Log In Register
Lost your password?
A password will be e-mailed to you.

It’s time for NBA basketball people!

The 2013-14 season is already upon us and HHSR is looking to continue its hot streak of predictions from last year’s playoffs when we were money like Ray Allen in Game 6! Of course, we had the Heat repeating as champions prior to the start of last season, however our pick to make it out the Western Conference couldn’t even navigate their way out the first round (that’s what we get for having faith in the Clippers).

Still, HHSR had the Spurs out the West (once the Clippers were bounced and the Russell Westbrook injured his knee) and we correctly predicted all seven games of the NBA Finals, in addition to having the Heat in seven games prior to the start of the series.

Sidebar: A quick scroll through the HHSR twitter page back to June will corroborate this story.

Big shoes to fill indeed in ’13-’14. So pack it up, pack it in and let us begin with the Atlantic Division preview and predictions.

Boston Celtics

What’s Hot: The Celtics still have Rajon Rondo, who despite his jumper that is as dependable as Direct TV in a thunderstorm, is still one of the elite point guards in the association. They also hired a new coach— former University of Butler Bulldog wunderkind Brad Stevens. Stevens is an exciting hire for a team that’s veteran players and coaches have lost interest during the lengthy regular seasons in recent years. Rookie big man Kelly Olynyk from Gonzaga has shown flashes in summer league and preseason of being a productive NBA player.

What’s Not Hot: The reason Stevens is in the fold is because Doc Rivers, the team’s best coach in about 30 years, headed west and joined the L.A. Clippers. The departure of Rivers (and Ray Allen last season) meant “The Big 3” era was over in Beantown— general manager Danny Ainge knew it too. Thus, he sent Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to Brooklyn and got back…basically nothing. The overpaid Kris Humphries and Gerald Wallace (making over $22M combined this year) will likely go a long way in determining the success of the Celtics. And that’s a terrifying proposition for any team, just ask last year’s Brooklyn Nets.

What The Future Holds: In all likelihood, the C’s will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2007. They did acquire three first round picks in the deal for KG and The Truth (and Jason Terry) and therefore should be in a decent position to reload over the next couple of years. In fact, their best bet may be to deal away their star point guard to really open things up.

Toronto Raptors

What’s Hot: Much like Rondo this year, we suggested last year that the Raptors deal Andrea Bargnani while they can still get something halfway decent for him. Not only did they deal him, but they sent him to a team within the division (Knicks) so they must not have been too worried about facing him again.

Sidebar: Can you imagine an announcer after Bargnari torches the Raptors for 48 points saying “If there’s one thing you don’t wanna do, it’s piss off Andrea Bargnari!”?

Me neither.

Toronto will now be building their team around Terrence Ross and, far more importantly, Jonas Valanciunas— a 21-year-old Lithuanian center that could be an Eastern Conference all-star within the next two to three years. It will be interesting to see how Toronto markets Valanciunas, what with Drake pulling the strings in the front office (No, that’s not a joke. Drake really is calling the shots!). Perhaps their biggest offseason move was stealing Executive of the Year Masai Ujiri away from the Denver Nuggets. Ujiri will now be in charge of player personnel for Toronto.

What’s Not Hot: There’s not much to get excited about here outside of the maturation of Valanciunas and Ross defending his slam dunk contest championship (but nobody cares to see him in it again). The also have the unenviable responsibility of paying Rudy Gay $37 million over the next two years, who shot so poorly in recent years, he had have his eyes fixed. That sounds like an insult you’d hear on the playground, not something that should actually happened to an NBA “star player”.

What The Future Holds: If things break right for this team, they could challenge for a playoff spot, however it’s unlikely to see them winning close to 40 games. But a number of teams in the East will drop like a rock to the bottom of the standings, so if nothing else, Toronto should benefit from that. If they make any type of move, it will be because swingman DeMar DeRozan improved on his quiet 18.1 ppg average from a year ago. If he can become a shooting guard that can actually shoot (or if they send him to Rudy Gay’s lasik surgeon), the Raps will be in business.

Philadelphia 76ers

What’s Hot: New general manager Sam Hnkie ain’t playing around. In proably the most controversial move of the summer, Hinke sent 23-year-old all-star point guard Jrue Holiday to the New Orleans Pelicans (hehehe) on draft night in exchange for the sixth overall pick, which turned into Nerlens Noel (who could still miss substantial time this year recovering from a torn ACL). He also drafted Holiday’s replacement, Michael Carter-Williams. All you really need to know about this Sixers team is that they’ll be lucky to win 15 games— and that’s not an accident.

What’s Not Hot: See the previous sentence. And the Andrew Bynum era in Philadelphia lasted one year, with Bynum not even logging a single minute for this team. And all it cost them was $17 million dollars (thank God for insurance) Andre Iguodala, the entire 2012-13 season, Doug Collins’ job and what could wind up being three years and roughly $20M of Jason Richardson.

What the Future Holds: ANDREW WIGGINS! Or at least a good ass shot at landing Andrew Wiggins, or Julius Randle or Jabari Parker. But Wiggins, currently entering his freshman year at Kansas, is the consensus best high school prospect since LeBron. Hence, bottoming out to the earth’s core is all part of the Hinkie plan. And if he can couple Wiggins with two more lottery picks from this year, the Sixers could be back in the playoffs in no time.

The problem is, Carter-Williams and Noel might not be all that good. Noel has had multiple surgeries on his knees and is only 20-years-old. Not to mention he has no offensive game to speak of, which are the two reasons why he slid so far in the draft. And Carter-Williams is (about) a 6’6″ 160 pound point guard that can’t shoot and isn’t close to an elite athlete. If these two guys aren’t cornerstone pieces of your favorite team, you shouldn’t feel too bad.

New York Knicks

What’s Hot: Melo and Lala, for starters. Also, the Knicks are returning a pretty damn good three-point shooting team, an underrated defense and they shaved about 10,000 years off the roster by losing Jason Kidd, Kurt Thomas, Marcus Camby and Rasheed Wallace from last year’s team. They also traded for Bargnani and brought back twitter’s favorite son, J.R. Smith. Drafting Tim Hardaway Jr. was also a good look.

What’s Not Hot: The Knicks spent money on Metta World Peace for some reason. Far more pertinent is Carmelo telling the New York Observer he wants to be a free agent next summer. Is this illegal? No. But what do Melo — and more importantly — his team stand to gain from him saying this publicly, before the season? If he was looking to jumpstart season-long hysteria over the next team he’ll jack up 30 shots per game for, mission accomplished.

What The Future Holds: The Knicks should make the playoffs once again, but barring a big midseason move, they likely won’t make it beyond the first round. The Knicks don’t have a ton of depth or interior scoring, and Amar’e Stoudemire’s uncanny ability to serve as an albatross equally on the court and on the balance sheet leaves the Knickerbockers in a precarious spot of trying to remain a contender in the East. Injuries opened up a huge opportunity for the Knicks last year (though Melo too was playing hurt), but they were unable to seize the opportunity to even face the Heat in the playoffs.

Brooklyn Nets

What’s Hot: The Nets made the playoffs in their first year in the Brook. Though there were some bright moments during the season, this squad ultimately lacked a certain something…something that prevented them from even getting out of the first round of the playoffs despite facing a depleted Chicago Bulls team.

Heart transplant, you say? Enter Terry, Pierce and KG. You won’t find three players in the league that have more heart than this trio. The Nets essentially acquired the two future Hall of Famers without giving up any core pieces. Joe Johnson, Deron Williams and Brook Lopez all return to a linuep that suddenly has ample playoff championship experience.

What’s Not Hot: The Nets payroll is on Rick Ross, if Ross let himself go (think about that for a second). The Nets payroll is right at about $100 MILLION DOLLARS! The salary cap this year is just under $59 million! Factor in the luxury tax, and the Nets are poised to spend near an extra $80M on this roster. But what’s 80 mil to a boss?

Sidebar: A colleague recently pointed out that many basketball pundits place far too much emphasis on the luxury tax. His logic: if the owner has the skrilla and is willing to splurge, the tax doesn’t matter because exceeding the salary cap has no direct impact on the court. Point taken. But good luck trying to build any type of contender in three years, Brooklyn.

The Nets also hired a new coach. Rather than hiring an experienced ex-player dying for his opportunity after learning the craft for years as an assistant (like Patrick Ewing), they hired the freshly retired Jason Kidd. No one can question J Kidd’s basketball acumen, but it’s difficult to imagine him having total control over any locker room, especially this one full of veterans. Kidd and Terry shared the same backcourt just two years ago. Kidd was drafted in 1994, KG came out in ’95 and the respect issue is already popping up.

What the Future Holds: The Nets have enough talent and levelheadedness to win this division. The only real threat are across the bridge, as the two New York teams will be the only two of this group to make the playoffs. Finding the right chemistry may take some time, but Brooklyn will reach the top of the division, with or without Jay Z.

The real question: can they dethrone the Miami Heat and reach the Finals? It wouldn’t be impossible, but BK needs to figure out what type of team they want to be. Do they want to run up & down like their coach used to or do they want to be a halfcourt team led by the geriatric Pierce and Garnett, and isolation king Joe Johnson, commonly known as “Iso Joe”? Are they gonna pick & pop with Deron Williams and the former Celtics, or do they pound it inside to Brook Lopez (19.4 ppg last season)?

Whatever the case, the Nets made a very conscious decision to go all in this season (even more than last year, is it possibler to go all-er in?). Frankly, they don’t have the time to fade in late April again, just like we expected them to last year.

To see the HHSR Central Division preview, click here.

To see the HHSR Southeast Division preview and Eastern Conference Champion pick, click here.