The weather is cold and miserable outside. In Cleveland, that narrows it down to about eight possible months of the year. How do I know the NBA season is on the horizon? It has something to do with the changing leaves, the shortening days, the "LeBron wants a personal manicurist or he's leaving Cleveland" rumors....
Teams listed in projected order of finish.
1. Detroit Pistons
Out with the flip-flopper, in with the Flip.
Larry Brown, who is to basketball teams what Liz Taylor is to husbands, has up and left yet another stop on his lifelong tour-de-force. The Pistons aren't sorry to see him go, not after he made eyes at both the Knicks and Cavaliers while still coach of the Pistons.
The trouble is, Brown and the Pistons made a great combination, winning an NBA title his first season in Detroit and reaching Game 7 of the NBA Finals his second. Now, Flip Saunders, who has won two playoff series in his entire NBA coaching career, takes over.
Luckily for Saunders, the personnel has changed very little over the summer, and the Pistons are still the team to beat in the East. He can thank Joe Dumars for that. A safe bet is that Saunders' playoff series win total will move upward starting this season. Rings we'll have to wait on. There is no question Brown got performances out of the Pistons' roster that other coaches couldn't have.
2. Indiana Pacers
Ron Artest is coming off the bench. Yeah, right. No matter how short a leash coach Rick Carlisle wants to keep his league-reinstated, troubled star on, it doesn't change the fact he is Indiana's best player and the only player on the team capable of singlehandedly changing the course of a game.
Having said that, the Pacers are as stacked with good role players as any team in the league, and Carlisle knows how to use them. The gold mine of role players only gets deeper with the addition of Sarunas Jasikevicius, a deadly outside shooter who should do much to offset the retirement of future hall-of-famer Reggie Miller.
3. Cleveland Cavaliers
Through all the lousy draft picks and trading for Jiri Welsch, give former GM Jim Paxson credit for this much: he circled the 2005 off-season on his calendar and made sure nothing would prevent the Cavs from having a boatload of money to spend in free agency. He shed the contracts of Shawn Kemp, Wesley Person and Lamond Murray, refused to overpay for Andre Miller, and stuck with low-cost busts like DeSagana Diop, all in the name of clearing the salary cap decks this summer and going on a spending spree.
Paxson didn get a chance to go on his spending spree. He was fired in May. But his successor, Danny Ferry, took Paxson's $30 million in salary cap space and used it to upgrade the talent level on the team drastically. A team that had LeBron James, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and not much else last year now has Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall and Damon Jones in the mix. This team is among the most talented in the league offensively, but the Cavs' ability to go deep into May will depend on how well the players adapt to rookie head coach Mike Brown and his defensive schemes.
4. Chicago Bulls
Coach Scott Skiles succeeded in putting a gutty, scrappy bunch on the floor last season, winning 47 games and homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs. But that was last season. A team with heart makes for great headlines, but sooner or later, talent takes precedent, and the Bulls have three teams in their own division with more of the natural stuff.
The controversial loss of Eddy Curry to the Knicks even has some basketball pundits muttering the "o-word" (as in "overacheive") about last year's Bulls. Curry might or might not have serious heart problems. What is certain is that as a free agent this summer, he felt the Bulls demanding a heart test before offering him a contract was an invasion of his privacy. Off he went to New York in a sign-and-trade for the lackluster Tim Thomas.
GM John Paxson made some good moves this off-season, most notably signing Darius Songalia and re-signing Tyson Chandler, but the loss of Curry looms as a big one as the Bulls try to build off last year's success.
5. Milwaukee Bucks
Michael Redd said he thought long and hard about accepting a huge offer from the Cavs this summer, or returning to the Bucks for an even larger offer. Go to Cleveland, and you are two hours away from your native city, Columbus. You get the chance to play alongside LeBron on a team that is much closer to contending than the Bucks.
Stay in Milwaukee, get more money and you keep your leading role instead of becoming LeBron's Robin.
Redd chose door No. 2. He won't win an NBA title this year, but LeBron probably won't, either.
Redd returned to a team in transition, but far from the armpit of the league. No. 1 draft pick Andrew Bogut will give the Bucks a low-post presence to compliment Redd's outside game. In the East, which still has a small group of contenders followed by a large field of also-rans, Milwaukee might even be a playoff possibility if enough pieces fall into place properly.
Up next: the Atlantic Division.
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