Middle of The Road and The Playoffs

I’ve talked a good bit about the teams at the top of the standings (and one team who refuses to ascend to the top of the standings).  I’ve also talked a little bit about the bottom feeders of the league (and one good team benefitting greatly by the Knicks incompetence) and what their chances are in the draft.  The group that is normally overlooked (unless you cover the team or blog about them) are the middle of the road borderline playoff teams or in some cases the playoff locks that haven’t quite played their way into the upper echelon.

Now some of these teams have gotten national coverage because they’re teams on the rise who have done better than they were expected to do (the Thunder).  There are teams that have had injuries at the beginning of the season are playing above what their talent level suggests (the Rockets).  There are teams that have had a serious injury bug during the season but for some reason continue to plug along despite their lack of resources (the Blazers).  And there are perennial doormats that no one expected anything from (the Grizzlies).  All of them have garnered some national attention, but it usually doesn’t extend beyond the “well, isn’t that grand” kind of sentiment.  Here we’re going to look over the teams that might not make a huge impact on the playoffs but are in the thick of it all the same and what their future looks like.  We’ll start off with the Western Conference today and get to the Eastern Conference some time later this week.

Right now the best team of the bunch according to the regular standings and John Hollinger’s Playoff Odds is the Oklahoma City Thunder.  This is an exceptionally young team that is playing well beyond its years and they are very much ahead of schedule (much like the Blazers were last season).  A lot of the praise is being heaped on their emerging superstar and current All-Star Kevin Durant and deservedly so.  Durant has turned himself into one of the elite scorers in the NBA and is making a legitimate push for the league’s scoring title.  He’s carrying a lot of the offensive load for the Thunder this season and he’s improved as a defender (he’s still not very good though).  It’s easy to give most of the credit to Durant (and he is very much their best player), but it’s also ignoring what’s really making this Thunder team hum.

The real key to the Thunder’s success this season is their improved team defense.  Last season they ranked 20^th in team defense and have quite surprisingly jumped to 3^rd in team defense this season, all this without a dominant interior presence (unless that’s where you want to put Krstic, which you shouldn’t).  Which makes this next part pretty unbelievable, they’re one of the best teams this season at protecting the rim, all this without having a shot blocker on the roster (Serge Ibaka being the only player on the team averaging at least 1 block per game, and while he shows a lot of promise, he’s hardly getting enough playing time to really be a factor).  Not only that but they don’t even have a very good rebounder on the team and essentially rebound by committee.  Another key factor is no one in their main rotation as missed any time (actually, only Krstic has missed more than a game).

So where does this leave the Thunder for the future.  Well, only Nick Collison will be above the age or 26 by the end of the season and he likely doesn’t factor into their long term future.  Everyone else in their current nine man rotation is 26 or younger and all of them figure to big significant factors moving forward (with maybe the exception of Krstic).  If they really want to position themselves as serious contenders for the future, they’d probably need to get a legitimate shot blocking and rebounding presence in the middle (at least someone that can legitimately play the 5 for about 25 to 28 minutes a game grab about 9 boards a game, that would be ideal).  Depending how they navigate the draft this year (and they have two first round draft picks and a second rounder), that might be a reasonable target with a number of quality big prospects this year (right now it looks like VCU’s big man Larry Sanders).  Regardless, their future looks about as bright as any team in the league (and with the way they’re moving along at the moment, they might even reach 50 wins this season).

While the Thunder can boast keeping their 9 man rotation completely healthy, the Portland Trail Blazers can make no such claim.  The Blazers injury situation has been one of the more ridiculous situations in recent memory (actually I can’t remember a team ever suffering these kind of injury setbacks).  Every returning player from their rotation outside of LaMarcus Aldridge has missed significant time.  They’ve had to play an ancient Juwan Howard major minutes at center because both Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla went down for the season within a week of each with almost identical injuries to the knee (there is some hope that Oden could return at the end of the season, but I’d say that’s a pipe dream).  Their best player is Brandon Roy and he’s currently missing games because of an injury to his hamstring.  Despite all of this though, the Blazers are somehow keeping their heads above water and in the thick of the playoff race.

It’s not immediately clear why this is at first glance.  Granted they’re fairly off the pace of last season (an 8 or 9 game difference), but with the number of injuries they’ve had, losing their best player for almost 15 games and losing two of the best rebounders in the league, logic would suggest that they shouldn’t be competing for a playoff spot.  But they haven’t dropped off that much offensively or defensively from last season.  Last season they were tops in terms of offensive efficiency and just above average in defensive efficiency.  This season they’re still in the top ten in offensive efficiency (6^th overall) and they’ve fallen nearly as much in defensive efficiency (slightly below average at 18^th).   A lot of this can be attributed to having three fairly steady, if unspectacular, hands who have played every game for them so far in Aldridge, Andre Miller, and Martell Webster, all of whom have held the fort down for the Blazers nicely as they wait for the rest of their teammates to regain their health.

Despite the injury woes, the Blazers future still looks fairly bright.  They’re starting to get healthier as the season progresses, Rudy Fernandez and Nicolas Batum are both on the floor again, which should give them some punch.  Jerryd Bayless has been getting a good amount of playing time and to the shock of no one (or it should be no one, I don’t know, maybe Nate McMillan is shocked), he can actually play and has a good bit of potential.  On top of all of this, they still have their first round pick (a little surprising for non-lottery teams), and they have three solid prospects playing overseas who all show a good bit of promise (Victor Claver, Petteri Koponen, and Joel Freeland).  This season might end up being a growing experience for them as a whole as it’s really showing this team has some grit.

Speaking of grit, none of the teams in the playoffs hunt this season has shown more than this year’s Houston Rockets.  After losing Yao Ming, one of the top 15 players in the NBA, several months ago for the entire season, their chances this year seemed dire…at best.  I will freely admit that I thought the Rockets were going to be significantly below .500 and not really in the playoff picture.  Yet, without anything resembling a traditional All-Star player (or a traditional go to player for that matter), they’ve been able to keep themselves in the thick of the playoff race.

It’s really odd how they’re doing it too.  They’ve actually gotten worse offensively and while they were one of the best defensive teams last season, they’re hovering around the middle of the pack this season.  Their leading scorer is a 5’11” shoot first point guard.  Their best player is their sixth man, Carl Landry the slightly undersized 6’8” power forward.  Their major offseason acquisition is a defensive stopper who coach Rick Adelman is giving free reign to do whatever he wants on offense (and in fairness to Trevor Ariza, he’s just not a very good at creating his own shot, but he’s nowhere near becoming a black hole and is very unselfish at least).

Looking at the numbers, there’s no reason to think they’d be above .500, but they are a very tough team to play most of the time.  But they have been a very tough team to play and they work for everything.  All is not lost either.  With Tracy McGrady’s expiring corpse, they have a major trading piece to possibly acquire more talent (right now reports have them leaning towards Andre Iguodala in Philly or Caron Butler in DC).  They might make the playoffs this season and if they did, they’d be a tough out for whoever they play (and the likelihood is, the team that eliminates them will be worse for wear in the next round), but they might be better off missing the playoffs this season.  If they could acquire a bit more talent at the trade deadline, pick up a blue chipper in the draft (maybe even get a bit of luck), and have a returning Yao Ming (despite the length of time he’s missed, if he fully heals, the injury shouldn’t have that big of an impact on his future), they’ll be in good shape for the next few seasons.

Another team that has missed their best player for long stretches of the season is the New Orleans Hornets.  Chris Paul is one of the five best players in the league and carries a gigantic role on the Hornets.  When he’s been hurt in the past, they’ve been up the creek with much more than a boat.  This season with Darren Collison filling in for him, they’re in a better position but they still don’t look like a playoff team.  With Paul back from his sprained ankle they were 18-10 and poised to make a run to the playoff, but with him gone they might be able to keep themselves around .500, but that won’t make them a playoff team.  Most likely by the time Paul comes back, they won’t have enough momentum to make a playoff run.

All is not lost for the Hornets though, despite what you may have heard.  Like the Rockets, missing the playoffs might be the best thing to happen to them in the long run.  They finally found a solid back-up point guard for Paul in last year’s draft and Marcus Thornton has proven to be a steal from the second round.  This coming draft in particular seems to be loaded with quality big men.  If they do find themselves in the lottery any number of bigs would be beneficial for them.  The financial problems of the Hornets have been well documented, but after next season, the two albatrosses in Stojakovic and Morris Peterson will finally be coming off the books, giving the Hornets their first salary cap breathing room in quite some time (now if they could only figure out how to get rid of James Posey).

The final team making a decent playoff run is the team that surprised everyone.  The Memphis Grizzlies have been considered the doormat of the NBA (with the exception of the brief three year reprieve earlier this decade) and it looked like at the beginning of the season that nothing was going to change.  Things changed though.

The biggest change was in Zach Randolph.  The Grizz were chided, quite accurately, for trading for Zach Randolph earlier in the season.  Randolph was known as a black hole, ball stopping forward with a poor shot selection.  This season though, he’s making quick decisions, sharing the basketball, and while his shot selection still leaves a little to be desired, but he’s taking those shots close enough to the basket that he’s being able to take advantage of his exceptional offensive rebounding skills.

The other thing that’s been propelling the Grizz to around .500 this season is their starting line-up.  Everyone in the starting line-up is playing well, especially with Marc Gasol holding down the center position.  Gasol was slightly overweight last season and while he was obviously skilled, he was noticeably slow footed.  This season he came into the season slimmed down and has made tremendous leaps and bounds this season.  Although their starting line-up is solid, they’re getting little to no help from their bench.  They get a little production from Jamaal Tinsley but not that much.  This will probably be the downfall to their season and why they won’t make the playoffs.

And not making the playoffs won’t be the worst thing in the world for them.  They need a little more talent up front (as Thabeet looks to be far away), and as mentioned above, this draft is loaded with quality bigs.  There also been some question as to whether they’ll be willing to re-sign Rudy Gay next season, which is why I’m not as high on their future as some of the other teams.  If they’re able to re-sign Gay, sign another guard, and draft a quality big man, they might be able to really build off of this season.

These are the mix of teams that are going to be on the bubble for the playoffs (although the Thunder seem to be on the verge of locking up and moving pretty far up in the standings).  My guess is that the Thunder and Trail Blazers will make the playoffs handily and three others will be on the outside looking in.