Believe it or not the NBA season kicks off tomorrow night with can't miss double header on TNT. Kevin Garnett (healthy-ish), Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen take on LeBron James and his new teammate Shaquille O'Neal as the Cavs host the Celtics. Then the defending champion Lakers with new small forward Ron Artest face this year's #1 pick Blake Griffin and the Clippers in an all LA showdown. (Normally the Clippers would be hard to justify as being a part of a can't miss double dip, but with Griffin, an in shape Baron Davis, Marcus Camby, and of course an 0-0 record with the whole season ahead of them, I'm going to include them.
I'm going to break down my NBA Preview into 3 parts; Western Conference, Eastern Conference, and Awards. For each conference I will rank the teams 1-15 in the order I believe they will finish then go team-by-team with a quick look of "Who's Returning," "Who's New," and basically why they will finish in X place. Let's dive right in with a look at the West.
Western Conference
1. San Antonio Spurs
2. Los Angeles Lakers
3. Dallas Mavericks
4. Utah Jazz
5. New Orleans Hornets
6. Portland Trail Blazers
7. Denver Nuggets
8. Oklahoma City Thunder
9. Golden State Warriors
10. Los Angeles Clippers
11. Houston Rockets
12. Phoenix Suns
13. Memphis Grizzlies
14. Minnesota Timberwolves
15. Sacramento Kings
1. Spurs
Who's Back: Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Roger Mason, Matt Bonner
Who's New: Richard Jefferson, Antonio McDyess, DeJuan Blair
The Spurs to me, are the team to beat. All the attention will be on the Lakers, as it should being the defending champs, but look at what San Antonio did in the off season. Adding a scorer like RJ with size and intellegence of McDyess, then getting the steal of the draft in the 2nd round with Blair. Unreal. If Manu is healthy they are my pick.
2. Lakers
Who's Back: Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Andrew Bynum, Derek Fisher, Jordan Farmar, Sasha Vujacic, Luke Walton
Who's New: Ron Artest
The Champs basically swapped Trevor Ariza for Ron Arest. Who's a better player, easy it's Artest, but who's a better fit, we will see. You can't top what Ariza helped do last year (win a title). Artest will be asked to play D and hit the open 3, and you know it will always being interesting when Ron is involved.
3. Mavericks
Who's Back: Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Josh Howard, Jason Terry, Erick Dampier, J.J. Barea (shout out Northeastern)
Who's New: Shawn Marion, Drew Gooden, Tim Thomas
It's not a young team. They know they need to win now. It will be fun to see how they match up with the Lakers & Spurs, the two teams that are standing in the way of the rest of the teams on this list. Maybe it's just my obsession with Marion, and him once again playing with a terrific passing point guard but I think the Mavs can be great. Do you think this lineup will cause match up problems galore for opposing teams: Kidd, Terry, Howard, Marion, Dirk... yeah me too.
4. Jazz
Who's Back: Everyone
Who's New: No one
Jerry Sloan brings back the entire crew, for better or worse. Paul Millsap can afford his own meals now, but he'll still likely come off the bench behind Carlos Boozer who is clearly the X factor on this team. Deron Williams is the 2nd best point guard in the league, and he and Boozer can be a deadly 1-2 punch, if Boozer is healthy and plays with some fire.
5. Hornets
Who's Back: Chris Paul, David West, Peja Stojakovic, Mo-Pete, James Posey, Julien Wright, Hilton Armstrong
Who's New: Emeka Okafor
Okafor for Tyson Chandler should give the Hornets more scoring and consistency. I like the move bringing in a double-double machine, takes pressure off of David West as well. How good can Chris Paul be? (22.8 points, 11 assists, 5.5 rebounds, 2.77 steals last year).
6. Trail Blazers
Who's Back: Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, Greg Oden, Rudy Fernandez, Travis Outlaw, The Vanilla Gorilla Joel Pryzbilla, Nicolas Batum
Who's New: Andre Miller
I've read a lot of people saying they don't like the Andre Miller move. I'm not ready to write it off. Portland almost landed Hedo Turkoglu in the off season, but that likely would have sent Rudy Fernandez back to Spain, I'm calling a monster year out of Rudy.
7. Nuggets
Who's Back: Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Nene, Kenyon Martin, J.R. Smith, Birdman, Renaldo Balkman
Who's New: Aaron Afflalo, Ty Lawson
They won't be as good as they were last year, but still a playoff team in my mind simply because they have Melo and Billups. 7th and 8th seed looks like a terrible place to be, you have to play either the Lakers or Spurs and you miss out on the lottery.
8. Thunder
Who's Back: Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green, Nenad Krstic, Nick Collison, Thabo Sefolosha, Shaun Livingston
Who's New: James Harden
Might not be ready to make the step to the post season this year, but I'm going to take them sneaky into the 8th spot. One of the most fun teams in the league to watch with rising superstar Kevin Durant. I also absolutely love the pick of James Harden as well. OKC lucked out with Memphis taking Hasheem Thabeet, because that made sure the Thunder didn't make that mistake.
9. Warriors
Who's Back: Monta Ellis, Stephen Jackson, Anthony Randolph, Andris Biedrins, Corey Maggette, Anthony Morrow, Kelenna Azubuike
Who's New: Stephen Curry
Golden State is a tough team to predict. They could finish as high as 6th or as low as 13th. I'll put them at 9, I love their style, fun to watch. I'm not as high on Curry as most. (Stephen Curry pronounced Steph-En, spelled same way as Stephen Jackson, pronounced Steven... someones wrong.)
10. Clippers
Who's Back: Baron Davis, Eric Gordon, Al Thornton, Marcus Camby, Chris Kamen, Ricky Davis
Who's New: Blake Griffin, Sebastian Telfair, Rasual Butler, Craig Smith
The talent is there, but so is Mike Dunleavy. If Baron doesn't mail it in and Camby and Kamen stay relatively healthy this could be a playoff team with the addition of the only can't miss rookie in last June's draft.
11. Rockets
Who's Back: Aaron Brooks, Shane Battier, Luis Scola, Chuck Hayes, Carl Landry, Kyle Lowry
Who's New: Trevor Ariza, Chase Budinger, David Andersen
Who's Hurt: Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady
The Warriors were the toughest team in the West to predict, the Rockets are just the toughest team in the West. They fought hard in the playoffs last year even without Yao and T-Mac. Sure they could do it again, but 82 games is a long season, their lack of talent has to catch up with them.
12. Suns
Who's Back: Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, Jason Richardson, Grant Hill, Leandro Barbosa
Who's New: Channing Frye, Earl Clark
Steve Kerr = great shooter, awesome color commentator, horrible GM. Too bad because it was fun to watch Steve Nash on a good team.
13. Grizzlies
Who's Back: Rudy Gay, O.J. Mayo, Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, Darrell Arthur
Who's New: Zach Randolph, Allen Iverson, Hasheem Thabeet, Sam Young
Wow. I count 4 guys who can get you 22+ points per game, but how many will when they're all playing together. Say what you want but I would be hard pressed to turn away from a game that had Gay, Mayo, AI, and Randolph playing together. Of course I'll be hard pressed to find a Grizzlies game unless I spring for the League Pass. I don't like the Thabeet pick as I mentioned before, not a horrible player, but #2 overall that's tough to live up too. Also I bet Bill Simmons could be right about contender getting Rudy Gay for 50 cents on the dollar during the year.
14. Timberwolves
Who's Back: Al Jefferson, Kevin Love, Corey Brewer, Ryan Gomes
Who's New: Jonny Flynn, Ramon Session, Wayne Ellington, Damien Wilkins, Ryan Hollins
Kurt Rambis takes over a team that had 24 wins last season and completely botched the 2009 NBA Draft. Ricky Rubio will be playing over seas for the next couple of years while the T-Wolves continue to lose games and look bad doing it. Al Jefferson back from injury... player prop for you: Jefferson Points + Rebounds per game over/under Minnesota Wins + 10.
15. Kings
Who's Back: Kevin Martin, Jason Thompson, Spencer Hawes, Andres Nocioni, Beno Udrih, Francisco Garcia
Who's New: Tyreke Evans, Jon Brockman, Desmond Mason
The Kings are terrible. Martin can score, and I think Evans will have great rookie numbers because not 1 of his games will matter. Is it too soon to start working out John Wall, Derrick Favors, and DeMarcus Cousins?
There you have it the 2009-2010 Western Conference through the eyes of Rich Keefe. I'll have the breakdown of the Eastern Conference coming soon.
-Keefe
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