Cathing Up On NBA Player Movement

OK, so I am a slacker. I haven’t posted lately. I was hoping to hear more about Jerryd Bayless’ play in the Olympic team scrimmages but I couldn’t find any news at all about it. So we may have to wait for training camp to get more information about the way he interacts on the court with established NBA players.

I do want to touch on some NBA player movement that has happened this summer. Several teams have completely altered their roster, some for better, some for worse. The Clippers are the most drastic; they lost Elton Brand, Corey Maggette, Brevin Knight, and waived Dan Dickau. They got Baron Davis, Marcus Camby, Ricky Davis, Steve Novak, Brian Skinner, and Jason Hart. With their changes, I think they’ll be a better team (Although I dislike Ricky Davis and think he could be toxic to team chemistry). Brian Skinner is underrated in my book and Marcus Camby is on of the best defensive Centers in the league. When you add those 2 to Chris Kaman’s huge rebounding ability you can see that they will probably dominate the boards against everyone they play (with the possible exception of the Rockets). With Baron Davis running the show I think they will make the playoffs this year.

This is a good time for a playoff prediction tangent! My early prediction for the 8 teams from the West are: Jazz, Rockets, Hornets, Spurs, Suns, Blazers, Clippers, and Lakers. Look for a Rockets vs. Hornets match-up to decide the West. I’ll save the East predictions for another blog.

Besides the Clippers, other teams who received a summer facelift are the Bucks, Nets, Pacers, Timberwolves, Grizzlies, Raptors, 76ers, Warriors, Nuggets, and Hawks. I think the 76ers have made the biggest improvement, while the Nuggets and Hawks have taken the biggest fall. The addition of Elton Brand, Royal Ivey, & Kareem Rush while only losing Calvin Booth & Rodney Carney means the 76ers will challenge the big guns in the East. They're biggest hurdle will be the loose coaching style of Maurice Cheeks. He's a bit shaky when it gets beyond the 1st round of the play-offs.

The Nuggets loss of Marcus Camby & Eduardo Najera means one of the worst defensive teams in the league last year lost their two best enforcers. I am not a huge Najera fan but he at least took the charge and gave a hard foul when called upon. Camby is the loss that will keep them out of the playoffs. They still have Iverson, Carmelo, & K-Mart and an improving JR Smith & Linas Kleiza but without anyone who plays D they are only going to beat the scrub teams by outscoring them. Defensive teams like the Jazz, Hornets, and Spurs will crush them like the Lakers did in the first round last season.

The Hawks losing Josh Childress to Greece will hurt them pretty bad. They made it way deeper than anyone expected last year but Childress shot an average of 8 times a game at 57% last year. They are going to struggle to make up for that, especially when they are not going to be sneaking up on anyone this year. They won’t be playing this coming May.

The Warriors are another team that’ll miss the post season. Just when it seemed like they were ready to take the next step forward they lost one of the best Point Guards in the NBA (as far as leadership ability). Moving Monta Ellis to the Point and adding a scorer like Maggette will not make up the difference. They did add Ronny Turiaf but lost Matt Barnes to the Suns, so that is pretty much a wash. They also lost Mickael Pietrus to the Magic so they aren’t as deep as they were last year. They may get 40 wins but that won’t cut it in the West.

Stay tuned next time for more predictions and analysis of off-season moves.