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Noisemakers Hawks and Blazers could be this year's sleepersPosted: Friday November 01, 2002 1:04 PM
Sports Illustrated senior writer Jack McCallum will answer your NBA questions every week during the season. Click here to send him a question. Thank you for your countless letters of protest about about my having left Paul Pierce off my Elite Player List. I love Pierce's game and often wrote positively about him last season. But let me ask you something: Who would you leave off? I would defend the inclusion of anyone on that list with the possible exception of Michael Jordan, who I included almost out of habit. That will probably change by the end of the year. The one thing I will say about Pierce is that he has to have a better attitude and a more consistent game than he showed at the World Championships this summer. Last year I saw the Nets surprise the world by having a great season. Who will be the surprise winners and losers this season?
My choice for surprise winners are Atlanta in the East and Portland in the West. Now, what constitutes being a "winner?" I don't think the Hawks are going to the Finals or anything like that, but I like them to make some noise and finish, perhaps, as high as fourth or fifth in the East. The Trail Blazers are the only team, top to bottom, with the talent to beat the Lakers or the Kings. I don't think Portland will defeat those two clubs, but if it doesn't implode it can be the third best team in the West, in my opinion. Losers? I haven't jumped on that Wizards bandwagon yet. I don't think they'll be quite as good as everyone else does because they don't seem to have enough outside shooting. I also think the Celtics fit into the losers category. They didn't improve in the offseason (see next letter). How do you think the Celtics will do this season, given the subtraction of Kenny Anderson and the addition of Vin Baker?
See above, Whit. But honestly, it has nothing to do with Paul Pierce. Vin Baker is going to have to prove (again) he's an 82-game, in-shape warrior. With Antoine Walker handling the ball so much, Kenny Anderson often looked as if he had nothing to do in Boston's offense. But that's why Anderson was good. He stayed out of the way, picked his spots and was effective when he did. The Celtics will miss him. I was curious to know your thoughts on Yao Ming. How do you think he will handle the tough NBA game? I have read that players who are taller than 7-foot-4 have limited mobility and are susceptible to having smaller, faster players push them around.
I didn't see Yao a lot before the pick was made. People in the know swore to me that he was the real deal. I'm not so sure. I would not have have made him the No. 1 pick. Too risky. (But then, I'm not a GM.) I was at Manute Bol's first game some 15 years ago. He blocked Kevin McHale's first three shots. But as soon as teams saw Bol once or twice, they figured him out. He was too slow to react. He wasn't a "spring"-type jumper with that ability to go up quickly and move in the air. These giants -- Bol, Gheorghe Muresan, Shawn Bradley -- have never been able to dominate. But maybe Ming is the guy to start a dynasty. It happened once, about 3,000 years ago. Incidentally, though I've met many careless people, I've never met a true Careless person. I think Greg Popovich is a proven draft-day wizard, even if the results aren't immediately apparent. Tony Parker, at only 20 years old, was passed over by nearly every team in the first round last year, yet he was immediately able to contribute in his rookie season. And Manu Ginobili looked absolutely amazing against the U.S. National Team. First, do you think the Spurs will have their third Rookie of the Year in Ginobili? And second, has any other elite team (and thus, a team consistently saddled with low draft picks) done as good a job as the Spurs on draft day?
I don't think Ginobili will be Rookie of the Year, not because he's not good (you're absolutely right about his talents), but because the award will go to someone on a lesser team that desperately needs its rookie to have big minutes. (My early thought is Caron Butler in Miami.) Popovich is one of the most underrated figures in the game, both as a coach and a shrewd personnel guy. While some elite teams (such as the Lakers) have managed to stay near the top, the Spurs have done it largely through free-agent signings and trades. Jack, do you think the Mavs and Blazers will suffer because they have too many players? It seems that playing time could be a huge problem for both teams. Do you think either team can get to the NBA Finals?
Could they get to the NBA Finals? Yes. Will they? I don't think so. As I said above, I like the Trail Blazers to surprise, simply because they were such a mess last year. But minutes are a factor on that team. I think a major question for them is how well (or how badly) Scottie Pippen can adjust to limited minutes and a limited role because there are guys on that team playing Scottie's position (Bonzi Wells and Ruben Patterson) who can get it done better than the veteran these days. Portland could also have a problem at point guard, where Damon Stoudamire, Antonio Daniels and Jeff McInnis will all compete for minutes. I was around the Mavs a lot last year and did not see a single sign of bad chemistry. They are deep, but not in the same way as the Trail Blazers. The one question about Dallas (and it was there last season, too) is: How content will Nick Van Exel be sitting on the bench while Steve Nash plays? Last year the Mavs worked it out. But if Dallas doesn't get to the next level this season, the situation could turn into a problem. What are you hearing about Shaq's toe injury? Is it something that could linger the whole year? The more games he misses, the better chance the Kings have for homecourt in the playoffs, right?
Patrick, the Kings had homecourt last season, remember? Game 7 of the Western Finals was in Sacramento. There is an excellent chance the Lakers will not finish No. 1 in the West this year; perhaps they'll be third or fourth. But the big question that remains is whether they can be beaten in the playoffs. From everything I've heard and seen, Shaq's operation was a complete success. I don't think they're hiding anything in La-La Land. However, a surgically repaired toe is nothing to trifle with, not when it's taking a beating from such a huge frame. Phil Jackson will seriously reduce Shaq's minutes this season. Bet on it. I have to disagree with your notion that Lakers-Kings is the first true rivalry since the Lakers and Celtics mixed it up for the better part of the '80s. Three of the best and most memorable rivalries in NBA history were the showcase of the 1990's. Coincidentally, they all involved the New York Knicks. Knicks-Bulls, Knicks-Pacers and Knicks-Heat were the stuff great basketball is made of -- and a decade's worth of classic games and heated playoff series prove it. Sure, they may not be rivalries any longer, but that doesn't mean they never existed, and it certainly doesn't warrant their omission from the history books as three of the NBA's all-time great feuds. The Lakers-Kings matchup is a good one, and the league's best at present, but give it a few more seasons before jotting it down on the same page as L.A. and Beantown. Especially if in doing so you're going to overlook the three aforementioned rivalries. Give credit where credit is due.
Well, in the decade of the '90s, the Knicks never beat the Bulls in a playoff series with Jordan in the lineup. The Bulls won 19 playoff games against the Knicks, New York won 10. Though it was intense, I never felt it was a true rivalry, mostly because the Knicks were so frustrated in trying to beat Jordan. The Miami-New York rivalry was a good one. To me, however, it never reached the classic level because the teams were not the best in the league, not by a longshot. Ditto for the Pacers-Knicks. Now, I did go back and research that series and was surprised to find out how good it was. The Knicks and Pacers met six times in the playoffs and split 3-3. In most instances the series were tight, too. So I'll give you a few points for that one. The best mano-a-mano rivalry in Knicks-Pacers, however, was Reggie Miller versus Spike Lee, who's not on any roster. My point about the Kings-Lakers and how it mirrored the Lakers-Celts was that those two teams are the class of the league. Having said that, this rivalry is at the nascent stage. It could become a classic; it isn't yet. The Timberwolves have seemed one step away for a long time now. They didn't make any moves in the offseason to put them over the hump. What's going on with that franchise? Why didn't Kevin McHale add anyone significant?
You're not the free agent second baseman Jeff Kent angling to sign with Minnesota are you? Hey, what do you want from this franchise? They tried to cheat a couple years ago to get better. Seriously, McHale attempted to make a few moves but couldn't get them done. "At a crossroads" is an overused phrase in sports but that's where the T'wolves are. They looked to be on the way up two years ago but they're mired in that tough Western Conference and two big questions remain: the health of point guard Terrell Brandon and the coexistence of Kevin Garnett and Wally Szczerbiak. If the Timberwolves don't improve this season, the team will be broken up in some fashion, though not by trading Garnett. He is their set piece. Is there any hope at all for the Warriors? I've been a fan (grew up in San Jose) for 40 years, and I wonder if that one year, way back, when Rick Barry took them to the promised land, was it?
Bill, my man, there is hope. But it won't happen this year. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next. Richardson-Murphy-Arenas-Dunleavy may prove to be the nucleus that moves the Warriors to the next level. But they have a few levels to go. On the bright side, I think they give away luggage for all 50-year fans. Sports Illustrated senior writer Jack McCallum will answer your NBA questions every week during the season. Click here to send him a question.
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