With the conclusion of the FIBA Men’s World Championships comes another major basketball event set to take place after a few weeks.
The world’s premiere basketball league, the NBA, opens on October 6, and in anticipation of the coming 2010-2011 Season, Lone Opinion gives you a rundown of 10 things to watch out for when the ballers return to the hardcourt.
1. Will Dwight take flight?
We’ve seen Dwight Howard become the tallest guy to win the Slam Dunk Competition, reach the NBA Finals and win Defensive Player of the Year twice. What we haven’t seen? Howard living up to his potential.
With a body worthy of a magazine cover, by this time, Howard should have turned into the most dominating big man in the league since Superman I.
Defensively, D12 has done a terrific job for the Orlando Magic. It’s on the other end where his services are badly needed.
During the off-season, the Magic didn’t make any head turning moves while other playoff teams improved their rosters. Stuck with an ageing/fading Vince Carter, the Magic offense now rests heavily on Howard, who will get some help from Rashard Lewis and Jameer Nelson.
When will his training with Patrick Ewing pay off? The coming season would be a great time.
2. Broken bigs
From one big man, we now move to two.
Blake Griffin and Greg Oden have a lot in common. They’re both bigs. Both had superb stints in college. They’re both no. 1 overall draft picks, and lastly, both started off their NBA careers with injuries.
There’s so much talk about how Griffin can turn the L.A. Clippers around. Oden on the other hand, has shown so much promise during the short time he played for the Portland Trailblazers. Now that they’re both healthy (hope they stay that way) these big men should start showing what they’re truly capable of come the 2010-2011 season.
3. Arenas with Wall
Last season, the Washington Wizards lost some size with the departure of Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood and Mike Miller. And even with that in mind, they still drafted a point guard for the no. 1 overall pick. What’s next, Don Nelson taking over as head coach?
Jokes aside, the Wizards tweaked their roster last year so they could gun (pun intended) for a deep playoff run. And though Gilbert Arenas proved that he can still score and dish dimes, lack of team chemistry, some injuries and the gun incident doomed them throughout 2009-2010.
This year, they got themselves a talented rookie in John Wall, but the catch is, this guy plays the same position Arenas does – point guard. So how are things going to work out for the Wiz?
Do both guys start? If they do, who plays one and who plays two? Or will Wall come off the bench ala-Ben Gordon in Chicago? And how will they offensively involve the rest of the team given that both guards have a knack for scoring?
These questions will be answered come October 7 when the Wizards take on the kingless Cleveland Cavaliers.
4. Cleveland Cavaliers minus Lebron James
Once upon a time, ‘The Chosen One’ graced the Land of Cleve, and because of his otherworldly talents, he was hailed as the King. But sadly, because of his quest for the Sacred Larry O’Brien Grail, he left for South Beach so he could pway wid hit pwends and live happily ever after.
The Cavaliers are now in search of the next Mr. Cleveland as they enter the post-Lebron James era. They still have two guys with All-star credentials, Mo Williams (as a replacement for injured Jameer Nelson) and Antawn Jamison, but neither can replicate James’ 29.7 ppg, 7.3 rpg and 8.6 apg which led to 61 wins last season.
They do have a new coach in Byron Scott, who has a reputation for producing Ws whenever he works with an All-star point guard. He helped Jason Kidd reach the Finals twice, and gave room for a young Chris Paul to grow into an MVP candidate.
With Scott around, we can expect the Cavs to run more. And since the team has an average age of 26.2, converting on fastbreaks shouldn’t be a problem. Jamison played with this type of offense in Dallas. J.J. Hickson and Anderson Varejao can run. And Williams can always lob alley-oops to Jamario Moon.
Of course, this is theoretical. We’ll have to wait for October before we can get a look at the Cavs new offense.
5. Turk goes West
After spending six seasons in the Eastern Conference, Hedo Turkoglu returns to the West, joining the Phoenix Suns.
The good news for the Suns is that Turk has bounced back from his bad season with the Toronto Raptors. He led Turkey to a championship showdown against Team USA in the 2010 FIBA World Championships and was selected as a member of the tournament’s All-Star Five.
With the departure of Amare Stoudemire, expect Hedo to see minutes at power forward. Good thing Steve Nash has worked with a jump shooting big man before or Turkoglu will to have to start worrying about catching alley-oops.
But still, it leaves room for one to wonder how this party animal will fit the Suns’ system.
6. The class of 2009
Everybody thought that there’s no talent in the class of 2009, save for Blake Griffin. It turns out that there were lots of diamonds in the rough.
Chase Budinger, Omri Casspi, Jonas Jerebko and Tyler Hansbrough are excellent energy guys. DeJuan Blair out muscled his Mavericks counterparts in the playoffs. Taj Gibson is shaping up to be a borderline All-star. Jrue Holiday and Darren Collison can score while James Harden can play D. Jeff Teague deserves more playing time. Ty Lawson can shoot threes. And lastly, the quartet of Stephen Curry, Brandon Jennings, Johnny Flynn and Tyreke Evans is starting to look like the future of the NBA.
And these guys are just getting started.
7. Melodrama
Carmelo Anthony has been causing quite a ruckus during the off-season with all the trade demands he’s been hollering about.
Inspired by Miami’s ‘Three Kings’, word has it that Melo wants to go to New York so that he and Chris Paul can form the ‘Tres Amigos’ with Amare Stoudemire.
In addition, there also have been talks of Anthony heading to Houston or Chicago.
Up to now, nothing is certain. So it’ll be interesting to see where Melo is headed after a few weeks.
8. The Lake Show
Ah, the defending champs.
Well, the core of the team that won Kobe Bryant his fifth title is pretty much intact. And to make matters worse for other teams, the LA Lakers even upgraded their roster.
They now have a legit backup point guard for Derek Fisher in Steve Blake. They added another solid defender in Matt Barnes. Oh, and in case Andrew Bynum gets injured (again), Pau Gasol can stick to his PF duties because Theo Ratliff will be the one playing center.
Lamar Odom is fresh off a World Championship victory, Sasha Vujacic is working out with his girlfriend and knowing Kobe, he wants more. Oh, don’t forget about Ron Artest.
With all the talent and the crazies on this team, the Lakers are definitely worth the wait.
9. Kevin Durant
The recent World Championships taught us two things: 1.) The US is still the best basketball country and 2.) Kevin Durant is destined to become one the greatest to ever play the game.
After becoming the youngest guy to win the NBA’s scoring title, Durant conquered Turkey to win a world title and an MVP award in the process. And this guy is just 21 years old.
Ending your country’s 16-year World Championship drought can give a guy quite a boost in self-esteem, so can you imagine how much experience, confidence and knowledge KD will be bringing with him when he returns to the NBA?
And now that Lebron is in a powerhouse team, his numbers are expected to go down. So the only guy that stands between Durantula and the MVP award is the Black Mamba.
It’ll definitely be fun to see how being a frontrunner in the MVP race will affect KD’s performance.
10. The Heat is on
While the Miami Heat are shoe-ins for the playoffs because of their ‘Three Kings’ and cast of tested veterans, we’ll have to wait and see if these guys can work well as a cohesive unit.
No ball hogs among Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, but all of them have a knack for hanging around the perimeter. Wade is unstoppable when the shots start falling from 15 feet and beyond, James has knack for shooting too much threes for his own good, and Bosh is a jump shooting big man. Does that return the Heat into championship form? That remains to be seen.
The Heat should also be aware that they have a target on their backs. A lot of people, particularly Cavs fans, aren’t happy with the union of James, Wade and Bosh. Considering that their opener would be against the reigning Eastern Conference Champs, the Boston Celtics, they can expect physical contests from day one.
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