Arena The NBA Thread

tom
Team: golden state warriors
Standings Expectation: 1st or 2nd in west
Playoffs Expectation: title or bust pretty much
Roster Related Expectations: potentially 4 all-stars again, curry and kd contending for mvp. what boogie will give them is the major source of intrigue.
Other: win or lose, the off-season should provide some drama as it's going to start getting a lot tougher to keep the core together.

 

CT
Team: Detroit Pistons
Standings Expectation for Success: 8th in the East
Playoff Expectation for Success: Qualifying
Roster Related Expectations: Reggie Jackson and Blake Griffin need to stay healthy for the team to succeed. Kennard's improvement. Continue to pay Josh Smith $5 million to train for his NBA comeback.
Other: A swift end to the Andre Drummond three point experiment. Andre Drummond and Blake Griffin colliding at full speed, fusing bodies, forming Blandre Grummond, a single player with a $57 million cap hit.

 

Tunes

Team: Los Angeles Lakers
Standings Expectation for Success: 3-6th in the West
Playoff Expectation for Success: 2nd round appearance; competitive in said round
Roster Related Expectations: Ball stays healthy to play 60+ games; Kuzma & Ingram's offense continues to improve; the likes of Beasley, McGee & Stephenson actually don't have many "Shaqtin'" moments; LeBron goes crazy with assists
Other: Nicholson goes "old school"- goes to at least 25-35 games this season.

 

oh, i think jack will definitely be at a lot more games this year. health permitting of course.

 

Cavaliers have completed their number one off-season priority, just before the off-season draws to a close, reaching agreement on a new contract with a forward who grew up in the area.

 

starfish

Team: boston celtics
Standings Expectation: 1st or 2nd in east
Playoffs Expectation: conference finals
Roster Related Expectations: hopefully Hayward and Irving can stay healthy. maybe the younger players Tatum and Brown can take their game up another level.
Other: hoping to make it to at least one game this season

edit, also I can’t believe the season starts tomorrow

 

Runner

Team: OKC
Standings Expectation: 2nd - 4th in the West
Playoffs Expectation: At least get out of the first round of the play-offs
Roster Related Expectations: Excited to see how Schroder plays, hoping he isn't in jeopardy of going to jail this season, cause he seems good. Looking for Adams to step up in more games. I want to see more out of Chris Paul. Hoping Westbrook keeps being Westbrook.
Other: A win on Nov 2nd please. I have tickets and my son says he'all tag along

 

Team: Bulls
Standings Expectation: at best, a battle for 8th. I’d prefer another season of losing tbh but I think we’re in the horrible spot of being too good to get a top 5 pick next year, and not good enough to make the playoffs. Purgatory. Ugh. Screw you Mirotic.
Playoffs Expectation: if we make it, 8th. And then soundly being beaten by the Celtics or Sixers.
Roster Related Expectations: all about Lauri. Hope he continues to develop, hope we call more plays for him, hope he gets a little more alpha. WCJ to not give up his starting spot and makes me forget about that coin toss. LaVine, Dunn, Parker - hope someone steps up (doubtful it’ll be Parker).
Other: Someone buy the rights in the UK FFS. Can I justify a league pass? Can I? I probably can. Can I? Probably.

 

http://www.skysports.com/amp/more-s...e-four-year-broadcast-and-digital-partnership

Just checked there now and dang u done good Sky

 

LOL, I wrote Chris Paul but I was thinking Paul Geoge. I kinda have crush on Chris Paul . But I don't really like Houston.

Yes, you will get totally addicted to the league pass. Last year I was pulling out my phone to watch games when out. Seeing your favorite team all the time is great and after two seasons you can tune into any game just to watch some random guy who used to be on your team's roster.

 

Sith_Sensei__Prime

Team: Golden State Warriors



Standings Expectation: Continue to have same success as the previous couple of years. At or near the top of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference.
Playoffs Expectation: NBA Finals
Roster Related Expectations: The starters should be fine, but the bench is questionable with Patrick McCaw not on the roster, David West retiring and both Andre Iguodala and Shuan Livingston getting a year older and are entering their 14th season. Jonas Jerebko hasn't shown much of anything in the preseason. So, there's some question marks regarding the bench's scoring during the regular season. Kerr is unlikely to put on heavy minutes on Iggy and Livingston.
Other: The Warriors last season seemed to lose interest in the regular season when they were locked into the Second Seed for the Western Conference playoffs. Not that it was a cause for concern, but it demonstrates some of the issues from last season, which was mental motivation and carelessness with ball security, as they frequently loss games due to the amount of times they turned over the ball. Of course, other teams in the Western Conference have reloaded and are determine to take their shots on the Warriors. The Rockets have been open about their desire to take down the Warriors, and they were pretty much a hamstring away from doing so last season. The Lakers have vastly improved by signing LeBron James and figure to finish second in the Pacific Division with "Lob City" officially ending with DeAndre Jordon leaving the Clippers for the Mavericks.

I think Boston will end up winning the East Conference and are a true threat to the Warriors repeating as Champions for a few reasons. One, when healthy, they match up tremendously well with the Warriors, as they are young and athletic and they can play small ball and most of their players have a high basketball IQ and can create shots for themselves. Plus, Kyrie has proven to score and take over a game against the Warriors. Two, Brad Stevens is one of the best coaches in the league. His play calling after time outs have become legendary. Moreover, he's been able to get so much out of so little the past couple of seasons, it's scary the potential he'll have when he has a healthy roster, as he took a banged up Celtics team to a seventh game against LeBron James.

 

Suns sign Jamal Crawford. Strange. They need a point guard badly, which he's not, and I didn't think they'd want him taking shots away from their young players. I don't see how this works for Crawford or the Suns.

According to Lowe, if LeBron had stayed in Cleveland, they would have sent the 8th pick to Charlotte as part of a trade package for Kemba Walker. We talked about this on page 735.

You can thank LeBron for keeping Kemba, @anakinfansince1983 ?

 

My predictions:

East:
Celtics
Sixers
Raptors
Pacers
Bucks
Heat
Wizards
Cavs

West:
Warriors
Rockets
Pelicans
Jazz
Nuggets
Thunder
Lakers
Mavs

ROY: Luca Doncic
MVP: Joel Embiid
Coy: Alan Gentry

 

i'll bite.

west:
warriors
rockets
jazz
lakers
thunder
spurs
pelicans
blazers

east:
raptors
celtics
sixers
bucks
wizards
pacers
heat
cavs

(i'll save my playoff predictions but warriors/cavs 5 is my dream )

coy: quin snyder
roy: luka doncic
mvp: giannis antetokounmpo (yes, i can spell it without looking it up)

 

Haven't spent much time, but I'll throw some picks out there.

East
Celtics
Sixers
Raptors
Pacers
Bucks
Wizards
Heat
Pistons

West
Warriors
Thunder
Rockets
Jazz
Spurs
Nuggets
Pelicans
Lakers

ROY: Doncic
MVP: Kawhi
DPOY: Kawhi, joining MJ and Hakeem as only players to win both in the same season
COY: Stevens

Alternates for MVP: Westbrook, Kyrie

Finals: Celtics beat Warriors in 7

 

lol perfect reaction

 

Only a few hours till the first game between the Celtics and 76ers. I expect this could be a preview of eastern conference finals. The two teams are a lot of fun to watch, both with some exciting young players. Should be a good game to begin the season.

 

Ooh, ooh, let me try!

East
Raptors
Celtics
Sixers
Bucks
Pacers
Wizards
Heat
Cavaliers


West
Warriors
Thunder
Rockets
Jazz
Nuggets
Lakers
Trailblazers
Spurs

ROY: Knox
MVP: Kawhi
COY: Casey


Finals: Anybody BUT the Warriors Please!

Thunder vs Raptors . Thunder in 6!

 

The Raptors, to me, are the pivot point on the entire league this season. And Kawhi Leonard in particular.

If they have a healthy, motivated, focused Kawhi Leonard, Toronto is good enough to not only win the East, but beat anyone who comes out of the West in a seven-game series.

If Leonard lacks any of those things, though, and I do mean any of them, they could be a trainwreck. If he's just playing and biding his time to get to LA next season and sulking through, or if he's not healthy, or if he's just not himself. They drop from a potential championship team to the bottom half of the East. That's a major swing.

More than LeBron. More than Durant. More than Embiid. More than Giannis (I don't try to spell it). More than Harden or Westbrook or Curry or Davis. Leonard is the pivot point of the entire NBA this season.


After that, what I'm watching for:

1) Can Philadelphia take the next step and keep improving?
2) What does Houston look like in year two of the Harden/Paul experiment, and with what looks like a step backwards on paper to their roster?
3) What do the Lakers look like and how long until somebody gets LeSubTweeted?
4) Is Minnesota Kevin Love in there somewhere? Is there a final form better than Minnesota Kevin Love lurking?
5) Does Minnesota turn into a dumpster fire or a playoff team?
6) Was the Jazz end of season a mirage or a sign of things to come?

 

Here are my thoughts for the upcoming season:

Eastern Conference:
1. Boston Celtics
2. Toronto Raptors
3. Philadelphia 76ers
4. Indiana Pacers
5. Milwaukee Bucks
6. Washington Wizards
7. Detroit Pistons
8. Charlotte Hornets

I just don't like the Sixers coach all that much to be a second seed in the East, and they're still a young team. And young teams are not very consistent. If they were coached by someone else, maybe. I like Kwahi in Toronto. He's a Top Five player in the NBA as he can play both sides of the ball and make his teammates better. So, the Raptors will have a floor general and veteran leadership to take the second seed.

Western Conference:

1. Golden State Warriors
2. Houston Rockets
3. Utah Jazz
4. Oklahoma Thunder
5. Los Angeles Lakers
6. Denver Nuggets
7. New Orleans Pelicans
8. Portland Trailer Blazers


And from the looks of it, no one is picking the T-Wolves. So, you have to wonder is Jimmy Butler going to be worth the headache if Minnesota isn't in the playoff hunt. But, as it was last year, the bottom four spots is up for grabs. The T-Wolves could conceivably be a Sixth Seed with the talent on the team.

I do expect the Lakers to get at least 20 more wins than last year with LeBron on the team, so that would give them around 46 wins, perhaps more.

I'm curious to see if the Rockets will be in alot of effort in being the numbers one seed again. James Harden average 35 minutes a game and CP3 about 32 minutes a game. And with CP3's history, it's likely he'll be injured at some point in during the season. So, I want to see if they take a more cautious approach as they were a hamstring away from going to the finals last year, as many would argue. And I'm not sure Melo is an upgrade for the team, as he not known for playing defense or playing well without the ball. So, that's something to look at during the season.

I think Utah is the another true threat to the Warriors, as they play team basketball, as oppose to iso ball. The Warriors have a much easier time with teams that play iso ball, that aren't lead by LeBron James.

 

My predictions:

West:
Rockets
Warriors
Lakers
Jazz
Blazers
Thunder
Pelicans
Spurs

East:
Celtics
76ers
Pacers
Bucks
Raptors
Wizards
Cavaliers
Heat