The Season is Here

Your weekly NBA Pacific Division Update

By Tara Sadat-Tehrani

Frederic J. Brown / Getty Images

The time has come, and the NBA season has started.  Rankings and predictions were made all of preseason and during training camp, but how have teams done keeping these projections of their performance in mind.  For the NBA Pacific Division, the predictions and guesses have been quite on point with a little surprise for some teams, but I believe that there is always rust when it comes to the beginning of an 82-game season.  Let’s see which teams are on the road to success in the West, and which others may have no hope even though there has only been up to four games.

First place goes to the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Clippers did lose to the Lakers opening night, but since then, they have put the Warriors to shame and “Lob City” has yet to leave its game plan like originally wanted by Doc Rivers.  Chris Paul and Blake Griffin have had chemistry from anywhere on the court, and the Clippers should come out as No. 1 in the Pacific Division and the Western Conference based on their talent and other analyst opinions.

Golden State Warriors take second.

 This is a whole new team this year.  People doubted the trade of Monta Ellis two years ago, but the team has only improved.  Andre Iguodala has brought tenacity, and Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson have already showed that they are going to play their best this year.  With the Warriors’ fan base and young exciting team, there is a huge chance that they will make it far in the West this year. 

The Phoenix Suns have been the most shocking so far this season after three games coming in at third.

 No one has paid attention to the Suns for the past years after Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion left the team.  The team’s struggles just kept going, and nobody noticed them like they used to.  But with players like Goran Dragic, Eric Bledsoe and Archie Goodwin, anything can change.  Give them a couple of seasons for this roster to spark and change people’s views of the Suns.  Hopefully they can keep this streak going, but it’s likely that their chemistry won’t outlast the rest of this competitive West.

Lastly, the Los Angeles Lakers (2-2) and the Sacramento Kings (1-2) place last, but that should not be a shock for most NBA fans. 

The Lakers had an impressive performance against the Clippers without Kobe Bryant, but without their franchise player, clutch moments will probably not come in clutch times.  The Lakers need Kobe Bryant even if he does not fully come back with his star power.  They need his support on the floor either way.  The Sacramento Kings, on the other hand, need to make more changes and mature before the team have any chance of having a new appearance in the West, let alone the Pacific Division.

Overall, the West once again is looking like a dominant conference that will have close calls when it comes to entering the playoffs.  Forgetting about predictions and analysts, it is time for these teams play their hardest and win games if they want to live up to what people think of them. 

Sacramento Kings: Far From Royal

Your Weekly Update on the NBA Pacific Division

By Tara Sadat-Tehrani

Injuries have overpowered the NBA the last few seasons, and each team has suffered from losing top players and rebuilding around their secondary players to become stronger.  Recently, the struggling Sacramento Kings, lost newly acquired Carl Landry due to surgery on his hip flexor. 

Garrett Ellwood/Getty Images

Carl Landry has been a prominent player in the NBA for teams like the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors. His addition to the Kings could build them as a team. It has been an endeavor for Sacramento to form team chemistry with talented draft picks and veterans. 

With Carl Landry being out three to four months, the Kings would have to make some moves and acquire other players to make them a team that can even stand a chance in the Western Conference.   

So what exactly are the Kings doing with this new injury and the lack of leadership that has been recognized to help them strive and become a new team with a new reputation?

What they should do is look into talented players on other teams and make them more of a face on their team. Unfortunately, Sacramento has young faces like Jimmer Fredette, who has failed to reveal his athleticism and star talent like he did in college at BYU.  It may not be his fault that he has not succeeded in the NBA, but, since he was drafted three years ago, he has not been able to prove himself. 

This is where a problem arises for the Kings. Do they trade a young player like Fredette to gain more young players that may end up having the same problem as Jimmer? 

As we can see, injuries are not the only thing affecting the Sacramento Kings and its lack of desire to become a top team in the West. Hopefully, with a new coach like Mike Malone, the team can prevail and make some changes to its roster. 

Sleep Train Arena was once one of the loudest venues many years back and with new acquisitions, young stars, and healthy players, the Sacramento Kings can bring this enthusiasm back in Northern California.

Super Man or Super Soon?

Kobe Bryant may be pushing himself too hard

By Tara Sadat-Tehrani

Mark J. Terrill / AP

The moment Kobe Bryant fell to the ground against the Golden State Warriors on March 13, 2013, fans knew that Los Angeles had to be ready for a new team without their star.  As he slowly got up and hit two free throws, Kobe Bryant went straight to the locker room hoping to return to the game.  

Unfortunately, Kobe was advised to get surgery for his ruptured Achilles and would have to be out the rest of the season and part of this season.  As we all know, Bryant does not enjoy sitting out of games.  He played with a torn ligament in his wrist most of 2012 and still averaged twenty-seven points.  Now, the real question is, when will Kobe return this season?  Will he prove to all NBA fans once again that he can come back before most players or will he play it safe and come back when it’s most appropriate?

The earliest Kobe Bryant should be returning to games is October, but the latest would be in January.  Knowing Bryant, he wants to come back as soon as he can to help his team succeed and so far he believes that he is “feeling good” although there is no time table for his return.

 Judging from his social media updates, Kobe wants us fans to believe that he will be coming back by the first game of the season.  He has posted videos on Instagram of him running on an altered gravity treadmill teasing the NBA audience that his improvement is way ahead of schedule.  Now, NBA analysts on Twitter are even backing up Bryant saying that he will be coming back at an impossible time for anyone who has ruptured their Achilles. 

Mike D’Antoni and the rest of the coaching staff are probably cringing with all the news surrounding Kobe’s injury and probably hope that this isn’t pressuring the super star to come back by the season opener versus their city rivals the Los Angeles Clippers. With the buzz around the league, Kobe wants to prove everyone wrong.  But what’s new?  He knows that he can play through anything and show every other athlete that they should do the same.

Bryant’s super man habits have even changed us as fans to believe that any injury is something small, and getting back up from a rolled ankle is not a big deal.  Let us NBA fans cross our fingers that Kobe Bryant’s unlikely timetable will be one more realistic than others.   His skills are something every NBA fan, whether they dislike him or not, are ones to look forward to, but if he wants to play the superman role and comes back a little too soon, his NBA days will be delayed or maybe even over.  

EP Chicago: Bulls Management Has Big Decisions to Make

By Micky Shaked

Just one week into the NBA season and the headlines are already flying around the country like Royce White (too soon?). The sky is apparently falling in Lakerland after Kobe and Co. started 0-3 and already lost Steve Nash to karma, I mean injury. James Harden AKA Beardsanity is throwing bucket after smooth bucket in Sam Presti’s grill. LeBron’s face is everywhere always while the Heat can’t seem to play defense.

(Getty Images/Marc Serota)

I’m not one to start drawing major conclusions after only a handful of games, especially with Chicago Bulls working four new players into the mix and running sans D-Rose. Indeed, the Bulls faithful has had little to smile about since Kevin Harlan’s famous “Holding on to his knee, Holding on to his knee and down.”

GM Gar Forman and executive vice president of basketball operations John Paxson dropped some early Christmas magic into our stockings with the announcement of Taj Gibson’s four-year, $38 million contract extension last Thursday.

Much of the anguish plaguing Bulls fans over the summer comes from the precarious financial situation the team has put itself in, causing management to blow up a chemically bonded bench in favor of a cheaper, more disparate version. This serves as a stark foil to Gibson’s signing in light of the roughly $48 million committed to Rose, Carlos Boozer, Luol Deng, and Joakim Noah next season.

Gibson’s contract makes the much-maligned Boozer a likely candidate to get the amnesty ax after this season. I will be the first to admit that I defend Boozer’s production. I feel that a lot of the criticisms he receives as a player are unfair. Scoop Jackson says it best. At the same time I am in favor of letting him go if Gibson can fill his void for nearly half the money, though the dollars and cents are complicated.

Gibson is unlikely to reach Boozer’s level of statistical prowess on the offensive end, but his numbers are not far off. Their per-36-minute stat lines from last season, courtesy of www.Basketball-Reference.com:

Player            GP GS FG FGA  FG% 3P 3PA  3P% FT FTA  FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV  PF  PTS

Boozer           66 66 8.3 15.6 .532  0.0 0.0 .000 1.8 2.5 .693  2.1   8.3  10.4 2.3 1.2  0.4  2.1  3.1 18.3

Gibson           63  0 5.6 11.3 .495   0.0 0.0 .000 2.4 3.8 .622  3.8   5.5   9.3 1.3  0.8  2.3  1.7  3.7 13.6

         

Gibson clearly produces at a less prolific rate than Boozer, but his value lies elsewhere. His commitment to being one of the best undersized big-man defenders in the league is invaluable to a Bulls team that predicates its success on lock-down defense. Boozer has long been something of a liability on the defensive end despite receiving a vote for the 2011-2012 NBA Second Team All Defense. The proof is in the pudding: Coach Thibodeau repeatedly sat Boozer in favor of Gibson in the fourth quarter of important games despite the need for his scoring.

Gibson’s value as a defender goes beyond the comparisons to Boozer. Simply put, Taj can do what only a handful of players in the NBA can do: hang with the LeBron’s of the league. Bill Simmons points out that Gibson’s is dynamite in isolation situations, allowing opponents to score on just 23 percent of those possessions last season.

We saw brief glimpses of offensive brilliance from Gibson in last year’s playoffs series against Philadelphia. To date this is the biggest knock against him, his output comes in inconsistent spurts. But Thibs knows that a Bulls championship will inevitably go through Miami, and he also knows it will take more than Luol Deng to stop him.

Does Preseason Matter?

Why bother look at preseason numbers? The players don’t

By Doug Knopf

Many experts and basketball fans try to predict potential playoff brackets, fantasy sleepers, or the outcome of a team’s season based off of preseason numbers, but this is just absurd. The National Basketball Association, more than any other league, has the most insignificant preseason out of any the major sports.

           

The thirty teams in the league play just eight preseason games, which is less than one tenth of the season. Teams barely have enough time to establish an offensive and defensive rhythm that can be carried into the regular season. On top of that, starters only play about 25 minutes, which is about 10-15 minutes less than they do during the regular season if they even play at all.

Last Friday, four of the Pacers key players, Granger, Hibbert, Hill, and Hansbrough, did not even see one minute of playing time. How is anybody supposed to get a good read on teams and players when they are not in the lineup?

AP Photo/ Bahram Mark Sobhani

Basketball’s preseason is not for the fans or the star players; it is for the little guys trying to make it to the big dance. With only twelve men on a roster during the regular season, young players need to make a large impact early on in order to prove to the coaches that they can play.

Teams with the best depth usually dominate the preseason, but this rarely translates to the regular season.  All-stars are not pushed to their limits. Coaches are not put to the test. It is the unsigned guys, the second-round draft pick who must play well and play hard, or it is the end of the road for them.

This is exactly why some people watch the preseason to see the future of their franchise. People still need to remember that basketball is a team sport and that it takes more than a big name to win. Having a strong bench to keep a team in a game is crucial to making the playoffs.

In recent history, the team with the player who has won the sixth man award has been very successful in both the regular and post season: 2011 Harden with the Thunder, 2010 Lamar Odom with the Lakers. The preseason is where teams become family. The veterans mentor the new guys and the coaches establish their influence over their players.

The preseason is exactly what it should be: a nice light warm up for the regular season. Fans should wait until the start of the regular season to begin paying attention to their favorite teams. Star players make the NBA what it is. When they don’t play, there is not point in watching. Give the league a few weeks to do their thing. Fans should wait until they get back to alley-oops and Kobe Bryant. Then we shall start paying attention to Basketball.