Tuesday, October 26, 2004
By Chad Ford
NBA Insider
The preseason is supposed to be a time for unbridled enthusiasm. Perhaps, with a new coach, new players, maybe even a new uniform, things are supposed to be better this year.
A season preview, on the other hand, is the time to squash that hope and bring you back to reality.
A number of teams will compete for the playoffs, but your team might not be one of them. There's nothing worse than hearing that the rut your team was in all last season is deeper than ever.
ESPN the Magazine's Ric Bucher says that it might take a while for Warriors GM Chris Mullin and new head coach Mike Montgomery to turn around the Warriors, who have been in one of the league's bigger ruts for quite some time. Today, Insider looks at five other teams that will struggle mightily to break out of their losing cycle.
LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS
Starting Five: Marko Jaric, Kerry Kittles, Corey Maggette, Elton Brand, Chris Kaman
Key Subs: Chris Wilcox, Shaun Livingston, Zeljko Rebraca, Bobby Simmons
Outlook: Here we go again. It has been seven years since the Clippers made a playoff appearance. By the end of this season, make it eight.
It almost didn't have to be that way. Some still don't believe, but Kobe Bryant seriously was considering bolting the Lakers for the Clippers this summer. He was so serious that the night before he made his decision, the Clippers actually were confident they had the biggest prize of the offseason.
Oh, well. Like everything that touches the Clippers, good is never really good enough. This year the Clippers sport a roster filled with talented players. Brand is an All-Star. Maggette quietly has improved every season and appears on the brink of stardom. Coach Mike Dunleavy is in love with center Kaman, claiming he could be a more athletic version of Brad Miller.
The Clippers even have a little depth. Rival GMs called incessantly this summer, trying to pry away sixth man Wilcox. This year's lottery pick, 6-foot-7 point guard Livingston, might have been the best prospect in the 2004 draft.
Factor in solid role players like point guard Jaric and newly acquired shooting guard Kittles, and the Clippers should be a playoff team ... right?
Sure. If they played in the Eastern Conference, we might be inclined to rank them fourth right behind the Pistons, Pacers and Heat (we could say that about all the Western Conference teams on this list, however).
Alas, the poor Clippers play in the West, and any shot at the playoffs walked out the door right alongside Kobe and Quentin Richardson. The team lacks the experience, continuity, requisite depth or leadership it takes to make a run in the Wild West.
The guys will play hard. They'll win some games and make a spectacular play or two. Then we can start talking about next year, that $10 million-plus in cap room and dreams of Tony Parker, Ray Allen or Michael Redd moving to L.A. and finally leading this team back into the playoffs.
CHICAGO BULLS
Starting Five: Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Andres Nocioni, Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry
Key Subs: Luol Deng, Antonio Davis, Eric Piatkowski, Othella Harrington.
Outlook: Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. That's the mantra among the media and fans after we all fell head over heels for the Bulls last preseason.
After six seasons of misery, the Terri-Bulls sure looked like a playoff contender from afar last year. It took all of about two weeks of regular season games to show us how wrong we were.
Curry couldn't rebound or defend. Chandler, when he was healthy, couldn't score. Jamal Crawford jacked up a shot every chance he got. If it wasn't for a stellar rookie season from Hinrich, the Bulls might have been looking at the No. 1 pick in the draft last season.
GM John Paxson, fed up with the team's underachieving ways, started cleaning house this summer. He shipped Crawford to the Knicks and sent Marcus Fizer to the Bobcats (thus erasing the disastrous 2000 draft from the record books). He passed on unproven high school talent in the draft to take two proven collegiate winners: Gordon and Deng. Then he added the most coveted international free agent in the world, Andres Nocioni.
Where will it get this team? The Bulls will be tougher. They will have more fight in them every night. They may even win a handful more games than their recent predecessors.
But the truth? The oldest player in the Bulls' top six rotation is Nocioni – a rookie at the ripe old age of 25. Hinrich is 23 and has just one year of experience in the league. Chandler is 22. Curry and Gordon are 21. Deng doesn't turn 20 until April.
How does anyone expect to win with a team like this? The answer is ... the Bulls don't. Paxson hasn't uttered the dreaded "R" word all summer, but he's rebuilding the Bulls again. Jerry Krause's multiple rebuilding plans have failed, and it's time for Paxson to exorcise the demons.
That means he isn't done. Expect Curry to be gone before the trading deadline to make the transformation complete. He's the poster child for all that has ailed the Bulls these last four or five years.
Then look for Paxson to do something Krause couldn't. He'll use some of his young players as pawns in an attempt to trade them for youngish veterans who know how to win now.
The rebuilding shouldn't take another five or six years this time. But for this season at least, the Bulls will be playing for the lottery. Hopefully for one last time.
PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS
Starting Five: Damon Stoudamire, Derek Anderson, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Zach Randolph, Theo Ratliff
Key Subs: Darius Miles, Nick Van Exel, Ruben Patterson, Joel Przybilla
Outlook: Whenever a large group of unstable, pot-loving, foul-mouthed players inhabits an NBA team for too long, a curse is born ...
It's sounds like the intro to a Halloween movie, but you might want to ask Portland GM John Nash if he believes in curses after all the Blazers have gone through the last year.
Nash was hired with the idea he'd exorcise the demons that haunt the franchise, infuse the team with "high character" guys and all would be right in Portland again. Sure.
Nash came up with team rules, moved ringleader Rasheed Wallace, brought in solid citizens like Abdur-Rahim and Ratliff. In return, what did he get?
The same bad press that has haunted the Blazers for the last decade.
Randolph was involved in a shooting investigation this summer. Qyntel Woods, in addition to being busted for marijuana possession, is being questioned by police for dog abuse. Even Abdur-Rahim, who never has acted out before in his career, suddenly went mental this summer demanding a trade and claiming he wouldn't report to camp if the Blazers didn't move him.
And then, in a move that left just about everyone in the league speechless, the Blazers traded for Van Exel so that he and Stoudamire could tutor first-round draft pick Sebastian Telfair. If the thought of Van Exel and Stoudamire tutoring anyone doesn't scare you, nothing will.
The problems don't stop there. Despite the talent on this team, the Blazers have other issues that will start manifesting themselves as soon as the season gets underway.
Abdur-Rahim is not a small forward. He can't defend threes, knows he can't defend threes and knows he'll look bad, in a contract year, trying to get that done. That's partly why he still wants out.
Miles really came out of his shell last spring in Portland. Will he go back into now that he's being demoted to the bench – a move he believes isn't basketball-related? So far, in the preseason, he's reverted back to his 35-percent shooting from the field.
Randolph was a revelation on the court, but off the court he's a ticking time bomb. How much are the Blazers going to invest in a kid that everyone likes but no one trusts?
Ratliff is the glue that will hold the team together defensively, but you have to wonder how long his streak of injury-free games, an impressive 162, will last.
Anderson is playing well in the preseason, but he has played more than 70 games in a season only twice in his career.
Factor in that the 10 or so teams ahead of Portland have more depth and or/star power, and the Blazers shouldn't just consider themselves cursed – screwed may be the more appropriate word.
TORONTO RAPTORS
Starting Five: Rafer Alston, Vince Carter, Jalen Rose, Chris Bosh, Loren Woods
Key Subs: Donyell Marshall, Morris Peterson, Rafael Araujo, Alvin Williams (?)
Outlook: As Carter goes, so go the Raptors. If Vince is happy and healthy, the Raptors have enough talent to sneak up on some folks in the East. If he's surly and gimpy, the Raptors are in for another long season.
Here's why we think you should bet on the latter. Carter finally went public with his trade demand this summer after hinting at for more than year. Raptors' fans greeted him with a chorus of boos at his first preseason game. The reaction, as justifiable as it was, has pushed Carter even further away.
Is he really going to be willing to drive to the basket knowing everyone in the crowd is hoping he gets knocked to the deck? Is he really going to play through his next bout of jumper's knee after he confessed this is really all about Vince?
You know the answer, and so do his teammates, who have grumbled privately that the Raptors should grant Vince his wish. Right now GM Rob Babcock is holding firm, in part because teams aren't offering enough for Vince to make the trade worthwhile.
In the meantime, the Raptors will have to make do. Carter isn't a fan of Rose, the team's second-best scorer, nor does he like new lead point guard Alston.
Rookie Bosh has enormous potential, but he's likely to be stuck playing the center position again this year. So far, rookie center Araujo and free-agent signee Woods have shown flashes, but that doesn't get you far once the regular season starts.
The team's depth in the backcourt also is suspect now that it looks like Williams might not be able to play this season. Williams claims he has no cartilage left in his knee and is currently seeking recommendations from several specialists.
Maybe Carter has the right idea. He has complained for the past two summers that the team hasn't made enough moves to stay competitive. Without a true center, and with little to no depth in the backcourt should someone go down, the Raptors as we know them appear on the verge of extinction.
SEATTLE SUPERSONICS
Starting Five: Luke Ridnour, Ray Allen , Rashard Lewis, Reggie Evans, Vitaly Potapenko
Key Subs: Antonio Daniels, Vladimir Radmanovic, Nick Collison, Ronald Murray
Outlook: You might as well holler "dead man walking" every time head coach Nate McMillan walks in the room. For that matter, yell the same thing if owner Howard Schultz, GM Rick Sund or star player Allen passes by, too.
McMillan is in the last year of his contract. Rumors that Schultz would like out (a rumor he denies) won't go away. If Allen doesn't a cut a deal soon, he'll be gone, too.
It's not a matter of whether this bad experiment in Seattle will end, just a question of when. The Sonics, on paper, look like the most irrelevant team in the league.
The upside just isn't there. The young players are too far away. The older players are unhappy, ready to leave. The coach still is waiting around for the front office to stock the team with players who play the way he did – hard every night.
Allen is still one of the best two or three pure shooters in the league. But a rash of injuries, Father Time and some pretty big contract demands have lessened his stock over the past year.
Lewis always has appeared to be on the verge of stardom. But why hasn't he gotten over the hump? His lack of ball-handling and leadership skills often leave him with little to do but shoot jump shots.
Radmanovic, his backup, has been trying to get out of Seattle for a year. Like Lewis, he's skilled offensively, but he doesn't have a real position and has struggled trying to defend threes.
Daniels is the type of player, at point guard, that McMillan loves, but there's pressure from above to play second-year guard Ridnour. Ridnour is more of a playmaker than Daniels, but he can't defend his shadow.
Combine their all-offense, no-defense backcourt with their no-offense, no-defense, no-name front court of Evans, Collison, Danny Fortson, Potapenko and Jerome James and what do you have – possibly the worst team in the Western Conference this year.
That hasn't stopped the Sonics from proclaiming this is a do-or-die year for them. They claim the team will make the playoffs or bust.
It might be time for someone to put all of them out of their misery.
By Chad Ford
NBA Insider
The preseason is supposed to be a time for unbridled enthusiasm. Perhaps, with a new coach, new players, maybe even a new uniform, things are supposed to be better this year.
A season preview, on the other hand, is the time to squash that hope and bring you back to reality.
A number of teams will compete for the playoffs, but your team might not be one of them. There's nothing worse than hearing that the rut your team was in all last season is deeper than ever.
ESPN the Magazine's Ric Bucher says that it might take a while for Warriors GM Chris Mullin and new head coach Mike Montgomery to turn around the Warriors, who have been in one of the league's bigger ruts for quite some time. Today, Insider looks at five other teams that will struggle mightily to break out of their losing cycle.
LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS
Starting Five: Marko Jaric, Kerry Kittles, Corey Maggette, Elton Brand, Chris Kaman
Key Subs: Chris Wilcox, Shaun Livingston, Zeljko Rebraca, Bobby Simmons
Outlook: Here we go again. It has been seven years since the Clippers made a playoff appearance. By the end of this season, make it eight.
It almost didn't have to be that way. Some still don't believe, but Kobe Bryant seriously was considering bolting the Lakers for the Clippers this summer. He was so serious that the night before he made his decision, the Clippers actually were confident they had the biggest prize of the offseason.
Oh, well. Like everything that touches the Clippers, good is never really good enough. This year the Clippers sport a roster filled with talented players. Brand is an All-Star. Maggette quietly has improved every season and appears on the brink of stardom. Coach Mike Dunleavy is in love with center Kaman, claiming he could be a more athletic version of Brad Miller.
The Clippers even have a little depth. Rival GMs called incessantly this summer, trying to pry away sixth man Wilcox. This year's lottery pick, 6-foot-7 point guard Livingston, might have been the best prospect in the 2004 draft.
Factor in solid role players like point guard Jaric and newly acquired shooting guard Kittles, and the Clippers should be a playoff team ... right?
Sure. If they played in the Eastern Conference, we might be inclined to rank them fourth right behind the Pistons, Pacers and Heat (we could say that about all the Western Conference teams on this list, however).
Alas, the poor Clippers play in the West, and any shot at the playoffs walked out the door right alongside Kobe and Quentin Richardson. The team lacks the experience, continuity, requisite depth or leadership it takes to make a run in the Wild West.
The guys will play hard. They'll win some games and make a spectacular play or two. Then we can start talking about next year, that $10 million-plus in cap room and dreams of Tony Parker, Ray Allen or Michael Redd moving to L.A. and finally leading this team back into the playoffs.
CHICAGO BULLS
Starting Five: Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Andres Nocioni, Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry
Key Subs: Luol Deng, Antonio Davis, Eric Piatkowski, Othella Harrington.
Outlook: Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. That's the mantra among the media and fans after we all fell head over heels for the Bulls last preseason.
After six seasons of misery, the Terri-Bulls sure looked like a playoff contender from afar last year. It took all of about two weeks of regular season games to show us how wrong we were.
Curry couldn't rebound or defend. Chandler, when he was healthy, couldn't score. Jamal Crawford jacked up a shot every chance he got. If it wasn't for a stellar rookie season from Hinrich, the Bulls might have been looking at the No. 1 pick in the draft last season.
GM John Paxson, fed up with the team's underachieving ways, started cleaning house this summer. He shipped Crawford to the Knicks and sent Marcus Fizer to the Bobcats (thus erasing the disastrous 2000 draft from the record books). He passed on unproven high school talent in the draft to take two proven collegiate winners: Gordon and Deng. Then he added the most coveted international free agent in the world, Andres Nocioni.
Where will it get this team? The Bulls will be tougher. They will have more fight in them every night. They may even win a handful more games than their recent predecessors.
But the truth? The oldest player in the Bulls' top six rotation is Nocioni – a rookie at the ripe old age of 25. Hinrich is 23 and has just one year of experience in the league. Chandler is 22. Curry and Gordon are 21. Deng doesn't turn 20 until April.
How does anyone expect to win with a team like this? The answer is ... the Bulls don't. Paxson hasn't uttered the dreaded "R" word all summer, but he's rebuilding the Bulls again. Jerry Krause's multiple rebuilding plans have failed, and it's time for Paxson to exorcise the demons.
That means he isn't done. Expect Curry to be gone before the trading deadline to make the transformation complete. He's the poster child for all that has ailed the Bulls these last four or five years.
Then look for Paxson to do something Krause couldn't. He'll use some of his young players as pawns in an attempt to trade them for youngish veterans who know how to win now.
The rebuilding shouldn't take another five or six years this time. But for this season at least, the Bulls will be playing for the lottery. Hopefully for one last time.
PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS
Starting Five: Damon Stoudamire, Derek Anderson, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Zach Randolph, Theo Ratliff
Key Subs: Darius Miles, Nick Van Exel, Ruben Patterson, Joel Przybilla
Outlook: Whenever a large group of unstable, pot-loving, foul-mouthed players inhabits an NBA team for too long, a curse is born ...
It's sounds like the intro to a Halloween movie, but you might want to ask Portland GM John Nash if he believes in curses after all the Blazers have gone through the last year.
Nash was hired with the idea he'd exorcise the demons that haunt the franchise, infuse the team with "high character" guys and all would be right in Portland again. Sure.
Nash came up with team rules, moved ringleader Rasheed Wallace, brought in solid citizens like Abdur-Rahim and Ratliff. In return, what did he get?
The same bad press that has haunted the Blazers for the last decade.
Randolph was involved in a shooting investigation this summer. Qyntel Woods, in addition to being busted for marijuana possession, is being questioned by police for dog abuse. Even Abdur-Rahim, who never has acted out before in his career, suddenly went mental this summer demanding a trade and claiming he wouldn't report to camp if the Blazers didn't move him.
And then, in a move that left just about everyone in the league speechless, the Blazers traded for Van Exel so that he and Stoudamire could tutor first-round draft pick Sebastian Telfair. If the thought of Van Exel and Stoudamire tutoring anyone doesn't scare you, nothing will.
The problems don't stop there. Despite the talent on this team, the Blazers have other issues that will start manifesting themselves as soon as the season gets underway.
Abdur-Rahim is not a small forward. He can't defend threes, knows he can't defend threes and knows he'll look bad, in a contract year, trying to get that done. That's partly why he still wants out.
Miles really came out of his shell last spring in Portland. Will he go back into now that he's being demoted to the bench – a move he believes isn't basketball-related? So far, in the preseason, he's reverted back to his 35-percent shooting from the field.
Randolph was a revelation on the court, but off the court he's a ticking time bomb. How much are the Blazers going to invest in a kid that everyone likes but no one trusts?
Ratliff is the glue that will hold the team together defensively, but you have to wonder how long his streak of injury-free games, an impressive 162, will last.
Anderson is playing well in the preseason, but he has played more than 70 games in a season only twice in his career.
Factor in that the 10 or so teams ahead of Portland have more depth and or/star power, and the Blazers shouldn't just consider themselves cursed – screwed may be the more appropriate word.
TORONTO RAPTORS
Starting Five: Rafer Alston, Vince Carter, Jalen Rose, Chris Bosh, Loren Woods
Key Subs: Donyell Marshall, Morris Peterson, Rafael Araujo, Alvin Williams (?)
Outlook: As Carter goes, so go the Raptors. If Vince is happy and healthy, the Raptors have enough talent to sneak up on some folks in the East. If he's surly and gimpy, the Raptors are in for another long season.
Here's why we think you should bet on the latter. Carter finally went public with his trade demand this summer after hinting at for more than year. Raptors' fans greeted him with a chorus of boos at his first preseason game. The reaction, as justifiable as it was, has pushed Carter even further away.
Is he really going to be willing to drive to the basket knowing everyone in the crowd is hoping he gets knocked to the deck? Is he really going to play through his next bout of jumper's knee after he confessed this is really all about Vince?
You know the answer, and so do his teammates, who have grumbled privately that the Raptors should grant Vince his wish. Right now GM Rob Babcock is holding firm, in part because teams aren't offering enough for Vince to make the trade worthwhile.
In the meantime, the Raptors will have to make do. Carter isn't a fan of Rose, the team's second-best scorer, nor does he like new lead point guard Alston.
Rookie Bosh has enormous potential, but he's likely to be stuck playing the center position again this year. So far, rookie center Araujo and free-agent signee Woods have shown flashes, but that doesn't get you far once the regular season starts.
The team's depth in the backcourt also is suspect now that it looks like Williams might not be able to play this season. Williams claims he has no cartilage left in his knee and is currently seeking recommendations from several specialists.
Maybe Carter has the right idea. He has complained for the past two summers that the team hasn't made enough moves to stay competitive. Without a true center, and with little to no depth in the backcourt should someone go down, the Raptors as we know them appear on the verge of extinction.
SEATTLE SUPERSONICS
Starting Five: Luke Ridnour, Ray Allen , Rashard Lewis, Reggie Evans, Vitaly Potapenko
Key Subs: Antonio Daniels, Vladimir Radmanovic, Nick Collison, Ronald Murray
Outlook: You might as well holler "dead man walking" every time head coach Nate McMillan walks in the room. For that matter, yell the same thing if owner Howard Schultz, GM Rick Sund or star player Allen passes by, too.
McMillan is in the last year of his contract. Rumors that Schultz would like out (a rumor he denies) won't go away. If Allen doesn't a cut a deal soon, he'll be gone, too.
It's not a matter of whether this bad experiment in Seattle will end, just a question of when. The Sonics, on paper, look like the most irrelevant team in the league.
The upside just isn't there. The young players are too far away. The older players are unhappy, ready to leave. The coach still is waiting around for the front office to stock the team with players who play the way he did – hard every night.
Allen is still one of the best two or three pure shooters in the league. But a rash of injuries, Father Time and some pretty big contract demands have lessened his stock over the past year.
Lewis always has appeared to be on the verge of stardom. But why hasn't he gotten over the hump? His lack of ball-handling and leadership skills often leave him with little to do but shoot jump shots.
Radmanovic, his backup, has been trying to get out of Seattle for a year. Like Lewis, he's skilled offensively, but he doesn't have a real position and has struggled trying to defend threes.
Daniels is the type of player, at point guard, that McMillan loves, but there's pressure from above to play second-year guard Ridnour. Ridnour is more of a playmaker than Daniels, but he can't defend his shadow.
Combine their all-offense, no-defense backcourt with their no-offense, no-defense, no-name front court of Evans, Collison, Danny Fortson, Potapenko and Jerome James and what do you have – possibly the worst team in the Western Conference this year.
That hasn't stopped the Sonics from proclaiming this is a do-or-die year for them. They claim the team will make the playoffs or bust.
It might be time for someone to put all of them out of their misery.
