FanPost

Bulls, Wizards, Pacers, Cavs and the Eastern Conference

I began the below post as a comment to rainman1991’s "Where do you see the Raptors ranked in the Eastern Conference?" As you can see below my comments spiraled. I felt like my thoughts on the current make up of teams in the East required their own post. I’ve included my assessments of the Cav’s, Wiz, Bulls and Pacers.

#1 The Cavs are NOT going to win the East: Everyone is predicting Cavalier supremacy based on LBJ’s ability; aparently having the best player in the league, by default, creates the best team in the East. One need only look at Kevin Love and the Wolves, however, to realize that one player does not make a team. People also seem to forget how long it took the Heat to get it together. Miami, with 3 of the best players in the entire league entering their prime in 2010, started 9-8, and eventually lost in the Finals. It wasn't until the 2011-2012 season, after playing together for a year, that Lebron Bosh, Wade and company started to gel and won their first Championship. Chemistry takes time. Barring a Love trade, the 2014 Cavs are nowhere near the 2010 Heat. They have one elite player in an older LBJ, a top 30 player in Irving and a bunch of young pieces. Me First Waiters, Unproven Wiggins, Question Mark Bennett and Role Player Thompson. How about Dellavedova ? Even aging vets like Varejao, Miller and Jones are not going to be enough to dominate the East. While some of these young Canadian players might develop into future stars, as it stands this team is not ready to conquer the East just yet, even with The King. This is a good team, no doubt they will be in the top half of the East, but they are not going to win the East…Book it!

#2 The Wiz are going to be good: Some people seem baffled by basketball insiders singing the praises of the Washington Wizards and predicting this team to be one of the best in the East. Doubters will look to the free agent additions of Pierce, Hump, and Blair, coupled with the subtraction of Ariza and wonder what kind of magic Kool-Aid these so called experts have been sipping. I think, however, that the growth and high projections of the Wiz have more to do with internal development of younger players than their free agent additions. One look at the young players on the Wiz reveals that they have a strong young core with a high projected ceiling. Beal, at 21, is entering his 3rd season and has already achieved relative success. His 17 pts, 3.7 rbg and 3.3 apg a game last season are impressive in their own right. Factor in another year of experience and growth and 2014 Beal should be a beast. Wall, despite starting the first year of his Max contract, is another young player who has only just begun to figure it out. He has gotten better in each of his first 4 years and there is no reason to doubt this trend in 2014. Throw in improvement from Porter (he can’t do much worse), add the consistent front line of Nene and Gortat and the Wiz should be one of the 4 or 5 teams battling it out for top spot in the East.

# 3 Indy is going to drop back in the East. With the loss of Stephenson, another season on the aging legs of West and Scola, and the stalling development of Hibbert, expect Indy to drop to the middle of the pack in the East. They still have one of the best two way players in the game with 23 year old Paul George; however, with Hibbert’s offensive game disappearing before our eyes in the playoffs and with Stephenson’s offensive creativity on its way to Charlotte, will George be able to handle the increased defensive attention teams will undoubtedly throw at him? With his off court issues George’s progression seemed to take a hit later in the season. The Pacers struggled to play above 500 basketball in the last quarter of 2014 - they finished 10-13 - and without any significant free agent additions expect Larry Bird and company to take a few steps back in the standings this season.

#4 Are the Bulls really that good? By season’s end the Bulls might be able to bully their way to the top spot in the east, but their roster is still rife with question marks. First of all, if the only significant piece you add to your roster is a 34 year old Pau Gasol, a move only made possible by amnestying Boozer, you might be in trouble. The first question is whether or not Gasol is really that much of an upgrade over Boozer. Gasol missed 33 games in 2012 while only managing 13.7 points per game. While he had a sort of bounce back year in 2013, managing 17.4 points per game on a dreadful lottery bound Lakers team, he still missed more then 20 games. At this point in his career Gasol is more of a complimentary piece. His passing ability and offense polish make Gasol "different" than Boozer, who averaged nearly the exact same points per game as Gasol over the last two seasons, but not necessarily that much better. The Bulls already have a big that can pass the ball in Noah, who, at points this season morphed into a six foot eleven Steve Nash. It also isn’t clear, with the return of a ball dominate Derrick Rose, how many touches an aging Gasol will even get. Throw in the questions surrounding Rose’s heath and efficiency –he only played 10 games last season while shooting a horrid .354 from the field –and you have a roster with more questions than answers. While the Bulls have shown an ability to win even with a depleted roster over the last couple of years, there is no telling how well these players will mesh. Doug "McBuckets" McDermott is a rookie and shouldn’t be more than a big piece for Thibodeau, who prefers to run his stars into the ground anyways. Nikola Mirotic might turn out to be a skilled NBA player, but as it stands currently he is another rookie who will be adjusting to a new team, a new country and, most importantly a new league. Known quantities like Hinrich, Butler, Gibson, Dunleavy round out this roster and will help keep this team in contention for the top spot in the East. With all that being said if you asked me today if the Bulls should be considered the favourite in the Eastern Conference, I would have to say there are too many questions left to be answered on this roster to get my vote.

In the coming days I will look to examine some of the remaining Eastern Conference teams including, of course, the Raptors.