The 2013-2014 Eastern Conference will be very exciting to watch. Over time of course, the actual games are going to need to replicated in NBA 2K14 with sliders up on rookie difficulty to make some of these teams resemble an NBA squad. The 76ers have totally unloaded and are in prime position to reclaim the worst NBA record trophy from Michael Jordan’s mess in Charlotte. Their go to scorers are below league average shot makers their most recent franchise player was shipped in the off-season for draft picks and yes, the Alabama football team could beat them. The 2014 Draft Class is as good as the 2013 was bad and the 76ers lead a handful of teams who will be tanking all season for 82 nights in an effort to have the best Draft Lottery odds in May, which is 25% and the 76ers have done the most to be the least and are banking on worse chances than Two-Face’s coin to draft Andrew Wiggins, widely heralded as the best prospect since LeBron James 11 years prior. Even better than Andrea Bargnani. However, since the league adopted the tank-proof Lottery system in 1990, the worst record has only resulted in the best (well, top) pick three times. The team with the 5th best odds has won more times than the first. But the 76ers have all their cards on the table here and for the sake of everyone who is employed in the Philly front office; they better hope Wiggins is a Sixer next summer.
14. Boston Celtics
The prideful Celtics have taken quite a different path than the 76ers to turrible territory. Philly went from bad to awful much more gracefully but the Celtics skipped over bad and mediocre and average and this off-season went from good to awful in a swift motion. Hanging onto hope of beating the Heat, the Celtics were no match for what was beneath Miami and their veteran crew was bounced in round one of the postseason. Suffice to say the rebuilding job happened way too late and so it happened all at once with a draft night trade sending Paul Pierce, KG, and Jason Terry to the Brooklyn Net$. Weeks later they traded their Head Coach Doc Rivers to the Clippers for a 2nd round pick aka a hard-to-pronounce name after Rivers’ suddenly didn’t want to Coach an awful team even though he signed the contract with bright red warning lights. So the Celtics entered the pit of NBA competition with the move and even though they have talent capable of being a little better than really, really bad (Jeff Green); the tanking procedure is expected to be deployed in Boston this year. Rajon Rondo and his knee will get all the rest he needs and the Celtics, like the 76ers, are fully expected to bottom out in attempts at the top draft pick. Poor Bill Simmons deserves better.
13. Charlotte Bobcats
Of course Michael Jordan would love to have the top pick and his odds are expected to venture near the top for the third straight season. But the off-season signing of center Al Jefferson will make it more difficult for the lowly Bobcats to hit rock bottom. Kemba Walker and Gerald Henderson took big leaps last season but the Bobcats measureable success will only be able to reach its low ceiling if they can receive production from Michael Jordan’s last couple top 10 picks; Cody Zeller (4th/13), Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (2nd/12) and maybe Bismack Biyombo (7th/11). If these players can join Walker and Henderson in showing promise the Bobcats won’t be terrible, they’ll just be bad. Baby steps.
12. Toronto Raptors
I had originally planned on ranking the Raptors (much) higher, even knock knock knocking on the NBA Playoffs door. But it seems that in mere months after a junior deluxe blockbuster trade to acquire Rudy Gay, the versatile swingman with a contract that distracts from his abilities is once again on the trade market. Sure, Rudy Gay has no business being the 4th highest paid SF in the league behind the obvious Melo-LBJ-KD combination but I have yet to find the source to say he demanded the Grizz give him such a lucrative deal in 2010. Gay is a really talented player and I think the Raps could be a viable team with him as a featured player not a featured scorer. Strategically speaking though the Raptors shopping him so soon after trading for him makes sense. The Grizzlies were eager to rid of his salary and rid of it fast. While I am a BIG Ed Davis fan, the return if they do indeed trade Gay should exceed Davis in both quality and quantity. If my math is correct, the next best thing to an expiring contract is a contract that expires in two years. The two years pay the former UConn star $37,206,258. But enough about that, the Raptors still will send out a really promising young core. Underrated but oft-injured catalyst and scoring point guard Kyle Lowry is …underrated but oft-injured. That’s that on him don’t let advanced scouts tell you otherwise. Jonas Valanciunas has elite upside at center and Terrence Ross at shooting guard. Keep an eye on Austin Daye, who’s been buried on the benches of Detroit and Memphis his first four seasons and sure enough was part of the Rudy Gay dealings between Detroit and Memphis. So since Rudy Gay is not staying in town per #ChrisBroussardSources and also real ones, the Raptors seem content and perhaps prefer to be in the Wiggins sweepstakes. After all he is Canadian. So is Toronto.
11. Milwaukee Bucks
I wrestled emotionally for 26 minutes (or so it seemed) as to whether Milwaukee should be 10th or 11th solely due to whether OJ Mayo had just had a nightmarish second half last season in Dallas or whether his first half can be replicated into a whole season and beyond. Financially the Bucks think the latter. As an #MFFL I was contractually obligated to watch and keep any objects besides stress balls out of reach when Mayo was on the court last season. I was afraid that he played so very poorly he would opt in to a meager salary but he tested the market and of course in a league that throws millions to Al Harrington and Travis Outlaw there’s always a buyer. I was shocked when the Bucks gave Mayo a 3-year $24 million dollar contract. After how he finished the previous campaign I half-heartedly expected him to pay a team for a roster spot instead of the customary. Despite all the Orange Juice and Mayonnaise, the Bucks big off-season move regarded Brandon Jennings and his restricted free agent status. Jennings is a shoot-first ask questions later then consider passing point guard and I think the Bucks made a wise move moving on. New Head Coach Larry Drew tried hard to sign-and-trade for his former point guard Jeff Teague from Atlanta – another restricted free agent – but the Hawks wouldn’t take the bait and the Pistons stepped in. Brandon Knight has a higher upside than Jennings to me and the Bucks made the swap and acquired two more players as well. They also flipped a few spare parts to turrible Phoenix for Caron Butler, Wisconsin native and 2011 NBA Champion. The Bucks have a shot blocking machine with even more room to develop at center in Larry Sanders and an 18-year old rookie Giannis Antetokounmpo who is insistent on not detouring back overseas and wants in on the NBA right away. He’s been as impressive as his name is wide in the preseason so far but of course preseason basketball makes preseason football look like the World Series. The Bucks were the final playoff team in the East last season despite 6 more losses than wins. They were the first team to finish under .500 and still make the postseason since the 2010-11 Indiana Pacers [in the Mavs title year]. In the Bucks’ credit they traded for J.J. Redick to try and get a game vs. Miami in the first round (lost each game by double digits; 11 closest) and I guess they can take solace in the fact that they laughed right in the face of the Pacers’ 37 wins with their 38! The Bucks are in a rebuilding spot but there is so much famine out East they won’t get a high pick out of it.
10. Orlando Magic
Yeah, I know, the Magic were the league’s worst team last year. I just think even if this team tried to tank like some of their fellow East teams their advantage in young talent would stumble and win games by accident. A year without Dwight Howard was full of losing but new Orlando management proved everyone wrong when they elected against Andrew Bynum from the Lakers and instead took a handful of players in an expanded trade involving Denver and Philadelphia. In expanding the deal they acquired 11 picks and players including Arron Afflalo, rookie Maurice Harkless but the prize of the deal has turned out to be former 76er Nikola Vucevic. Used sparingly his rookie year in Philly, the Magic allowed him to develop in the starting lineup and boy did he. Only David Lee and the Howard guy finished with more double-doubles last season. Along the way the Magic traded impending free agent J.J. Redick to the Bucks for underused therefore undiscovered Tobias Harris. In 27 games after arriving in Orlando, Harris introduced himself to the league with 17.3 points and 8.5 rebounds per game. The best lottery odds didn’t land Orlando the top pick but in such a weak draft the Magic still got the guy they wanted with the 2nd pick. Victor Oladipo has drawn comparisons to Dwayne Wade and if one preseason game I watched on T.V. is an indication of what’s to come, he’s going to be a very successful pro. Orlando has a super talented young core but the steal of Tobias Harris will propel them past a bunch of lousy conference mates and though I think there is a big jump after the bottom five in the East, Orlando has the most talent of them all…as well as valuable trade pieces like Jameer Nelson and Afflalo to continue adding to a rapidly improving team post-Dwightmare. By the way, Dwight is such a fool.
9. Atlanta Hawks
General Manager Danny Ferry did a pretty terrible job in Cleveland that eventually ended up in losing the game’s best player. He spent $65 million on Larry Hughes to be LeBron’s sidekick and also threw millions and millions to Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Donyell Marshall and Damon Jones. Sure, he got Mo Williams and Antawn Jamison but if those are your second and third options, yikes. But in his tenure as Cavs GM from 2005-10, he built a dominant regular season crew that played to a 272-138 in five sets of 82 games. But he is a former Spurs player and that gift keeps giving as he became the Atlanta Hawks GM in 2012. He first dealt the absurd contract of Joe Johnson and didn’t give Josh Smith a max deal the year after. I’m in the minority that thinks he actually upgraded from “Smoove” when he signed former Jazz combo forward Paul Milllsap to join one of the league’s best bigs, Al Horford, up front. Jeff Teague was retained as well and other moves like signing Louis Williams and trading for Kyle Korver as well as savvy draft selections such as John Jenkins (2012) and Dennis Schröder (2013) definitely have the Hawks in the right direction. Sure, they aren’t sniffing the Larry O’Brien trophy but the Johnson-Smith teams had a limited ceiling and rebuilding around Horford and Teague will eventually raise that ceiling.
8. Cleveland Cavaliers
Speaking of Cleveland, they had themselves an interesting off-season. Mike Brown is back as Head Coach and Andrew Bynum is on board for two years and $24.5 million, though only $6 million of it all is guaranteed. If his mind, body and spirit can be regulated perhaps he can return to dominant form. I’m on record saying Bynum has tools to be better than Dwight Howard. Apparently he either wasn’t healthy or coherent enough to get a bigger contract as originally expected from Dallas or Atlanta so the Cavaliers took the risk and it is a terrific one whether it works out or not. Cleveland is of course eyeing the 2014 off-season when LeBron James has a player-option and the Cavs will have a ton of cap space and a fire extinguisher for all the burned jerseys after “The Decision” in 2010. I personally think the Cavs are putting a little too much hope into LBJ returning, but the possibility is enough to be excited about. In the meantime the Cavaliers won the draft lottery but in a historically weak draft selected Antony Bennett. Bennett was projected to go not first, second, third, or ninth but 10th in nbadraft.net’s final mock. The Bennett pick was a shocker and Bill Simmons’ reaction to the selection and the ones ahead was, in the words of Bruce Wayne, ‘damn good television.’ A year earlier Cleveland selected Dion Waiters but it was the year before that when, despite having the 8th best odds in a pick from the Clippers, won the draft lottery and drafted budding superstar Kyrie Irving. Irving got the remainder of the sports’ world attention at All-Star Weekend in 2013 when he won the 3-point shootout, scored 15 in the all-star game but also unintentionally ruined Brandon Knight’s life. As talented as Irving is – and he really is – his injury problems have gone overlooked because of an incompetent Cleveland Cavaliers bunch. Irving missed 15 games his rookie season and 23 last year. Perhaps we’ll attribute it to a young man who played just 11 college games at Duke growing into his next level body. Concerns over whether Irving is injury prone could really set Cleveland back, but if the nagging toe and shoulder injuries are behind him he is poised to lead the Cavaliers into the playoffs – and out of the lottery – for the first time since LeBron James so rudely left behind the allure of J.J. Hickson and Candace Parker’s brother.
*7. Washington Wizards
Looking back, there’s no doubt the Wizards should regret not acquiring James Harden when he was for the taking. Oklahoma City wanted Bradley Beal and a little more and though Beal is adored by executives around the league, we’ve seen just how good James Harden is. On the bright side, the eventual deal has left the Thunder in crisis mode. Well, bright for me. But shoo OKC, I have things to say about the Wizards, albeit a spoonful. Even with sophomore Beal and rookie Otto Porter, this projection falls completely on the shoulders and knees of 2010 top overall selection John Wall. His first two seasons displayed flashes of very legitimate superstardom but his knock was turnovers as he led the league in 2011-12 with 255 TO’s. However, a lot of those were alley oops to Javale McGee that probably should have been converted and passes to Javale McGee that probably should have been caught and high fives to Javale McGee that probably should have connected. Poised for a rebound season, Wall missed the first 33 games last season. The Wizards decided to pick up some veterans aka bad contracts anticipating having their young PG on board last year with veterans Nenê, Trevor Ariza (remember him?!) and Emeka Okafor (remember him, too?!) coming to D.C and trying ignite a fire in a franchise with many holes magnified by a Veselý-Singleton-Mack 2011 draft. The team remains distant from contending for contention yet I have them in the first non-playoff spot in the East. I believe John Wall is that good. IF healthy, he and Beal can be a great young combo in the woeful Eastern Conference. Also, Martell Webster is good again!
*After the Marcin Gortat trade, I have moved Washington from 9 to 7.
6. Detroit Pistons
The very, very new-look Pistons will be up there as one of the most intriguing teams to watch in 2013-14. They added Josh Smith and Brandon Jennings through American free agency, added sharp-shooting and extremely accomplished 25-year old Italian Leaguer Luigi Datome. They drafted a guy named Kentavious which is automatic bonus points and the Motor City turned out to be the place where Maurice Cheeks finally got a head coaching job again after four seasons as an assistant in OKC and babysitter to Russell Westbrook. Cheeks will have the task of bringing not only a new group together, but one with ball-stoppers (Jennings, Smith) and a frontcourt combo with ridiculous potential. Unfortunately Lawrence Frank refused to play Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond together last year and if that is indeed expected this year, it will a learning-on-the-fly experience for the supremely talented big men. Chauncey Billups is back where he got his ring to be a player-coach, actually no I think they want him to play more than coach. So when he’s worn down by Thanksgiving they can utilize him primarily as a mentor. Shoot-and-usually-miss-first guards Jennings and Rodney Stuckey surely will benefit as distributors from the 16 year vet known as “Mr. Big Shot.” Even so, Detroit is finally over the Ben Gordon-Charlie Villanueva atrocity four summers ago and has more than enough talent to pass by a lot of bad teams but not the good ones. Still, Pistons fans will welcome a change in end game results.
5. New York Knicks
Before I’m bashed (takes viewers, though) by all #KnicksTapers let me first say that I am a very big Carmelo Anthony fan; and not just because we are both May 29th products. Usually opinions on the New York Knicks sway with how the analyzer feels about Melo. However it’s not the league’s highest paid small forward that damages my take on the Knicks, but rather the league’s second highest paid power forward, Amar’e Stoudemire. Perhaps the ‘e’ in his first name is detached because the player with the greatest hit to their team’s salary cap in the Eastern Conference has simply not given “E”nough during his tenure in New York. There have been more than a couple moments of his old self but those evaporate with injuries to his eyes, knees and toes. More troublesome is the continued lack of success to involve the 02-03 Rookie of the Year in an offense centered on a player instead of player(s). Talent isn’t the problem by any means under the lights of Madison Square Garden. The Knicks further added to a squad that finished second in the East last season by acquiring Andrea Bargnani cheaply in bodies only because he is not in dollars. The Raptors gave 2006’s top draft pick the slot but not player appropriate contract extension on July 8, 2009 and started regretting it on July 9th. The Knicks hope to get a perfect complement to Amar’e and Tyson Chandler as Bargnani has certainly proven over the years to be interested in, well, not clogging the rebounding lanes for his teammates. Maybe it’s time that becomes a positive…I just typed that. They re-signed J.R. Smith who probably would have been out of even their budget if he wasn’t a notorious knucklehead that teams didn’t want to invest heavily in. I love, love, love the addition of always underrated Coach Pop disciple Beno Udrih, who will be an upgrade over Pablo Prigioni even if he gets a New York bonus to play blindfolded.PG/SF/SG/SF/SG/PG Iman Shumpert is expected to take another leap with his ACL surgery behind him. Metta World Peace is also a Knick, so that’s cool and not really a big deal at all. The Knicks got better, there is no doubt of that, but they still have many (of the same) problems and the teams projected ahead of them in the standings and below them on your computer screen got even better.
4. Chicago Bulls
It feels like Derrick Rose has appeared in more commercials than games in his professional career. Last year is a no brainer because the ad campaign by Adidas, #TheReturn, never happened. The Bulls were missing their superstar but remained true to their identity as a scrappy, defensive-minded and opportunistic group of players. Head Coach Tom Thibodeau’s coach-by-system instead of coach-by-personnel mentality made the Bulls more than a playoff team as they actually defeated the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the 2013 playoffs. Game 4 of that series was a 142-134 triple overtime Bulls victory. But it’s rightly remembered for the display that Nate Robinson, whose 1-year contract wasn’t even fully guaranteed until New Years, put on. Robinson scored 34 points, including 23 in the fourth quarter, one shy of Michael Jordan's franchise playoff record for most points in a quarter. Again, Nate Robinson wasn’t even going to sleep at night with his spot on the Bulls roster guaranteed the next day. After filling in for injured Kirk Hinrich for injured Derrick Rose for 29 games, the opposites of Nate Rob’s playing style and Coach Thibz hard-nosed system became a full-time gig. The bulls frontcourt of Joakim Noah, Carlos Boozer and very talented reserve (for now) Taj Gibson as well as versatility from Luol Deng held them more than afloat without a player deemed as the league’s best player by Ric Bucher. Rose is obviously returning this season (you heard, right?) with more commercials but less hashtags (as fans I think we’re still losing this battle) and if preseason is any indication (which it never is but is here…) the league’s only not-LeBron MVP since a weird sports time when the Arizona Cardinals played in the Super Bowl. Health will be key across the board if the Bulls want to be title contenders, if any of their injury-prone players fall to injury-proneness than a championship is out of the question, but a scrappy fun team isn’t...
3. Brooklyn Nets
The Nets have a lot of really good players making a lot more money than they should be. But Russian scientist Leonid Pavel has figured out a way to make the energy stabilizer into a bomb. Whoops… But Russian billionaire Mikhail Dmitrievitch Prokhorov has spent a lot of money and then spent even more to build something to dethrone the back-to-back champion and on more back-to Eastern champion Miami Heat. The delayed Celtics rebuilding project ended up in a ‘Yacht Sale’ (instead of yard sale to make it funny) where Prokhorov laughed at our American salary cap and American luxury tax penalties and then ate a rock hard turnip and spit at aforementioned NBA policies. Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry were shipped from Boston to Brooklyn for scrap metal the Trade Federation wouldn’t even accept. (From Star Wars not Russia, just in case) The Salary Cap for the upcoming NBA season is $58.679 million and the luxury tax will be $71.748 million. The Brooklyn Nets estimated $98 million payroll will cause them to pay a luxury tax amount almost equal to the league’s luxury tax budget! Let that sink in. The high-spending Brooklyn Nets in all likelihood will end up paying a luxury tax penalty that almost matches the league’s whole team-allowed luxury tax cap threshold. But Russian Billionaires tend to operate as very wealthy men and the acquisitions from Boston as well as the signing of Russian Andrei Kirilenko piled on top of Deron Williams, Brook Lopez and Joe Johnson – the 4th highest paid player in pro basketball – this team is super-ultra-crazy-duper-mega talented but do they have LeBron James? I don’t believe so. That’s an obstacle that can’t be overcome with dollars or rubbles.
2. Indiana Pacers
2010-2011; Pacers forward Danny Granger is ranked 4th in ESPN’s Fantasy Rankings, only lower than powerhouse players LBJ, KD and CP3
2012-2013; Just two seasons later, the Pacers take the Miami Heat to an Eastern Conference Finals elimination game without Granger, who played just five games the whole year
Granger’s rapid descent from his gradual ascent to stardom did however open the door for Paul George who is displaying a similar skillset to the player he replaced, except a little better in every category. George had a magnificent season, averaging 17/7/4 along with almost two steals and a block per game. In the playoffs he took it up a notch, bumping up 19/7/4 but really delivered some stellar “won’t show up in the box score or interweb” performances, particularly in the Heat series against LeBron. The Pacers are the newest up and coming team that is a legitimate championship contender, but their bugaboo was their bench, which scored only more points than Portland’s white guys did last season. So this offseason they addressed their bench and did a damn fine job of it. CJ Watson is an excellent upgrade from DJ Augustin and Chris Copeland (or anybody) is better than Sam Young sans pump fake. But the big moves came internally via Granger’s expected return, though he is already a big question for opening night. The move that solidified by belief in Indiana’s spot behind only Miami was acquiring sixth man Luis Scola from the Phoenix Suns for a first round draft pick and the sweet release from Gerald Green’s contract. Scola has been underappreciated his whole career. Houston always tried to upgrade from the versatile power forward and eventually amnestied him in their greater quest that – luckily for them – ended up working. Phoenix claimed him off amnesty waivers and someone with the luscious locks on Scola just cannot take the Arizona weather. Or the Arizona basketball team. With Indiana, Scola will be one of the top candidates for 6th Man of the Year and the Pacers will again be an absolute threat to Miami’s dominance, but with more weapons and experience in 2014.
1. Miami Heat
What is there to say? They still have LeBron James. Unless something really crazy goes down in the league this year he will win the MVP award for the third consecutive season and his fifth overall in a six year span. Dwayne Wade will be overanalyzed each and every game about how he is worn down and no longer a reliable Le-Robin. Same for Chris Bosh who does exactly what he needs to in his role but the guy looks like so many different animals at so few different times the hate certainly will not stop in the Bosh front either. I started this whole big preview with the West’s worst Phoenix Suns and how their owner Robert Sarver is running the franchise poorly. I’m going to end with the East’s best that is orchestrated to near perfection by President Pat Riley. His maneuvering to acquire one of the greatest players ever in 2010, back-to-back NBA titles along with a third straight appearance that didn’t go their way (!) and his marvelous ability to improve an already elite squad each season is exciting to watch from afar. The hate for this team is understandable, but mistaken. Opportunistic as any occasion in the National Basketball Association’s 67 year history, Riley was at it again this summer adding to the double defending champs. Financially every team but Brooklyn has some limits and the Heat was forced to amnesty Mike Miller, who hibernates most of the year anyway but has been a big contributor in their playoff runs. But in a fun but sad twist of irony the Heat brought back their no.2 overall pick from 2008 on league minimum contract. Once dealt to create flexibility for LeBron he now returns with a contract liken to fellow newcomer Roger Mason Jr. Greg Oden is back in the NBA and even all the haters have to hope the best for 2007’s top pick. Surely enough with the additions of these high draft picks, Miami’s roster includes an astounding seven players who were top 6 picks (1- LeBron, Oden, 2 – Beasley, 4- Bosh, 5 – Wade, Allen, 6 – Battier). Career paths are all over the place but every one of these players, new or old by age or South Beach arrival time, can and is expected to make the champs even stronger. They’ll need it because the organizations behind them, like Indiana and Brooklyn, will be challenging them for Eastern Conference supremacy that hasn’t ventured north of Miami since 2010.
Enjoy the season everyone!
@MFFeLtman
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