Five questions to tip off the season

Well, here we go again. The obvious question heading into the 2002-03 season is, of course, whether the Los Angeles Lakers will four-peat, a feat that hasn't been achieved since the Boston Celtics won eight championships in a row between the 1958-59 and 1965-66 seasons. (Just to get this out of the way, because you'll be hearing it or reading it thousands of times: Kobe Bryant wasn't born until 12 years after that final Celtics championship. Heck, Lakers head coach Phil Jackson was only 13 when the Celts began that run.) Anyway, I'm going to table that puzzler for a while and let these five serve as this season's tipoff questions. (There's even a short-answer bonus question at the end.)

Question No. 1: Is the rivalry between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings for real?

Answer: Damn straight it is.

There hasn't been a true NBA rivalry since Magic Johnson's Lakers and Larry Bird's Celtics mixed it up in the '80s. (I discount the Detroit Pistons-Chicago Bulls rivalry of the late '80s and early '90s. That was purely Bad Boys versus Michael Jordan.) Lakers-Kings qualifies for a number of reasons.

First and most important, both teams are really good, clearly the class of the NBA going into this season. (Is there still a rivalry between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks? Who cares?) Second, though this rivalry doesn't have the geographic polarity of showy L.A. versus blue-collar Boston, its contrast in California character is intriguing. Sophisticated L.A.-ers love to make jokes about rural Sacramento, while levelheaded Sacramentans love to cut up superficial La-La Land.

Also, even more than in the L.A.-Boston rivalry, this one has players who will flap their jaws. The Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal has already referred to the Kings as "the Queens," while Sacramento's Vlade Divac has repeatedly pooh-poohed L.A.'s dominance. In quieter fashion, Rick Fox and Derek Fisher can be counted on to cut up the Kings, while Sacramento will get some verbal mileage from Scot Pollard and perhaps Chris Webber. Then, too, both teams' coaches will sprinkle some verbal gasoline on any fire. The Lakers' Phil Jackson is the Philosopher King, sitting high on his mountaintop and delivering ironic bons mots from time to time, while the Kings' Rick Adelman, cast in the role the Knicks' Jeff Van Gundy once was, is the earnest and emotional leader, staying away from the Jackson bait only so long before leaping up to snap at it.

This isn't scripted pro wrestling posturing. These teams genuinely do not like each other. And the media, which thirsts for true rivalries, will be more than willing to pump it up. In fact, I just did. For the record, the first Lakers-Kings game is Christmas night in L.A.

Question No. 2: Can Vince Carter return from knee surgery to be one of the best players in the NBA?

Answer: Uh, I'm not sure.

Sorry if that's a cop-out, but I'm not going to write off a gifted 25-year-old who once seemed to be the tastiest piece of pastry in the I-Can-Be-Like-Mike bakeoff. But I don't necessarily think that Carter, whose Toronto Raptors crept into the playoffs last year by winning 14 of their final 18 games without him, will reclaim his status as one of the NBA's rising superstars. Why? Because he is only an average shooter who has never had complete confidence in his ability to score from the outside, and the challenge he faces now is more mental than physical. Does he still think he's the man? Just as important, do his teammates think so? What does he do in games when his mad hops are neutralized? Can he back down his opponent and release a fallaway, a la Jordan? There probably isn't a single NBA observer who doesn't rate Orlando's Tracy McGrady ahead of Carter; let's see if the King of Vertical accepts this challenge.

Question No. 3: Which team got the best of the Dikembe Mutombo for Keith Van Horn and Todd MacCulloch trade?

Answer: The New Jersey Nets, who gave up the latter two to get the big center from the Philadelphia 76ers.

This is an obvious point, but the worst way to judge an NBA trade is to compare statistics. Mutombo's awkward low-post offense -- he's the embodiment of what NBA scouts call an "Erector Set Center" -- can be positively painful to watch, while Van Horn is a smooth offensive operator capable of averaging 20 points per night, and the underrated MacCulloch can get you half that. But the Nets had become convinced that not only was a shot-blocking defensive presence all they needed to become a championship team, but also that Van Horn was such a defensive liability that he was bringing the club down. Personally, I think his former teammates laid too much weight on Van Horn's slender shoulders, but the bottom line is that they thought he was a soft defensive player. The Nets are a tight, talented and together team, and they will dominate the Eastern Conference this season and provide better competition to the West winner. The Sixers? Well, Allen Iverson won't let them sink, but the two additions won't make them climb too high, either.

4. Which one team in each conference is ready to, in the words of Springsteen, "come on up for the rising?"

Answer: The Washington Wizards in the East and the Portland Trail Blazers in the West.

Yes, the obvious question for the Wizards is whether Jordan will allow himself to have a subordinate role if circumstances dictate that he should. Jordan is the world's most competitive person. But he's no dummy, and he will do what it takes to win -- even if that means decreasing his minutes to, say, 25 per game. (If the Wizards are not winning, however, he's not about to sit on the bench.) Washington has increased its firepower with the addition of Jerry Stackhouse, increased its hoops IQ with the addition of Bryon Russell and increased its veteran leadership quotient with the addition of Charles Oakley. On the court, Oak will not let the Wizards be bullied, and his strongarm influence will rub off on Brendan Haywood and Kwame Brown.

The fondest wish of most NBA reporters is that the Trail Blazers, one of history's most uninviting and media-hostile aggregations, not get good again. But I think they will.

Adding a slow-moving, soon-to-be-38-year-old center, particularly one who has feuded with your best player, would not seem to be the path to greatness. But signing the 7-foot-3 Arvydas Sabonis, who is returning from a one-year retirement, was the perfect move for a team that needs stability in its halfcourt game. (And, heck, when Rasheed Wallace threw a towel in Sabonis' face during the 2000-01 season, he was only showing his love.) One could argue that the Blazers are as deep at every position as any team in the NBA. (How many clubs, for example, would love to have a threesome of Scottie Pippen, Bonzi Wells and Ruben Patterson available at small forward?) Well, there might be some chemistry problems in trying to straighten out a three-pronged point guard spot (Jeff McInnis, Antonio Daniels and incumbent Damon Stoudamire), particularly since J-Mac prefers jacking it up to distributing. But chemistry problems are what Portland is all about. With one season under his belt, coach Maurice Cheeks will run this team with a surer hand.

5. What relatively new face could join the NBA's Elite Player List this season? And who's already on that list?

The second question first. My elite 10 are (in no particular order): Shaq, Kobe, McGrady, Iverson, Dirk Nowitzki of Dallas, Jason Kidd of New Jersey, Tim Duncan of San Antonio, Kevin Garnett of Minnesota, Chris Webber of Sacramento and, oh yes, Jordan. Close to that group are three guards: Seattle's Gary Payton (if he's relatively happy), Houston's Steve Francis (if he's relatively healthy) and Sacramento's Mike Bibby (if he's relatively the same player he was in last year's postseason) -- and Utah's Karl Malone (yes, at 39 he's still close to that level).

The new face? Memphis' Pau Gasol. The Spanish flash added 15 pounds of muscle, and like Garnett, he's a 7-footer who can shoot from all over, run the floor, rebound and compete. Further, he's on a team that needs him to do all those things, but some of the pressure on him will be eased this season with the frontcourt addition of Drew Gooden.

6. Short-answer bonus question: The New York Knicks have been roundly reviled and criticized. They have players with burdensome long-term contracts that no one wants. They seem to have lost their fighting spirit. Coach Don Chaney seems overwhelmed trying to put together the pieces of a bewildering puzzle, and the Knicks' corporate ownership doesn't help. Yet New York has had an outstanding preseason. Is there any chance everyone has been wrong about the Knicks and that they will overcome the odds and have a successful season?

Short answer: No.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Jack McCallum covers the NBA beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send a question to his NBA mailbag.

 

Related information

Stories

Jack McCallum's Insider Archive

Multimedia

Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video