MVN - Most Valuable Network

Blogger Previews - Pacific Division

Back to our regularly scheduled programming… Today’s update covers the former home of the Blazers… The Pacific Division.

Golden St. Warriors
Golden State of Mind
My take - What a fun story in last year’s playoffs. Will be really interesting to see what the trade of Jason Richardson does to this team. Lots of talent that seems custom built for the new NBA, and the right kind of madman to deploy it. Monta Ellis took a jump last season, Pietrus could be next.

Los Angeles Clippers
ClipsNation.com
My take - I’ve got no idea what could happen here. This team is not inspiring on paper with Brand and Livingston out, but we’ve seen more motley crews jell for whatever reason and win more games than expected. Aside from Kaman, there is not a lot of size on this team, and it seems like every team in the West has plus 4s and/or 5s - unless they go Phoenix on the joint to neutralize that disadvantage that may be too much to overcome in the longrun. I don’t know if Dunleavy has this job in him.

Los Angeles Lakers
Forum Blue & Gold
With Malice
My take - I WILL NOT gloat. I will not laugh at the Lakers or their fans. This superpower/heavyweight has fallen faster than I could have ever hoped. Its weird for the rest of us when teams like this get all crappy and listless. Kenny the Jet said it right last night on TNT - its like the Lakers have come to think that winning is easy. Like, they can just get any player, put those fugly jerseys on them, and even the worst ones will turn into Michael Cooper and Kurt Rambis. The point he was making was that winning in the NBA is hard. Its a talent driven league. You CANNOT give away players like Shaq for $.70 on the dollar and expect to keep being the Lakers. Its going to have to get a lot worse before it gets better for the Lakers.

Phoenix Suns
Bright Side of the Sun
My take - Clearly on the short list of title contenders until proven otherwise. But, its weird to see how much talent they’ve just sold or given away over the past few years - that has to come back to bite them at some point. James Jones, Kurt Thomas, and the rights to Rudy Fernandez this year, Sergio Rodriguez and Tim Thomas last year, and that’s just off the top of my head. This team was already not real deep, and now they’re going with a 7-man core rotation. Barbosa, Bell, Diaw, Hill, Marion, Nash, Stoudemire. After that it gets ugly, aside from rookies Strawberry and Tucker. Oh, the only guy on that list of nine players taller than 6′8″ is Stoudemire, who my blogmate would gleefully point out is a microfracture survivor who has had issues with the “good” knee this preseason. They are a one injury away from having their goals derailed, and its all because the owner won’t pay the luxury tax. Still the best team to watch though.

Sacramento Kings
Sactown Royalty
My take - It must be the curse of Shareef. Every team he joins turns to crap. Kevin Martin is a crazy scorer, but there are issues everywhere else. I’m not sure Bibby can be a lead PG on a good team if he doesn’t have playmaking help elsewhere (remember, Webber and Divac were both very gifted passers). Big questions on whether Theus can handle this kind of job. Adelman ain’t sexy, and I don’t think he’s the 2nd best coach in the NBA (hard to argue against Popovich, Jackson, D’Antoni, Sloan, Riley, etc), but he was a perfect guy for Sacramento (just like he was for Portland before that) and, like Portland, they kind of fired him for the helluvit (never a good reason for a coaching change).

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 9:29 pm and is filed under 07-08 Blogger Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.