ESPN has us Finishing Ninth

[Blkbrd671]

Teams ahead of us


Miami
Chicago
Pacers
Brooklyn
Knicks
Hawks
Washington
Cleveland


I don't think the hawks will be better this year, and Washington i still have questions about. if its Walls coming out party, the east should be fun to watch


Disclaimer: i did not read ESPN's reasoning behind this ranking as i don't have access, i am basing this soley on the teams ability to win games. Lets try to remember that we are judging the teams ability to win games, since W and L's dictate playoff spots.

i do think that our roster has more mismatches nightly than 4 of those teams, and with our vets at key positions that we'll be able to close games. At least looking at it on paper. My point is that 4 of those teams have real questions marks just like the pistons and i fail to see how the pistons are the least likely to answer those questions positively

[Snakebites]

Honestly, I don't think that's laughable at all.

There are questions about some of the teams ahead of us, but we have as many or more. Anyone who finds that prediction laughable simply isn't looking at our team with the same level of critique as other teams.

[Slackstring701]

Why is that so funny?

[MrBigShot]

Surprised to see the Hawks so high to be honest. They lost Smith and signed Milsap in his place, who will provide some scoring/rebounding but is nowhere near the defender that JSmoove is. They've also lost Larry Drew, and quite frankly their talent level outside of Horford/Milsap/Teague is not very impressive.

I think us, WAS and Cleveland will take spots 6-8. In what order? Not sure. But I would definitely be surprised if we didn't make the playoffs assuming we stay healthy. We have the talent level, the veteran leadership and we've addressed quite a few needs.

If Jennings becomes more of a facilitator, Smith stops chucking long 2s, Monroe improves his defense/mid range jumper, and KCP provides some consistent outside shooting I think we finish 6 and give whoever we match up with a good fight. A lot could go wrong, but a lot could go right as well.

[Kilo]

We could be as high as six, as low as 12.

[Spider156]

I have us finishing 6th. Wait!? It's just an opinion. ESPN is owned by Disney. I think that explains a lot right there. It's just another Disney story.

[Blkbrd671]

Honestly, I don't think that's laughable at all.

There are questions about some of the teams ahead of us, but we have as many or more. Anyone who finds that prediction laughable simply isn't looking at our team with the same level of critique as other teams.

Because

Brooklyn
Washington
Cleveland
Hawks

All have question marks like the pistons, yet they are ahead of us.

Brooklyn- They are counting on 2 old vets a year older, staying healthy all season, a new coach and a lot of pieces working together. If KG remains healthy they are definite, i can't say that is more likely than not or vice versa

Washington- it all depends on how John Wall develops, if its the same John Wall that we've seen in recent years, then no, John Wall is going to have to be D Rose like in order to get Nene and okafor into the playoffs

Cleveland- You really counting on Mike Brown to be competent and Andrew Bynum to remain healthy? They are exactly the same team as last year if Bynum goes down.

Hawks- We acquire there best all around player and they make no significant additions outside of milsap? how are they better than us


i added a disclaimer in the first post

[zeebneeb]

All I know is my pick of #wins is almost exact as theirs. I said 39, then lowered it to 38. hehehehe

[Manocad]

We could be as high as six, as low as 12.

And lookee there, 9 is right in the middle.

I can see 9. While the talent is there it's a stretch to believe that everything will just gel in the first season of a number of players playing together.

[Q00]

Its laughable to me too. We took the Hawks best player and they stay 6th with a rookie coach, while we don't even make the playoffs? That makes zero sense to me. Even besides that logic, we just have a better roster than all 3 of those teams, period. Maybe they are trying to keep the betting lines low for us lol. Don't care what espn thinks though, its just an opinion of random journalists, few with anymore knowledge of the game than you or I. I'm predicting 45-50 wins and the 6th seed with outside chance at 5th.

[rock digger]

If you're questioning Brooklyn's chances to finish higher than us, I don't think ESPN's opinion is the one you should be laughing at.

[DocRI]

I think like many on this board, I understand their thinking while disagreeing with it. Going team by team —

- Cleveland and Washington are each getting more hype than us because of what I like to call "fantasy basketball thinking" — i.e. the team with the best individual player usually wins. The Wizards have Wall and the Cavs have Irving, who have so far in their careers shown to be better than any single player on the Pistons (side note: Drummond could change that thinking really fast and hopefully really soon, but he's obviously younger than Wall and Irving and hasn't played enough yet).

- Atlanta doesn't nearly have as high of a ceiling as we do, but they also have a much higher basement. As much as we all hate to admit it, it is possible that our players won't mesh at all and we wind up as a train wreck; however, we could also really click and wind up as the best of the "back half" Eastern Conference teams.

- Speaking of potential train wrecks (and I wrote this in another thread as well), I really don't get why everyone is giving the Knicks an automatic pass as a legit contender in the East. Amaré is basically a walking corpse, their big acquisition this offseason was Andrea freakin' Bargnani, and they're a franchise with a history of melodrama who are literally staring down "The Melo-Drama, Part II" with Carmelo's impending possible free agency. Am I the only one who thinks they might implode? I think they're much closer to us, the Hawks, the Cavs and the Wizards than they are to the Nets, Pacers and Bulls.

[Blkbrd671]

If you're questioning Brooklyn's chances to finish higher than us, I don't think ESPN's opinion is the one you should be laughing at.

how about instead of trolling you actually provide some sort of substance like why you think Brooklyn is so great, or just go back to your charlotte board

[Clarity]

Not laughable at all, the only teams id say we are probably going to be better than if things go well are Wash & Atl

[DocRI]

I actually just went and read the article itself, and while I still stand by everything I wrote previously, I think it needs to be pointed out that their panel of experts had the spread between the Hawks at #6 and us at #9 at a whopping TWO FREAKIN' GAMES (Hawks with 40 wins, Cavs and Wizards with 39, us with 38). So, in other words, it's a coin flip between those four teams for the last three spots; I think most would agree with that.

[rock digger]

If you're questioning Brooklyn's chances to finish higher than us, I don't think ESPN's opinion is the one you should be laughing at.

how about instead of trolling you actually provide some sort of substance like why you think Brooklyn is so great, or just go back to your charlotte board

For one, if you think that I post on the Charlotte board then you clearly have no idea what you are talking about and I have concerns with starting a debate with someone like you in the first place, but I digress. Seriously though, find one post of me in the Charlotte board first before you throw out meaningless accusations.

For my reasoning on why I think Brooklyn is "so great" (note that I never said that, I said that they'd be better than the Pistons - not hard to do when Drummond hasn't developed yet,) you just have to look at their rotation.

Williams / Livingston
Johnson / Terry
Pierce / Kirilenko
Garnett / Blatche / Evans
Lopez / Plumlee

Now look at our lineup

Jennings / Billups (?) / Bynum
Stuckey (?) / KCP
Smith / Singler / Datome
Monroe / Villenueva
Drummond / ?

Hmm, lets see. They have a better PG than us. They have a better SG than us. They have Paul Pierce who is still a good SF (someone who I think is better than Smith at the SF position, but in this case I'll give Smith a slight advantage because this argument would be too one-sided if I didn't throw you a bone). Kevin Garnett who despite being 37 posted a PER similar to Monroe, yet brings infinity times more defense which is makes him much more valuable to a championship contender seeing as how they post similar offensive stats. Then there's Brook Lopez who is albeit a much worse defender than Drummond, but a much more developed offensive player. I think that it's pretty safe to say that they have a starter advantage over us

You say that one of their "key cogs" may get injured, and sure, maybe one (or more) of them will, but lets look at their bench then. Hmm, the biggest concern for them is probably KG or Pierce considering their age. KG has played in less than 60 games only once in his 18 year career, and Pierce has a pretty good history of staying healthy, but lets just assume that one (or both) of them go down due to random injuries. To replace Pierce, they have Andrei Kirilenko, who posted impressive numbers last year in Minnesota. He is definitely a player who can hold his own against starters, so the drop off isn't catastrophic. Now lets say that they lose KG, this is a bigger problem if it is near the postseason, where defense is integral, but in the regular season not so much. Blatche was very serviceable last year and although the Nets would love to have KG instead of Blatche starting, they aren't going to be losing an extraordinary amount of games due to it. This was all assuming that someone would get injured for a long period of time, which I doubt they will.

On the other hand, if the Nets can get random injury bugs then why can't we? Lets see what happens if one of our "key cogs" get injured. Hmm, if Jennings goes down then not much really happens, same as with our SG position. Those two spots really aren't the focus of our team and thus won't hurt as much if we lose a starter since we don't really have that much to start with. On the other hand, if one of our big 3 group gets injured, we're pretty much done for. Smith is backed up by Kyle Singler. That's enough explanation there. Monroe is backed up by Charlie V. Ditto for PF. Drummond isn't even backed up at the moment so yeah... Our team is very reliant on not having an injury to our big 3, even for the shortest amount of time. Not exactly the safest strategy to rely on. I think it's pretty safe to say that they have a bench advantage over us.

And now by far the funniest part of your first post will be highlighted:

a new coach and a lot of pieces working together

I DID NOT REALIZE THAT THEY WERE THE ONLY ONES IN THAT SITUATION. NOT LIKE WE HAVE A NEW COACH AND 2 NEW STARTERS EITHER. NOPE.

Add onto that that their main offensive pieces (Williams, Lopez, and Johnson) have already played a season together to get acquainted, and they obviously have a head start on the chemistry thing. Pierce and Garnett aren't exactly going to be demanding a ton of shots at this point in their career with the teammates they have around them. We on the other hand, have a new PG who tends to chuck bad shots, and a new SF who also tends to chuck up bad shots. Recipe for success of course!

I also think that you forget that Brooklyn had a 49-33 record last year while we posted a 29-53 record. Do you really think that we've improved so much to overtake them? It's not like we signed Lebron James here.

Those are the reasons why I find it hilarious that you can criticize ESPN for their opinions, and then come back and question Brooklyn being ahead of us. Normally I wouldn't have cared to make such an elaborate response, but I find your lack of reasoning quite funny and pointing out the flaws in your argument was my pleasure, especially after you called me a troll.

Your turn.

[HotelVitale]

I think we're a playoff team but it's hard to argue that these aren't reasonable guesses:

[HotelVitale]

Cleveland and Washington are each getting more hype than us because of what I like to call "fantasy basketball thinking" — i.e. the team with the best individual player usually wins.

Cleveland could end up in the garbage heap but I'd bet the author was trying to give half-credit for their massive upside. You have Irving, yes but there's also Andrew Bynum and Varejao (who was pretty awesome in 30 games last year) who could both be huge if healthy. Add in Waiters and Thompson who were actually pretty good last year and are really young, plus the first overall pick Bennett. They also picked up Jarrett Jack who helped the Warriors quite q bit last year. They've got a ton of talent and it could work out. Everyone has question marks so they're not a safe pick but given all that talent I can see guessing at 40-ish wins.

Speaking of potential train wrecks (and I wrote this in another thread as well), I really don't get why everyone is giving the Knicks an automatic pass as a legit contender in the East. Amaré is basically a walking corpse, their big acquisition this offseason was Andrea freakin' Bargnani, and they're a franchise with a history of melodrama who are literally staring down "The Melo-Drama, Part II" with Carmelo's impending possible free agency. Am I the only one who thinks they might implode? I think they're much closer to us, the Hawks, the Cavs and the Wizards than they are to the Nets, Pacers and Bulls.

I don't see the problem with the Knicks. You've got Tyson Chandler and Carmelo as your core--that's a pretty sweet duo--with JR Smith coming off a great year and Shumper and Felton rounding out the backcourt. Amare was actually really efficient last year just in a limited role and they don't need much from him. Adding Bargs isn't much but they didn't lose anything to get him (plus they signed Artest, Udrih, and Kenyon Martin for peanuts, just bonus if they get good stuff from them). Lots of things COULD go wrong, but if I was betting, I wouldn't hesitate to put good money on them being at least a 6th seed.

Surprised to see the Hawks so high to be honest. They lost Smith and signed Milsap in his place, who will provide some scoring/rebounding but is nowhere near the defender that JSmoove is. They've also lost Larry Drew, and quite frankly their talent level outside of Horford/Milsap/Teague is not very impressive.

Atlanta was well above us last year and didn't get worse so they get the nod here. Millsap is MUCH better on offense than last year's version of Smith so that move's a push. And we have to stop pretending Smith is a regular on the all-defense team--he's a good defender and an exciting one but he's not 2010 Dwight Howard. The Hawks do look pretty thin but they have Lou Williams back from injury--he's one of the league's most underrated shot creators--and Kyle Korver should get some good burn. Most importantly they were a solid efficient team last year so it's fair to assume they can do it again right?

[imagump1313]

I think we have to remember that Brooklyn and NY get to feast on Boston and Philly all year and Atlanta and Washington get to feast on Charlotte and Orlando all year. The Central has only questionable team as far as tanking goes and that's Milwaukee. Detroit and Cleveland may not get as many freebees as those other teams.

[engelbert321]

I love it. This should add more fire to our players to prove everyone wrong.