best scoring duo in the league, and Houston has Yao, who causes match-up problems for anyone. If T-Mac is playing to his potential, they obviously become a difficult out. Anyway you look at, the 1-8 match-up is going to be highly entertaining as are the rest of the match-ups. Needless to say I’m looking forward to it.

Heading into this season, there was a bit of a cloud hanging over the league because of the Tim Donaghy scandal. Some people questioned the integrity of the league, and will good cause, but it seems to have done little to temper people’s overall enthusiasm. I guess having compelling basketball doesn’t hurt that fact. But baseball is going to have a hard time distancing itself from the whole steroids thing and if anything comes out of the whole “spygate” scandal, the NFL may have a hard time getting away from that as well. Whatever the reason is, the NBA and David Stern should be very happy with the state of their league.