2009-10 NBA season thread

Clear-cut No. 3? Who did they add to improve the team? Drew Gooden and Shawn Marion? If this was 2005, those would be excellent moves.

The Nuggets lost one game to the Mavs last season and that was a closely-fought playoff game. The Nuggets will finish several games in front of the Mavs and I'm glad. Mark Cuban and his racist rant at Kenyon Martin and his mom was ridiculous.

 

The Nuggets topped out last season. They are too crazy and dysfunctional to take the next step.

Marion is going to have a monster year running with Jason Kidd. He's going to be really good. And he makes them better defensively. Drew Gooden as a starter is an upgrade over Erick Dampier, easy.

I've heard some folks argue they could challenge the Spurs for No. 2. I'm not ready to go there.

 

Marc Stein has released his rankings. His are: Lakers, Celtics, Magic, Cavs, Spurs, Mavs, TrailBlazers, Nuggets, Hawks, Jazz.

Mine are: Lakers, Celtics, Spurs, Magic, Cavs, TrailBlazers, Jazz, Hawks, Mavs, Nuggets. Though I like the Wiz if they can stay healthy, and I think the Hornets and Clippers are heavy sleepers.

 

The Nuggets are my pick for "team that overachieved last year but will fall back to earth this year, and probably hard" a la Utah in 2007-08 and New Orleans last year.

There's way too much crazy on that team for it to work.

 

I'll be interested to see how Artest affects the Lakers and the same with Rasheed and the Celtics. As a Lakers fan, I fear the Spurs more than anyone else this year. Best offseason moves and Duncan desperate to win one more before he calls it quits. And with a healthy Manu, man, that team can be dangerous.

Locally, I hear a lot of optimism about the Wizards. Losing Jamison for 10 games hurts a lot, plus their first 15 games are brutal. If they can get through November with a .500 record, they could be OK.

East: Cavs
West: Lakers
Champ: Lakers
MVP: LeBron
Rook: Griffin
Def MVP: Howard

Not a lot of surprises in those picks, obviously.

 

Two cool things on ESPN right now...

They have a uniform column that shows all the retro unis teams will wear this season, and some of them are cooler than the Patriot Pete unis.

I really enjoyed Simmons' two-parter with a steaming cup of of coffee. The NBA is his wheelhouse.

 

Yup. I'm looking forward to his book.

 

The Clipper curse is alive and well. Griffin out six weeks with stress fracture in his knee. At least he hasn't suffered a Manning/Livingston injury. Yet.

 

I'm enjoying it so far.

 

Awwwwwwwwwwww, poor Celtics:

http://sports.espn.go.com/boston/nba/news/story?id=4597206

 

Big baby.

He would have seen serious minutes resting the old men.

 

I'm buying it later today. Looking forward to it, especially because there are so few NBA-related books that come out each year. I am prepared to be infuriated by certain points. For example, if he complains again about Magic "fouling" Isiah at the end of Game 7 of the 1988 Finals...I will light myself on fire.