Kyrie Irving or Derrick Rose?

Image from NBCchicago.com

            It may seem unfair, to make this comparison between Kyrie Irving and Derrick Rose. Unfair to who though? Kyrie, because he's only in his second year? or Rose because he's recovering from a devastating ACL injury? Obviously Irving has yet to accomplish anything significant in terms of wins, while Derrick Rose already has an MVP under him (then again Kyrie doesn't have Luol Deng and Noah on his team)

Irving is having a blistering second season sort of like Rose's second season, first time All-Star, three point shootout champion, and already considered one of the premier "clutch" players in the league. Derrick Rose on the other hand, after his amazing MVP season, was derailed all of last year by injuries until the season ending torn ACL in the first game of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals against Philadelphia. Now, Rose when healthy is clearly a top 5 player, but he's a player who depended primarily on his explosive attacks to the rim, its uncertain whether he will have that explosiveness again when he returns, albeit he will no doubt be a phenomenal player but 5 years from now will he be better than Kyrie Irving?

          Rose revolutionized the point guard position in my opinion, he was the first "point guard" to take the lead offensive role on his team (excluding the legendary Allen Iverson of course). Taking the majority of the shots and expected to score over 20 points a game every night, rather than the old school traditional point guards who pass first and shoot second. He was quickly followed by Russell Westbrook, John Wall, and now Kyrie Irving. Point guards are now expected to lead their team through scoring rather than through their passing and its all because of how Derrick Rose took the league by storm. People may disagree with his style of play, but it won him an MVP, so it must be working for him. 

        That being said, Kyrie is younger, just as fast (if not faster), and came into the league with a lethal jumper, something Rose did not, so its scary to see what this kid will be 5 years from now. Its uncertain how Rose's knee will respond, but its certain that Kyrie Irving will soon be a top 3 point guard in this league, and with Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook considered to be the top 2 right now, it leads to a very interesting debate
For his career, Rose is averaging 21 PPG and 6.8 APG on 46% shooting, Kyrie? 20.9 and 5.5 APG also on 46% shooting, the numbers aren't too far apart, and Kyrie is only in his second season. So who would you go with? the 20 year old with the good knee? Or the former MVP who has not played a game in over 300 days?

The East is the Heat's to lose, and no team can change that

The East is the big 3's playground

The Miami Heat are the defending world champion and the back to back Eastern Conference champions. Once the month of May comes in it should be "back to back to back" Eastern Conference championships. They are first in the Conference right now, and will head into the All Star break with three All-Stars and Their whole coaching staff along the ride for the All Star game. The scary thing is, the Heat haven't even played their best basketball yet. Lebron James is playing his usual MVP dominating self, Wade is finally rounding up into his old elite self after being scrutinized for starting out slow despite coming off knee surgery, and Bosh continues to be the least talked about star in the league. When You think about potential threats to the Heat this year from the Eastern Conference, three teams come to mind: the New York Knicks, the Indiana Pacers, and the Chicago Bulls. However, the reality is none of these teams will be able to beat the Heat in a 7 game series (barring injury to any of Miami's big 3 of course).

Melo will look to take the Knicks past Miami this year

Lets begin with the New York Knicks, who are having their best season in over 10 years and led by Carmelo Anthony. The Knicks have two victories against the Heat this year and one happened to be without Anthony. Don't think too highly of these two victories though, in the first year of the Big 3 era in Miami, the Heat went a combined 1-7 against the Boston Celtics and Chicago Bulls in the regular season and proceeded to beating both the Bulls and the Celtics in 5 games each once the playoffs arrived. The Heat dismantled the Knicks in 5 games in the first round of last year's playoffs and that one loss was a product of a monster night by Carmelo Anthony. How can you expect a Knick team that will depend heavily on scoring from Anthony, JR Smith and Amar'e Stoudemire to handle the fire power of the Heat? The Heat know they can get stops down the stretch, but can you say the same about the Knicks? Who really only have 2 elite defenders in Tyson Chandler and Iman Shumpert (who happens to be coming off major ACL surgery). The Knicks are also very dependent on the three point shot, something that will not hold up in the playoffs where the game slows down and defenses key in more. Then theres' the Amar'e Stoudemire problem, Stoudemire is clearly the second best player on this team, and if you cant find a way to have both your superstars on the floor, how do you expect to beat the defending champion four times? Amar'e was putting up monster numbers before Anthony arrived, but it seems that its impossible for Anthony to have a second star alongside himself who can score 20 plus points a game. Speaking of Anthony, what makes anybody think that Carmelo Anthony can lead a team to a championship? Carmelo Anthony has been in the playoffs every year of his  career, and he's only been out of the first round ONCE, in 10 years. That one year he got out happened to be the year that Chauncey Billups arrived to Denver and who came in with a streak of multiple years of making it to the Conference finals. Carmelo Anthony is not the elite defenders, that Lebron James and Dwyane Wade are, and quite frankly he has done nothing to merit the trust of being able to beat the defending champion let alone make it to the NBA finals. How about they win a playoff series first before we deem them good enough to dethrone the Heat.
Then there's the Indiana Pacers, who many credit (me included) as the main reason the Heat won last year's NBA title. Indiana could not beat the Heat with Chris Bosh out and Shane Battier guarding power forwards and Centers for 6 straight games and with a Healthy Danny Granger. The Pacers are a great defensive team, but they lack a true star even with Granger, and while Paul George is having a marvelous season, he cannot carry the Pacers in a 7 game series.  You know where the points are going to come from the Heat, but where are the Pacers going to get enough fire power to match the defending champions?
The Chicago Bulls are having a great season, but all hopes are on Derrick Rose coming back and being the old Derrick Rose, and thats not realistic. Even with a healthy Rose, two seasons ago the Bulls could not match up with the Heat. That wont change, the Bulls should be good enough to win one playoff series, but thats about it. Remember Derrick Rose scored primarily on his explosive assaults on the rim, something he wont have back for a while, maybe until next year.
So in the end, the east is the Heat's to lose, and no team in the East will change that. The Heat have defeated each of these teams in the playoffs, and there should be no reason why it wont happen again.

Images from Bleacherreport.com

Cleveland Cavaliers 2012-2013 prediction

IF there is one thing for certain about the Cleveland Cavaliers, is that Kyrie Irving will be a star in this league. The Cleveland Cavaliers finished last season with a 21-45 record but with plenty of reason to be optimistic about their future. Let's look at their current roster:
G Kelenna Azubuike, F Omri Casspi, C-F Michael Eric, G Daniel Gibson, F Luke Harangody, G Kyrie Irving, F Jon Leuer, G-F C.J. Miles, G Jeremy Pargo, C Samardo Samuels, G Donald Sloan, C Tristan Thompson, C Anderson Varejao, G Dion Waiters, F Luke Walton, F-C Tyler Zeller
The Cavaliers have done a nice job building pieces since the departure of Lebron James, and this season will be our favorite team to watch. They are very well coached in Byron Scott and have the young pieces to keep growing. For their record last year, they got Dion Waiters in the top 5, and later on Tyler Zeller. The Cavs are high on Waiters, who will provide the necessary fire power in the backcourt for Irving.
In addition, they will have a healthy Varejao this season, to go along with young players such as Thompson and Zeller. However, it ultimately comes down to Kyrie Irving, the reigning rookie of the year will suffer from no sophomore slump we believe, and we expect him to have another marvelous season. In an era where point guards are expected to be more of a scoring threat than a passing one, Kyrie flourish last year in getting in the paint at will, converting difficult layups and finding open teammates when necessary.
The Cavaliers will not make the playoffs for another few years, and truthfully as of right now, we see no clear robin to Kyrie's batman. Their roster still has lots of gaping holes. Besides Varejao, they do not have a capable defender on the team, and a lack of a post presence does not help them either. We do not necessarily believe that Zeller's offensive repertoire in college will translate to the pros. They are young, and thus Scott must suffer through the growing pains and learning lessons that will come with time.
We expect the Cavs to win 30-35 games just on the brilliance of Kyrie Irving, but do not believe that they will make it an the eastern conference that looks a lot stronger this year than in recent years. The Cavs are well coached, and have a potential superstar at the point guard position, they will be very fun to watch this year at the very least.

Washington Wizards 2012-2013 prediction

The Wizards are coming off a terrible season, but positioned themselves to be optimistic about their future. They finished the regular season 20-46 and that was not dead last in the conference thanks to the Bobcats Abysmal season. Yet, they got rid of some of the remaining pieces that were holding them back, first they FINALLY got rid of Javale Mcgee in a three team trade that landed them Nene and sent Nick Young to the Clippers, then they got rid of under-performing PF Andray Blatche using the amnesty clause. That was followed up by a great trade that sent Rashard Lewis to the Hornets, and landed them Trevor Ariza and Emeka Okafor. To top it all, they got Bradley Beal with the third overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft, so now lets look at their roster:
F Trevor Ariza, G Bradley Beal, F Trevor Bookker, G Jordan Crawford, G Shelvin Mack, F Cartier Martin, F-C Nene, C Emeka Okafor, G A.J. Price, C Kevin Seraphin, F Chris Singleton, F Jan vesely, G John Wall
Two names jump out at us from this list, the first is Bradley Beal, the reward for the Wizard's horrendous season, and of course John Wall. It is a young roster, with a veteran frontcourt. Yet, this will all depend on John Wall, now going into year 3 he must separate himself from the pack of "potential to be a star", and actually become one. If he does, then this team will be scary, Wall's numbers dropped during his sophomore season yet not by any significant margin. The wizards have a very good backcourt in Bradley Beal and Wall, Beal will make an immediate impact and has constantly been compared to Ray Allen, he scan stroke it from beyond the arc like nothing, but he can also handle the ball and take it to the rim. He also has potential to be a very good defender. Defensively, they will be better than last year just on the presence of Trevor Ariza alone.
On paper this team looks very good, they will have a post presence in Nene, and Okafor is a guy who will average a double for double for them. Will they make the playoffs? Of course not, the only way we could see the Wizards winning more than 35 games is if Wall has an All-Star season, other than that look to the future for this team. They have size, youth, speed on the perimeter, and definitely plenty of potential. We see this lot winning between 30 to 35 games and not making the playoffs, but we also expect a very great year by John Wall, who we hope has not spent the majority of his summer playing in these summer leagues.http://6fouls.blogspot.com/2012/08/charlotte-bobcats-2012-2013-prediction.html

New Orleans Hornets 2012-2013 prediction

The Hornets finished last season dead last  in the western conference following the Chris Paul trade to the Clippers. They finished with a 21-45 and their best player Eric Gordon was out most of the season. They were well rewarded for it though, with the top overall pick in this year's draft as well as the #10 pick. Let's look at the roster as it stands right now:
F Al-Farouq Aminu, F ryan Anderson, F-C Anthony Davis, G Eric Gordon, G Xavier Henry, C Robin Lopez, G Roger Mason Jr, F Darius Miller, G Austin Rivers, G Brian Roberts, F-C Jason Smith, F Lance Thomas, G Greivis Vasquez, F Hakim Warrick
On paper this is a very fun and promising team. It begins with #1 overall pick Anthony Davis, the future of the franchise and somebody who is already talking about wanting to be known for defense. Davis will make an immediate impact, and is coming off a summer of being around some of the league's top players in this year's olympics. His offense still needs a lot of room to grow, and dont expect him to produce high scoring outputs everynight. Specially playing on a team in which the only natural point guard (If you want to consider him that) is Greivis Vasquez, Austin Rivers and Eric Gordon will loook to get their own 90% of the time. We believe Davis can average close to a double double this season and at least 2 blocks. He will make up for guard's mistakes on the perimeter and will generate his points off lobs, spoon feeds, and offensive rebounds.
On the other hand, expect Eric Gordon to have a monster season, he looked excellent at the USA pre olympic camp and many considered it should have been him, instead of James Harden for that last spot. Will it generate into a postseason berth? Probably not, but there will be plenty of excitement watching these guys play. Austin Rivers, will be expected to see some minutes at the 1 and the 2, but he's a scorer by nature and thats what he'll do. It will be interesting to see how he and Gordon get along.
On the to-do list for the Hornets? Get a real point guard, Greivis Vasquez will get his chance, but we dont believe he is the future at the point guard for the Hornets. They have to let their young core of Anderson, Davis, Gordon, and Rivers develop, it wont generate a lot of wins at first, but development will come and excitement and anticipation as well. The Hornets wont finish dead last this year in the conference, we believe they will win between 25 and 33 games, and while playoffs is what they are shooting for, we dont see the playoffs in the heavy loaded western conference for this young squad for another 2 years.

Charlotte Bobcats 2012-2013 prediction

The Charlotte Bobcats had one of the worse seasons in NBA history last year, they finished the regular season 7-59 and with the worse winning % in the history of the league. These are the players entering the next season:
G Ben Gordon, F Tyrus Thomas, C Desagana Diop, F Matt Carroll, G Gerald Henderson, G Ramon Sessions, F-C Bismack Biyombo, F Reggie Williams, G Kemba Walker, C Brendan Haywood, C B.J Mullens, F Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, F Jeff Taylor
Free Agents: Dj White, F Derrick Brown

Clearly the big name here is rookie Michael Kidd-Gilchrist who comes in as the second overall pick of this year's draft and with high expectations.  Gilchrist is a 6-7 specimen who will be an elite defender in this league. He can guard anywhere from the 1 to the 3 and perhaps even the 4. His motor is nonstop and he will bring energy to a team that desperately needs it. In addition, Gilchrist will immediately make them better on both ends of the floor. Now, the Bobcats have a lot of issues, particularly with whether to give the big chunk of their minutes to their veterans (and try to get more wins) or their young players (and let them develop). Either way, they are not going to win many games so they should go with their young players in our minds.

The issue begins at the point guard position, where young college legend Kemba Walker seemed to be on his way to becoming the Bobcat's permanent starting point guard with the departure of DJ Augustine, but instead the Bobcats went ahead and brought in Ramon Sessions who is clearly a starting point guard in the NBA. Yet, we believe Walker should be the starting point guard, we already know the ceiling for Ramon Sessions but we have yet to seen Kemba's and he should be handed the keys to the car.
In addition, the bobcats bring in first time NBA coach Mike Dunlap who was the assistant coach at St John's university, Dunlap is widely respected around the NBA for his knowledge of the game and player development, which is key considering the Bobcat's players.

Bottom line, the Bobcats will lose a lot of games, but they need to let Walker, Kid-Gilchrist, Biyombo, and Henderson to develop at their own pace and let the rebuilding process begin. We project the Bobcats to win between 17 and 22 games and finish dead last in the eastern conference.

Now that the Linsanity Drama is over, how good can this Knicks team be?

Jeremy Lin is gone, whether fans like it or not he will not return and will be nothing more than gossip over the next months. Now its time to pose the question, how good will this New york Knicks team? They have resigned JR Smith and signed veteran PG Jason Kidd, Iman Shumpert continues to recover from a torn ACL and Raymond Felton was acquired from Portland. In addtion, they will of course have their monster frontcourt of Melo, Stoudemire, and Chandler back. Coach Mike Woodson will have an entire season and a full training camp with his team. So how good can this team realistically be?
First, everybody knows that the Miami Heat are the favorites to repeat as champions. In the minds of most it is a foregone conclusion that they will come out the Eastern Conference (barring Injury or a major change). After the Heat however, the Eastern Conference is wide open. There will be 3 other spots available with at least fhome court advantage in the first round. Indiana has resigned Roy Hibbert and George Hill and have their core in check. They will have home court advantage in the first round, whether the second third or fourth seed (we believe third or fourth). The Boston Celtics will also be back in the mix, Kevin Garnett may be old, but he was deadly in last year's playoffs. They have signed Jason Terry, and Brandon Bass will be back. Avery Bradley will be healthy to go along with Rondo in the backcourt so look for this Celtics team to make a run at the Eastern Conference again (once again barring injury).  The Brooklyn Nets have made a lot of moves and will definitely be in the playoffs. They have positioned themselves to acquire Howard after January because that is when Brook Lopez will be available for trade. If they get Howard, they will catapult themselves into championship contention, and if they dont they are still a very good team. Kris Humphries is a double double machine, and people forget how good Brook Lopez is. He is a career 17 PPG scorer, and has yet to have a full season playing with a true PG like Deron Williams, who was forced to be more of a scorer for the last year and a half because of the team's lack of scoring options. They will also challenge for home court in the first round and will definitely be no worse than 5th in the conference.
The Knicks have several issues, the most glaring one being the fact that Carmelo Anthony and Stoudemire cannot play together because of Melo's dominance of the ball. When Melo touches the ball, the flow and movement of the basketball stops. Perhaps if the Knicks had acquired Steve Nash (who played with Stoudemire in the years that Phoenix was part of the elite of the Western Conference) things would have been different. They have Jason Kidd, but at this point in his career how much of a difference can he really make? Stoudemire is coming off one of the worse if not THE worse season of his career. Before Melo was traded to the Knicks Stoudemire was averaging over 25 points and was breaking Knick's scoring records. With the arrival of Melo? things have gone south. Stoudemire is the Knicks second best player. if Melo is 1A, then Stoudemire needs to be 1B for them to truly be successful.
Now, at this point Successful isnt making the playoffs. Successful for them is making a run at the championship. They need to be a better defensive team, Iman Shumpert was their best defender and he was a ROOKIE. He is coming off a torn ACL and will take some time for him to get back in his groove. The Knicks also struggled shooting the 3 last year, and they had the best 3 point shooter in the league in Steve Novak who shot a blistering 47%. After Novak though, it was abysmal, Jason Kidd should help in that category and Felton will look to help Stoudemire regain his dominance as he was with Amar'e before the Melo trade. Ultimately, it comes down to whether Melo and Stoudemire can make it work, they are their two best players and unfortunately neither plays defense. The Knicks will be no higher than third in the Eastern Conference and we see them as no more than the second round at best.
News around the league
-Kobe Bryant calls sterns age limit for olympics "stupid"
-The Clippers have signed Grant Hill to add to their mix
-Heat's Miller will not retire and will return to the Heat
-Miami Heat are interested in Greg Oden
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Eastern conference challenges for the defending champs next year?

Over the next two days, we will analyze who could challenge the Heat and Thunder for a trip to the NBA Finals. Today we will talk about the Eastern Conference. The Heat no doubt will be heavily favorite to repeat as champs and definitely to represent the eastern conference. Their main competition since the formation of the big 3 have been the Boston Celtics and the Chicago Bulls and both have heavy question marks as the off season begins.

The Chicago Bulls spent all of the shortened season dealing with nagging injuries to their backcourt and particularly their superstar Derrick Rose. They still survived all the setbacks to finish with the best record in the eastern conference for the second year in a row. However,  Rose tore his ACL in that unfortunate first round series against the Philadelphia seventy Sixers and will likely be out until January. This obviously puts a very big question mark on the bulls chances to challenge the Heat without their Superstar guard. Even before rose went out with the injury, it didnt seem like the bulls had  played enough games together to challenge past the Boston Celtics. Their free agents for this summer are Omer Asik (restricted), Mike James, John Lucas and Scalabrine A.K.A the white Mamba (all unrestricted).

Obviously none of these players will be able to fill in the huge gap that Rose will leave and Cj Watson will be the starting PG once the season starts. By the time Rose gets back on the court, it may be too late to really make a run at the conference championship and challenge the Heat.

Then there's the crafty and aging Boston Celtics (although we seem to say this every year). The celtics gave the Heat everything they could handle this year in a tough 7 game series that saw Rondo score 44, and Lebron 45. The Celtics may have seen the last run for this group. They have 9 players who are unrestricted free agents, the two biggest free agents being Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. Most certainly one of the two will not be back and it figures to be Allen who has ankle surgery to go through this summer.

Even with Garnett back, how much longer can he play at a high level with 17 years under his belt? in addition Brandon Bass will test the free agency waters and figures to get a lot of interest from other teams as will Pietrus and Jeff Green. At this point its safe to say that the celtics will not be a threat to the Heat. 

The Indiana Pacers on the other hand are the one team who seem to be back next year at full force with another year under their belt, they are young have depth and the Heat's most glaring hole, size. They have to lock up Roy Hibbert and George Hill who are restricted free agents but that wont seem to be a problem. Could they possibly beat the Defending champs in a 7 game series? Probably not specially when the top 2 players are on the Heat, but no doubt they will be the ones i believe who will make it to the Eastern Conference Finals with the Heat.

The Magic who will not have Stan Van Gundy anymore as coach, are looking at a long road to convincing Howard to sign back. And Atlanta will continue to be a 4 seed who will regret giving Joe Johnson a max contract for years to come. 

In the end, The Heat will be back in the NBA finals whether people like it or not, the Eastern conference does not have enough to challenge the defending champs. Barring injuries, they will cruise along the first three rounds of the 2013 playoffs.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the entry on the western Conference