NBA Preview: Central Division
by Gil Roth
Chicago Bulls
A few seasons ago, the Bulls made a huge gamble in the draft. With two of the top four picks, they took high school big men Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry. The idea was that both would develop into legit bigs, and the team would be set at the PF and C positions for the next 10-15 years.
Turns out they suck. Curry’s been fat and unmotivated till this season (his contract year), while Chandler just wasn’t as good against NBA talent as he was against 6’4″ white high school kids. I remember him saying, in his first NBA game, that he didn’t imagine how strong the players were. He said something to the effect of, “There was a missed shot, and I was going to go up for a rebound, but Karl Malone put his hand on my hip, and I couldn’t jump off the floor.”
The problem wasn’t necessarily that the Bulls drafted a pair of high school bigs, it was that they didn’t have any real veterans on that team to bring the kids along. They gambled that a couple of 18-year-old, seven-foot-tall kids, guaranteed millions of dollars, would find the motivation to become good players in the offseason. Instead of buying fake IDs or spending their time playing Grand Theft Auto.
So this year, the team drafted a couple of older players, and is trying to emulate the tough mentality of its coach, Scott Skiles, who still improbably enough holds the NBA single-game records for assists. Last year, the Bulls were a sexy/sleeper pick for the playoffs. This year, everyone expects them to lose, trade at least one of the bigs (I bet Curry goes to Memphis), and commence their 87th rebuilding effort since Jordan’s retirement.
Cleveland Cavaliers
They made one of the most boneheaded offseason moves ever, voiding a year off the contract of hyper-productive power forward Carlos Boozer, so they could give him a big, long-term deal. Not only is such an arrangement illegal in the NBA, which would’ve led to league sanctions, Boozer burned them by skipping town for Utah! In a panic, they traded for another young PF in Drew Gooden, despite the fact that he’s regarded as one of the dumbest players in the league. They’re backing him up with Robert “Tractor” Traylor, one of the fattest players in the league, so maybe they were trying for some Laurel & Hardy vibe.
Fortunately, they have the best young player around, in LeBron James. The team tried to set up the 6’8″ high schooler as its point guard last year, which proves Drew Gooden might not be the only dumb person associated with the Cavs. They smartened up and moved him to the shooting guard and small forward spots, bringing in Jeff McInnis last year and trading for his polar opposite, Eric Snow, this offseason. James, without having to be responsible for all the ballhandling, will still get a bunch of assists, because that’s what good players do, and he’s a heck of a player.
The Cavs should do alright this year, and I’d be surprised if they don’t make the playoffs. They still possess one of the few remaining legitimate centers in the league in Zydrunas Ilgausakas, whose name used to be the password protection I built into PDFs so they couldn’t be pirated.
Detroit Pistons
I’m starting to think that this team could be the New England Patriots of the NBA. They won’t put up a winning streak like the Pats’, but they seem to have a management that gets it. They won a championship with role players, which is absolutely insane in the NBA, which has been star-driven for decades. Their best scorer is terrible at the 3-pointer, which everyone else in the league seems to love. Their center couldn’t score in double-digits if my mom was guarding him. Their point guard played for five teams in his first six years, has never averaged 6apg, and is named Chauncey. Their small forward looks like Condorman. Their power forward was once regarded as everything that’s wrong with the NBA (which gives Ron Artest some hope for redemption).
But Larry Brown got them playing ball as a team, focusing on each other’s strengths and covering up weaknesses, and they pulled off an amazing upset against LA last summer. In the offseason, they seem to have gotten even stronger, bringing in Antonio McDyess as a backup PF (he’ll play well in limited minutes, after all his knee trouble), and some Argentinean guy named Carlos. The most crucial fact is that they still have Darvin “Slam Bam I Am” Ham, who’s my favorite college player of all time.
Free Darko!
Indiana Pacers
It’s the farewell tour for “F— You” Reggie Miller! The Pacers believe they were one knee-tweak to Jermaine O’Neal away from getting to the Finals last year, which avoids the reality that Ron Artest is a freaking maniac whom David Stern would’ve given his left arm to keep out of the NBA’s biggest stage.
During the Eastern Conference finals last season, Artest gave a forearm shiver to Richard Hamilton, committing a flagrant foul that helped submarine his team. The weird thing about it (people still expect Artest flameouts) is that he threw his forearm while staring directly at the ref with a blank expression. The replay was really demented, because Artest looked sorta like a “troubled” child who deliberately does something wrong in front of his parents. It’s like he was begging to get caught, so he could be thrown out and not have to deal with the pressure.
And he’s the #2 guy on this squad, although he contends that he’s the MVP of the league. Great talent, no head: the Jeff George of the NBA.
A few years before the Bulls blew their future on a pair of high school big men, the Pacers traded their aging C/PF Antonio Davis away for a #5 draft pick, which they used on a 7-foot-tall high school kid named Jonathan Bender. He was touted as “the next Kevin Garnett,” and the team’s still waiting for him to have a good year, going into his sixth season. I’m pretty sure that Garnett averaged more than 5.7 ppg, 2.3 rpg and 0.7 apg in his first five years.
The novelty about Bender was supposed to be that he could play every position, and exploit mismatches everywhere. This is one of those things that burns my ass about the NBA: almost no one seems to excel at any one position. When I’ve got a blue-collar rebounder who’s willing to mix it up down low and come up with 12 rebounds a night, like Troy Murphy out in Golden State, I don’t tell him to work on his 3-point shot during the offseason. Get a reliable 12-foot jumper, maybe, but don’t work on skills that are going to leave you on the perimeter of the game, unable to do to the one thing you do really well.
I’m ranting. Anyway, my complaint is that I’ve yet to figure out what Bender’s supposed to be good at. Being “an athlete” isn’t enough in the NBA, but you wouldn’t know it from some of the contracts that have been tossed out there.
Pacers will be in the top two in the east again this year, because a lot of the competition sucks, and they have some pretty good components. I still don’t trust ‘em under real pressure, because I think Artest will explode, and O’Neal’s too in love with his jumper (and a little too fragile).
I think Jonathan Bender will have a break-out season.
Milwaukee Bucks
Major surprise team last year. They went into a big cost-cutting mode, but still managed to win a ton of games in the really terrible Eastern Conference. They even managed to win when they had two of the greatest modern underachievers in the league on the same squad: Keith Van Horn and Joe Smith. The key was a rookie point guard named TJ Ford, but he’s out with a bruised spinal cord (ow), and I’m betting they don’t win a whole lot this year. Plus, they have to spend their winters in Milwaukee. On the positive side, they do have one of those great character guys who can actually produce, in Michael Redd.
