Midseason NBA Checkup and Redo
/We are at the midway point of the NBA season and it is time for me to checkup on some preseason predictions, and make some corrections and new predictions based on my previous thoughts. Unlike my NBA preseason preview, today I will not break down all 32 teams. Instead, I will talk about the teams I got right, wrong, make new awards predictions and pick the Finals. Spoiler alert, my Finals will be exactly the same as it has been for the past 3 years.
To start, lets look at the Eastern Conference first. I love that the "experts" are saying that the East is just as competitive as the West. That is hilarious to me. The East is very top heavy. The top 4 teams are the only teams that might be able to get a game from the team that will come out of the West. Looking at the standings now, the top 4 teams, in order, are the Celtics, Raptors, Cavs and Heat. The rest of the playoffs, if they started today, would be, going 5-8, Wizards, Pacers, Bucks and Pistons. Teams just on the outside looking in right now include the 76ers, shockingly, the Knicks and maybe the Hornets. The rest of the East is already toast. While the Nets aren't the tire fire they have been, that team plays really hard, they just don't have the horses yet. The Magic, after starting strong, are back to being horrible and shopping their best players. The Bulls are bad, but not as bad as I thought. Who knew that Nikola Mirotic was this good. Also, props to Lauri Markanen. I thought he was going to be an absolute bust, but he has played very well so far. And the Hawks, just yikes. They are so, so bad. I know they are losing on purpose, but man are they bad.
Looking at the bottom half of the playoff teams in the East, there could be some movement at the very bottom. I like the Pistons. I like Stan Van Gundy. Andre Drummond is awesome. But, they don't have much else. Drummond can carry them to the playoffs, but I wouldn't be surprised if the 76ers or even the Knicks claim that 8th spot from them. The Bucks should be better than 7th. I had high hopes for that team this year. Giannis Antentekoumpo has been great, but he isn't really getting much help. Khris Middleton isn't scoring. Jabari Parker cannot stay on the floor. Eric Bledsoe has been a good addition, but he is still learning the playbook. Antentekoumpo needs more help. Also, maybe Jason Kidd isn't that great of a head coach. The Pacers have been much, much better than I expected. I thought they'd be tanking, but they look halfway decent. Victor Oladipo has been great. He better damn well be an All Star this year. They have wildly exceeded my expectations, and I am very curious to see if they can keep it up and stay in the playoff picture. The Wizards are wildly underachieving. John Wall needs help. He cannot do it all himself. Bradley Beal has been better, but they need more from him. They need way more from Otto Porter. Marcin Gortat is a ghost. Kelly Oubre isn't living up to the preseason hype. But, when all is said and done, I think Scotty Brooks is the one who should take most of the blame. Wizards fans should now understand why Thunder fans were fed up with him. He is a mediocre coach. The Wizards should be much, much better. Maybe they will go out and get Boogie Cousins. We will see.
The upper half of the East is the cream of the crop. The Heat are finally figuring it out. Their role players are perfectly playing their roles, and even without Dion Waiters, they are winning games. Erik Spoelstra is the opposite of Scotty Brooks. Spoelstra is proving to be a great NBA coach. The Cavs are third, and I know there are rumblings about "discontent", but they still have LeBron. They will be fine. Their defense is horrid, but I say again, they have LeBron. They will be a force to be reckoned with come playoff time. The Raptors are playing awesome right now. They are embracing this new style of run and gun basketball, and shooting more threes. DeMar DeRozan has been fantastic this year. Even without Kyle Lowry for a few games, they were wining games. The only reason I pause with them, I hope they aren't peaking too soon, much like the Indians did in the MLB this past season. But for right now, the Raptors are fun. The Celtics lead the East, and they are a very good team. Kyrie Irving has been great. Jaylen Brown is proving to be a player to watch. Jayson Tatum is having a great rookie year. Al Horford is the glue that keeps that team together. And Brad Stevens is great. I will fully eat crow with him. He is a great NBA coach. He is one of the best. Losing Hayward 5 minutes into the first game could have been a death knell, but he has kept it together, and the Celtics are playing excellent basketball.
With that being said, I still believe that the Cavs will win the East, and win it fairly easily. They don't care about seeding or home court advantage or any of that garbage. LeBron can turn it on anytime he wants, impose his will and lead this team to a fourth straight Finals, and his eighth straight. I'm sticking with the Cavs to win the East.
Now, lets go to the much better conference, the West. As far as the top 4 in the West right now, we have, of course, the Warriors, Rockets, Spurs and Timberwolves. The bottom half of the West includes the Thunder, Pelicans, Trailblazers and Nuggets, all separated by one single game. Teams just on the outside include the Clippers and the Jazz. The rest of the West is tanking or old or just not good. The Suns are incredibly young, sometimes fun to watch, sometimes a pain and Devin Booker is legit. This team could be pretty good in 3 or 4 years. The Lakers are trash, and now they have the Ball family to deal with. They too are young, but they are proving to be very dysfunctional. This team should be building around Kyle Kuzma and Brandon Ingram, but Lonzo Ball is being stuffed down their throats, and that will be a problem if it continues. Also, if I were LeBron I would stay far, far away from this team. He doesn't need this dysfunction this late in his career. The Mavericks are still relying on Dirk, JJ Barea and Devin Harris. They should be focusing all their time on developing and letting Dennis Smith Jr take over this team. But, Rick Carlisle is still giving time to guys that shouldn't see more than 10 minutes a night, and I'm sorry Dirk, I love you, but that includes you. This team needs to embrace the youth movement. They have good, young players and they need to let them play. The Grizzlies are riddled with injuries to star players, namely Mike Conley, and the other guys they have just aren't that good. Conley and Marc Gasol are all they have. Tyreke Evans is fine, but not an All Star. Ben McLemore, who I thought would do good with a change of scenery, has not been good. JayMychal Green is not developing. Dillon Brooks is seeing crucial minutes, and he isn't ready for that yet. As much as they don't want to, the Grizzlies need to tear it down. The Kings are dreadful. They are going nowhere fast. They have too many of the same style player. DeAron Fox deserves better than this. So do Zach Randolph and Vince Carter. The Kings are a mess.
Looking at the playoff teams, I like the Nuggets. They are young, they hustle and they make you work. They are lacking a true point guard, and that could be the difference in them and a team like the Clippers or Jazz grabbing that eighth spot. No real point guard may doom them. The Trailblazers are all about CJ McCollum and Damien Lillard. They are who they have decided to build around. I know that they are trying to push Jusuf Nurkic as their third guy, and while he is good, he often gets hurt or doesn't go hard all the time. When relying on 2 guards to be the guys, you will win enough regular season games to be a bottom playoff teams, but the lack of defense and a real big man, they won't go past the first round. They are fun to watch though. The Pelicans have 2 of the top 10 players in the league, and nothing more. Jrue Holiday is good, but not 5 years 125 million dollars good. That is what they paid him this offseason. The Pelicans will need Boogie and Anthony Davis to continue to each put up 20 points and 10 rebounds every single night. That is doable, but AD has to stay healthy, which he has never done in the NBA, and Boogie needs to stay calm. That is asking a lot of the both if them. The Thunder should be so much better than the 5 seed. Adding Paul George and Carmelo Anthony should have this team as a top 3 seed, not fighting for the 5th seed. They really need to figure it out sooner rather than later. The Thunder are the team that I am most disappointed in. I had so much higher expectations for them coming into this year. They have not lived up to the hype.
The top half of the West is legit. The Timberwolves are playing this year like many thought they would last year. Adding Jimmy Butler was a big time help. So was the additions of Taj Gibson. Jeff Teague and Jamal Crawford. Andrew Wiggins is in his rightful place as the third option on offense, and he is playing better defense. And after a horrid start on the defensive end, Karl Anthony Towns has been better, and he is putting up double double's every night. The only problem with the T'Wolves, Tom Thibeodeau needs to start staggering minutes. He is playing his top guys way too much, and that will kill them come playoff time. The Spurs are still the Spurs, even without Kawhi Leonard. The fact that they are still a top 3 seed in the West proves that Greg Poppovich is the greatest NBA coach ever. He is winning with guys like LaMarcus Aldridge, who wanted out before the year, Pau Gasol, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli, who are all about a million years old, Patty Mils, Dejonte Murray, just no real big name players, but players that have bought into the system. I will never bet against the Spurs as long a Poppovich is coaching there. The Rockets have exceeded my preseason expectations. I thought they'd be good, but not this good. They are making a record number of threes, and they are actually playing solid defense. I know James Harden as been out for awhile, but the Rockets are still winning for the most part. It doesn't hurt that Chris Paul is back from injury to help until Harden gets back. Eric Gordon has been great. Clint Capela is developing nicely. Ryan Anderson is still hitting threes. The Rockets are great right now, but the playoffs will be the real barometer of how much better they truly got this offseason. And then we have the Warriors. It is no secret to anyone that watches basketball that the Warriors are, far and away, the best team in the NBA. It's not even close. They can be without KD for a week and still win. Same for Steph. Same for Draymond. This team is amazing and will continue to be for some time. Obviously the Warriors are my pick to come out of the West. They will, and should, skate through the playoffs. I wouldn't be shocked if they go undefeated in the playoffs this year.
That means I have the Warriors sweeping the Cavs in the 2018 Finals. I have very little doubt that this exact thing will happen. As far as awards go, lets start with Rookie of the Year. Ben Simmons will win this by a mile. I picked Dennis Smith Jr in the preseason, but Ben Simmons has been far and away the best rookie. Don't count out Donovan Mitchell yet, but Ben Simmons is the big time front runner right now. For Sixth Man of the Year I stupidly picked Tristan Thompson. He has been a train wreck. Now, I'm going to go with Eric Gordon to repeat. He is so explosive off the bench for the Rockets. Coach of the Year should be Greg Poppovich, but Brad Stevens is going to win it. The people that vote want him to win, and picking Pop has become boring, even when it is blatantly true. As for the MVP, had I written this a few weeks ago, it would have been Harden with a bullet. Then he got hurt. Now, I'm going to go with LeBron James. I know the Cavs aren't as good as normal, but LeBron has been amazing this year, even more so than he normally is. He is that awesome.
There you have it, my midseason checkup on the NBA. Lets hope I get some stuff right this time around.
Ty
Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He believes the only way Golden State will lose a playoff game this year is if the team is forced to take a test by student acting as a teacher Kelly Kapowski. How could she do that to poor Slater?
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