It’s the Spurs, though I almost always pick them.
The Mavericks? I picked them before Game 1 of the Finals and then again late in the fourth quarter of Game 3, despite this nagging belief that Mark Cuban’s presence would mess it up.
The Heat is the defending champion. Shaquille O’Neal proved–much to Pat Riley’s coming distress–that you don’t really have to start paying attention until May. So one can’t overlook Miami.
The Pistons said they’ll play five-on-five for the first time in years, so they have to be better, right?
And perhaps it is LeBron James’ time, just as it became Michael Jordan’s time and never stopped until he did.
There are plenty of curiosities about the NBA this season. Take, for example . . .
– The long-running prime-time drama that is the Knicks.
– The lost–and losing–stars in Boston, Minnesota, Indiana and Philadelphia.
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– The return of Don Nelson in Golden State.
– Jordan’s re-emergence as part-owner in Charlotte.
– Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson: still together, still in Los Angeles.
– The question of when Mt. Artest might blow up.
– The defense of the Bulls.
– And the offense of a half-dozen other teams.
– Wondering whether the big man/little man combination in Houston finally will work.
– All that and myriad other dramas involving franchise sales, purchases, relocations and maybe a dozen coaches’ futures being reconsidered . . . whether they want them to be or not.
But as the 2006-07 season gets under way, the most intriguing questions are who is going to win the NBA championship, who is going to face that team in the Finals and does anybody really have any idea?
Vulnerable to parody, perhaps it is time for parity in the NBA.
“Who knows?” Nets coach Lawrence Frank said. “I hope people didn’t forget that Detroit did win 64 games despite not winning the championship. Chicago, obviously, when you look at adding an impact player plus going 10 or 12 deep. Cleveland, with one of the top three players in the league. Toronto with all their new faces. Orlando had a great preseason and finished up the year strong.
“So I think there’s a case for a lot of teams right now.”
And that’s just in the East.
The Spurs and Mavericks are the favorites in the West after their memorable second-round, seven-game series that might have been the best NBA playoff series in decades.
“We could have easily won last year, and so could Dallas or some other team, Detroit or whoever you want to plug in there,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said.
But there’s more. The Suns and even the Clippers, the Kings, the Rockets, the Cavs and the Nets are talking somewhat realistically about their championship chances.
“Picking the Finals participants this year is more difficult than ever,” said TNT analyst Steve Kerr, who played for Bulls and Spurs championship teams. “There are a lot of teams that have a chance, but nobody really stands out.”
There’s Tim Duncan and the Spurs, but they were out of the playoffs early last season and Duncan has more than 25,000 minutes on his veteran body.
The Pistons, their Finals dancing partners for consecutive seasons, lost defensive anchor Ben Wallace to the Bulls.
What did Shaq score in the decisive Finals game? That’s right, nine points.
What we do know is no one knows.
The NBA conducts an annual survey of general managers. In addition to private questions about the best lobster dinners and excessively priced hotel rooms, it asks the GMs to predict what will happen in the playoffs.
History suggests they’re best at telling you how to spend $1,000 a day in San Francisco. But for this season, GMs named eight teams for the Finals: the Spurs, the Mavericks, the Suns and the Timberwolves in the West, and the Heat, the Pistons, the Bulls and the Magic in the East.
Not all eight together. They know that much.
The consensus was Spurs-Heat in the Finals. Risk-takers, eh?
This much is sure: That won’t happen. The GMs rarely get one right.
So TNT, which telecasts NBA games, brought in its panel of experts, all of them former NBA players. There were five guys making selections for the Finals and they came up with five teams (the Spurs, Mavs, Heat, Pistons and Cavs) in the Finals in various combinations.
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Sports Illustrated trots out its choices early and picked Suns over Heat, though one of its writers had the Bulls in the Finals.
One playing-court leveler this season is the increased emphasis on free movement by perimeter players. It limits the advantage of teams with a top big man (think O’Neal or Duncan) and opens up play for small teams like the Suns to be legitimate contenders. It’s why even the Lakers and Bryant and the Cavs and James believe that, with the right breaks, they could go to the Finals. And then you’re just one opponent’s turned ankle away from the championship.
“The three that we won, I didn’t know we were going to win those,” Popovich acknowledged. “In the end it takes a lot of things to win a championship. Nobody would have guessed Miami was [on its way to] winning a championship last year.
“Good fortune is important, getting some good calls here and there, being on a run, having a player who is playing great.”
There are perhaps a dozen teams this season who believe that could be them.