by Tom Spurgeon
San Antonio Spurs
The Spurs are the first team in NBA history where the better they play, the more likely the shooting guard’s family is to be kidnapped and ransomed.
Other than looking forward to Michael Finley’s adjustment period, the only thing about the regular season with the Spurs worth watching is if Tim Duncan owns slacks and a sports coat, or will take some of the money with which he buys giant wheels of cheese or train sets or whatever and pay off the dress policy fines in advance. It’s an amazing policy that unites Tim Duncan and Allen Iverson against the commissioner’s office. The other good story, if you get the whole thing and not just the Extra! version on some red carpet somewhere, is how Eva Longoria’s father basically pimped his daughter to hang out in the same locker room Larry Kenon once roamed. It’s really creepy. So are the Spurs, who play good enough to win yet not quite good enough we win by watching them play.
Projected Record: 80-2
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Dallas Mavericks
In the midst of a playoff game against Phoenix that ended like that weekend your hometown girlfriend visits you in college, giant revolving haircut mannequin Dirk Nowitzki and guard Jason Terry began to exude some winning Pat McCormick/Paul Williams big man/bitty man chemistry. One hopes to see them in matching powder blue cowboy suits at some point during the forthcoming season.
Because the Mavericks were coached for years by Don Nelson, team members tend to blink and stare as if they were slightly abused show business children uncertain how to function in the real world. New coach Avery Johnson comes to the team from a league program that gives high-profile positions to ex-players who can’t talk, following a trial run by Bill Cartwright in Chicago.
Projected Record: 54-28
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Houston Rockets
Houston’s development of Yao Ming reminds me of the job NASA’s done as caretakers of the space shuttle portion of the modern space program. Okay, not really. Mostly it reminds me of people sucking at things. Ming’s a unique offensive talent with little clue how to play defense in danger of never developing his potential and becoming a burnout/bad knees case because of time demands back home. The NBA had done little to alleviate the latter through negotiation and intervention and the Rockets’ solutions to the former have included: hiring a coach that cares so little about offense that hitting the backboard counts as a score during scrimmages, a consultant who betrayed his own talent to take more shots and whose primary contribution to league history was to make promises he couldn’t keep, and teammates who can’t do much of anything other than dunk, hit 40 percent of all wide-open three-pointers and bump into people. It’s like Yao Ming is being punished, and maybe he is.
Projected Record: 48-34
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Memphis Grizzlies
I know more about the Memphis Sounds from the 1974-1975 ABA (Rick Mount’s shoulder surgery year) than I do the Memphis Grizzlies. I saw them play once back in Vancouver, in a giant building with tons of empty seats, but I couldn’t even tell you what their uniforms look like now. Look for Kimani Ffriend to be the first Grizzlies rookie profiled by all the NBA satellite shows, but only if he makes the team.
Lawrence Roberts is this year’s case of a college player who lost money by returning to college for his senior year; I hope he sticks on this squad, although I don’t expect to see him much. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a Fennis Dembo Overcooked Traveling All-Stars squad featuring players like Roberts and that Porter kid from Auburn?
Projected Record: 41-41
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New Orleans/Oklahoma City/Baton Rouge Hornets
It’s depressingly easy to make comparisons between the Hornets and the city of New Orleans, but the basketball team is more a nation in the throes of a structural collapse than a victim of natural disaster. What I can remember off the top of my head is that Chris Paul, Chris Andersen, and Jackson Vroman are on this squad, which should mean a few highlights before the final score of 98-63 is slapped up on ESPN. The Hornets will play the majority of their home games in Oklahoma City, a temporary home suggested by the Sacramento Chamber of Commerce so as to avoid a 19th straight win in the players’ “Worst City to Visit” poll.
Projected Record: 2-80