NBA's Central Division Is Ready to Rule as Basketball's Toughest
The entire Eastern Conference might not be catching up to the West yet, but at least the Central Division is. In fact, that could very well be the toughest competition in the NBA next season.
It's already closer than you might think.
Last season, only the Southwest Division had more wins than the Central did (mousing over the teams will reveal names, wins and playoff seeds):
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However, that difference between the two was massive—a cumulative total of 261 victories for the Southwest compared to just 214 for the Central, which accounts for 9.4 more wins per team. That’s nearly the same as the difference between the Central and the NBA’s worst division, the Atlantic, which only had 162 wins.
So how is the Central going to make up almost 10 wins per team? It’s not as impossible as you might think. In fact, not only are the divisions comparable, but they’re similar in many ways.
The Contenders
The San Antonio Spurs and Cleveland Cavaliers are clearly the class of each division, and both will be among the favorites to get to next year’s NBA Finals.
The Spurs added LaMarcus Aldridge, the prize of free agency, to a team that is one year removed from the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Additionally, they’ll be playing with a healthy Kawhi Leonard, who re-signed on Thursday, the team announced. Based on ESPN’s real plus-minus, he was the league’s fifth most impactful player last year.
And San Antonio is headed by Gregg Popovich on the bench and Tim Duncan on the court, two of the greatest names in NBA history. It’s easy to see this group winning 60 or more games. I’ll give it 62.
Cleveland, though, isn’t far behind. Whatever else you want to say about owner Dan Gilbert, don’t call him cheap. As I explain here, he might spend as much as a quarter of a billion dollars to keep his band together.
And that band, when healthy, was incredible last year. Basketball-Reference.com reveals that when the Cavs had their starting five of Kyrie Irving, LeBron James, Kevin Love, Timofey Mozgov and J.R. Smith, they were 29-4. That rate would put them on pace to challenge the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls' 72-win season, but only if they all stayed healthy.
Still, the Cavaliers hitting 65 wins in the East is not at all a far-fetched projection.
If THEY Can Stay Healthy
The Chicago Bulls and Houston Rockets are different in a lot of ways, but they also have a lot of similarities.
They have arguably the two best shooting guards in the NBA right now with Jimmy Butler and James Harden, respectively. Butler was a defensive specialist who discovered his offense last year. Harden was a scoring sensation who committed to the other end of the court.
They both have a former Defensive Player of the Year at center. For the Bulls, that’s Joakim Noah, and for the Rockets, it’s Dwight Howard. And knee problems slowed down both during much of the season.
While the Rockets have been at the forefront of the analytics age, with a heavy emphasis on transition points and three-point shooting, the Bulls have just joined, making Fred Hoiberg their new head coach.
And both squads had tons of injuries last season. The Bulls had their starting five just 21 games, going 16-5 in those.
The Rockets were a little more complicated, with Donatas Motiejunas and Terrence Jones both essentially being the starting power forward. They were 14-7 when they had their other four starters (Patrick Beverley, James Harden, Trevor Ariza and Dwight Howard) with Motiejunas and won both games with Jones.
Both teams could win in the low 60s—if they stay healthy. But with both teams, that’s a big if.
For the Bulls, Hoiberg's appraisal of the roster suggests he plans to use everyone. At his introductory press conference, Nick Friedell of ESPN.com reported Hoiberg saying:
"I love this roster, I absolutely love this roster. I love the versatility of the players, the different lineups that we're going to be able to play. You can play small, you can play big, you've got lineups that I really think you can get out and play with pace. You've got a great group of veteran players that know how to play.
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That suggests there may be some relief in sight. And for the first time in four years, Derrick Rose finished the season healthy.
Assuming some injuries for both teams, expect them to finish with identical 60-22 records.
The Up-and-Comers
Both divisions also feature a young team on the rise. And both of those squads are led by a young, emerging superstar from Chicago. For the New Orleans Pelicans, that’s 22-year-old Anthony Davis, and for the Milwaukee Bucks, it’s 20-year-old Jabari Parker.
As of now, it’s premature to put Parker on the same level as Davis. But before he went out for the season with a torn ACL, the young Buck was the clear front-runner for Rookie of the Year. As you can tell from this tweet from his trainer, Suki Hobson, Parker’s well on his way to being back.
Furthermore, while Davis is unquestionably the better player, Parker’s teammates are superior to Davis’. After all, the Bucks won just four fewer games than New Orleans last year, even though Parker only played 25 games. And Milwaukee won’t just be getting Parker back; it acquired Greg Monroe through free agency as well.
According to NBA.com, the Bucks had the second-best defensive rating in the NBA last year. In getting Parker back and adding Monroe, their offense can now catch up. The Pelicans, though, made no significant roster changes. They did replace head coach Monty Williams with Alvin Gentry, and that should help the team progress, particularly on offense, but there will be a learning curve involved.
Both should improve, but the Bucks will a bit more. Slate them for 52 wins each.
The Revamps
Two other teams have rebuilt around their superstar on the fly.
For the Dallas Mavericks, that means adding Wesley Matthews and Deron Williams to the seventh all-time leading scorer, Dirk Nowitzki. They lost Tyson Chandler to the Phoenix Suns but replaced him with Zaza Pachulia via trade.
The moves here could turn out to be good. Matthews is one of the best three-and-D wings in the league when he’s healthy, but there's no guarantee of that with him returning from a blown Achilles.
Williams could now be in that caliber of player where the name is bigger than the performance. The Brooklyn Nets bought him out for a reason. During his four-plus seasons as a Net, Williams averaged 16.6 points and 7.5 dimes but also shot a meager 41.8 percent from the field. It may be that a homecoming will help the Dallas native, but it’s possible this is the beginning of the end for the Mavericks.
The Indiana Pacers lost David West to free agency and then swapped two-time All-Star Roy Hibbert for a second-round pick and a $15.5 million trade exception.
In part, the Pacers will try to make up for the loss of West by using Paul George as a stretch 4. And, surprisingly, they were better with Hibbert’s most likely replacements, (Ian Mahinmi and Lavoy Allen), on the court than they were with Hibbert last year.
They also added Monta Ellis (18.9 points per game) and Jordan Hill (12.0 points) though free agency and Chase Budinger (6.8) by trade. That’s a lot of offense for a team that has traditionally lacked any, especially when you consider that George will be there for the full season this year.
The Pacers might not be back to their 58-win total of two seasons ago, but they should be able to hit 55 again. The Mavericks, though, will be lucky to hit 45.
The Centers
Our final pairing is the Memphis Grizzlies and Detroit Pistons. With the Grizzlies, you know what you’re going to get. They’re going to run the Smash Brothers, (Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph), at you until it hurts.
They’ve been doing that successfully for the last four years, and it’s not likely to change this now. Over the last four seasons, they’ve averaged 53 wins. They’ll do a little better than that next year, matching last season’s 55 tally.
The Detroit Pistons, though, promise to be one of the league’s most improved teams. They have slowly been reshaped into a Stan Van Gundy team over the last two years.
They added stretch 4 Ersan Ilyasova (38.9 percent from deep) and combo forward Marcus Morris (35.8 percent) via trade. They selected Stanley Johnson (37.1 percent) with the No. 8 pick in the draft. They’re returning Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (34.5 percent). Brandon Jennings (36.0 percent) will be back from his torn Achilles. Even Reggie Jackson (33.7 percent) wasn’t horrible from deep for the Pistons last year.
The Pistons can now play the 4-out, 1-in offense that Van Gundy is noted for—the type that took the Orlando Magic to the NBA Finals in the 2008-09 season. Only, instead of Dwight Howard, the Magic will have Andre Drummond in the role of center.
Drummond is a fantastic player at the rim. He led the NBA with 437 offensive rebounds last season and with 440 the year before that. Last year, he made 393 shots at the rim, which also led the NBA. Adding all that shooting to stretch the court should make his 60.0 percent shooting from that range go up.
The Pistons will be vastly improved next year. They won’t be as good as Memphis, but 45 wins is realistic.
In Sum
When you add it all together, the Central Division can go toe-to-toe with the Southwest Division now. That’s mostly because the Eastern Conference version of a super division has gotten better, though Dallas will fall off this year.
Here are the final standings the way I project them:
There is one caveat to all this, and that’s 50 wins in the East aren’t the same thing as 50 wins in the West because the extra-division competition is weak. And that means there’s an understandable argument that just having better records in the East won’t necessarily mean better teams or a better division.
Still, if you’re evaluating “toughest division” by wins, the Central Division could be better than the Southwest this year. It might not be fair, but by virtue of playing easier schedules, better records will be easier to come by.
And furthermore, while 45 wins should easily be enough to make the postseason in the East, it won’t be in the West, meaning that the Central will boast more playoff teams.
If regular season or postseason success is the gauge, then the toughest division in the 2015-16 season will reside in the East. Hopefully, for the future of competitive balance, that’s the start of a trend.
Stats and lineup information obtained from Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
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