Predict the Eastern Conference Standings

[no D in Hibachi]

If the Pacers end up getting Collison I don't think you can cast them aside. He's exactly what that team needs; a high usage PG. He should open things up for Hibbert to work in the middle and make it so Granger doesn't have to create everything for himself, which would increase his efficiency. If they end up getting Collison it makes the selection of Paul George over Ed Davis look pretty bad as the major void would be PF without Murphey. They're also pretty weak at SG, but they are definately looking like a playoff team now.

[pancakes3]

good for indy. they haven't had a pg since action jackson. i disagree about sg. young, yes. weak? no way. lance stephenson, paul george, brandon rush, and dahntay jones are all serviceable swingmen and you could do a lot worse than hibbert manning C.

harkening back to "teams that scare me", with the addition of a legit pg, Indy scares the bejeezus out of me. milwaukee doesn't. maybe it's the fact that drew gooden is their PF. maybe it's the fact that jennings shot better outside the arc than from inside, or that i believe john wall is going to SMOTHER smaller guards. i dunno. I just don't think the bucks are any better than us.

if you want to talk weak SGs, who's Charlotte's sg going to be and how is he going to stop Gil from dropping 50? gerald henderson?


EDITED: indy's PF situation is not as rosy as i envisioned. they lost troy murphy. still scares me more than the deer.

[JonathanJoseph]

JoJo, not to pick on you or anyone else, but this is what I refer to as stupid.

Seriously dude, basically my entire previous post save the last two sentences was about Charlotte and Milwaukee. It was a direct response to pancakes3's assertion that neither Milwaukee or Charlotte "scared him," and I was simply explaining why those teams should absolutely be respected.

For you to characterize my ideas as a Pavlovian answer clearly misses who you're talking to. Dig up the win prediction thread before last season if you must. I was calling for 50+ wins and the 4-seed in the playoffs. I compared the roster of Eddie Jordan's most successful season to the one we were going to have on opening night and observed an upgrade in our rotation so drastic that we couldn't help but win 50.

And then the season happened. Guys got hurt (it happens). More importantly, the pieces fit together horribly. The team had a disastrous 11-21 record when Gilbert got suspended (.344 win%, 28 win pace!) Last season was a perfect example of real life basketball not being fantasy basketball. The Wizards will have exactly zero starters heading into the season in the same role they played last year (Blatche was subbing for an injured Jamison, but was not the de facto starter heading in the year) and will have to build a ton of chemsitry and continuity to get good.

Some other notes:

"Points against" is a poor statistic to cite, because it doesn't account for the affect of pace. The Wiz were 18th in overall defensive efficiency last year and played slowly --21st in pace.

What have we seen about Booker that gives him the "chance to be one of the elite defenders in the NBA"?? Can we let these guys play a moment on the court against NBA competition before crowning them? Even if the overall defensive talent has been drastically upgraded (a stretch, given we've lost our best defender by far in Haywood), defense is executed as a unit. It takes time and chemistry. We'll have our moments, but are going to struggle on the defensive boards and give the opposition to many chances.

As to offense, the Wiz were 25th in offensive efficiency last year. If you think we're going to be "elite" quickly, then you got another thing coming. Teams are going to pack it in on Wall and take away his driving lanes, forcing him to make long jumpers. It's going to take him some time to perfect that and punish teams. Moreover, it's going to take all of these guys time to figure out their roles within the team framework, get to know each other's games, etc. This is a brand new team, and this isn't fantasy basketball.

The Wiz are going to lose a lot of games. And that's.....ohhhhhhhhhh.......kaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

And I also called for 52 wins and the 4th seed, so I guess I'm just a kool aid drinker.

I get that this isn't fantasy basketball. Because if it were, the team the Wizards fielded down the stretch of last season wouldn't have nearly as good as it actually was on the floor. You can focus on the 16 game losing streak, when I clearly remember Flip saying in a post game interview "the team was playing hard, but just didn't have enough [talent]". But I'm focused on the last 10 games, when the team found it's rhythm and played darn good basketball.

That last 10 games was the only time I saw a "Flip Saunders" basketball team and there's no coincidence that it coincided with the emergence of Shaun Livingston, a true PG. But it took that talent-challenged roster about a month from meeting each other for the first time under bizarre circumstances to starting to play pretty good team ball. That's about the duration of a training camp/preseason.

Flip Saunders makes magic with PGs. Listen to the way Chauncey Billups talks about his time playing for Flip. Look at what Flip did with otherwise average guys like Terrell Brandon and Troy Hudson. And Flip just got his hands on an elite prospect at that position.

I'm sure that John Wall will get A LOT better than he will be in his rookie season, but that doesn't mean that he won't be very effective right off the bat and doubly so playing for Flip. Defenses can play him any way they want, but the Wall/Arenas/Blatche should be much harder to defend than the Livingston/Young/Blatche trio that looked awfully good down the stretch despite Livingston having no better range than Wall.

I saw enough of Booker during summer league to know that he can become an elite defensive player. I didn't say he will be or is an elite player, I said he can become one.

And yes, the Wizards should be an elite offensive team. In Flip's 14 years of NBA coaching, I believe his teams have finished top 10 in offense 10 times. And like I said, Flip's never had offensive weapons like this (although to your point, I said the same thing last season. But last season, as far as I'm concerned, is the exception).

Yes, the Wizards will be better after the all-star break than before, and better in 2011-2012 than this season, but unless there are injury setbacks, the Wizards be around .500 or better this season. How quickly things come together is still to be determined, but it will happen sooner than most think and there should not be another trip to the lottery.

[fishercob]

It's pretty simple, JoJo. You're looking at the data you want to look at to see what you want to see.

Looking at the last 9 games when the Wizards were 5-4, we see:

1. Win @ New Orleans, who was eliminated from the playoffs with Paul playing his 5th game back from knee surgery
2. loss vs. Chicago
3. Win vs. the 12-win Nets, one of the worst records in league history
4. Win vs. the horrific Warriors, who played 7 guys (Curry, Maggette, Anthony Tolliver, Chris Hunter, Reggie Wiliiams, Anthony Morrow, Devean George)
5. Loss @ Orlando
6. Nice win @ the conference champion Celtics, but we all know they flipped a switch once the playoffs started
7. Loss vs. Hawks
8. Loss @ terrible Knicks team
9. Win vs. tanking Pacers

So, of their 5 wins, one (BOS) was against a respectable team. As I noted above the C's treated the regular season differently than anyone else and were essentially biding the time for their "real season" t start. I don't remember specifically, but I wouldn't be shocked if they were even locked into a playoff spot at this point. EVery other decent team they played against, they lost, and they lost to a crap team (NYK) too.

So feel free to look at the last 9 games and extrapolate a 50 win season if it makes you happy. Context and the bigger picture tell a far different story.

[no D in Hibachi]

It's pretty simple, JoJo. You're looking at the data you want to look at to see what you want to see.

Looking at the last 9 games when the Wizards were 5-4, we see:

9. Win vs. tanking Pacers

It is worth noting that the Pacers game was won on a last second shot by Cedric Jackson. That game was D-Leaguers vs. D-Leaguers.

[LyricalRico]

Indy has a PG now, gotta think they'll be better. If they can be healthy for once, they'll be a competitor for the 8th seed next season. Maybe higher.

[closg00]

Indy has a PG now, gotta think they'll be better. If they can be healthy for once, they'll be a competitor for the 8th seed next season. Maybe higher.

Agree, they were starting to get it together by the end of last season & they had a good draft also IMO.

[JonathanJoseph]

It's pretty simple, JoJo. You're looking at the data you want to look at to see what you want to see.

Looking at the last 9 games when the Wizards were 5-4, we see:

1. Win @ New Orleans, who was eliminated from the playoffs with Paul playing his 5th game back from knee surgery
2. loss vs. Chicago
3. Win vs. the 12-win Nets, one of the worst records in league history
4. Win vs. the horrific Warriors, who played 7 guys (Curry, Maggette, Anthony Tolliver, Chris Hunter, Reggie Wiliiams, Anthony Morrow, Devean George)
5. Loss @ Orlando
6. Nice win @ the conference champion Celtics, but we all know they flipped a switch once the playoffs started
7. Loss vs. Hawks
8. Loss @ terrible Knicks team
9. Win vs. tanking Pacers

So, of their 5 wins, one (BOS) was against a respectable team. As I noted above the C's treated the regular season differently than anyone else and were essentially biding the time for their "real season" t start. I don't remember specifically, but I wouldn't be shocked if they were even locked into a playoff spot at this point. EVery other decent team they played against, they lost, and they lost to a crap team (NYK) too.

So feel free to look at the last 9 games and extrapolate a 50 win season if it makes you happy. Context and the bigger picture tell a far different story.

No one said anything about extrapolating a 50 win season and I'm not talking about a set of data at all. I'm talking about what I saw.

Yeah, that wasn't the toughest 9 game stretch and there are all sorts of ways you can discount for circumstances, but those are mostly excuses.

The further context is the fact that they were up 30 in Boston in the first half. Celtics were being booed off their home floor. The Lakers probably didn't go up 30 on the Nets at home at any point last year. Or the way that the Warriors announcers described the Wiz 30 point first half lead as the biggest mismatch they'd ever seen. There's winning games and then there is running other NBA teams off the floor. A talent-poor roster that had been together for a total of 5-6 weeks was showing more than a few flashes of playing extremely good NBA basketball. That's my context.

The further context is that the Wizards roster was decimated at that point, because after losing Arenas and trading Butler/Jamison/Deshawn, the team gave away Drew Gooden and Ilgauskas and then lost Josh Howard, Randy Foye and Al Thornton to injury. To your point about fantasy basketball, that team on paper should have been about 0-9 in that stretch beyond their 16 game losing streak.

What I saw was Blatche appearing close to unguardable, and if you think Kevin Garnett, one of the best defensive PFs ever, wasn't trying very hard to show him up you'd be mistaken (which is to say nothing of the game before that where Blatche owned Garnett, only to have the young Wizards fold down the stretch). And that was with constant double teams, something not possible with Wall/Arenas on the floor. I saw McGee, who despite looking like he had no idea how to play proper basketball, making a significant difference as a shot blocking threat and with his athleticism. Leaving Shaun Livingston and Mike Miller aside, the rest of the players who were part of that are either out of the NBA (Singleton, Ross, Oberto, Boykins, C Martin, C Jackson) or not going to be able to make the Wizards rotation this season (Young).

If they had the services of Wall, Arenas, Howard, Yi, Booker and Seraphin instead of Livingston, Young Miller and the NBDL all-stars would they have gone 9-0 or 8-1 instead of 5-4? Would that have been equally unimpressive?

Maybe that was just an oasis or an illusion, but I don't think so because that was the kind of basketball that Flip Saunders' teams play based on a 14 year track record. Maybe things won't come together quickly this year, but I've seen enough to know that there is at least a decent chance that they will.

[Zonkerbl]

John Wall/Heinrich
GA/Heinrich/N1
Howard/Thornton
Blatche/Cherubim/Yi
McGee/Yi

Yeah, you have to throw away all your preconceptions about the wizard with this lineup. Before we head defensively boneheaded but athletic GA gambling in the passing lanes, Stevenson providing average defense at the two, Butler trying valiantly and providing about average defense at the three, Jamison trying valiantly and failing miserably at the four, and Haywood trying to clean up the mess at center. So one good defender, two average defenders, and two defenders whose defense is so lousy there is no way to hide it when both are on the floor.

Now we have apparently a stellar defensive PG, a huge defensive hole with GA at the two, we already saw the manliness Howard brings defensively at the three, long-armed Blatche at the four, and mentally challenged JaVale at center. Now you have two truly talented defensive players and Blatche who is above average, with GA and JaVale your main weaknesses. Based on what we saw on USA basketball JaVale still doesn't grok NBA level defenses, so you've got kind of the same problem you had with GA playing with Jamison. Assuming GA still doesn't understand how to fight through screens and JaVale still doesn't get defense, it's going to be a defensive struggle this year, although we still have more defensive talent than we did before.

On offense, look at that starting five and tell me who is not going to contribute offensively. JaVale will benefit tremendously from Wall's presence, Gil will benefit from playing his natural position on offense, Howard doesn't need plays called for him, Blatche will do his thing...

I can see in a perfect world how this team might squeak into the playoffs, if everyone's healthy, JaVale comes around mentally, Blatche is as good as we hope, etc, but realistically, given the two big holes we have on defense now I can't see us sniffing .500 yet. I just hope I'm as miserably wrong this year as I was last year (predicted 50 wins, I think).

[nate33]

Indy has a PG now, gotta think they'll be better. If they can be healthy for once, they'll be a competitor for the 8th seed next season. Maybe higher.

Yup. Indy is on the same tier as us and NY. I'd give them the edge over us at this point, mainly because we're depending on a rookie PG and a first-time starter at center. On the other hand, they're pretty green in the front line with Murphy gone and Foster over the hill.

[willbcocks]

Wall is not going to be a truly talented defensive player next year. He wasn't in college, he wasn't in the summer league (yet), and he won't be in the NBA for a few years (remember Lebron his first year or two? I think Wall will be like that). Like Gilbert he is going to get some steals (might even get 2 a game, exceptional for a rook) but he is going to get abused more often than not.

Our team is going to be terrible defensively. Howard and Blatche start injured and rehabbing, and Blatche played zero help defense during his breakout period. Mcgee is probably the worst defensive center in the league, and Gil the worst defensive SG. The team won't rebound. And our backup bigs are all rookies or terrible.

On a separate note, I think the Wiz will be one of the only teams in the playoff picture who, if they make a trade midseason, will be giving up immediate for long term talent rather than the other way around. When that happens, our record will suffer.

[LyricalRico]

Indy has a PG now, gotta think they'll be better. If they can be healthy for once, they'll be a competitor for the 8th seed next season. Maybe higher.

Yup. Indy is on the same tier as us and NY. I'd give them the edge over us at this point, mainly because we're depending on a rookie PG and a first-time starter at center. On the other hand, they're pretty green in the front line with Murphy gone and Foster over the hill.

And don't forget that Indy might not be done. They still have two guys on expiring contracts that don't figure into their lineup: TJ Ford and Mike Dunleavy. They could move Ford for a decent starting PF type now (maybe to Charlotte for Diaw?) and then save Dunleavy for the deadline.

Hibbert/Foster
Diaw/Hansbrough
Granger/Posey
Jones/George/Rush
Collison/Price

I would definitely put that team ahead of the Wiz.

[Dat2U]

I wouldn't rush to put Indiana ahead of us.

First of all, its far more likely T.J. Ford is released than gets traded.

Secondly, they still have TWO gaping holes in their lineup. At PF & SG.

Their PFs consist of Tyler Hansbrough & Josh McRoberts. Yikes! Jeff Foster can slide over in a pinch but he's got his own injury concerns and probably not really suited to be a starter getting major minutes anymore.

Their collection of SGs includes Dahntay Jones, Brandon Rush & 2nd round pick Lance Stephenson. The fact that there's been whispers that Stephenson could challenge for a starting spot should tell you how bad that situation is. Dunleavy has played SG before but injuries have really slowed him to the point that's not really feasible defensively and George is an incredibly raw 6-9 SF still in need of devloping his ball skills.

I think Indiana has as many questions roster wise as we do, if not more. But the Collison trade was definitely a step in the right direction for them.

[closg00]

How-well does Flip's 8-9 man rotation match-up in the East? My guess is 30 wins + or - 5 games with a late season run at the 8th seed.

[Kanyewest]

6) Les Boulez- Yeah. I said it. Flip Saunders has won 50 with less talent than he has this season.

Which team would that be?

[Kanyewest]

6) Les Boulez- Yeah. I said it. Flip Saunders has won 50 with less talent than he has this season.

Which team would that be? Anyways one could argue that the depth of the league is stronger than it has ever been.

[LyricalRico]

6) Les Boulez- Yeah. I said it. Flip Saunders has won 50 with less talent than he has this season.

Which team would that be? Anyways one could argue that the depth of the league is stronger than it has ever been.

Yep, the East is better this year and the Wiz aren't as good as some are overrating them to be.

[JonathanJoseph]

6) Les Boulez- Yeah. I said it. Flip Saunders has won 50 with less talent than he has this season.

Which team would that be? Anyways one could argue that the depth of the league is stronger than it has ever been.

The 99 Timberwolves won 50 and their top 8 players in minutes per game:
KG
Terrell Brandon
Wally Sczerbiak
Malik Sealy
Joe Smith
Anthony Peeler
Sam Mitchell
Rasho Nesterovic

The 2003 Timberwolves won 51 and their top 8 in min per game
KG
Wally Sczerbiak
Troy Hudson
Rasho Nesterovic
Anthony Peeler
Kendall Gill
Joe Smith
Rod Strickland

It would be pretty difficult to argue that either of those teams had as much talent or depth as the Wizards will have this season.

[daschysta]

Come on, at that point kevin garnett alone was worth more wins than this wizards team. He was one of the special ones. That KG and 4 other scrubs would beat this wizards

[hands11]

Come on, at that point kevin garnett alone was worth more wins than this wizards team. He was one of the special ones. That KG and 4 other scrubs would beat this wizards

This is why it is going to come down to ... How good will Dray and Gil along with Howard play.

I'm not expecting anything more from Wall then Boston got out of Rondo the first year. As I recall, Rondo surprised a lot of people and played well. He wasn't the star, but he was a needed component of the team to go with KG, PP, and R Allen.

Well, we have Dray, Howard and Gil. Those are your stars. The rest are roll players.
This is why no one is going rank this team anywhere.

Gil after his knee and then last year plus the move to SG
Howard with the knee. When will he be ready and what will he look like.
Dray is the least of the worries. Only problem here is he just didn't do it long enough for reporter to count him in as a stud player yet.

But I think Gil and Dray will play well from the start the of the season. Wall will do well. He will at least get to the line and run. Its just what will Howard look like and when and what will we get from anyone at center.

They could be fun to watch but this team is still missing some men. A Boozer type. Even Singleton would help in that category. How much toughness will Booker and Seraphin add ?

We don't even know for sure who will start at center. It might not be McGee. We could see.

Wall/Kirk
Gil/NY
Howard/AT
Yi
Dray

McGee backing up center and PF as Dray moves to PF. Thats 9 players. With Armstrong, Seraphin and Booker in the wings.

If you do that, all the sudden, we have a starting quality center again. I wanted to see Dray playing straight up PF, but with no starting center still, we have to wait to see if McGee or Seraphin can handle the duty. Dray still gets 60% or so at PF but he he starts at center to get things established. McGee against a second unit is less of a worry to me.

McGee really hasn't proven himself to be a starter yet.