Ouch: Five teams that could be headed for a fall

[HMFFL]

5. Atlanta Hawks (47-35)

This spot was reserved for a second Western Conference team (perhaps the Jazz or Hornets). But last year's gap between the top nine and the bottom six in the West makes two changes hard to fathom.

A more likely scenario is the Raptors and Wizards returning to the postseason, and either the Sixers or Pistons hanging on. In that case, either the Bulls or Hawks would have to slide out. Chicago lost Ben Gordon, but will be getting Luol Deng back from injury and will have Derrick Rose with a year of experience under his belt. Further, the experience of taking the Celtics to seven games should help them like it did the Hawks a year earlier.

Atlanta could be set for a letdown. They clearly improved last season, but just aren't ready to take the next step. The addition of Jamal Crawford (who has never made the Playoffs in nine seasons, by the way) could make things easier on Joe Johnson, or it could create a chemistry problem. And they're still playing Al Horford at center. Link

[evildallas]

Well, it's a little misleading. He decides on Atlanta for the 5th spot after having Detroit, Miami, and Philly higher on the list for 2 reasons, the teams out West have a bigger gap between the haves and have nots and he basically says that he prefers Chicago to Atlanta as a safe team. He needed 5 playoff teams with a chance to fall to his list. I bet if the same writer was asked to pick the playoff teams the Hawks would be there albeit maybe in 5th place in the East.

[CAM]

Not to be a homer, but what a crappy analysis of the Hawks. Hope we prove him wrong.

[ATL DirtyBird]

He has good points but I sure do hate facing the facts. If you look at his mailbag he makes other good points, but it sure sucks to hear.

[ATL DirtyBird]

He questions the ability for us to mature and come up with a leader which are valid questions. I agree that those will never happen, but I suure hope that will change

[azuresou1]

I don't see how we DON'T make playoffs. I would be somewhat surprised if we were in 4th seed again, but to not make playoffs is ludicrous, especially when we made clear upgrades, while other teams (Miami, Detroit) clearly took steps back.

[evildallas]

This spot was reserved for a second Western Conference team (perhaps the Jazz or Hornets). But last year's gap between the top nine and the bottom six in the West makes two changes hard to fathom.

Translation: I don't really want to predict 4 East teams falling, but the #10 team in the West is too far away to predict another team other than Houston dropping out.

Hard to argue that point. The #10 team out West was Golden State which finished 19 games behind #8 Utah. That's a lot of ground to make up.

A more likely scenario is the Raptors and Wizards returning to the postseason, and either the Sixers or Pistons hanging on. In that case, either the Bulls or Hawks would have to slide out.

Translation: He is sure Miami is falling out, but in order to come up with 5 teams for the list he must be wrong about 1 of his other 2 choices. Toronto and Washington are improved and he likes Chicago. He favors Atlanta over Philadelphia, Detroit, and Miami initially, but if he's wrong about any of them Atlanta takes the fall.

This is the bit of analysis that I don't like:

And they're still playing Al Horford at center.

Translation: Al Horford is too small or untalented to be a successful center. Actually, I'm sure this is a shot at Al being too short, but what was our alternative?

Is this really a limitation against the other teams mentioned over the course of a season?
Miami has the severally slowed Jermaine O'Neal who did turn it on for a series, but over the course of the year is not likely to be able to sustain anything.
Chicago starts Noah who I would say is comparable to Horford, but not better.
In his Philadelphia analysis he points out that Spreights could be ready to step up and replace Dalembert as a starter. Spreights is essentially the same size as Al Horford.
Detroit's C will likely be Chris Wilcox, who's not taller and considerably thinner than the rest of the Cs, or Kwame Brown, who would be the weakest of the crop.
Washington does have Brendan Haywood, but he played all of 6 games last year, so it is hard to project his performance for next.
Toronto starts the talented Chris Bosh, but Bosh is PF as well and seems to gripe about having to play at C.

I accept that Horford might have match up problems with Dwight Howard (every one does) and Shaquille O'Neal (every one does, when he's motivated and healthy). I'll even concede that Kendrick Perkins beef (280 lbs) creates some problems as would a healthy Haywood. The rest of the conference is littered either with PFs playing C or centers that aren't very dominating. Citing it as a limitation for Atlanta ignores that the other teams have a similar limitation.

[killbuckner]

Last season I thought there was a clear roadmap for how the season could go disastrously wrong. An early injury to any of Horford, Smith, Joe, or Bibby and the team got out to a poor start because the backups simply weren't good enough to play starters minutes. The East looked to be improved and I thought it would take a winning record to make the playoffs. So by the trade deadline it looked like the team was struggling and Bibby gets flipped to a contender for more expirings and a late first. Acie is handed the keys for the rest of the season and proved that he didn't belong in the league. The season could have gone horribly wrong had things fallen a different way but instead that hawks came out of the gate strong winning their first 6 and that scenario was out the door.

This years team looks different to me. Zaza reversed his putrid play from 2 seasons ago and is a useful player again. I'm a little worried that last year was just a contract year mirage but if Zaza can just duplicate his season from last year then he can certainly be a passable starter for a while if there is an injury. If Bibby gets hurt then a Joe/Crawford backcourt isn't a disaster. IF Joe got hurt then a Bibby/Crawford backcourt isn't a disaster for stretches. On paper this team is more capable of withstanding injury. Of course all of us would prefer another legitimate big but oh well.

But that said I can't really disagree with the article. I'd say that the Hornets (as an example) are more likely to make the playoffs than the hawks. I can come up with plausible scenarios where any of the Wizards, Raptors, and Bobcats could make the playoffs. (The Pacers are an interesting team once Dunleavy comes back as well)

As far as Horford at center goes I have always been more concerned with him on offense than on Defense. I mean compare him to Chris Bosh (though Bargnani is the center in Toronto). Horford is better on defense but I think that Bosh is a far better center. Neither player has a chance against Dwight Howard, but Dwight Howard doesn't have much chance covering Chris Bosh either where he would have no problem covering Horford. Even worse look at someone like Rasho Nesterovic. Neither Horford nor Bosh will have trouble covering him but Bosh will torch him on the other side where Horford doesn't have that ability. The fact that Horford has not shows the ability to exploit the more lumbering centers in the league is a massive problem to me. Look at the playoffs where JO clearly outplayed Horford even before the ankle injury.

[joeshmoe]

I'm not concerned about a fall. Maybe, part of it is this off season could have been disastrous and it wasn't. But I'm much more optimistic going into this season than last season. I would not have given us a chance for the 4 spot going into last season. Of course, Detroit, gets a huge assist on that front. This season, if I had to guess our playoff spot now I would guess 4th seed.

None of the playoff teams from last season that would potentially compete for that spot got better.

Chicago potentially got worse, losing their leading scorer is not going to be alleviated by the addition of Deng, who hasn't been a good player in years. Like us they do have the advantage of another year of experience for their young players. But I don't think they had a good enough off season to make the jump from the 7th seed to the fourth seed. I think it is more likely that they do not make the playoffs at all than they make it up to the fourth seed.

Philadelphia, the 6th seed from last year, will be lucky to compete for the 8th seed. The loss of Andre Miller, is compounded by the fact that they are going to replace him with a sub par sg in Lou Williams.

Detroit I don't think will be a serious threat. They added two scorers and lost their center. Unless they trade for Billups, I don't see them competing for the 4th seed.

Miami did absolutely nothing to improve this off season. Of the playoff teams from last year I think they will be our biggest competition for the 4th spot. But I don't think they will be much competition. I think we are a better team than Miami. They will benefit from Chalmers experience, but I can not believe they did not add a veteran pg this off season. All they need is a couple moves to become a competitor in the east. I guess the off season is not over but if I were a heat fan I would be very disappointed.

Of the non-playoff teams from last year the only one that seems good enough on paper to compete for the 4th spot would be Washington. And they need all the stars to align perfectly.

[joeshmoe]

Are you a complete moron joe? Chicago didn't get that much better, they added Brad Miller and John Salmons late in the season.

Sorry, for the double post, this thought just occurred to me. Maybe, Chicago could compete for the 4th spot even with the loss of Gordon. I still favor us for that spot though.

[GTfan]

Toronto has a good shot at taking the 4th seed. I'd say they improved more than any other team in the East. Hedo Turkoglu, Jarret Jack, Demar Derozan, Bellinelli, Wright, Evans, and Rasho. All they lost was Marion. Of course they'll be like the Suns in that they will have tons of offense and not much defense, so things might not work out as planned there.

[joeshmoe]

Toronto has a good shot at taking the 4th seed. I'd say they improved more than any other team in the East. Hedo Turkoglu, Jarret Jack, Demar Derozan, Bellinelli, Wright, Evans, and Rasho. All they lost was Marion. Of course they'll be like the Suns in that they will have tons of offense and not much defense, so things might not work out as planned there.

I think Toronto improved enough to fight for a playoff spot, but I doubt they have improved enough to fight for the 4th seed. It is not out of the realm of possibility, but I highly doubt it. Toronto fans would have told you last season they had a shot at the 4 seed after the Jermaine O'neal trade. We'll see. Fact is they're just not as good without tj ford.

[Darkseid]

I felt like the Hawks overachieved last season and weren't much better than the 5th-9 seeds. 7 games against Dwade+zombies and an easy sweep for the Cavs didn't persuade me in the other direction too.

I could see them dropping but probably not out of the playoff picture.

[joeshmoe]

what makes you feel like we overachieved? I do think that is a common sentiment of those that did not pay attention.

[Xcstacy]

I think Toronto improved enough to fight for a playoff spot, but I doubt they have improved enough to fight for the 4th seed. It is not out of the realm of possibility, but I highly doubt it. Toronto fans would have told you last season they had a shot at the 4 seed after the Jermaine O'neal trade. We'll see. Fact is they're just not as good without tj ford.

Although they had alot of expectations which fell short last year putting the blame on JO and saying it was cause they lost TJ ford isn't right because they lost Bosh with an injury for awhile and Jose was injured almost the entire season and out for several games, that more than anything hurt them I think.

I do think this article is garbage though, ATL is one of the teams I got pegged to make the playoffs if the league were to start with these rosters today. Wash/Tor/Atl/Chi/Mia would be my picks in that order. I hope crawford and JJ can co-exist though.

[joeshmoe]

Injuries happen in the NBA, and I'm sure they contributed to Toronto's disappointing season. However, Bosh played in more games last year, 77, than he has since the 04,05 season. And he played quite well. Jose only played in 68, so I'm sure his absence hurt, especially since they did not even have a decent back-up. But they struggled even when healthy. They clearly lacked a play maker. I have NBA league pass and have watched a lot of the raptors over the last 3 years. IMO they were much better with TJ.

They will be better this year, but Turkoglu and Jack are not going to propel them to +15 wins, which would put them in the range necessary to compete for the 4th spot--48-52 wins. Also, they lost Marion and Anthony Parker, who are not insignificant. Turkoglu is an upgrade on Parker, but he can not knock down the 3s like Parker. Actually, 3 point shooting, all of a sudden becomes an issue for them, since they lost Kapono too. Bellinelli I predict will not be much of a factor. I think Toronto will be one of a few teams competing for the last couple of playoff spots.

[johnny878]

stupid reasoning. the bulls lose Ben gordon who was the only reason the bulls got any where against the celts adn they are a safer bet over the hawks who added crawford?

[Hawkamanic81]

5. Atlanta Hawks (47-35)

This spot was reserved for a second Western Conference team (perhaps the Jazz or Hornets). But last year's gap between the top nine and the bottom six in the West makes two changes hard to fathom.

A more likely scenario is the Raptors and Wizards returning to the postseason, and either the Sixers or Pistons hanging on. In that case, either the Bulls or Hawks would have to slide out. Chicago lost Ben Gordon, but will be getting Luol Deng back from injury and will have Derrick Rose with a year of experience under his belt. Further, the experience of taking the Celtics to seven games should help them like it did the Hawks a year earlier.

Atlanta could be set for a letdown. They clearly improved last season, but just aren't ready to take the next step. The addition of Jamal Crawford (who has never made the Playoffs in nine seasons, by the way) could make things easier on Joe Johnson, or it could create a chemistry problem. And they're still playing Al Horford at center. Link

No bench or good big men and or coaching. Dropping out of the playoffs is possible.