OT- Sleeper Teams

[return2glory]

Celtics, Cavs, Lakers, Magic, Spurs, and Magic should all be great teams this coming season.

Other than the above mentioned teams, who do you guys think has made good improvements. Who is a sleeper team.

For me, it has to be the Washington Wizards.

They should have a healthy Arenas and Brandon Haywood. They have a good coach in Flip Saunders. They have added Mike Miller, Randy Foye, and now Oberto. I also think JaVale McGee is going to be one of the most improved players. They also have Blatche, Stevenson, and Nick Young.

IMO, the Wizards are going to be a scary team. They are one of the deepest teams in the league that no one is talking about.

Your thoughts.

[Rocky5000]

Wizards were already hard for us to beat the last couple of years. They're a very annoying team to play, because of the Jamison/Garnett and Butler/Pierce matchups and would be a bad playoff draw.

[Bill Lumbergh]

Definitely agree with you, R2G. All the guys you mentioned plus Jamison and Butler. They're gonna be a tough out for anybody.

[NashtyNas]

Wizards as well as the Raptors in the east, same with Charlotte. I think many are going to be surprised how much better Diaw will be, and how much better Chandler is going to fit in to that system, making them a better team over all.

[chakdaddy]

They should be ok, they've had a decent lineup for a while, but it just hasn't worked out.

Was it ever determined if that preseason ranking of #3 or whatever in Sporting News was a typo? Surely it was?

They're a lot like we were in '07-08 - a team with a lot of talent and chips who couldn't really put together, who then got thown deep into the lottery due to injuries. We wound up with a young star, a veteran star, and the #5 pick; similarly, they have 3 veteran stars (probably none as good as Pierce or Al, so it evens out) and had the #5 pick.

But, I'm not convinced it will work out so well for them. We traded the #5 for another veteran star; they traded it for a couple of role players (I'm not too sold on Foye - I feel like they'd have been better off basketball and money wise adding a young guy with the pick itself.)

I guess the other reason it worked out for us was just the transformational effect of KG on the whole team - even if the trades looked even, he took us from underahchievers to ...achievers - if we had overachieved we would have won 70 games and not seen any game 7s in the playoffs.

I think the intangible effect of KG is why it's not so simple for teams to do what we did; Washington should be a playoff team but I think they're in the middle of the pack with Miami and Atlanta.

[canman1971]

Wizards as well as the Raptors in the east, same with Charlotte. I think many are going to be surprised how much better Diaw will be, and how much better Chandler is going to fit in to that system, making them a better team over all.

Exactly who is going to play defense on the Raptors?

[BakersDozen]

Wizards as well as the Raptors in the east, same with Charlotte. I think many are going to be surprised how much better Diaw will be, and how much better Chandler is going to fit in to that system, making them a better team over all.

Exactly who is going to play defense on the Raptors?

to answer your question. no one.