Write On Sports LLC - "NBA Offseason Review - Part 4" by Mark T.R. Donohue

NBA Offseason Review - Part 4

2006-10-02 21:08:44 | By: Mark T.R. Donohue

It's not by accident that I've saved the Southwest Division for last in my trip around the NBA. As always, there's a lot of interesting storylines here. The state of Texas alone is home to the two best teams in the league plus the Rockets, who have championship aspirations of their own. The New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets were already an interesting team due to their unique two-home-city arrangement. They were also the Western Conference team that had the busiest offseason.

Then there are the always-enigmatic Memphis Grizzlies, a team that has consistently leapfrogged more talented squads to make the playoffs season after season only to get even more consistently blown out in the first round, usually in as disorganized and embarrassing a manner as possible. The Grizzlies will have to scramble early on this year to make up for the injury to Pau Gasol, the closest thing to a star performer they have. The franchise is up for sale, too. The best news for the Southwest is that after a firestorm of complaints the NBA has tweaked its playoff seeding so that the teams with the two best records in a conference will now not meet in the second round of the postseason if they happen to be in the same division. Great news for Dallas and San Antonio; a huge bummer for the Lakers, Clippers, Nuggets, Suns and all of the other teams in the west that aren't in this monster of a division. Gasol's injury and the fact that the teams all have to play each other probably mean that all five Southwest teams won't make the playoffs, but the team that finishes last here can feel better about themselves than the team that finishes second in the Northwest or Southeast.

Western Conference

Southwest Division

Dallas Mavericks
Innies: G Maurice Ager (draft pick), G/F Greg Buckner (FA, Denver), F Devean George (FA, L.A. Lakers), F Pops Mensah-Bonsu (undrafted FA), G Jose Barea (undrafted FA), G/F Pat Carroll (FA, USBL), G Darius Washington (undrafted FA), F Austin Croshere (trade, Indiana), G Anthony Johnson (trade, Indiana).
Outies: F Keith Van Horn (unsigned FA), G/F Adrian Griffin (FA, Chicago), G Darrell Armstrong (trade, Indiana), G Marquis Daniels (trade, Indiana), G/F Rawle Marshall (trade, Indiana), F Josh Powell (trade, Indiana), C Pavel Podkolzin (waived).

The NBA seemed to decide last season that it would rather have the best player in the playoffs win the championship than the best team, and so it was. Currently David Stern is contemplating a realignment plan that will allow LeBron James to play Dwyane Wade 1-on-1 to decide the league's champion for the next fifteen years running. Despite Wade's ability to draw a foul simply by taking two dribbles to his right and throwing his body into the nearest defender for the entire Finals, the Mavericks still put up a decent fight and might have even won Mark Cuban a championship had Jason Terry's jump shot not suddenly vanished into thin air. Still, the Mavs fell short of the ultimate goal, and give them all the credit in the world for having an extremely active offseason while their conquerors in Miami did nothing. Most of the moves Dallas has made focus on adding veterans who know their roles and will provide steady support for the core of Dirk Nowitzki, Terry, Josh Howard, and Jerry Stackhouse. That's why Powell and Daniels, young guys with lots of upside who weren't quite able to grasp the complexities of Avery Johnson's system, are gone and good soldiers like George and Croshere have arrived to take their places.

It's a risky move since Dallas's regular season success the past few years has often been the product of getting surprising performances from young players like Howard and Devin Harris last year. Daniels at times looked like he was on the verge of becoming a major contributor before Coach Johnson started giving his minutes to Griffin. With this decrease in flexibility the Mavericks will be less prepared to deal with injury than they were last year and they might also have trouble replicating their chameleon-like style shifts demonstrated so successfully in the Western Conference playoffs. Letting Keith Van Horn go doesn't help in this area either, as Van Horn's bench scoring bailed the Mavs out a couple times in 2005-06. On the other hand, for a team that has been playing deep into May for years, the Mavericks always do an uncanny job getting great players with late first-round draft picks. Maurice Ager could continue the trend. He's a tall guard much like Daniels but a better shooter, and he will get a chance to play, especially if Stackhouse gets injured as usual. The Mavericks might not be as fun to watch as they were last year but they may be better constructed to win a championship... assuming they can survive the gauntlet of the Western Conference playoffs again.

Houston Rockets
Innies: F Steve Novak (draft pick), G Vassilis Spanoulis (Europe), G/F Casey Jacobsen (FA, Phoenix), G Kelenna Azubuike (undrafted FA), F Shane Battier (trade, Memphis), G Kirk Snyder (trade, New Orleans), G Bonzi Wells (FA, Sacramento).
Outies: G Keith Bogans (FA, Orlando), G David Wesley (FA, Cleveland), F Stromile Swift (trade, Memphis).

I can't believe I went through all the trouble of researching and typing out all of the player movement for the Rockets. Only two guys matter on this team. You know it; I know it. Yao Ming got his chance to silence his detractors last season with Tracy McGrady out, and he seized it with gusto. Now McGrady is ambulatory again and if he remains so the Rockets have an outside chance of winning the Western Conference. Shane Battier is a born-third banana, and the late addition of Bonzi Wells (who took a long time indeed to realize no one was going to give $10 million a year) gives the Rockets another guy who will do all they ask from their players who aren't Yao or McGrady, which is rebound, play defense, and make a shot when left wide open. Maybe even a little more. There aren't a broad range of things that can happen for Houston this year. Either their two stars stay healthy and they make the second round of the playoffs, or they don't and they get a repeat of last year. If McGrady plays out of his mind and Houston sneaks into the conference finals, watch out, because I don't know if either San Antonio or Dallas has an answer for the new, improved, mean-as-hell Yao Ming.

Memphis Grizzlies
Innies: F Rudy Gay (draft pick), G Kyle Lowry (draft pick), F Alexander Johnson (draft pick), G Tarance Kinsey (undrafted FA), F Stromile Swift (trade, Houston).
Outies: F Shane Battier (trade, Houston), G Bobby Jackson (FA, New Orleans), C Lorenzen Wright (FA, Atlanta).

Usually teams have success cycles with slightly more dramatic peaks and valleys than the Grizzlies, who are more or less forced into a rebuilding phase by the injury to Pau Gasol. After years of failure in Vancouver, the team carved out a niche for itself in Memphis with a grinding style of play that was successful, under Hubie Brown and Mike Fratello alike, at producing winning seasons despite a near-complete lack of top-flight talent. Well, then they have the playoffs, and the Grizzlies have lost an unprecedented twelve straight first round playoff games. Realizing that it takes star players to advance in today's NBA, Memphis has moved the player who most defined their fundamental style, Shane Battier. Memphis is hoping that the rookie whose rights they acquired in that trade, Rudy Gay, will become the star they've never had. With their defense and shooting Memphis will continue to be a load for unprepared opponents in 2006-07. Without Gasol and Battier they've just got no rebounding at all, however, and if it's any consolation to Grizz fans, not making the playoffs will mean they won't have the chance to get swept in the first round again.

New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets
Innies: F/C Hilton Armstrong (draft pick), F/C Cedric Simmons (draft pick), F Marcus Vinicius (draft pick), G Bobby Jackson (FA, Memphis), G Jannero Pargo (FA, Chicago), F Peja Stojakovic (trade, Indiana), C Tyson Chandler (trade, Chicago).
Outies: G Speedy Claxton (FA, Atlanta), C/F Aaron Williams (FA, L.A. Clippers), G Kirk Snyder (trade, Houston), C/F P.J. Brown (trade, Chicago), G J.R. Smith (trade, Chicago), G Arvydas Macijauskas (waived), G Moochie Norris (waived).

The road uniforms still say "New Orleans," but the Hornets will once again play the majority of their home games in the unexpected basketball hotbed of Oklahoma City. Sadly, those hardcore OKC fans aren't going to get nearly the show they got to witness last year, when an upstart Hornets team stayed in playoff contention until the very end of the season. Hornets management has badly misjudged the readiness of their team to take the next step, and they've added one big investment whose best years are far behind him and another colossal investment who has never had and never will have any good years.

Yes, I'm talking about Peja Stojakovic and Tyson Chandler. Stojakovic is a horrific defender and he's the kind of scorer who may drop off in performance quite suddenly with age. Peja depends on his quickness to create that tiny bit of space he needs to get his shot off, and he has a history of leg injuries. Without the ability to create his own shots Stojakoic is a vastly less effective player. He might be able to make the adjustment to pure shooter, particularly with Chris Paul doing the distributing, but there are a lot of guys you can get who can shoot the ball effectively for way less than $60 million.

As for Chandler, well, he's just not a good player and one of the best examples in the game of why the new age minimum in place for the NBA draft is more than anything else a cost-saving device for league GMs. Chandler was drafted out of high school by the Bulls and by the time he reached restricted free agency Chicago still had no idea whether he could play or not, so they gave him a ridiculous extension to keep him from moving somewhere else. In Chandler's fifth season, he actually regressed, and the Bulls have to be ecstatic that New Orleans/Oklahoma City was willing to take him off of their hands. He is only 24, so there's certainly a chance that he might be able to develop. I feel fairly confident that he won't. I watch the Bulls more than any other team in the league save my hometown Nuggets, and last year Chandler was awful, regularly being replaced in crunch time by guys like Darius Songaila and Othella Harrington. Chandler's jump shot isn't just ugly and inaccurate but he also sticks it out in front of him instead over his head, neutralizing his height advantage. He's not strong enough to play in the post and while he shows flashes every now and then as a rebounder and shot blocker, he just doesn't have the body type to be a successful one-way player like his Bulls replacement, Ben Wallace. The Hornets will lose more games this year than they did last year while spending a lot more money, and next year after their accumulated good feelings from sticking it out in New Orleans run dry they'll be back to same attendance/arena problems they had before Hurricane Katrina.

San Antonio Spurs
Innies: G Jacque Vaughn (FA, New Jersey), F/C Jackie Butler (FA, New York), C Francisco Elson (FA, Denver), F/C Matt Bonner (trade, Toronto), G/F Eric Williams (trade, Toronto), G Nick Van Exel (unsigned FA).
Outies: F/C Sean Marks (FA, Phoenix), C Nazr Mohammed (FA, Detroit), C Rasho Nesterovic (trade, Toronto).

You have to love the Spurs organization. They do things at their own pace. Even though they've won a championship since David Robinson retired, they still have pined for the days of having two great seven-footers in the frontcourt ever since. This despite the fact that every other team in the Western Conference is down to one true big man or zero. Finally the Spurs seem to have realized that laying out huge amounts of money for the likes of Rasho Nesterovic and Nazr Mohammed when you already have the best center in the league and obvious needs elsewhere is a poor allocation of limited resources. Nesterovic and Mohammed are gone, and San Antonio's salary cap situation is much the better for it. They haven't made any big additions for this season, but the Duncan-Tony Parker-Manu Ginobili axis remains intact and with those lumbering big men out of the way it'll just leave the lane more open for Parker's drive-and-dish game. San Antonio isn't young, with Brent Barry, Robert Horry, Michael Finley, and Bruce Bowen returning as the principal supporting cast, but they're younger than Miami and they have as good a chance or better of winning another championship this year. As a team San Antonio is as steady and devoid of flash as Duncan is as a player. Dallas can beat you any one of four or five different ways, but the Spurs only beat you one way. They're both going to win sixty games, so what difference does it make?

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