So the March Madness burn-out has subsided, and it’s time for the people’s champ to return. With the NBA playoffs starting up this weekend, I think it’s time we turn our attention to the 14 teams that won’t be featured before we forget about them until the lottery. We all know that the Cavaliers, Celtics, Lakers, and Magic are in, and we know the reasons why, but let’s try to figure out where the teams that missed the cut went wrong:
The league’s perennial laughingstock and doormat, the Clippers did nothing to change that reputation in 2008-2009. Their summer featured the anticipated arrival of Baron Davis from the Golden State Warriors, who was returning back to his roots in LA. That high was short-lived as the cornerstone of the Clippers, Elton Brand, jetted for the Philadelphia 76ers. And it all unraveled from there: Baron couldn’t fit in with Mike Dunleavey’s incredibly-slow, half-court offense – having thrived in Don Nelson’s run-and-gun in Oakland – and Dunleavey continued to make terrible decisions as GM: he brought in (and overpaid) the aged Marcus Camby, the DUI-machine Zach Randolph, and “never-seen-a-jumpshot-I-didn’t-like” Ricky Davis. Pair that with keeping your most explosive scorer – Eric Gordon, the ROOKIE – on the bench for most of the season, and having Chris “Caveman” Kaman sidelined with an injury all season, and you can see where this is going: 19-63.
Speaking of teams that the Baron Davis fiasco ruined, how ‘bout them Warriors? They sent away their best player the past three years, a big point guard who ran Don Nelson’s system, and, almost inexplicably, wasn’t prone to temper-tantrums with the Ol’ Drunkard like with the Hornets. A more subdued Baron led the Warriors to the thrilling 8-over-1 upset of the Dallas Mavericks in 2007, but those days are long gone. They effectively swapped for Corey Maggette, who opted out of his contract in LA and moved to the Bay Area. Maggette’s downfall is that he will shoot the ball until his arm falls off, no matter how many he actually makes. Plus, he’s a Duke player in the NBA, which should raise immediate red flags (see: Elton Brand). Then, Point Guard of the Future Monta Ellis, who made Baron Davis somewhat expendable due to his outstanding play, injured himself before the season supposedly in a “pick-up basketball game.” And by “pick-up game,” he meant “moped crash.” That’s two strikes, Monta: not only did you lie, but you got hurt riding a moped? Are you in third grade? At least when Kellen Winslow, Jr., trashed his body it was on a big-kid’s bike. Of course, the Warriors also dealt away Al Harrington to the Knicks for Jamal Crawford, which has proved to be moderately successful, but it was always too little, too late in Oaktown: 29-53.
Keeping the Cali flavor going, that team in the Golden State’s capitol is pretty horrible, isn’t it? They’ve clinched the dubious distinction of worst record in the NBA, and they’ve earned every bit of it. Their problems started last year when they traded away Mike Bibby to the Atlanta Hawks, who made the playoffs as an 8-seed in 2008 and took the Boston Celtics to seven games, then clinched the 4-seed in the East this season. That left them with Kevin Martin as their star player, who most people wouldn’t even recognize if they passed him on the street. No one on the team made the All-Star game. They traded away their second-leading scorer, John Salmons, to the Bulls at the deadline in exchange for Andres Nocioni (can we say overrated?) and also obtained Rashad McCants, better known as Mr. Candace Parker, from the Timberwolves. The Maloof Brothers should be ashamed of themselves, or else they’re great con-artists who tanked an entire season from the get-go just for the best chance at landing the Sooner’s All-World player, Blake Griffin. If that doesn’t work, maybe they should look in their backyard and sign Sacramento’s mayor, former-NBA All-Star Kevin Johnson, to play point guard, and improve that record: 17-65.
Moving from the worst record in the NBA to the worst record in the East, we land in the nation’s capitol and the Wizards. The answer to this conundrum is quite simple: Agent Zero is a zero. Gilbert Arenas played 8 games in 2007-2008, then signed a six-year contract worth $111 million to stay with the Wizards. He proceeded to injure himself again and play in 2 games this season. A lot of times it’s hard to really pin one team’s success or failure on a single person, but that hat fits all too well on Arenas’ ego-inflated head. He thinks he belongs in the upper-echelon of NBA players with LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Tim Duncan, or Kevin Garnett, but you need to play more than 10 games combined in two seasons, and you actually need to win a playoff series. The Wizards had quite the triumvirate with Arenas, Caron Butler, and Antawn Jamison all healthy, but Arenas did more than his part to spoil that. Between that and having a paper-thin bench, featuring such household names as Oleksiy Pecherov and JaVale McGee, added to the constant trade rumors surrounding Jamison, and you’ve got the perfect formula to have the President of the United States sit courtside at your game and root for the other team. Way to go, Wiz: 19-63.
Hopping back West to a team also devastated by injuries, we arrive in the Land of 10,000 Lakes and lament the loss of Al Jefferson. Big Al was having an All-Star caliber season through the first 50 games, averaging 23.1 points, 11.0 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks per game. The ‘Wolves were a not-totally-hopeless 17-33, and even caught fire for a few games right before Al’s ACL snapped and he was shut down for the rest of the season. Rookie Kevin Love has been a consistent contributor (averaging 9 rebounds per game) and guard Randy Foye finally lived up to his potential and averaged 16.1 points per game. Outside of Mike Miller and Ryan Gomes, the Timberwolves didn’t offer much in the way of support, resulting in a 7-21 record post-Al: 24-58.
Speaking of young players still adapting to the NBA, and struggling mightily in the mean-time, let’s take a look at those Grizz. The three-man core of this team averages 21.3 years old: SF Rudy Gay, SG O.J. Mayo, and PG Mike Conley. 24-year old Marc Gasol starts at the 5, and elder statesman Hakim Warrick (26 years old) starts at PF. There aren’t nearly enough balls to go around to handle both Gay and Mayo, but each have been averaging 18-19 ppg all season. Both would like to score 25-30 per game, but they’re going to need a coach who can balance that out and develop the talent into complete basketball players and cohesive unit rather than a bunch of offensive-minded players who refuse to play D. A typical theme courses through the Grizzlies, too: thin bench. Combine that with the in-season firing of head coach Marc Iavaroni, and it’s no surprise that Memphis underwhelmed again this year. They could have a solid nucleus for years to come, or they could be continue to repeat this year’s performance: 24-58.
Youth? You wanna talk about youth? Well, you found it in the middle-of-nowhere Great Plains city best known for being the target of domestic terrorism: Oklahoma City. Why the NBA ever allowed a team to locate there is beyond me, and I feel for you, Seattle. Clay Bennett should be burned at the stake for stealing the franchise that gave us those glory years with the “Glove” Gary Payton and the most prolific illegitimate-child-creator in the world: Shawn Kemp. Besides, the “Thunder” is the lamest name in the history of sports; team names have an “s” on the end of them, or, in the case of the Red Sox and the White Sox, an “x” that sounds a lot like an “s,” or in the case of the Jazz, a “z” that kind of sounds like an “s.” The Heat are beyond critique because they have D-Wade. For me, the naming of the team was the downfall of this season. Then, they surprised everybody and drafted Russell Westbrook so high in the draft, though he has proved them right. They surely have a great young nucleus that, if healthy, can be an impact for years to come. They could end up like the Portland Trail Blazers, who struggled for a playoff spot for a few years but now look to crash the party every year. If the Thunder are going to replicate that formula, they’ll need significantly more wins: 23-59.
They weren’t battered by injuries, they do have some big-name players, but they don’t have a nice young nucleus. The Knicks were just bad this year. To be fair, they started the season on a high-note, then proceeded to embroil themselves in the Stephon Marbury controversy and struggled to get out of his discount-shoe shadow. They brought in Mike D’Antoni to cover for Isiah Thomas and his monumental failures in the Big Apple, but they didn’t have anyone to play the point like D’Antoni had in Phoenix. Marbury was a cancer; the Knicks told him to not come to games or suit up or even sit on the bench. What did he do? He bought tickets to a Knicks-Lakers game and watched the damn thing from courtside. You know the best part? He was still getting paid! And what’s even better? They gave him to the Celtics, where he has an outside shot of winning a championship this year. What kind of message does that send? I suppose it sends the same message that the Knicks are not a good team and do not have the personnel necessary to run the 7-seconds-or-less offense. Nate Robinson is 5’9” and likes to shoot. That won’t work. They traded away their best scorer, Jamal Crawford. That won’t work. They traded for Larry Hughes. That won’t work. I don’t know how to say this, but the Knicks overachieved this season, but they’ve hit the very top of that ceiling. I still think they’re tanking and getting these huge contracts off the books for the Summer of 2010, but only time will tell. Either way, they’re out of the playoffs: 32-50.
While it’s easy to see why the Knicks failed this year, it’s not really so easy to tell what happened to their close neighbors. The Nets have, arguably, the Most Improved Player in PG Devin Harris, potential (though long-shot) Rookie of the Year in Brook Lopez, and a former All-Star who can take over games if he tries, Vince Carter. The problem was probably that Lopez didn’t really catch on until half-way through the season, and the Nets were always one player away from being a dominate team, or at least making the playoffs in the East (which it seems like people actively try to avoid). That one player could have been Richard Jefferson, but they traded him away for Yi Jianlian, by no means an improvement. They have a bunch of washed-up players on the bench – Jarvis Hayes, Eduardo Najera, Keyon Dooling – but they also have Chris Douglas-Roberts and Josh Boone for the future. Of course, the X-factor with this team is always Vince Carter and what effort he’s willing to expend in any given game, and I just don’t think that they’re good enough for him to care yet. The Kidd trade doesn’t seem to have benefited either team to much thus far. Is there any way to go back in time and take it back? Then again, this also could be part of Jay-Z’s plot to clear the books for 2010 to try and land LeBron, his good buddy, especially if he can take the Nets to Brooklyn. For now, they’re irrelevant until draft-time: 34-48.
Speaking of another inexplicably bad team, eh? The Raptors still have Chris Bosh, who I would argue is one of the top-five PFs in the NBA. Anthony Parker is efficient; Jose Calderon knows how to distribute; and Andrea Bargnani grew by leaps and bounds this year. There weren’t any catastrophic injuries, but there was a glaring mistake on the resume of Bryan Colangelo: the acquisition of Jermaine O’Neal from the Indiana Pacers in the off-season. O’Neal never meshed with the team, had glass feet just like in Indiana, and was traded away at the deadline for Shawn Marion. Too bad head coach Sam Mitchell wasn’t around long enough to see that: he was fired on December 3, 2008, after an 8-9 start. Not exactly a horrific start, especially not from the same guy who was named Coach of the Year in 2007. The Raptors were trigger-happy and let him go, and they’ve never been on pace or seemingly in unison for the rest of the season. Not even Jason Kapono’s dead-eye shooting could save this team. The Raptors need to think about upgrading their roster with actual talent if they want to keep Bosh in America’s Hat after 2010: 33-49.
This was a team primed for success before the season started. They brought in Scott Skiles as coach from the Chicago Bulls in April 2008, a coach with questionable strategies but at least strategies that resulted in wins; they traded Yi Jianlian, who pulled a Willis McGahee and criticized the banality of living in a crappy Midwestern town, for Richard Jefferson, a bona-fide scorer from the wing who hasn’t quite hit his decline yet; and they drafted Joe Alexander from West Virginia, the kind of blue-collar player that those same crappy Midwestern towns flock to. And all these pieces were going to join C Andrew Bogut, PF Charlie Villanueva, and PG Luke Ridnour – who was replaced by Ramon Sessions later in the season – and franchise-star Michael Redd. They looked poised to return to the playoffs in a top-heavy East, but one little game on January 25 derailed the entire season when Redd tore both his ACL and MCL in his left knee and was done for the season. Already thin on the front-line, Bogut’s injury later in the season didn’t help anything, and the Bucks officially had the wheels fall off. On the plus-side, they’ve discovered Ramon Sessions as capable of taking over the point after Mo Williams’ defection to Cleveland, and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute has shown himself to be a decent player off the bench. There’s always next year, Milwaukee: 34-48.
Staying in the Midwest, the Pacers quietly won 36 games and finished only 3 games behind Detroit for the final spot in the playoffs. Their season was highlighted by more drama from Jamaal Tinsley, who doesn’t seem capable of staying out of trouble. As such, he was turned away from the Pacers’ complex and not permitted to attend any practices or games until the Pacers could find a suitable trading partner. Remind anyone of Marbury in New York? Except this situation hasn’t run its course yet, but we’re waiting for it. The Pacers seemed ready to move on from the Brawl at the Palace by letting go of injury-prone Jermaine O’Neal – who landed one helluva punch during that scuffle, I must say – and bringing in TJ Ford from the Raptors. Danny Granger has also made a case for Most Improved Player, scoring 25.8 ppg this season and making his first All-Star Game. The team is salvageable, with Troy Murphy – a PF who averaged a double-double and shot 45% from 3 – and Marquis Daniels and Mike Dunleavey, but they have a ways to go. Maybe once the drama dies down they can focus on being a team that will no longer have any connection to the melee a couple years back, and they can finally open a new chapter in their book with Danny Granger as the star. Personally, I’m afraid Granger had a one-hit wonder season, and he’ll never score more than 20 ppg in any season the rest of his career: 36-46.
This team, at least on paper, should be a playoff team. Emeka Okafor locks down the lane and averages a double-double; Gerald Wallace can explode for huge points on any night; D.J. Augustin and Raymond Felton are both capable point guards whose competition for the starting position should only improve both of their play; and they brought in Raja Bell and Boris Diaw for depth. Now the problems: Okafor can’t score more than 20 points; Wallace will score 30 one game and then 3 the next; Larry Brown still hasn’t figured out how to use Augustin and Felton properly; and Bell and Diaw were totally underwhelming in their new environs. We could trace a lot of this back to the hire of Larry Brown as head coach, but I’d like to give the guy the benefit of the doubt after having taken AI and the 76ers to the Finals and then won it all with the Pistons in 2004. He has to have some talent as a coach, and it seemed like the perfect homecoming as he returned to North Carolina, the Tar Heel state, his alma mater. In that case, I think the root of the problem lies with the best player in the history of basketball, but also the worst exec in the history of basketball: Michael Jordan. That’s extremely hard for me to say since I have a tremendous man-crush on him from his playing days, but the guy is a terrible judge of talent and sets teams back. Remember that drafting of Kwame Brown with the #1-overall pick while with the Wizards? That didn’t work out well. And remember when he drafted BOTH Raymond Felton and Sean May from UNC after they won the national championship in 2005? Felton’s a maybe, but May was always a tweener that never produced and never will in the NBA. Go back to playing college. And, more importantly, do you remember that cry-baby mop-head from Gonzaga he drafted in 2007? He also didn’t work out because he couldn’t rebound and he wasn’t even a great scorer, plus he was a huge liability on defense, which means he should’ve been on his way to the D-League. Unfortunately, and this is the funny thing about the NBA, Adam Morrison was traded to the Lakers for Vladimir Radmanovic – who could prove to be a good player with Charlotte – and Morrison, like Marbury, also has a chance to win a championship this season. Maybe the best strategy to win a ring is to play terribly and be traded onto a good team? Then again, why are these good teams picking up these atrocious players? I guess we’ll never know. Let’s hope MJ doesn’t screw up the draft again this year: 35-47.
Now this is just inexplicable: the Suns finished with 46 wins, better than 50% of Eastern Conference PLAYOFF TEAMS, but will have a lottery pick in the NBA Draft. For God’s sake, the Pistons finished below .500 and made the playoffs, but the Suns were excluded with their .561 winning percentage. There’s always talk of inequity between the conferences, but this just baffles the mind. No matter what, it seems like the Suns have done everything they can to lose games this season. It started last year when GM Steve Kerr ended the 7-seconds-or-less era by trading away Shawn Marion for Shaquille O’Neal, and the movement was completed when Mike D’Antoni, the genius behind the offense, was given his walking papers. Terry Porter was brought in to continue the offensive philosophy while also placing an emphasis on defense – defense? Are you talking about defense? Defense? – which seemed like noble goals. Too bad it never materialized, and Porter was fired mid-season. Somehow, interim coach Alvin Gentry managed to open up their offense like Porter could only dream and the Suns streaked late to make a push for the 8th spot in the West with his new 7-seconds-or-Shaq approach. Shaq has enjoyed a resurgent year, Amare has stayed healthy and productive, and though Nash did battle his usual back issues, he wasn’t bleeding from a broken nose at any point this season. Another key addition was Jason Richardson from the Bobcats, whom they received in exchange for Bell and Diaw. It looks like Kerr is dismantling the nucleus that excelled under D’Antoni and putting his finger-print all over this new incarnation of the Suns, and come next season he could be vindicated, especially since the Suns will be picking ahead of the Pistons, the 76ers, the Bulls, and the Heat in the NBA Draft. Enjoy the distinction of being the only team above .500 to not make the playoffs: 46-36.
- Beck
2 comments:
I think the Suns are glad to be on the outside looking in--more time for early-bird dinners and they won't have to tevo 60 minutes. Read: they're old, and the window for Nash to win a 'ship has closed
Nash never had a chance to win a championship. I present his spelling of our web-site "Awg Staph." Read: no D!
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