The 2010-11 NBA season is finally under way. That also means that it’s time for all the NBA writers to make their predictions for the season. I tend to do a predictions piece every year but I never had the chance to do so. So instead I’ve decided to take some of the more popular predictions and tell you why these people are wrong.
Myth #1: The Chicago Bulls will finish in fourth in the Eastern Conference.
It’s not that I don’t think the Bulls will be a great team this year. I also don’t think it’s far-fetched for the Bulls to theoretically be one of the top four teams in the east. The problem is that once again the schedule makers have done a number on the Bulls. The difference between this year and most of the others is the absence of Carlos Boozer and the number of new players the Bulls will be trying to incorporate into a new coach’s system.
Check out the Bulls schedule. Take a look at the seven game road trip that begins on Nov. 16: Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Lakers, Phoenix, Denver, and Sacramento.
Brutal.
Check out the four games following the road trip: home for Orlando, at Boston, and back home for Houston and Oklahoma City. If the Bulls win two of those 11 games I’ll be surprised.
So don’t be surprised if the Bulls are seven or more games under .500 by the time Boozer comes back from his hand injury. But when December comes around and everybody is writing them off and calling their offseason acquisitions a bust, just remember who told you that this was gonna happen.
And then jump on the Bulls bandwagon because they’ll be back over .500 after their cupcake schedule in January that has them playing 11 of 16 at home against the likes of Cleveland (twice), Indiana (twice), Toronto, and Charlotte, a s well as winnable road games against Memphis, Indiana, New Jersey, and Philadelphia.
The good news is the Bulls should be good enough to finish fifth in the conference and the Atlanta Hawks will likely finish fourth again — setting up what should be a fantastic first-round series between the Hawks and Bulls.
Myth #2: The Oklahoma City Thunder will finish second in the west and possibly dethrone the Lakers.
Don’t get me wrong. I love this OKC team. I think they are definitely on the up-and-up. But let’s not overreact based on a six-game series against the Lakers and a summer of Kevin Durant destroying a bunch of international teams with one or two NBA-caliber players.
The Thunder finished eighth in the west with a 50-32 record. But they were 10-21 against Portland, San Antonio, Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, Denver, and the Lakers.
The maturation of Durant, as well of the team in general, is what will prevent them from losing four of their final six regular season games, as they did last year when they dropped from the fourth-seed to the eighth-seed. The Thunder were the only Western Conference playoff team with fewer than 30 wins against the other teams in the conference (28-24).
So they padded their win total by going 22-8 against the other conference. While that is an impressive non-conference record, it’s not enough to make me convinced the Thunder will be any higher than third in the conference and will probably lose in the conference semis.
Contrary to what Bill Simmons thinks, you don’t go from losing in six games in the first round of the playoffs to playing for an NBA championship the next season. You just don’t. If the Thunder were playing the Spurs in the second round of the playoffs I’d still take the Spurs in seven.
Myth #3: The Utah Jazz Are A Contender
I’ve been calling out the Jazz as pretenders long before their 0-2 start. The Utah Jazz are a slightly above-average team that turns into a great team in front of their hometown fans (Thursday night’s game against Phoenix, notwithstanding).
Check out Utah’s win totals over the last four seasons and see how many of those wins have come on the road (in parentheses).
- 2009-10 53-29 (19)
- 2008-09 48-34 (15)
- 2007-08 54-28 (17)
- 2006-07 51-31 (20)
Utah’s combined record over those four seasons was 206-122. But their combined road record over that stretch was 71-93. I can’t see these Jazz ever winning a series without home-court advantage.
I’m fully aware that the Jazz have a brand new cast of characters. But I don’t think they are a better group collectively than last year’s team. Raja Bell is useless on this team and Al Jefferson is still horrible defensively for a player his size.
It’s not that I think the Jazz suck or that they can’t finish 53-29 again. I just think that they are by no means a contender for anything — that includes winning their division.
Myth #4: Carmelo Anthony will be traded by the deadline to either the Nets or the Knicks.
This is the one that everybody seems to think is a given. The most popular argument is that the Nuggets can’t afford to lose Carmelo for nothing like the Cavs did when LeBron James and Chris Bosh fled their old teams for Miami.
Except there’s a major difference between the Nuggets and the Raptors and Cavs. Assuming Carmelo opts out, Nene exercises the final year on his contract, Kenyon Martin and J.R. Smith are both renounced, and the team declines their option on Chauncey Billups, the Nuggets only have about $25 million committed in salary for next season.
Toronto and Cleveland didn’t have nearly the cap room that Denver is looking at. So while LeBron and Bosh were traded for draft picks and a trade exception, the Nuggets would actually have draft picks, a large trade exception, and plenty of cap space with which to rebuild if they’re forced to do a sign-and-trade with Carmelo.
Call me stupid but I’d rather have cap space to go after two max players than a protected first-round pick and Danilo Gallinari. Isn’t that how Denver rebuilt the team back in 2004? They had the cap space to go after Andre Miller and Kenyon Martin and the third pick in the draft with which to add Melo.
The Nets reported offer makes a lot more sense than the Knicks offer except that they won’t make the deal without a commitment from Anthony that he’ll re-sign, and they’re not going to get it.
The truth is that the Nuggets, as currently constructed, are a playoff team. So any trade that makes them worse and threatens a playoff berth, like either of the deals that have received the most attention, is unlikely to happen.
So while I don’t think that Carmelo is going to be traded this season I still believe that the Houston Rockets are the best bet to land him in case he does get traded. No other team can give up the assets to make a trade happen without the guarantee that Anthony will sign an extension. The Nets are not going to give up Derrick Favors if there’s even a slight chance that Carmelo is planning on making Madison Square Garden his home arena next summer. And even with Carmelo the Nets are no better than the sixth-seed in the east.
How does that convince him to sign an extension?
The Rockets can use the remainder of the season to make an impression with the hope that he’ll decide to stay. They have the Knicks’ first-round picks in each of the next two drafts, they have Jared Jeffries’ and Shane Battier’s expiring contracts, and they have a nice group of young players in Aaron Brooks, Courtney Lee, Jordan Hill, and Chase Budinger.
Myth #5: The Miami Heat will be in the NBA Finals.
I was surprised to see that 17 of ESPN’s 25 experts picked Miami to represent the Eastern Conference in the Finals. But I don’t see it happening this year.
So much of winning an NBA championship has to do with mental toughness. And while the Miami Heat should win 45 games just by sheer intimidation, they don’t scare the Orlando Magic or Boston Celtics. Heck, as Joakim Noah will tell you, they don’t scare the Bulls either.
The Heat will be very good but they won’t be historically good. Not without Mike Miller. Not with the constant circus that they’ll bring with them to every road game or with Carlos Arroyo and Joel Anthony as their starting point guard and center, respectively.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Heat finished with the third-best record in the conference. They have a lot to learn as a team and it will take either a conference semifinals or conference finals loss to either the Celtics or Magic for them to learn it.
Andrew Ungvari is a co-lead blogger for SCIC. Follow him on twitter.