Pacific Division Preview

[Editor’s Note: This is the first installment of our annual six part series of division previews.]

Phoenix Suns (David Wood)

The Suns aren’t exactly the flashiest team and not even the brightest one in the league right now, despite their name. However, they’re one of the smarter teams. Phoenix was mentioned in Kyrie Irving trades about sixty-thousand times this summer and nothing ever happened with them. That was all because of the one player they refused to give up: Josh Jackson.

Anyone who follows the NBA casually knows that Kyrie Irving is better than Josh Jackson. Jackson is a rookie who has yet to play one minute of meaningful basketball, and even though he has the looks of being a really above average two-way player, he might never play a meaningful minute in the pros. The Suns realized though that the unknown of Jackson is better than a known player like Kyrie who, when a trade was all said and done, probably couldn’t move them into contention or even the playoffs. That’s extremely honest.

The Suns aren’t just rolling with useless guys though. Eric Bledsoe is going to be back this season playing great defense and managing the offense, and young gunner Devin Booker will surely get buckets. The Suns are really banking on their young talent developing. They still have Tyson Chandler and Jared Dudley on their roster to bring some veteran stability and Bledsoe is at the perfect point in his career to funnel a little knowledge to young guys and take in whatever older players can show him.

Additions: Mike James (Panathinaikos), Josh Jackson (Kansas) and Davon Reed (University of Miami)

Subtractions: Leandro Barbosa and John Jenkins

Storylines:

https://youtu.be/V66fkyRNlZc

1.  The Suns really need some of their young players to pan out right about now. Center Alex Len was supposed to be able to hedge on screens and dive to the hoop, but he still hasn’t developed those skills as much as he needs to. In fact, he was forced to accept just a qualifying offer after four seasons with the Suns because no other teams wanted him. Dragan Bender looks like he’s far away from being ready to contribute. His lanky frame makes him nearly useless on the boards and defensive end, and it contributed to him being a 3-point chucking machine. He shot just 27% from deep and took 6.3 per 36 minutes because he had no desire to get down low.

2. Eric Bledsoe is really good. The guy is one of the rare two-way point guards in the league; it’s not out of hand to mention his defense along with Patrick Beverly’s and Chris Paul’s. He’s also exceedingly above average as an offensive play maker putting up 6.3 assists per game before being shut down last season, so the Sun’s could tank. He may be traded for a pick or some prospects at some point this season. He’s doesn’t have the veteran presence that automatically trains new guys to not spend entire checks at the strip club, and he might be too good for the Suns to stomach. They’re going for a high pick this season.

3. The Suns need another ball handler. Tyler Ulis is 5’9,” and too young, Devin Booker has never met a shot he wouldn’t take, and Brandon Knight is perpetually injured. Knight is going to miss this season with an ACL tear. Right now, Ulis is trending the right direction, but realistically it’s on Booker to become more of a creator to start his ascension to superstardom, which would really help Phoenix out. Booker has a 28.6% usage rate and assists on just 16.3% (3.7 assists/game) of the baskets made when he’s on the floor. If he can substitute some of his more ill-advised shots with passes, he’s going to become an even better player.

Player I’d Love To Have: Eric Bledsoe would be the perfect Cav. He lets the game come to him more than Kyrie did and could certainly run a second unit given how he’s been doing with some not so great Suns’ players. And, DEFENSE.

Player I’d Hate To Have: If the Cavs ever got Dragan Bender, I’d go crazy. He’s not good, but his name is so amazing that I’d delude myself into thinking he was good for years. Imagine Austin Carr screaming, “The Dragan fires another flaming ball from deep in the Q.” Or, “The Dragan comes from above to get the weak stuff gone.”

Prediction: 28-54

The Suns aren’t good and they know it, but at least they aren’t trying for a quick fix. Bledsoe is a fun watch, and when he shares the floor with Booker, TJ Warren, Tyson Chandler, and Jared Dudley the Suns become a legitimate NBA team for several minutes a night. That’d be enough for me if I were watching them and knew that the future had lots of brightness trying to punch through.

Los Angeles Clippers (Cory Hughey)

For a fella from Youngstown, Ohio, I have a disproportionate number of friends who are Clippers fans. Pathetic hoop heads are drawn to one another in a way, and while living in LA I found Lakers fans in their home lair even more unbearable than the token douchag from Parma just for their sheer numbers and cigarette and Jarritos fire breath. Clippers fans are better fans than Lakers fans if for no other reason than Clips fans know their s**t. They aren’t stuffed animals with strings on their backs that when pulled repeat, “count the rings.” Every Clippers fan I knows has a fricken Loy Vaught jersey in his cardboard wardrobe moving closet that he uses as his normal closet.

Questions abound as Chris Paul dumped the team to play with The Beard. Considering Paul was leaving either way, I liked the return they got. Gallinari has teetered on the “could be great” border for years. Blake Griffin is this generations incarnation of “he’s great, but he could be elite if he cared more about basketball than the life it provides him,” and if he could stay healthy.

Additions: Danilo Gallinari (Nuggets), Patrick Beverly (Rockets), Sam Dekker (Rockets), Lou Williams (Rockets), Montrezl Harrell (Rockets), Milos Teodosic (CSKA Moscow), Jawun Evans (Draft),

Subtractions: Jamal Crawford & Jimmer Fournette

Storylines:

1. Can Blake be “The Man?” Blake made the Clippers League Pass worthy before Chris Paul ever arrived with his combination of don’t blink if he’s driving athleticism and his awesome sense of humor. He was a bigger, and more marketable Vince Carter in 2010. Today, I’m not sure if any team would trade their star for him. It’s not just the injuries. It’s the stuff off the court. This is a fulcrum year in his career, and he might not age well as his bumbles bounce hops fade.

2. Was Chris Paul the problem? No one will argue that Paul isn’t the best point man of his generation, but have his teams fallen short every year because he’s just not a leader? Being a leader is a tricky thing. You have to be the energy. Everyday that you walk in that room, you need to know that you have a remote control in your hand for yourself and each member of your team, and you have to know when to push the right buttons. If you press too soft, they won’t be motivated. If you press too hard and rub everyone’s nose in their pile, the people will do what you say, but they’ll never respect you, and will turn on you at their first opportunity. From the outside looking in, Paul was a taskmaster, and he lost his teammates’ respect years ago.

3. Is Doc part of the future? He had one of the most talented teams in the league for the past four years, and they never made it to the Western Conference Finals. I’ve thought that he was probably more of the right guy in the right place in Boston than an upper echelon coach. Injuries certainly played their part, but having three stars, an open check book, and not really competing for a title costs guys their job in half that time.

Player I’d Love to Have: Patrick Beverly. Once the Irving trade was announced my first thought was whether the Cavs could flip Isaiah Thomas to the Clippers for Beverly. The Clippers would get some offensive punch and a marketable star, and the Cavs would gain a defensive menace to knock Steph Curry’s mouthguard to the hardwood. Beverly’s 1.37 DRPM was second at point guard to Chris Paul, and he’s locked up for the next two seasons for $10.5 million.

Player I’d Hate to Have: DeAndre Jordan. I just don’t think he can be part of a modern day champion. You can’t have that much money invested in a traditional center. His free throw malfunction will force you to burn timeouts.

Prediction: 48-34

Vegas currently has them with an over/under of 43.5, and I think they exceed that with by a few games. Blake makes an All-NBA team after a two-year hiatus, and he gets his mojo back. Gallinari and Blake form one of the most versatile forward combos in the league. Milos Teodosic becomes the 30-year-old White Chocolate Jason Williams who smells like cigarettes and expresso. As per their annual custom, they’ll be eliminated in the second round.

Golden State Warriors ( Cory Hughey)

Life isn’t fair, and it teaches you to be patient along the way. I took Mojo for a solid mile long walk this morning. After returning from our trek I started prepping potato and leak soup. The leaks and bacon dominated the air. As I was about to boil the potatoes a new smell emerged. You know what it was. She could have left her homage to the Browns anywhere in the neighborhood to let everyone know what she’s the alpha wolf of Barton Circle, but she chose the ottoman as her omega. On the rare occasions she goes in the house, it’s always next to the ottoman. What did the ottoman do to her, and why does she hate it so much?

The Warriors signing of Kevin Durant last year just wasn’t fair, and it happened completely by chance. If Steph Curry’s paper mache ankles held up during the 2011-12 season and didn’t cause him to miss 40 of the 66 games during that campaign and average career lows of 14.7 points and 5.3 assists, he would have signed a near max extension instead of $44 million over four years that he ended up with. And Kevin Durant wouldn’t be a Warrior.

If the league had the foresight to predict the potential ramifications of the salary cap jumping $22 million in one off-season, they’d have fought harder to smooth out the rising cap over the next two or three seasons so a title team wouldn’t have had max cap space to flirt with a rivals star.  Kevin Durant wouldn’t be a Warrior.

While life isn’t fair and I hate everything about the Warriors, I respect the hell out of them in a way. They are the best run organization in the league. The formation of the Heatles in 2010 created a league wide fear that building a team organically and competing for a title was no longer a possibility in a world where stars are aligning their free agencies to form Olympic team reunions. The Warriors hushed those fears, and played the NBA draft from 2009 to 2012 like they had cheat codes landing Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Harrison Barnes without a pick in the top six.

The Warriors return their entire core from last seasons title team, and added even more wing depth to the most versatile roster in the league. They are the Galactic Empire of the league.

Additions: Omri Casspi (Timberwolves), Nick Young (Lakers),

Subtractions: Ian Clark (Pelicans)

Storylines:

1. Will they revert to their 2016 cockiness? The real reason it’s so hard to win back to back titles isn’t because everything plays up to you, but rather, whether you handle success or play down to them. You could tell the Cavs weren’t as hungry last year after their emotionally draining Finals comeback and a summer of not wearing shirts and slamming bottles of Barolo.

2. Will Steve Kerr walk away? There’s got to be a point where Steve Kerr has closure. He went from a dude with no coaching experience whatsoever to one of the best ever in just three years. The NBA grind and the pain it causes to his neck/back just isn’t worth it.

3. Is this the greatest team ever? The GOAT questions that have followed LeBron for the past decade will start being spewed on the ESPN afternoon argument block. A team isn’t really considered a dynasty unless they win three titles. The bad boy Pistons were great, so were Olajuwans Rockets. They’ll never remembered like Jordans Bulls or Magic’s Lakers. One more title and this Warriors team is in that conversation.

Player I’d Love to Have: Draymond Green. He’s the real leader of this Warriors team, not Durant, not Curry. Green is their heart. No one in the league puts forth more effort than him and he’s got Rick James arrogance. There’s a long list of guys that everyone hates unless he’s one your team, and Green is the GOAT of the heel squad.

Player I’d Hate to Have: Nick Young. I don’t have kids and I’ve never been married, so I’ve got more than enough time for fantasy football. I’m a big believer in regression to mean. He’s been a sub 40% from downtown eight of the past nine seasons. I don’t think last year is who he is at all.

Prediction: 69-13

They will flirt with 70ish wins just by showing up. They will have to make it through the scariest Western Conference for their entire run. What if they draw the Timberwolves in the first round then face a healthy Spurs team in the second round, and then have the new Thunder troika waiting for them in the Western Conference Finals? Their reward for making through that minefield will be a hungry, and presumably well rested Cavs team out for vengeance.

In the small stomach that protrudes through my diaphragm (I have a hiatal hernia), I didn’t think that there was anything the Cavs could do with Irving to beat this Warriors team without them losing a player to injury. I still feel that way. Unless someone gets hurt, the Warriors will win their third title in four years.

Storylines:

1. The big story this season and around the NBA will be Lonzo Ball. The most electrifying player in Summer League will be analyzed every night, and his Dad, Lavar Ball, will run his yap on talk shows and sports radio every morning. Few doubt that Lonzo will be able to adjust to the pace of the game mentally, but his ability to run the point is still in question. His handle needs work, he doesn’t have a great first step, and he has wonky mechanics on his jumper. Cole Zwicker of Fansided broke it down.

Proficient modern lead guards have to be a threat to score at the next level and at multiple levels on the court. Ball does not project well to that role. His lack of wiggle and dribble moves with the ball hinders his ability to get to the rim at the college level, even with pristine spacing. That will only get more difficult against NBA lead guard athletes and athletic bigs who can switch and defend in space. Even when Ball got to the rim this past year, his lack of explosion in traffic, rigidity and uprightness as an inflexible athlete, inability to de-accelerate and lack of physicality finishing through contact were issues against far inferior competition than he will face at the basketball in the NBA.

And our own Ben Werth commented on Ball’s shooting mechanics.

Lonzo Ball jumps forward and left on every shot. His landing point is predictable for the defender and since his release isn’t super quick and is in front of him, he is particularly easy to defend. NBA players will closeout hard to the left side of his body and trust that his funky kinetic chain will do the work for them if Ball evades them to the right.

2. The Lakers may be better off letting Jordan Clarkson run the offense, if they want to win, but if they want to tank, letting Lonzo take his lumps learning the point guard spot couldn’t hurt. That will be the question for the Lakers all season: compete or tank. They certainly have some veterans: Luol Deng, Corey Brewer, Brook Lopez, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Andrew Bogut. If their young guys come around, they have the coaching to just miss the playoffs.

3. Will the young core gel? Brandon Ingram is supposedly bigger than his rail thin frame of last year. Jordan Clarkson looks to justify his four year/$50 million dollar contract. Larry Nance Jr. looks to follow up his solid sophomore year (Magic called the should-have-been dunk of the year nominee his “secret weapon“). Kyle Kuzma looks to build on being one of the best players in the Las Vegas Summer league. And Tyler Ennis played some great games at the end of last season, waited around for a contract offer all summer, and then went back to L.A. on one of the bargain contracts of the summer at two years/$3.2 million.

Player I’d love to Have: Larry Nance Jr. for the Cavs connection, but as that’s not remotely realistic, I thought Tyler Ennis was the bargain of last year’s free agency. He shot 49%/43%/84% and averaged 12 and four assists over the last five games of last season. I think he’s got potential.

Player I Love to Hate: It’s going to be fun to watch Lonzo struggle, just to see Lavar Ball’s head explode and make the Lakers look like a gong show.

Predictions: 34 – 48 No Playoffs

Despite desperately trying to tank at the end of last year, the Lakers finished the last ten 5-5. They have some talent and some hungry young guys. They also have a great young coach. Despite that, they’re going to struggle to defend. When the choice comes down to winning or losing and letting Ball learn, they’ll choose the latter. Look to see them try to trade off some vets at mid-season rather than compete in a loaded West. Then they’ll just miss out on keeping their draft pick.