For everyone that keeps thinking Ben's work is just copy and paste...
http://nba.si.com/2013/12/05/blazers-paul-george-spurs-wizards-timberwolves-buy-sell
1. The Trail Blazers are contenders to win the Western Conference.
Ben Golliver: Buying. I think they are contenders, but I wouldn’t bet on them to finish the season on top.
Watching the Blazers up close over the last month has been a special experience. This group gets along better than any Blazers team in recent memory, and the players’ collective skills are a very, very good fit for coach Terry Stotts’ systems on both ends. They have a way of making the game look easy and they’ve rarely panicked, and those characteristics are crucial for aspiring contenders.
My chief concern with Portland is that any injury to its starting unit will carry drastic ramifications. The Blazers are a bit of a Jenga tower, given how heavily they rely on their first five of Damian Lillard, Wesley Matthews, Nicolas Batum, LaMarcus Aldridge and Robin Lopez, and the available replacements all represent dramatic drop-offs. Take away one of the Blazers’ starting big men and they potentially drop to a bottom-five defensive team. Take away one of their starting perimeter players — all of whom can shoot — and the offense will suffer in terms of cohesion, floor-stretching and confidence.
Portland’s starters have logged 368 minutes together; the team’s next most-used lineup has played just 49 minutes together, per NBA.com. That starting group enjoys an excellent net rating of plus-9.0, but the results get fairly ugly pretty quickly whenever Aldridge or Lillard is removed from the picture. All five of Portland’s starters enjoy individual positive net ratings, while Joel Freeland is the only reserve in the rotation with a positive net rating (Mo Williams, Dorell Wright and Thomas Robinson are all in the red). That depth drop-off is going to catch up quickly if and when even minor injuries occur, and I think it will be enough to keep Portland out of the No. 1 spot with a deep group of competitors that includes the Spurs, Thunder, Clippers and Rockets.
2. Paul George is the biggest threat to LeBron James’ MVP reign.
Golliver: Selling. I consider myself a strong Paul George advocate, but the biggest threat to LeBron James is a complacent LeBron James or an injured LeBron James. So far, to no one’s surprise, we’ve seen only incredible LeBron James, the guy who again ranks No. 1 in Player Efficiency Rating, like clockwork, and who is shooting 60/47/80 during Miami’s 14-4 start. That type of efficiency trifecta is unprecedented in NBA history, and surely James will slide at some point. But the simple fact that he’s doing something this year that he has never done before makes him the runaway MVP favorite, especially with Miami placing near the top of the standings again.
Past that, George still has a ways to go to catch Kevin Durant and Chris Paul on the pecking order. Sure, Indiana’s forward has narrowed the gap with a strong start (24.6 points, 5.9 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 39.4 percent three-point shooting), and his top-tier defense makes him really appealing as a two-way candidate. As good as he is, Durant and Paul have him beat by quite a bit when it comes to indispensability. If you wiped those three players from the planet, I would expect Roy Hibbert and company to have the best shot at remaining a title contender, rendering George as one really awesome piece of a multi-piece puzzle. The Thunder would crumple if Durant were to disappear, and while the Clippers could make do with Darren Collison as their starting point guard for a while, they would be a one-and-done team in the playoffs if Paul isn’t directing traffic on both ends.
I will tack on this asterisk: George has a conceivable path to unseating James. The Pacers must finish with the best record in the East (preferably in the entire NBA); George must maintain his status as their leading scorer and remain among the elite in advanced numbers (he’s No. 9 in PER); James must have a “run of the mill” amazing season rather than a “reaching new heights” amazing season; and the pack of Western Conference MVP candidates (Durant, Paul, Tony Parker, Stephen Curry, LaMarcus Aldridge) must lack a clear favorite. If all of those things happen, George could squeak this out a la Derrick Rose in 2011. That’s a lot of ifs.
3. The Spurs are better than they were last season.
Golliver: Selling. My palette isn’t quite as sophisticated as the one belonging to Gregg Popovich, wine connoisseur. I’m not sure I can distinguish between the 2012-13 Spurs vintage and the 2013-14 Spurs vintage in any dramatic way. Both teams were/are exceptional, both teams were/are capable of winning an NBA title, both teams were/are leaps and bounds more sophisticated than a vast majority of the other teams in the NBA, and both teams were/are built and run in such a way that health-related adversity can be managed effectively.
Right now, the Spurs’ point differential is better than last season’s, their offense boasts the same ranking (No. 7) and their defense is up slightly (from No. 3 to No. 2). They’ve achieved that high standing, and a 15-3 record, despite a slow shooting start from Tim Duncan (44.4 percent), a very slow outside-shooting start from Kawhi Leonard (22.7 percent from three-point range), a somewhat quiet first month from Danny Green and ongoing age-related consistency concerns with Manu Ginobili.
POINT FORWARD: Smoke postpones Spurs-Wolves in Mexico City
The most impressive thing about this year’s Spurs team is that they have racked up such a great record with only one player (Tony Parker) playing more than 30 minutes per night and no players playing more than 32 minutes. Compare that to last year’s Spurs, who had three players above 30 minutes. Or, to this year’s Thunder, who have three above 33 minutes. Or, to this year’s Pacers, who have five above 30 minutes and three above 33 minutes. Or, to this year’s Blazers, who have five players above 30 minutes and four players above 35 minutes. I’m not sure if that extra rest — relative to the (younger) competition — means that this year’s Spurs team is better than last year’s, but the wide minutes disbursement is surely going to prove helpful in April, May and possibly June.
4. The Wizards are the third-best team in the Eastern Conference.
Golliver: Selling. This is one of those trick questions from high school where you spend 10 hours trying to deduce the solution only to have the teacher exclaim, “Just kidding! This question has no answer!” If pressed to make a pick, I will take Atlanta over Washington thanks to the Hawks’ slightly better point differential against a slightly tougher schedule. I trust their established core group (Al Horford/Paul Millsap/Jeff Teague) more and they’re just beginning to dust off Lou Williams, a true impact player when healthy. Looking ahead, Atlanta plays six of its next seven games at home, with five of those coming against opponents who are outside the playoff picture. Give it a fortnight and I think there’s a good chance Atlanta has built a cushion between itself and .500.
5. The Timberwolves are a playoff team barring injury.
Golliver: Buying. Barely. Not only is the West stacked but it’s also packed. Just 3½ games separate the No. 4 seed and 13th place, which is where Minnesota is stuck at the moment. I think that placement is a bit deceiving: The Wolves should wind up as either the ninth- or 10th-best team in the West, at worst, as this “perfect health” scenario should see them jump the hot-starting Suns, the disjointed Lakers and the young, Anthony Davis-less (for now) Pelicans by the time April rolls around.
The Wolves are a bit of a point differential darling, as they possess the seventh-best differential overall and fifth best in the West. That puts them above a bunch of the teams they trail in the standings — the Clippers, Warriors, Nuggets, Mavericks, Pelicans, Suns, Lakers and Grizzlies — and they’ve played a schedule that’s well above average in terms of difficulty.
If we grant the Wolves perfect health for the whole season, their final record should be significantly better than their current 9-10 mark. The bottom half of the West is going to be a cutthroat race as always, but it bodes well that Minnesota’s starting five has a nice plus-4.7 net rating together and the team’s offense efficiency (No. 12) and defensive efficiency (No. 10) are above average.
Back to the drawing board.
Swearing has it's place. It too often convey's a sense of outrage, and anger, which I don't really feel. So I try to avoid it.
