NBA Power Rankings: The 20 Biggest Storylines Leading Up to the All-Star Game
The first half of the NBA season has come and gone, the Super Bowl is over and that can only mean that All-Star Weekend is fast approaching, with the Boston Celtics and San Antonio Spurs holding the top spots in their respective conferences.
I have always enjoyed that the All-Star game is a bit after the halfway mark of the season. It makes it so the final months of the regular season seem more like a sprint, rather than the marathon that comes prior to the break and the marathon that is the NBA playoffs.
We have seen quite a number of unexpected events in the first half of the season, with the Cleveland Cavaliers doing not only bad, but historically bad, and the San Antonio Spurs emerging as the team to beat in the NBA.
The Miami Heat are rolling along quite nicely and beginning to mesh, which should be scary for the rest of the league, but the Boston Celtics seem to have their number in the Eastern Conference.
Some teams, like the Utah Jazz, are struggling unexpectedly, and others, like the New Orleans Hornets and to a lesser extent the New York Knicks, are performing at a level that almost nobody expected.
So what's going to happen for the rest of the season. Well...I haven't got a clue; I could make some guesses here, but why do that?
Instead, I've got a list here of the 20 most compelling storylines leading up to and following the All-Star break.
20. LeBron James' Foot-in-Mouth Moments
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Don't think for a minute I haven't been keeping mental notes of all of the somewhat out-of-nowhere and image-damaging remarks LeBron James has made over the past eight months—every one.
This has been my favorite sub-plot of the transformation from hero to villain for James ever since The Decision. It seems that ever since he created a Twitter account, he has opened up a side that we had never seen of him—the guy that just can't keep his mouth shut.
Sure, some of his comments were goaded on by the media, such as when he claimed that race was part of the reason for the backlash about his decision to sign with the Heat, but a lot of what he has said has been all LeBron.
My personal favorite so far was his "Crazy. Karma is a b****. Get's you every time. Its not good to wish bad on anyone. God sees everything!" tweet during Cleveland's 55-point loss to the Lakers.
The best part about it was his defending it by claiming he didn't write it; he just sent it out. Does that make it all better that all he did was push the send button on his Blackberry; I'd say not.
I'm putting the over/under on LeBron James foot-in-mouth moments for the rest of the season at 3.5, and I'd be leaning on the over on that one for sure, especially if they end up meeting Boston in the playoffs.
19. Will the Lakers Seriously Think about Trading Ron Artest
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This is one of the things that I seriously doubt will happen, but I had to include it just based on the number of people talking about it.
The Lakers have a guy in Ron Artest who cannot only slow down any player in the league, but who is also dishing out platters of non-insane crazy quite often.
Old Ron Artest was a stout defender and a good scorer whose version of crazy was climbing into the stands of The Palace at Auburn Hills to take on 20,000 hostile fans or being fined for flipping off fans in both Miami and Cleveland.
New Ron Artest is still a stout defender, a mediocre scorer and a guy whose version of crazy is pretending to be Luis Scola in a radio station interview and thanking his psychiatrist after winning the NBA Championship.
How could you give that guy up?
18. What's Up with Utah?
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The Utah Jazz started this season off quite strong, going 21-9 through the middle of December, but once that 10th lost hit, they just couldn't keep up their winning ways.
They have gone 10-13 since, which included a six-game losing streak and losses to Washington, New Jersey and Philadelphia.
They have struggled defensively without Mehmet Okur, who has played only 13 games this season and played them rather horribly, and they have endured horrible inconsistency from the likes of Andrei Kirilenko.
Is it possible that they were overachieving by a landslide in the first few months of the season, or is this just a bump in the road?
They are currently only a half a game ahead of the seventh-seeded Nuggets and only four up on Memphis, the nine seed.
If they don't get their act together, they could see quite a large fall from grace after making it to the conference semifinals last season.
17. NBA Draft Logjam
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Just for a second, let's pretend that everything in the NBA is all hunky-dory and no collective bargaining dispute is coming up; that way we keep all of the potential questions with this season's NBA draft to a minimum.
Over the past...well, what seems like forever...there has been an obvious favorite, or at least two favorites, to be drafted No. 1 in the upcoming draft by this time.
Last year, it was John Wall, before him it was Blake Griffin, before him it was Derrick Rose and before him it was between Kevin Durant and Greg Oden.
Regardless of what all of these players have become, the fact remains that there were obvious favorites to be drafted first and they were established early in the college basketball season.
This year, however, there seems to be a lot more variation of who lands in the top spot in the draft, with everyone from Jared Sullinger from Ohio State, Perry Jones from Baylor, Kyrie Irving from Duke and Terrence Jones from Kentucky gracing the top of NBA mock drafts.
This logjam could lead to the value of the No. 1, or even a top-five pick, dropping to the teams that hold them and make them more willing to trade their slot to another team for more picks or a more established player.
16. Cleveland Keeps Losing
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Excuse me while I bury a rag deep in my face to sob uncontrollably for a few seconds.
Wait for it...all right, I'm back and what a difference a year makes.
First to 40 wins one season and first to 40 losses the next will evoke quite a few strange emotions in a guy, especially when they come combined with a 25-game losing streak.
Can they win this week against Detroit or Washington and, if not, could the streak get up to 35 or even 40 games—which isn't exactly crazy talk.
As the Cavs keep losing, teams keep trying harder to beat them in order to keep the headlines from saying: "Team X Ends Cleveland's Historic Losing Streak," so the wins will be even harder to earn.
On the bright side, the Cavs are still on SportsCenter nearly every day, and they say that any publicity is good publicity, so there has to be something in that.
15. Blake Griffin
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How can a person be a storyline you ask? Well, when a single person generates as much buzz as Griffin has over the past few months, he qualifies as a storyline.
There is not a Clippers game that goes by in which a Blake Griffin highlight or two doesn't pop up.
Griffin is playing so good that he is making Baron Davis care about basketball again. Even crazier, he is making people care about the Clippers, which is something that Michael Olowokandi couldn't even do.
Yea, the Michael Olowokandi.
Griffin is starting to enter hyperbole status in the NBA in which, when someone describes something he did the night before to you, you automatically assume that they are embellishing it, and then you go and watch it, and it not only lives up to their hype, it surpasses it.
He can have the Rookie of the Year trophy right now even if his knees explode in the dunk contest and he never plays another basketball game again, which, come to think of it, would be in true Clippers fashion.
Nonetheless, Blake is becoming one of the most exciting players in the NBA and a guy you would have to see live to fully appreciate.
He plays with a kind of balls-out ferocity and a mentality that he doesn't care who he riles up so long as he scores two points for his team, making him look like the most committed player in the NBA.
14. What Will Dallas Do?
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The Dallas Mavericks have been one of the most consistently good teams over the last decade, thanks mostly to the stellar play of Dirk Nowitzki, who can easily call himself the second-best non-American basketball player of all-time (Hakeem Olajuwon holds the No. 1 spot).
Now, however, the window for a championship for the Dallas Mavericks as they look right now is closing, and they are playing like a team possessed with the second-best record in the Western Conference.
They have the ability to rent a superstar for the rest of the season like Carmelo Anthony or even Steve Nash, who would fit right back in with Nowitzki.
If they can pick up another top-tier talent, there is no telling how good this team could be, and they would instantly be a threat for the finals.
13. What Is Going To Happen with Yao Ming?
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Yao Ming's giant expiring contract is one of the most lucrative trade pieces in the NBA right now, and if Houston were to move the contract, it could pay dividends for them down the road.
Yao has a nearly $18 million contract coming off the books this summer, something that every team in the NBA would love to have with the uncertainty of what the new collective bargaining agreement holds.
They could trade him away this season, get a good young player in return or a nice draft pick and try to re-sign him at a discounted rate next season, as he has expressed his love for the Rockets team that he has called home since 2001.
Houston could also just keep him on the payroll, ride out his contract until it expires and use the newfound cap space to sign a good free agent or two in the next few seasons and still re-sign Yao at a discounted rate.
12. Can Gilbert Arenas Pick Up His Pace?
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Few players have had as rough a few seasons as Gilbert Arenas, but when comparing what he used to be able to do to his current output, it's hard not to be disappointed.
For the Magic, Arenas is averaging 8.4 points in 21 minutes over 25 games. What's worse is the fact that he is shooting an ugly 35 percent and an even uglier 28 percent from downtown, making his true shooting percentage a terrible 44 percent.
There is a lot of optimism in Orlando for what their team could be if all of the pieces that they traded for end up working out how they hoped.
Jason Richardson is working out so far, as he is scoring at a good rate and doing so quite efficiently, while also surviving on defense.
If Gilbert Arenas were to even turn into the guy he was on Washington before the trade, he would help the Magic immensely, as it would give them a guy that could score and distribute with their second unit as good as almost any starting point guard in the NBA.
11. Technically Speaking, I'm Tired of Technicals
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When the Charlotte Bobcats met the Boston Celtics on Monday night, Stephen Jackson received two consecutive technical fouls for no more than complaining to the referees.
I'm all for curbing poor sportsmanship, but when it takes over a game, I think I'd rather see players complain on every possession than have a referee effect the outcome of a game any more than they already do.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the number of T's called this season for complaining and poor sportsmanship is up 34 percent and was at 481 through January 24th.
What's worse, 37 technicals have been rescinded by the league in the days following them being called, more than triple the number that were reversed at this point a year ago.
It's as if David Stern has told the referees to blow their whistle whenever they want and the league will sort it all out after the game.
The problem with that is that teams will still get the foul shot from the technical that was called and you can't exactly take a point away from a team two days after the game was played.
It's just a matter of time before a team loses by a point, only to have a technical foul that was called on them rescinded by the league the next day, basically saying no harm was done, but you still lost because of an over-aggressive referee.
Here's an idea, after the fifth technical that a referee has rescinded, suspend him without pay for a game, and another game for each one after that. It's the same theory as the players who get suspended for a game after their 16th technical of the season and a game for every T afterward.
10. How Good Will a Healthy Chicago Bulls Team Be?
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This season, the Chicago Bulls have put their ideal lineup on the court for exactly 119 minutes and have played together in only nine games.
For the first two months of the season, Carlos Boozer was down with a broken hand and since December 15th, Joakim Noah has been out with a torn ligament in his thumb on his shooting hand.
Despite having been completely healthy for only a handful of games this season, the Bulls are still third in the Eastern Conference and are only three-and-a-half games behind the Boston Celtics.
If the Bulls were given the whole season to get their team up and running as a whole, with Noah and Boozer both in the starting lineup from Day 1, is it too far off to think that they could be the best team in the East right now?
Noah is set to return right after the All-Star break and, barring another injury, that should give Chicago plenty of time to work him back into the rotation and put their team together for the playoffs, where they could emerge out of the East as conference champions if all goes to plan.
Side Note: I'm insanely disappointed that Noah hasn't dragged out his draft-day suit out of retirement for his time on the bench. He and Craig Sager would have a ball together.
9. NBA Dunk Contest Revival
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Some say that the epic battle between big and small, good and evil, SuperDwight and KryptoNate, dragged the Dunk Contest out of the slump that it had been in. If that is true, then this one should put it back on top of the mountain.
This year boasts a lineup of the most diverse dunkers that hasn't been seen since Michael Jordan sparred with Dominique Wilkins back in the '80s.
DeMar Derozan is the typical 2000s dunk contest contestant. He is the über-athletic combo-guard that can jump out of the gymnasium and do some truly special things with an open floor and the ball in his hands.
Serge Ibaka is a seven-footer who can do things no seven-footer should be able to do, like dunk from the foul line.
JaVale McGee has a unique combination of style, finesse and height that make him a threat to do something memorable or completely fail trying.
And finally, Blake Griffin, who has seemingly been the No. 1 play on SportsCenter every time he plays a game this season, is one of the most exciting dunkers in recent memory. What's even better is he is asking for fans to send in some suggestions for his dunks, which will definitely end up getting creative.
8. Rajon Rondo, Kevin Love and...Tyson Chandler?
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There are three players in the NBA this season looking to do things that haven't been done since the 1990s or even in the history of the NBA.
Rajon Rondo is currently averaging 12.4 assists per game and shows no signs of slowing down. The last time an NBAer averaged a dime-plus-a-duece assists per game was when John Stockton did it for about a decade in the late '80s and early '90s.
Kevin Love is pulling down over 15 rebounds a game, and there seems to be nobody in the league that can box him out. If he keeps that pace up, it will be the highest rebounding average since Dennis Rodman averaged 16 boards a game in the 1996-97 season.
Finally, there's Tyson Chandler and this one threw me for a loop folks.
Tyson Chandler has a true shooting percentage currently at 71 percent and an effective field goal percentage outdistancing Artis Gilmore's 1981-82 season by about a half of a percentage point.
That, my friends, would be the highest true shooting percentage of all-time—not just the last decade or the last quarter century, but in the history of the NBA.
Chandler would be the owner of one of the most efficient and productive shooting seasons since the NBA was born back in 1946.
7. The Miami Heat Are Continuing To Mesh
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They may not have the number of games under their belts that the Boston Celtics, San Antonio Spurs or Los Angeles Lakers core have, but the Miami Trio is starting to play well together.
There are fewer instances between LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in which one will have the ball, only to defer to the other in an attempt to be nice and polite. And Chris Bosh is fitting in nicely as well.
James and Wade still don't have great games together (statistically at least) as often as many would like them to, but they are looking more and more team-ish as the games go by.
I'm not saying I'm rocketing them up to Finals-favorites status yet, but they are certainly making progress.
6. Where Will Talks of Contraction and Teams Moving Go?
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There are a few cities that people have talked about in terms of taking away their basketball team.
People have mentioned contracting the Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Hornets and Sacramento Kings from the league.
Will these talks continue? The new collective bargaining agreement has yet to be put in place, and what it could hold continues to be a mystery.
There have also been talks of moving teams to a new city, namely the New Orleans Hornets, which have just barely scratched together enough fans for the team to have to stay in New Orleans at least through the end of their lease this year, meaning they'll have a basketball team in the 2011-12 season (or what may remain of it).
Cities that have been thrown around to get an NBA franchise have been Las Vegas, Seattle, or even something international, such as Mexico City.
I, for one, would love to see Seattle get their NBA team back, but I can't say taking a team away from another city would be the right move, especially after seeing the Browns get stolen away from Cleveland.
5. What Happens at the Trade Deadline?
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There are numerous teams that would love to empty out their roster onto another team and prepare for the future.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, Toronto Raptors, Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks all have multiple players they would be willing to trade.
Then there are those teams that would be willing to pick up a player cheap, such as Atlanta, New York, Utah, Houston, Dallas and even (for some reason) the Lakers.
As the All-Star break creeps nearer and the Carmelo Anthony saga sorts itself out, there is sure to be a wealth of players dealt before the February 24th trade deadline.
It is very likely that many teams in the NBA will have new faces added to their lineups, and teams like Cleveland and Toronto will become more populated with D-League players, which is cool if you enjoy watching Alonzo Gee dunk on Trey Johnson (which, honestly, I do).
4. How Does the MVP Race Shape Up?
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Before the season started, most of the preseason picks crowned Kevin Durant as the MVP and thought that it was a done deal.
Well, a few weeks into the season, Derrick Rose interjected and stuffed his name into the MVP debate.
Then, after winning two Player of the Month Awards so far this season (that's two out of three months mind you), LeBron James reminded us all that he has won the past two awards and he doesn't really want to stop.
Then there is always Dirk Nowitzki, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Amar'e Stoudemire and Dwight Howard, who have all looked like worthy candidates at some point this season.
When you break it down, it all depends on how you define the award I suppose.
If you take it literally and give it to the player who is the most important to their team, then Stoudemire, Nowitzki or Rose should stand above the rest.
I find that to be a silly way to define an award, however, as it is supposed to go to the best player in the league.
If you go by that definition, then, really, it's hard not to give it to LeBron.
I'll recognize that he's a great player if you Miami fans recognize that he did a horrible thing to Cavs fans and has become a first-class jerk over the past eight months (either that or I was sippin' on the Kool-Aid too hard while he was in Cleveland and couldn't see it for myself).
3. Can the Spurs Keep Up This Pace?
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The San Antonio Spurs have completely bucked the trend of being a "boring" basketball team.
San Antonio is one of the faster-paced teams in the NBA this season (well 13th out of 30 compared to 20th last year) ever since Manu Ginobli has taken off as the team's star player over Tim Duncan.
They have ridden a tidal wave of success to the top of the NBA this season and are sitting pretty at 42-8, and are a full seven games ahead of the next closest team in the loss column, a number hard to make up with just over 30 games left.
The question, however, is will their newfound pace translate to success in the playoffs, or will they have to go back to a methodical approach in order to wear their opponents down with their still-stellar defense and physical play?
2. Where Will Carmelo Go?
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In case you have been living under a rock or have been in Egypt without internet for the past couple of days, let me catch you up on a few things.
Carmelo isn't going to re-sign with Denver, about 74 teams have been "rumored" to have been in talks with Denver for a deal with him, and he only wants to play with New York.
So, the question is, what is going to give?
Is New York going to break down and offer Denver something worth trading Carmelo for?
Will Denver lower their asking price and rent him out to a team like Los Angeles, Houston or Dallas for the rest of the season?
If that happens and Carmelo ends up in Dallas or Los Angeles, will he change his mind once he gets there and re-sign with them, instantly making him public enemy No. 1 in New York?
There are so many things that seem plausible at this point with Anthony, after it seemed to be a done deal that he would land in New York prior to the season, that you can't help but be a little shocked.
One thing is for sure: Once he is traded and signs with whatever team he does choose to sign with once the season is over, I will be more than ecstatic that I no longer have to hear or write about speculations of where he is going to end up.
1. The Expiring Collective Bargaining Agreement
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So far this has been talked about like a storm that you can see off in the distance, but aren't too worried about yet because it is so far out.
"Looks like it might rain," you'll say, and then walk away and play a game of hoops in your driveway.
You'll realize it's getting closer and closer, and even as you see it approaching rapidly, you'll stay out, trying to play as long as possible.
Then it hits.
A torrential downpour in a matter of seconds, and you trudge inside, drenched to the bone. "That came out of nowhere!" you'll say once inside.
Really, though, it didn't. It's just like the CBA; it looks like a lockout might come, but David Stern seems to be putting off serious talks as long as possible so he can squeeze in one more game of HORSE.
The NBA has much bigger problems to deal with than the NFL, whose main debate is over a rookie salary scale, player-owner compensation percentages and the idea of an 18-game season.
No, the NBA has to deal with the idea of possibly getting rid of teams and completely revamping the way in which teams can sign players, as they have to make up for $400 million in losses that David Stern claims the league encountered last season.
There is definitely a storm cloud on the horizon and Stern might want to go inside before he gets wet.
