Separating the NBA Title Contenders from Pretenders Entering 2014-15 Season
We’ve gotten through a handful of NBA preseason games, so obviously it’s time to make ironclad predictions that have absolutely no chance of turning out otherwise.
It’s why we get paid the big bucks, folks.
The contenders vs. the pretenders—it’s a discussion practically as old as sport itself, and a consistently entertaining one at that.
But seldom has the NBA seemed this wide open, with this many good-to-great teams so squarely in the championship conversation.
Some of these, sad to say, are phonies.
Today, we’ll break down the 10 contenders and pretenders—five of each—that should be on everyone’s radar screen, from first tip on opening night to some steamy June night when the NBA crowns its 66th champion.
Get your hate-mail pens ready. You’re not going to like some of these.
Pretender: Houston Rockets
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On the inside you have Dwight Howard, one of the most dominant and physically imposing centers in the history of the NBA. On the outside, the game’s most deceptively devastating shooting guard in James Harden. Around them: defense and shooters aplenty.
Stamp their ticket for the conference finals, right?
Wrong. So, so painfully wrong.
It’s not that the Rockets aren’t good. They’re very good. But playing in such a loaded conference—yes, this is going to become a theme—with so few reliable playmakers means Houston’s best-case scenario lies in somehow making some postseason noise as a 4 or 5 seed. At best.
Losing Chandler Parsons might not seem like that big of a deal right now. Particularly when the Rockets were able to land Trevor Ariza—an entirely serviceable three-and-D yeoman—to replace him.
But Ariza is nowhere near the five-tool threat Parsons was. It might seem like small potatoes now, but when playoff defenses are keying on Harden and the Rockets desperate for someone to make a play, Patrick Beverley—sad to say—will not be a viable answer.
Contender: Los Angeles Clippers
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Now there’s a well-balanced team!
Top-tier point guard? Check. Superstar scorer? Yup. Elite (and ever-improving) rim protector? Oh, you betcha. Top-tier role players? Uh huh. Depth? For days, my friend.
If there’s one team whose continuity and chemistry has them poised to break through to the conference finals-fold, it’s the Los Angeles Clippers. The wounds of a six-game conference finals loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder still festering fresh, Chris Paul and Co. might be the most righteously ticked off team in all the NBA.
If they’re ever going to exorcise their demons and wield their tantalizing talent to full effect, this is the year.
The addition of Spencer Hawes—a serviceable defender capable of stretching the floor on offense—should pay immediate and lasting dividends for Doc Rivers, set to begin his second season as Clippers skipper.
But this team is all Paul and Griffin, arguably the best one-two punch in the league.
What’s that? Blake Griffin might have finally found a consistent jumper, says SB Nation’s Mike Prada? Shut it down.
Pretender: Memphis Grizzlies
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“Wait,” you’re probably thinking, “Have the Memphis Grizzlies ever been an actual contender?”
Indeed, the Grizzlies have long existed just on the cusp of the conversation—good enough to vie for first-round home-court advantage, sure. But contend? Even their 2013 trip to the Western Conference Finals felt like an anomaly.
But after a somewhat disappointing seventh-seed showing this past spring, Memphis will look to get right back into the thick of things this season. Adding veteran Vince Carter and promising rookie Jordan Adams to what had been a wire-thin wing ranks should pay dividends at both ends of the floor.
Mike Conley, Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol—we know these guys will bring it night in and night out. But with so many of their Western foes seeming poised for bigger steps forward, it’s hard to see Memphis becoming anything more than second-round fodder for the conference elite.
Contender: Chicago Bulls
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Far too many people are still expecting Derrick Rose to pick up right where he left off at the end of the 2011-12 season.
Sure, he might get there. Time upon time though it’ll take. But here’s the beauty of these Chicago Bulls: Rose doesn’t have to be that guy anymore.
The additions of Pau Gasol, rookie Doug McDermott and Euro-sensation Nikola Mirotic made Chicago’s one of the flat-out best free-agency runs of the summer. By upgrading at power forward and addressing by far their most pressing need (offense), the Bulls instantly propelled themselves back to the top of the Eastern Conference heap.
But as Bleacher Report’s Zach Buckley recently wrote, the Bulls need to realize theirs is still a window that won’t be open forever:
"So the Bulls need to seize this opportunity, especially since no one knows how long it will last.
Chicago understands its situation and the unique chance sitting in front of it. This team has fortified its ranks with win-now weapons, as it should have. The Bulls won 48 games without Rose last season. The chance for this group to do something special is real, and it grew over the summer for more reasons than just the return of its fallen star.
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Not that they’ll have much competition, of course. Still, Rose couldn’t have asked for a softer landing—a roster replete with depth, defense and veteran savvy.
It’ll likely take some time before Tom Thibodeau’s offense is clicking on all cylinders (specifically: two). But even if the end result is a middling NBA attack, Chicago’s defense and leadership alone should be enough to guarantee its place in the championship conversation.
Pretender: Portland Trail Blazers
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Look, we like the Portland Trail Blazers. A lot, actually. LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard? Two genuine franchise cornerstones. Wes Matthews, Nicolas Batum and Robin Lopez? Very good role-playing starters.
So why aren’t the Blazers—who finished fifth in last year’s West and upended the Rockets before finally falling to the eventual champs—legitimate contenders?
Two reasons. The first is depth. As in, the Blazers still don’t have any. As in, even after finishing dead last in bench points the past two seasons, their only offseason additions of note were Chris Kaman (a fine offensive center) and Steve Blake (neither a center nor a fine scorer).
And while it’s true that a team’s rotation is almost always winnowed down during the postseason, Portland coach Terry Stotts still needs to be able to count on his second unit to pull its weight when the time comes.
Of all the contenders in this slideshow, Portland may have been the one we were most reluctant to include. Here’s hoping Aldridge, Lillard and company give us ample reason to regret our decision.
Contender: Golden State Warriors
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Much like the Blazers, the Golden State Warriors—mostly by dint of shee financial inflexibility—didn’t make much in the way of big offseason waves. Save, perhaps, for the signing of Shaun Livingston, which could prove one of the summer’s sneaky-best coups.
Instead, the Dubs made their big splash on the sidelines, where despite a pair of playoff appearances and one 50-win season, Mark Jackson was…how do we put this…told it would be OK if he wanted to leave.
In his stead steps Steve Kerr: former Phoenix Suns GM, longtime broadcaster and the triangle-inspired vessel into which the Warriors have heaped their latest payload of hope—specifically, the notion that the Warriors offense, buoyed by the one of the best starting fives in basketball, has another notch or two to hit.
For a team that already stands to approach its finish as the third-most efficient defense a season ago, that kind of marginal improvement could pay outsized returns.
The Warriors have the best backcourt in the league. They have one of its most balanced teams. And they have a coach with the strategic vision to help the team live up to its explosive offensive potential.
Now it’s about putting all those pieces together.
Pretender: Toronto Raptors
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One of the inevitable consequences of a historically weak Eastern Conference is the temptation to find someone outside the Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers who can be reasonably described as a contender.
Enter the Toronto Raptors, last year’s No. 3 seed and one of the league’s pluckier, youth-laden upstarts. With a core that includes firebrand point guard Kyle Lowry, blossoming All-Star DeMar DeRozan and burly big man Jonas Valanciunas, the Raptors would seem to fit the bill.
Toronto is a postseason shoo-in—no question about it. But unless Valanciunas and third-year swingman Terrence Ross suddenly turn into borderline All-Stars, the Raptors seem destined for semifinals disappointment.
After all, this is a team that couldn’t even get by the wholly vulnerable Brooklyn Nets in the first round of last year’s playoffs. In DeRozan and Lowry’s streaky shooting and Valanciunas’ shaky defense, Toronto’s weaknesses remain the same. Even if are a year older and wiser.
Contender: Oklahoma City Thunder
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If there’s one team that hears their contender clock ticking louder than the rest, it’s the Oklahoma City Thunder. Imbued with two of the top 10 players on the planet and with plenty of weapons besides, the Thunder have authored but one Finals appearance to date—a lopsided drubbing at the hands of the Miami Heat back in 2012.
That they have yet to get over the hump makes the Thunder endlessly intriguing. But it also risks ratcheting up the pressure so intensely that only a championship will prevent the entire project from self-destructing completely.
You could put 11 shopping carts around Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka, and OKC would still probably be a contender. But there’s still plenty of skepticism as to whether the Thunder have really done everything they can to properly build around their superstar duo.
If OKC falls short again, expect heads to roll, beginning—fair or not—with head coach Scott Brooks.
The alternative: Durant and Co. finally finds the right combination of breaks and basketball brilliance to make good on their otherworldly talent.
Please forgive us the crime of earnestly rooting for the latter.
Pretender (Kind Of?): San Antonio Spurs
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Hey, quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet!
Quiet!
I love the San Antonio Spurs. I, like many others, thought their march to the 2014 championship to be one of the most breakthtaking basketball ballets in history. If that brand of basketball could be rendered into a DNA serum and injected into each and every player in the NBA, I’d advocate burning the constitution just to see it through.
That said, I can’t help but think last year’s Finals—and the 2013 demon-exorcising they represented—might’ve been all that was left between this team being a high-octane force, and merely running on fumes.
Could Tim Duncan play past the final year of his most recent extension? It’s possible. Manu Ginboli, too? Sure. But it seems just as likely to believe these two would just as soon bow out, win or lose, at the end of this season—a slew of titles and memories to their names and the Springfield bust-makers mere years from making their house calls.
So long as the R.C. Buford-Gregg Popovich regime remains intact, it’s impossible not to think the Spurs will one day rise to the ranks of contenders—and sooner than later.
Just don’t blame us for feeling like we’re about to watch these Spurs’ bittersweet swan song.
Contender: Cleveland Cavaliers
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Yep. These guys again.
To be sure, the regular-season fortunes of the Cleveland Cavaliers could vary wildly depending on cohesion and chemistry.
Would people be shocked if they won 70 games? Surprised, sure. Shocked? No way.
Then again, if the 2010-11 Miami Heat are any kind of bellwether, a slight stumble out of the gate and a sub-60-win campaign (those Heat won 58) isn’t out of the question, either.
Here’s what we know: When you have a trio as gifted as LeBron James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, and a coach as well-heeled and creative as David Blatt, it’s only a matter of time before the challenges of familiarization give way to the formulas of revolution. I think George Washington said that.
And Anderson Varejao said this to Grantland's Zach Lowe :
"The championship is our goal this season...But there are some very good teams out there. I hope it works right away and we beat everybody, but it doesn’t work like that. It’s going to take time.
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This team is going to be great. How great, and whether that greatness can be parlayed into postseason glory, remains the single most compelling narrative of the 2014-15 season.
