Poll: Pick The Surprise Eastern Team 2014/15

[nate33]

New York is surprisingly bad. Hotlanta is surprisingly good. I mean admit it. You didn't expect them to be the Spurs east.

I expected Atlanta to be in the mix with Washington as the two best teams in the Southeast. I did not expect them to so easily outclass us. I still think Milwaukee might be a bigger surprise than Atlanta though.

Atlanta went 16-13 with Horford healthy. That's a 45-win pace. And the rest of the team improved with the opportunities they got after he got hurt. It seemed reasonable to me to predict that they could win 45-50 games. Instead, they're going to win 55-60. So they're about 10 games better than expectations.

Milwaukee went 15-67 last year and didn't add any major pieces except Jabari, and rookies never help. A reasonable prediction might have been 25 wins. It looks like they're going to win about 45 games this year. That's a 30-game improvement from last year and a 20 game improvement over most expectations.

[daSwami]

Frankly, my own Wizards are my surprise team so far this season. I was fully expecting them to be mediocre for the first half of the season, I figured losing Ariza would mess up the chemistry. Milwaukee's success mystifies me, especially since JP went down so early in the season. Atlanta has been respectable for a long time now, but it seems as if they've finally locked into the right mix.

As far as players go, I love the new blood in the East, especially at the guard position. I think Wall, Jeff Teague, Kyle Lowry, and Jimmy Butler have raised their games to elite-level. In fact, it would be a shame if one or more of those guys was left off the all-star roster. (But I guess you gotta save room for the likes of Wade and Irving *yawn* I suppose.)

[pineappleheadindc]

New York's struggles are amazing to me.

Most board members, including Knicks board members, we not putting them in the upper tier of the East. But heck, I think the assumption was that they'd at least be competitive for an 8th seed (or better) in our conference.

Their record -- even before Phil Jackson dismantled the roster -- was amazingly bad. I didn't see that coming.

Now, I can't imagine any game in which the Knicks go in as a favorite, including vs the Sixers. The league needs touchstone franchises in NYC, LA, and Chicago. I hope they get it together soon.