NBA Playoffs 2011: Best and Worst Starting Lineups in This Year's Playoffs

Worst: Orlando Magic

Dwight Howard, Jameer Nelson, Brandon Bass, Hedo Turkoglu, Jason Richardson

It sucked that I had to do this, but judging their postseason only, they had to be ranked as the worst starting lineup this year. Game 1 is all the proof I need to back up my decision to place them this low on the list. When a superstar, like Dwight Howard, scores 40-plus points and the team still loses, there is a deep-seated issue in the locker room that needs to be addressed.

Dwight Howard was phenomenal in this series.

There is nothing else that I can point out that he could have done to lift his team past the Hawks.

He scored 46 points with 19 rebounds in Game 1 of the playoff series against Atlanta and there was no doubt in my mind that he would be able to battle through Atlanta’s three-point firepower on his own.

Then the thought crept back into my mind that there is no way one man can beat an equally contributing squad. As much as he would have liked to walk away from this year’s playoffs with a ring, there was no help and the result was out of his hands. He averaged 27 points and 14 rebounds in this series. There is nothing else that could have been asked of him.

Jameer Nelson came up big in one game in this series, which was Game 1 where he scored 27 points and pulled down six rebounds.

That was only time where I saw a glimmer of hope for the rest of Nelson’s career in Orlando. In Game 3, when his double-double meant less than nothing while his field-goal percentage was 29.4 percent, zero of his makes were three-point fields goals and he attempted four.

Nelson once had the promise to be an elite point guard and seemed like he could turn out to be the truest form of a leader the franchise had. Then, the playoffs recreated a visual of him of mediocrity.

Jason Richardson, as successful as he had been prior to the Atlanta series, had no reason whatsoever to average only 10 points in six games. I admire the fact that he never gave up in trying to contribute to the team, especially in Games 3 and 5.

You must give a player his due when he looks defeat in the eye and continues to strive to the best of his ability towards success. Still, I am not a fan of the moral victory and Richardson did not accomplish enough in this series for me to give him a second look in any manner.

Both Brandon Bass and Hedo Turkoglu had spurts but nothing to determine the outcome of any of the six games.

Best: Dallas Mavericks

Dirk Nowitzki, Tyson Chandler, Shawn Marion, DeShawn Stevenson, Jason Kidd

Although I do not predict the Mavericks winning the NBA Finals, there is a need for me to recognize their starting five as the best in the 2011 playoffs, Eastern Conference included.

They may be getting worked over by the Miami Heat, but that is because of the efforts of their three core players.

Dallas may trip up a few times in the eyes of such smothering defense and exemplary scoring ability, but there is no way a person in their right mind can doubt how stacked they are in their starting lineup.

You have Dirk Nowitzki, who people are putting in the conversation with Larry Bird. I feel like Dirk is one of the greatest pure scorers the league has ever seen, but to be put in the conversation with a great, you must be a proven winner.

Bird was a winner while Nowitzki has yet to do so. Even without a championship in Dallas, Dirk has a jumper that is "unguardable."

That is, until Udonis Haslem forced him to his right and he put up a floater that bricked, when any other time in the playoffs, that shot clears nothing but net. Dirk is the reason why the Dallas Mavericks have been able to come this far. His clutch performances of the past two series alone should put him up as a favorite in the Finals.

You could put him in the parking lot and he would still clear the rim.

Shawn Marion has remodeled himself right before our eyes by becoming one the steady flows of offense and defense on LeBron James that this team has.

One could attribute LeBron’s lack of offense to the fact that he is concentrating on the other end of the floor, but do not discredit Marion for what he has accomplished by forcing the ball out of LeBron’s hands or forcing him to take a tough shot.

James is going to get his and everyone in the league knows that. A defender’s responsibility is to keep it from looking so easy. Forcing contact in the paint for such a prolific scorer will make that player rethink their floor options and reconsider their penetration strategies, especially if they are not getting the calls under the rim.

Jason Kidd, as prehistoric as he is viewed by the public, is still well respected among his peers for what he was and still is able to do with a basketball on the big stage.

Years ago, you could not tell me that Kidd would still have a monstrous impact on a team at the age of 38. He is still agile and his basketball IQ assists him more than ever in this year’s playoffs. Just in Game 3 of the playoffs, his shot fake caused Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade to launch himself in the air, creating a foul-shot opportunity for Kidd.

That play alone demonstrated why Kidd has the ability to be as useful as he has been to this Dallas Mavericks run. He still has the court vision that an elite point guard must possess and in the OKC Thunder series, where it seemed like Russell Westbrook would undoubtedly run circles around Kidd, Jason dominated like he was still in his 20s. 

Jason Kidd may be nearing his end, but he has yet to show signs of slowing down at the moment.

Tyson Chandler is the X-factor for Dallas. There are other important players from the bench like Jason Terry or JJ Barea. Those guys can come up big when needed. However, Chandler has given this team a different competitive dimension than they possessed before.

Operating under the rim takes a lot of composure and self-control because there will be a lot of forced contact to contend with.

Of course against OKC Thunder, he and Kendrick Perkins were tied up a few times while James Harden put on a heck of a variety show with a collapse that resulted in a technical for Chandler. Still, he is needed for the Dallas Mavericks to come up big.

Chandler can get to the free-throw line and put defensive players like Joel Anthony and Udonis Haslem in foul trouble. It may be a minor role to fill as opposed to being a lead scorer but everything counts in the playoffs.