Chris BoshJ.E. wrote:who?Bobbofitos wrote:Bawsh.
I'm not even sure the directive was to "win" last year, so I'm not holding him accountable for last year. I understand his undoing (at the end) was lack of success as far as winning a 'ship, but he misplays a lot of things around the margin. Sometimes that costs wins, other times you get lucky.I don't think anyone could have done much with last year's roster. Do you not like him from his Dallas days? Postseason success was his problem there, not regular season success.I also don't believe in Avery Johnson
Andrew Bynum is anything but downright terrible - he's very good. I said as much. Their 3 most important players (Brand, Iggy, LouWill) probably accounted for ~75% or so of their results, with a bit of Jrue and Thad Young sprinkled in. I also am fully on board the Doug Collins bandwagon, as he may even get guys (like Nick Young) playing a shred of defense. But they also lost Jodie Meeks (fine roleplayer/3pt specialist who filled a very real need for them), Nik Vuk (promising young bigman).Since when is Andrew Bynum downright terrible? They still have Doug Collins, who I think plays a big role in their successThe Sixers, despite adding ONE player who is arguably better than anyone on their roster from last year, lost their THREE most important players, and are expecting to fill that with downright terrible players (hello Nick Young!).
These minutes will get filled by "someone", and those someones appear to be a mixture of Evan Turner, (which I think is a mistake, since he's not good at basketball) Nick Young (duplicate in every way to Lou Will, just worse by a fair amount), Jason Richardson (mediocre player, depends how they shift minutes), and Kwame Brown. (He arguably wont get on the court, depends how much they plan on playing Hawes at the 4, which I also don't buy as workable)
You're right, 21 is very low. The Magic were 34-23 when Dwight went down, and finished 37-29. 3-6 without him to close the year - obviously just a small sampling of what to expect, but even directly translated, that's a 27 win pace. However, I think Gustavo Ayon is a sharp decline from Ryan Anderson (another very very underrated player who everyone thinks is tied up entirely in Dwight... This could very well be true. I believe the opposite, however) and the rest of their core is either not young, or downright old. Meaning Turkey & Al Harrington. It's hard to be optimistic about AAA outproducing JRich's production from last year, and less Dwight probably means more Big Baby. Tie in no Van Gundy (absence of him will cost them wins, I think) and you're left with a team that is going to be very bad. Further, they probably will be incentivized to tank, so you can't really not consider them downright losing games towards the end of the season to compete for the top lotto pot.
If the Magic still had VanGundy I'd pick them to win 40 games. I don't see why Nelson/Turkoglu/Afflalo/Harrington/Ayon should win 21 (which is reeeaally low) or less in the east.The Pistons, Magic, and Bobcats are pretty much the "dreck" of the league. They are really awful basketball teams. ESPN projects them to combine to win 70. I would take the under in a heartbeat.
Should note they outperformed their pythag by 3 games. They also got positive returns by guys like Ben Wallace (that will be replaced by Andre Drummond - I see a net loss there) and are nearly bringing back the same other core. Regressing to the mean means there is a mean to regress to... For a lot of their players, their poor production is closer to their true value.Detroit is pretty young, already won .38 last year and didn't change much. And then there's regression to the mean.
But this was a -15 PD team that was likely the worst team in history. It will take a fair amount to even move them to .25. Could they do it? Sure. I don't think they will, though.
The Bobcats added Haywood and Sessions, two ~average players. BG is also better compared to what they had last year. 25 wins are possible
Is McGee that bad?The one thing I don't like about the Nuggets is their center position, especially McGee.Nuggets 50+
They will have Pek for the full season. There is no more Millicic. They will have AK for the full season. There is no more Beasley.We don't know yet if Rubio will come back as good as he was before. The rest of the guards are garbage (I don't really expect Shved to be a positive, especially right of the bat, do you?), and so are their centers. It's the Timberwolves, and they're in the west. (did you say they might win 50?) I'd take under 41TWolves
Those two things alone will account for an amazing turnaround.