2009-2010 NBA Eastern Conference Preview

LeBron is King. He averaged an unheard of 28ppg/7 rpg/7 apg last season. Not to mention 1.6 spg and 49% from the field. As soon as James starts winning championships, we will start talking about him as one of the greatest of all time. Yes, I said championships, as in plural. Will this be the last year of the King in Ohio? Let’s see how this season plays out before giving an answer to that one. The Cavs front office did make some nice upgrades to this team, adding versatile players like Anthony Parker and Jamario Moon to the mix. While Parker is known as a solid jump-shooter, I would have liked to see a deadeye long range shooter added to the squad to open things up for LeBron and the Cavs. To be honest, I was a bit surprised that team GM Danny Ferry didn’t add a big time 3 point threat to the team after watching his team get beat last year by the Orlando Magic and their 3 point shooters, Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis. However, how a rejuvenated Shaquille O’Neal fits in will determine if this team will be hoisting the Larry O’Brian trophy in June. Shaq will be a definite help on the boards and in the paint, but has left a couple teams in disarray, not really being able to play second fiddle. Whether he will be able to accept his role as mentor to James will go a long way in cementing him as The Big Title-Winner.

The Celtics big question is the recovery of Kevin Garnett coming off knee surgery. In all likelihood, Garnett will come back having lost some of his explosiveness and the days of a nightly 20/8 are probably gone. inHowever, Garnett is a player who will know when and where to step it up and will want to take the team back to the Finals after tasting title champagne in 2007. The continued improvement of young point guard Rajon Rondo will be another key for the C’s. Even though it seems like the front office keeps trying to test Rondo (not extending his contact in addition to trade rumors this offseason), R-squared is a legit triple double threat every night and is ready to break out into superstardom territory. Pierce, the unquestioned savvy leader of this team is getting a little older, but also a little wiser. He always finds ways to get his points, whether it be spot up shooting, or taking it to the hole by either scoring or getting to the line. Boston also made two big off-season pickups in Rasheed Wallace and Marquis Daniels. Wallace will contribute minutes at the 5, while Daniels will be a versatile swing man, who can be the defensive stopper Ainge has been coveting for years. As in six years, when he spurned the Celts to sign with Dallas. Six years later, Ainge got his man. Will he be better than when he was in 2003? Time will tell. Beantown hoops fans hope the new additions and the return of their spiritual leader in KG, will help lead them back to the promised land of the NBA Finals.

Last season Dwight Howard put on his cape and led his team on a surprising run to the NBA Finals. While it may have surprised the networks, who were obviously rooting for a LeBron vs. Kobe title bout, to many hoop heads the Magic were playing their best ball at the right time of the year last season. Considering they made the NBA Finals last season, Magic GM Otis Smith made a pretty large overhaul of the team. Gone are starting forward Hedo Turkoglu, and guards Courtney Lee and Rafer Alston. Coming in are local hero, Vince Carter, who went to high school in nearby Daytona Beach and energy/effort guy Brandon Bass at the 4. Carter and Lewis will be legit 20 point scoring options every night and Howard will continue to be the Superman of this team. The Magic bench is completely revamped as well, with Matt Barnes and Ryan Anderson in the front court and Jason Williams aka White Chocolate, coming out of a one-year retirement, to be the lead point guard behind returning All-Star starter Jameer Nelson. If VC meshes well with Lewis and Howard, watch out East, the Magic can absolutely make it back to the Big Show.

Coming off their 47-win season, the Hawks think they have the right pieces in place to make an extended run in the playoffs this season. They made their first playoffs in 10 years last season and advanced to the second round before being eliminated by the Cleveland Cavs. The amount of young exciting talent on this team has b-ball fans salivating. Joe Johnson is arguably the third best SG in the league behind Kobe and D-Wade. Marvin Williams looks like he is ready to break out, finally living up to some of his large potential last season, by averaging 13.9 ppg/6 rpg. Josh Smith aka J-Smoov, is a tantalizing talent at the 4 who can fill it up scoring over 15 ppg and also is a rebounding and blocking machine. When you add young Al Horford, a 11 ppg/9 rpg talent, and wiley veteran PG Mike Bibby to this starting lineup, it stacks up really solid against most other teams in the league. The Hawks added crafty veteran players Joe Smith and Jason Collins to give the team some experience with the young pups. The addition of Jamal Crawford from Golden State makes this team even more dangerous. He has averaged over double digit points in seven straight seasons and even has three 50-point games on his resume. The one stat that Crawford wants everyone to forget is that he has played nine seasons in the NBA, and the most wins his team has ever reached was 33, never enough for a playoff berth. It’s the longest in the NBA, but with this collection of young exciting talent in The A, the Hawks should help end that embarrassing streak for Crawford.

One season into his NBA career, Derrick Rose is already one of the top 2 point guards in the league. Can you name more than five players you would rather build your team around? Let’s start with LeBron, Kobe, D-Howard, CP3 and Wade. You can include Durant in the discussion, but he is just as young as Rose and plays a position that is easier to fill than Rose’s. Either way, D-Rose is going to be a tremendous asset to the Bulls for many years to come. The fact that he is a hometown kid makes it even sweeter for Bulls fans. His athleticism going to the hoop is off the charts, he can slam it home with authority or reverse up-and-under and not blink an eye. He will work on his mid-range jumper and his eye for the court is already phenomenal. Having Johnny Salmons for an entire season and return of a healthy Luol Deng will do wonders for this team’s ability to score. Tyrus Thomas is supremely athetic and is ready to take the next step in his game and Joakim Noah will provide huge energy for this team at the 5. The emergence of Thomas and Noah give the Bulls the ability to move veterans Kirk Hinrich and Brad Miller to the bench to provide a nice scoring punch to the second unit. Chicago also went out and signed former Bull Jannero Pargo for some long-range shooting off the bench. The draft picks of forwards James Johnson from Wake Forest and Taj Gibson from USC left some Bulls fans and hoops experts scratching their heads, but time will tell if GM John Paxson saw something not many others did. If things break right for this young Chicago team, they could make it into the second round of the playoffs, and after you get that far, anything can happen.

The Wizards are looking to make the biggest jump this season, after finishing dead last in the East last year with only 19 wins. The key to them being able to jump nearly 30 wins will be the health of their superstar Gilbert Arenas, known to fans around the league as Agent Zero. Arenas has now had three surgeries on his knee in the last two years, only playing 15 games in that span. Washington is taking an interesting approach with the Hibachi, moving him to the 1 this season and asking him to be more of a playmaker. Will he lose his edge not having that shoot-first mentality that has helped him average 29 and 28 ppg in back-to-back years in ’06 and ‘07, including scoring a franchise high 60 in a win over the Lakers in 2006? Caron Butler continues to be one of the most underrated players in the game and Antawn Jamison was excited for the return of oft-injured Arenas this year. However, Jamison has run into some injury problems of his own in the pre-season with a shoulder injury and is out the first month or so of the regular season. Washington will look to stay competitive with its second best player out by leaning on some of their key offseason acquisitions. The Wiz traded the #5 pick, which turned out to be Ricky Rubio, to Minnesota, for key role players Mike Miller and Randy Foye in the offseason. Foye and Miller can be solid scorers, but can they hit the big shot at the end of the game if Arenas passes to them? That’s the magical basketball question in our nation’s capital.

The Raptors surprised many by signing perhaps the biggest free agent catch this offseason in Hedo Turkoglu away from the Orlando Magic. Hedo averaged a solid 16ppg/5rpg/4.9apg line last year and was a go-to guy in the Magic playoff run last season. The Raptors also are looking to make a big jump from the bottom of the East to a playoff team by turning over the roster and having an amazing 10 new players on the team this season. One player who is a holdover is All-Star Chris Bosh. Bosh averaged 22/10 last year and will be one of the prizes in the much-heralded 2010 free agent class. He is the rock of this team and returning PG Jose Calderon and former #1 overall pick Andrea Bargnani give the Raptors some nice talent, but the real key to this team will be how all the new players mesh. Rookie DeMar DeRozan will start at the 2 and GM Bryan Colangelo went out and traded for/signed new players galore in Jarrett Jack, Marco Bellini, Antoine Wright and Amir Johnson. Can the league’s only non-American team make the playoffs and even perhaps win a playoff round? It will be an uphill battle, but never say never.

The Heat have kept their options open for the bonanza known as the 2010 free agent class. Their All-World player Dwyane Wade will be one of the top prizes along with LeBron James. Can Heat fans dream of them bringing both in to finish out their careers? Miami has a lot of things going for it. The weather is beautiful. The women are beautiful. The nightlife is plentiful. More importantly for the millionaire players, the state income tax is non-existent. Perhaps the thing that will most determine who wants to play in Miami (or return in Wade’s case) will be how the team does on the court. The Heat did win the 2006 NBA championship, providing a nice bit of NBA history in Miami. Wade was the Finals MVP in that battle with Dallas and he knows he has to take the team on his back this year to make the playoffs. Sure, there are some nice pieces to complement Wade. Michael Beasley has all the talent in the world, however his off-the-court habits have been called into question. Beasley has already violated the league’s substance abuse policy and some controversial posts on his Twitter page this offseason have caused many eyebrows to be raised. However, if he can play to his ability on the court, he is a talent that can average 15/5 and be a nice second fiddle for the Heat. Udonis Haslem provides the protection up front and Jermaine O’Neal surprisingly held up for most of the season last year at the 5. Mario Chalmers and Daequan Cook will play the 1. The team will struggle to maintain a .500 record this year, but will probably sneak into the playoffs. Wade will want to see how the younger players develop before inking a long-term extension in South Beach.

This team made some headlines last year by challenging for the 8th playoff spot going into the last week of the season. They crashed into a 1-7 finish and missed out on the chance to go to the second season for the first time in their five year history. The team made three trades in-season last year and in the offseason traded their former team cornerstone Emeka Okafor for Tyson Chandler. I applaud a team admitting that a high draft pick isn’t working out and having the cajones to trade him. It was mostly a cost-cutting move, as Okafor had five years left on his contract and Chandler only had one, but most teams wouldn’t trade a former #2 overall pick for fear of it looking like them admitting they made a mistake on the selection. The team is starting to find its identity as a defensive team. Gerald Wallace is a really good player stuck on a mediocre team. He can fill up the stat sheet contributing in every category, especially on the defensive end. Chandler, if he can stay healthy, will provide a long-wingspan defender that coach Larry Brown covets. Felton and Augustine are nice building blocks for the backcourt and the team is hoping that draft pick and former Dookie Gerald Henderson can add some local flavor to the team along with Felton, who is a Tar Heel alum. If this team stays healthy and catches some breaks, they can contend for that last playoff spot in the East once again.

The Sixers made the playoffs last year, even though their big free agent acquisition Elton Brand missed 53 games last season. Brand is looking forward to a fresh start and a new coach. Eddie Jordan was brought in and he plans to bring his Princeton offense to the table to help mask the fact that the team has no true play maker. The team let Andre Miller go in free agency and Lou Williams is trying to show the team that he can run the point in Philly this season. Andre Iguodala was the team’s leading scorer at 18.8 ppg, but it says something that the 76ers have not had a player average over 20 ppg in the last three seasons, the longest drought in team history. Thaddeus Young is a developing young talent and Dalembert is a defensive stopper, but this team just doesn’t have enough pieces to challenge for a playoff spot in the East.

I will be honest, I’m not sure what the Pistons were doing by trading away their best player Chauncey Billups last season for Allen Iverson. The Iverson-Pistons marriage ended badly and Iverson has moved onto Memphis for this season. It’s amazing that Iverson was a starter for the East All-Stars last season in Phoenix. What is even more puzzling is how the Pistons decided to use the money freed up from the Billups trade and subsequent Iverson release. Detroit went out and signed scoring machine Ben Gordon away from the Bulls and frontcourt scorer Charlie Villanueva from the Bucks. The Gordon signing would have been solid, except that they already have Rip Hamilton and Rodney Stuckey ready to play both guard slots. Gordon says he is fine coming off the bench, but that seemed to be the reason he wanted out of the Windy City. The team was ready to move on from Rasheed Wallace, so I don’t have a problem with them letting him walk. The Pistons also have a new coach in John Kuester. With the team in transition, Kuester will have his hands full trying to steer this team over .500.

The problem with the Knicks is that everyone in the league knows they are just playing out the string waiting to see if they can make a legitimate push at NBA Icon LeBron James next season. Will the current roster of players be motivated enough to play hard all season long knowing they can all be purged at any moment throughout the year? Aside from David Lee (whom they actively shopped this offseason) and maybe Al Harrington, New York looks to be made up of guys who wouldn’t start on many teams in the Association. Sure, Nate Robinson won last year’s Slam Dunk Championship, and averaged 17ppg last season, but what does it say if he can’t even crack the Knicks’ starting lineup? Wilson Chandler is an up and comer, and if can stay healthy, he may turn out to be the best player on the team this year. He is a versatile slashing scorer, who can play either guard or forward. Duhon can man the 1, and had a very solid season last year, averaging 11ppg and 7 apg, however you wonder if the team will go after a splashier PG next season, with oodles of free agency cash. Hughes doesn’t seem to be a good fit for this team and Eddy Curry may have eaten himself out of the league. Perhaps the most interesting x-factor on this team is last season’s first round draft pick Danilo Gallinari. Gallinari is wearing Latrell Sprewell’s old Knick #8, a former Gotham City favorite. DG was injured most of the season last year, but claims he is finally healthy going into this season. He is a 6’10”, 225-pound SF and had the shooting range in Europe to make people take notice. Coach Mike D’Antoni has even gone as far as saying he is the “best shooter he has ever seen.” While that may be coachspeak, New Yorkers are excited to find out what they have in the young Italian and maybe they will have a new #8 to root for this season and beyond.

Surprisingly the Pacers scored 105.1 ppg last season, the fifth highest in the NBA. They like to run and gun and have a PG who is perfect for that type of game in T.J. Ford. He likes the frenetic pace and Danny Granger has developed into a under-the-radar superstar. Granger is the only player who averaged over 25 points and 5 rebounds per game that you have never heard of. He has been injured this preseason with a sore heel and is questionable for Opening Day. It would be a real shame if Indy’s best player would miss significant time, because the team would really struggle to score with Granger sidelined. Troy Murphy has carved out a niche in the league as a tough rebounder. He averaged a double-double last season and should be able to match that again this year. Pacers GM Larry Bird went out this offseason and signed defensive stopper Dahntay Jones from the Denver Nuggets to try to shore up the defensive struggles this team had last year. NCAA Player of the Year Tyler Hansbrough was drafted by the Pacers, however is out until November with a shin injury. Many experts don’t think Tyler’s game will translate well to the pros, but I’m sure he will be out to prove them wrong.

The New Jersey Nets are a team in limbo. Their supposed move to Brooklyn has stalled twice now, and the team decided to blow it up and go young. Gone are players like Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson, who led the team to the NBA Finals as recently as 2003. Even fan favorite Vince Carter was traded to Orlando for up-and-comer Courtney Lee and former Rucker Park legend Rafer “Skip to my Lou” Alston. Lee started in the NBA Finals last year for Orlando and the Nets will start him at the SG position alongside their superstar Devin Harris. Harris was the piece the Nets got back in the Dallas Mavericks trade, and looking at the deal now, it looks like the Nets made out big time. Harris had one of the most exciting plays of the season last year with his half-court buzzer beater against the 76ers. Harris averaged over 21 ppg and nearly 9 apg last season and will look to shoulder more of the load with Carter gone this year. He is a star on the rise. The Nets have another nice young building block with Brook Lopez. While overlooked by most coming into his rookie year last season, Lopez proved he belongs in the league by posting very solid 13 ppg and 8 rpg. He will look to build upon his solid rookie season with the rest of the young Nets squad. At times last year, Yi Jianlian looked great, but at times he also looked lost. It should be a very telling year for the Nets starting 4 in year two. The Nets do have the excitement of investor Jay-Z to bring celebs out to the games and help with the move to Brooklyn. The team is young and will struggle this year, but has a very exciting foundation for their move to the BK in the next year or two.

Many high school ballers and GMs alike will have their eye on Milwaukee games this year. However it will probably be for a reason completely independent of the Bucks won-loss record. Brandon Jennings was the first prep hoopster to skip college altogether since the NBA instituted the one year out of high school requirement to enter the NBA Draft. Jennings played in Europe with men twice his age in a system that didn’t take advantage of his ability to score. While some saw the move as a huge risk, Jennings went 10th overall to the Bucks, right about where many scouts believed he would go if he came out straight from high school the year before. If Jennings proves to be successful, it could start a trend of young players who decide to go to Europe to play basketball for a year and get paid while preparing for the NBA. Jennings is going to a team devoid of much talent, so he has the chance to take over the squad and make it his own. Michael Redd and Andrew Bogut have a chance to help this team win a few games here and there, but the roster is devoid of any big superstar to help Jennings out. It will be a trying year in Milwaukee if you are a basketball fan this season. At least the exciting Jennings will be someone the team can look to grow and pin its hopes on for the future.

Well, there you have it, my 2009-2010 NBA Eastern Conference preview. Check back later in the week for my Western Conference breakdown. For now, sit down tonight, kick back and enjoy the roundball!