Dammit! I just typed a huge post, and clicked the Anandtech symbol by mistake and it was gone when I hit back. That sux.
Anyways, from the top:
I'm a huge NBA fan, I watch 60+ Raptor games a year (I haven't watched the last 10 though, wonder why...), know pretty much every player's name/who they play for/their college in the NBA. I love the NBA 2K series also, man those games rock! I even have my Dreamcast here w/ me at university.
The East this year is really a crapshoot though. Personally, I'd have to say New Jersey or Philly have the best chance of coming out of the east this year. Although Boston is really close (who whould have thought that at the beginning of the year). I don't really like Boston too much (Pierce is awesome though), but they got BOTH of my favourite energy bench players from Phoenix: Tony Delk and Rodney Rogers. That will help them a lot down the stretch, and in the playoffs, and they're way deeper with those guys. Still no centre though. New Jersey is really overachieving right now, but there's no reason for that not to continue as Kidd is the best PG in the league, and to top it off he's playing for a contract in 1-2 years. He has something to prove. I remember watching Phoenix in the playoffs last year and I've never seen a point guard (not named Magic) dominate like he did at crunch time. I mean, he could do whatever he wanted on the court: drive, set up a teammate effortlessly. It's too bad it was just him trying out there. Philly is too good a team to be counted out. With Iverson, he's always a threat to drop 50 on you, and if he does, you can't do anything (unless you have Ty Lue on your team, hehe j/k ... )
Milwaukee is pretty good too; when Big-Dog gets 25 in a game (and when he wants to, he does) they're deadly. However no inside presence will again kill them down the stretch.
Detroit is a pretty good team, lots of good role players (Jon Barry, Corliss sometimes, but he's still a puss, etc). Still, I don't see them making the finals tho. No way.
Man, things were looking good for Toronto, especially 12 games ago lol. 29-21, we had the best record after 50 games in our history! Then Carter went down, Morris Peterson came back from his injury (most overrated rookie from last year, man he's inconsistent). If we start either Jerome Williams or Keon Clark, we're a very good team. Too bad our coach is a stubborn, old, inflexible knowitall. If he would just play Mamadou N'Diaye some more damn minutes! And doesn't he know Eric Montross is like a joke around the league! I'm still hoping that Andre Miller trade a friend and I made up happens during the summer, lol!
As for the person who said Indiana will have another sh!tty year. That's probably true, but they've got an interesting team now. Ron Artiste (nobody calls him that btw) is very underrated and Miller is decent. More importantly he allows Jermaine "Shaq's little brother" O'neal to play PF and not get manhandled every game.
I've been a pretty big Mavs fan the last couple of years (ever since Nash became more than just "another Canadian player"), but that trade they just pulled off really was a gem. Getting LaFrentz right when he's starting to become good, not to mention Nick "cancer for chemistry" Van Exel was pretty sweet for the crap they gave up. Is it just me, or is Nelson/Cuban building an all-white all star team? The one problem with Dallas is that they need to give Nash his 35+ minutes a game while playing Van Exel 30+. They should just move Finley back to SF, Johnny Newman doesn't need to play 30 minutes!!!
I think that Minnesota (that Marc Jackson acquisition was great), Sacramento or Portland (Portland you say?) do have a shot at dethroning the Lakers, but make no question it's the Lakers' title to lose. They are still the champs, and the best of the best. The best record means nothing, they're still the champs. Kobe is still a little b!tch tho. If you've seen that picture of him getting socked by Chris Childs, you'll know what I'm talking about. San Antonio is going down faster than David Robinson's career and reputation (still a good team, but not rings for them this year, for sure!).
Personally, I'm just hoping for a no-Lakers finals. That would be great. That and the Raptors firing Lenny and getting Jeff Van Gundy. And the Andre Miller trade.
Sorry for wasting your time, I get kinda caught up in B-Ball.
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