Four NBA Teams to Keep an Eye on in 2008-09

The NBA simply doesn't benefit from the same type of parity that the NFL and Major League Baseball does.

(Wow, who saw that day coming—"parity" and "Major League Baseball? Hmm.)

There are no 10-6 New York Giants. No 83-78 St. Louis Cardinals. No sixth-seeded Pittsburgh Steelers. Those kinds of teams don't lift the hardware come June in the Association.

But what the league does provide is the opportunity to witness young up-and-coming teams arrive on the scene and lay the foundation for a future run at success. It happens every year. Teams like the '08 Celtics—an instance where superstars are thrown together overnight to completely revamp a lottery team—are few and far in between. Far in between. Teams usually work their way to the top and have to take their lumps in the process.

In most cases, those lumps have to be taken for at least a couple years—if not more.

That's one thing that you can keep your eye on in the upcoming 2008-09 season. There were teams who started "building that championship foundation" last season that are looking to take the next step. There are others who look primed to open their window as a championship contender for the first time. Who are they?

New Orleans Hornets

Remember back when critics and observers were saying how hard it would be for the Hornets to field a championship contender in such a cut-throat division? There was San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas to worry about, and all of those teams blew the Hornets out of the water in 2006-07.

Well, 2007-08 was the year the Hornets broke through.

Who would have seen that coming? A 56-26 record? Winning the Southwest Division by virtue of tiebreaker—against the Spurs? And then putting the Spurs on the ropes in a riveting second-round playoff series that went seven games?

The protocol for building a team these days seems to be surrounding a dynamic lead guard with athletic "bigs." Chris Paul is as dynamic as they get, and Tyson Chandler may be as athletic as big men come in the league these days.

Pair that with All-Star, 20/10 threat David West, and the Hornets have pieces to the puzzle that actually fit together. They only learned from their experience against the Spurs last season, and San Antonio's playoff mettle proved to be the difference in Game Seven last spring.

Expect those painful memories and hard lessons learned to push New Orleans through a similar situation next spring. Possibly in June.

Orlando Magic

We can let it go now—this franchise is officially over the failure and mishandling of the Shaq/Penny fiasco.

Orlando returned to the realm of NBA heavyweights last year with another strong inside-outside combination for the new millennium in Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis. Under Howard's leadership, the Magic had been building to this point steadily during the first three years of the big man's career.

Armed with cap space last offseason, Orlando found their "closer" in Lewis, a veteran small forward who is just 28 and complements Howard's inside dominance extremely well.

The Magic rode that to a 52-30 mark last season and their first division crown since you-know-who strolled O-Town. The team dumped a Toronto team that had playoff experience in the first round with ease before running into the battle-tested Pistons in the second round.

Some bizarre calls and officiating made the series look more one-sided than it really was—but as was the case with the Hornets, expect this group to use those moments as a lesson in taking the next step.

Orlando also found a great complementary player—if you can even call him that—in Hedo Turkoglu, who is only 29. Turkoglu put up a banner year in '07-08 with 19.5 points, 5.7 boards, and 5.0 assists, easily earning Most Improved Player honors.

If coach Stan Van Gundy's group can get another year like that from the third guy in between Howard and Lewis, then this team is done just "building." They'll be ready to take the next step.

Hey, Orlando has only gotten better ever since adding Dwight. There's really no reason to doubt that they'll continue in their quest to get to the Finals this June.

Portland Trail Blazers

Many thought that the Blazers were going to do what the Hornets did last year. Injuries and ill fate put the brakes on Portland's return to NBA prominence, but don't expect lightning to strike twice this year in Rip City.

Second-year guard Brandon Roy was an All-Star last season, and the team went on to finish 41-41, officially rising out of the dregs that the organization had dropped to just two seasons earlier.

Center Greg Oden, the top pick in the '07 draft, was supposed to be the most-hyped and talented big man to enter the league since Shaq himself in '92, but microfracture surgery on his knees cancelled his 2007-08 debut.

Now, Oden is back, and his recovery from injury can be compared to Amare Stoudemire's, considering the fact that G.O. is still a young buck at age 20.

Power forward LaMarcus Aldridge, who came from the same draft class as Roy, emerged after the team traded Zach Randolph in the previous offseason to put up 17.8 points and 7.6 rebounds a game. There's no reason to doubt that Aldridge can become an even bigger threat when Oden is playing next to him, and Portland's ability to use these two towers to pair with a dynamic guard in Roy could make them this year's Hornets.

The only caveat when it comes to the Blazers is that fans seem to be jumping the gun way too quickly. Nobody has seen this entire team play together as a unit, and the team is being talked about too much in hypotheticals.

If the stars align for Portland this season in a way that allows them to see their young stars on the floor at the same time for an extended period, then the league may not know what hit it in '08-09.

Philadelphia 76ers

Admit it: There was a fraction of time when you thought that this group just...might...beat...Detroit.

The Sixers used last season to separate themselves from Allen Iverson's shadow and from the notion of being "Iverson's team." There was a new A.I. to build around in Andre Iguodala, and the Sixers finally cemented their status as a team to watch when they gave Iggy a new six-year deal this offseason.

Philly was able to take a 2-1 series lead in the first round of the playoffs against Detroit before being put away in six, but the team showed a lot of good things for a young squad. Iguodala seemed ready to take the role as an alpha dog. Samuel Dalembert could be relied upon as a premier interior defender.

And considering the impact that Andre Miller made compared with how little Iverson helped improve Denver's annual first-round humiliations, it's not unrealistic to think that the Sixers won that Miller-Iverson trade from December '06.

Just as Orlando added Rashard Lewis as its "closer" in free agency in 2007, Philly went out and grabbed Elton Brand to be the final piece of the puzzle as they look to open up a new championship window. Brand's health has been a major question mark in the recent past, but going to a storied franchise like the Sixers in a title-hungry town like Philly—compared to the dormant, second-fiddle Clippers in Los Angeles—is enough to get anyone's juices flowing.

Bet on Brand coming back to be the 20/10 machine of old, and that's enough to create a lethal combination along with Iguodala. In an Eastern Conference devoid of star big men, Philly has an All-Star—and it should be enough to make the Bostons, Detroits, and Clevelands run for cover before making playoff reservations for late May and beyond.