It’s the dog days of summer, especially if you’re a
basketball fan. Literally nothing is happening right now and to top it off your
favorite drunken basketball writer has been slacking super hard on giving the
people what they need.
I apologize for the hiatus. As you have come to know, wacky
adventures usually keeps me from posting regularly on the trillest blog the
internet has to offer. This situation is no different. Turns out when you mix Adderall,
mushrooms, Absinthe, and deer aspirin, you kidnap the blonde dude that lives
next door to you and force him to do a shot for shot remake of Training Day. Apparently, tripping balls
and yelling “King Kong ain’t got shit on me!” in a Wendy’s parking lot is
pretty frowned upon. Also kidnapping, possession of PCP (I didn’t know you
liked to get wet), shooting people named Roger, and impersonating a narcotics
officer is super illegal. All of which is news to me.
Anyways, I’m back and ready to get back to business. Since
it’s far too early to do an accurate season preview, I decided to make a list
of the most intriguing players going into next season. It turns out there is
plenty to be excited about for the upcoming year as I’ve had to break this down
into a series. Here is part 1 of the list, in no particular order. Starting
with…
LeBron James
The unofficial MVP from 2009-present day is not nearly as
intriguing as he was a year ago when he announced he was returning to
Cleveland. Like everybody else, I’m pretty tired of constantly hearing about
LeBron and how great he is (or in a lot of cases, how great he isn’t). With
that said, LeBron was the first name I wrote down when coming up with my random
list of players, as he should be. Look, as long as LeBron is still at his peak
and the city of Cleveland is still without a title, he’s going to be one of the
most followed stories in the league. Last summer everyone pined for the
redemption story of how the prodigal son returned to deliver on his promise of
bringing glory to the most cursed sports city in America. As the season
progressed, we remembered that, “Oh yeah, LeBron winning everything is
not really that exciting. Let’s root for this Curry guy instead!”
It wasn’t that long ago that I mentioned LeBron is more fun to root against than to root for. So that’s one subplot that is going to
keep LeBron interesting until he gets Cleveland a championship and eventually
goes to his 10th straight Finals and plays for his sixth title. It’s
going to happen, we might as well embrace it.
Inherent haterism aside, there are two subplots that I find
much more compelling, with the first being LeBron’s durability. Last season he
famously took a two week vacation in order to rejuvenate his body. And holy cow
did he rejuvenate! The Cavs went on a tear straight to the NBA Finals where all
of LeBron’s teammates eventually fell to injury. What gets lost in this though,
is that LeBron has had a nearly unprecedented run of invincibility. Think about
it, has LeBron ever had a major injury before? Besides his two week sabbatical,
LeBron barely misses any games, which is absurd when you consider he is going
into his 13th season, is on the wrong side of 30, and has played
about 43,330 minutes(!!!) That doesn’t even include his three runs in the Olympics
either. Seeing how Bron holds up after all those miles is definitely worth
keeping an eye on.
Then there’s the always entertaining sideshow of the
Blatt-LeBron relationship. After the Finals this year, we haven’t seen a player
coach relationship under more scrutiny since Dwight Howard and Stan Van Gundy. Plenty
of reports surfaced that LeBron not only did not respect Blatt, but kept him
around for the sole purpose that he enjoys bullying his coach. If this isn’t a
recipe for entertainment, I don’t know what is. Wow, for allegedly not that
intriguing of a player, I managed to burn 500 words on Bron. Think it’s time to
move on.
Anthony Davis/ Russell Westbrook
As Matt Lyons covered during the season, Anthony Davis and
Russell Westbrook went beyond the Super Saiyan level last season and put up
Wilt/ Oscar type of numbers. These two young bucks managed to blend over-competitiveness,
once in a lifetime athleticism, and elite skills into a cocktail that resulted
in the best individual seasons that didn’t win an MVP award. It will be
interesting to see what these two dynamos have in store for their encore
season.
Both players had to make due with an injury depleted roster
last season. In Westbrook’s case, he will be welcoming back the second best
player alive in Kevin Durant. Rational people will come to the conclusion that
Russell’s numbers will take a dip with KD back in the lineup. But as we’ve
learned with Russ throughout the years, logic does no good when trying to
predict the season he will have. It’s totally possible that Westbrook loved
having complete control a little too much and may be slow to relinquish the
reins to the superior player. On the other hand, Davis will be getting back a
(hopefully) healthy Ryan Anderson and starting point guard Jrue
Holiday. And while we’re on the conversation of injury, it can’t be ignored
that both Davis and Westbrook can be injury prone, especially considering that
Davis moves in ways that shouldn’t be humanly possible and Westbrook plays the
game with a Tarantino-level of violence.
Of course, their numbers could conceivably improve
considering the changes on the sideline. Scott Brooks and Monty Williams did a
great job turning these franchises around, however, they clearly borrowed from
the Mike Brown philosophy of “get the ball to your best player and tell
everyone else to get the fuck out of the way.” Alvin Gentry helped turned the
Golden State Warriors into the most devastating offense in league history,
which means that scoring should come much easier for the Brow this season,
especially if Anderson can bounce back from his crippling injury last season.
While Billy Donovan isn’t known for being an offensive guru, or has had any
experience coaching in the NBA, he is one of the best minds in basketball and
should be able to figure out how both Westbrook and Durant can eat in a new
offense.
Kevin Love
After a season full of “There’s no way Love comes back to
Cleveland reports”, K-Love has decided to reup with the Cavs and help LeBron
and Kyrie chase a title. The reason for these reports had much to do with the
fact that Love was the scapegoat during the tumultuous start to the Cavs season
last year, complete with LeBron doing his best “Kobe throwing Pau under the bus”
impression. This only compounded after Love had his shoulder dislocated in the
first round of the playoffs and the Cavs found success with Timofey Mozgov and
Tristan Thompson bullying opponents on the glass. The natural conclusion people
jumped to was that the Cavs are better off without Love. Russ, help me out with this:
This train of thought is absurd and here’s why: Despite
being completely utilized incorrectly, Love still managed to average about 17
points and 10 rebounds while hitting two three pointers a game last season. For
reasons unknown, Love was regulated to a Danny Green-esque role of spot up
shooter, when in reality a Kyrie-Love or LeBron-Love pick and pop should be the
most devastating offense in the league. Because of this role, Love was pulled
away from the basket, which neutralized his abilities as a capable post scorer and offensive
rebounder. In addition, before the
arrival of Mozgov, Love was playing a stretch 5 role, which is stupid
because Love is NOT a rim protector in the least and should never under any
circumstance be trusted with protecting the paint.
Also, I’m not completely sold that Love was healthy last
season. There was speculation that he was hobbled with a bad back that never
completely healed, which would definitely explain the dip in his shooting
percentage. If Love comes back healthy and the Cavs begin to utilize him
correctly, then watch out. Remember, Chris Bosh’s first year in Miami was as
bumpy as Love’s first campaign in Cleveland, and Bosh was able to bounce back
and become as crucial as anyone to Miami’s two titles. Love is far too talented
to be the player we saw last year for the rest of his tenure in Cleveland.
Kobe Bryant
Let’s just get this out of the way: Kobe is the only reason
people will even remotely care about the Lakers this year. Even with that said,
riding the Kobe rollercoaster is starting to get a little exhausting. I’m
starting to understand how Derrick Rose fans feel, and it’s a very dark and
cynical place to be.
That looks about right
What made Kobe intriguing in the past was the question of
will he come back from [insert catastrophic injury] and be the same player?
That question has long been answered: Kobe Bryant will never be the same. His
days of willing himself to 28 points per game and dragging a team to be
competitive is just not realistic. In a Tim Duncan situation where he is
surrounded by a once in a lifetime coach and overqualified role players, Kobe
could definitely thrive and maybe even win that elusive sixth championship. But
coming off of three consecutive season ending injuries, playing with two
rookies in the starting lineup (Russell and Randle), having Byron Scott as a
coach, and having Jim Buss’ messy fingerprints all over the organization is a
recipe for disaster.
Despite all of this, Kobe will still be a draw this season
as he is heading into his 20th year in the league and what is
assumed to be his last go around in the NBA. Kobe is the last man standing from
the legendary 1996 draft class, but his final stand represents so much more.
Saying farewell to Kobe is saying farewell to a different era of basketball.
For fans like myself that grew up watching Kobe, McGrady, Iverson, Kidd, Nash,
Garnett, Duncan and many others, this will be like when the generation before
us said goodbye to Jordan, and the generation before them said goodbye to
Magic, Bird, and Isaiah. It’s the bittersweet reminder that we are getting
older and that the memories we have of that era will be stronger than whatever
this current movement or future generations can provide us. Because of that,
Kobe’s presumable final year will be intriguing. This post quickly became way
to existential for my taste, let’s get back to the profanity and shenanigans.
Derrick Rose
I lied, because it’s about to get even more real. When I
first made this list, I considered Rose as intriguing because he has quickly
found himself on the same list as Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, Brandon Roy, and
Yao Ming. A list I like to call the “Oh God Why Couldn’t You Have Stayed
Healthy You Were So Fucking Good!” list. And while that is still plenty of
reason to keep an eye on Rose this season, a recent development has changed everything
I was going to write.
Recently, Rose has been hit with a lawsuit by a former
girlfriend that alleges Rose and two friends drugged and gang raped her. At
first I was going to not mention it because holy shit that is entirely way too
heavy of a topic to bring up on a blog that makes more drinking jokes than an
episode of Archer. At the end of the
day though, this is way too important of an issue to not bring up and it would
be ignorant to act like this can’t have an impact on Rose this season. First
off, it’s important to note that as of right now Rose is not facing any
criminal charges and only God knows if any of this is actually true. The only
concrete things we have so far is that there are allegations and that Rose has
denied said allegations. That’s it.
Does this seem like something that is completely out of
character for Rose? Absolutely! For years, Rose was a fan favorite because of
his humility and Aw-Shucks shyness. He was as squeaky clean as it could get.
But considering the recent fallout over the Bill Cosby and Jared from Subway
situations, we can no longer act as though reputation is enough to earn the
benefit of the doubt. After all, at the end of the day we have no idea who
Derrick Rose actually is. We just know the perception of him as an athlete,
which means this can go one of two ways: 1) We as the public could fall into
our trusted cycle of victim blaming and paint this woman as a money grabbing
golddigger taking advantage of Rose’s celebrity by making false accusations or
2) We could publicly crucify Rose for something that could very well be true or
be completely false. Either way, we’re going to jump to one of these
conclusions before we get all the facts because we as the public can’t help but
form an opinion on an issue, date rape in this case, that is frankly very
important and relevant to our society.
I’ve written before how the Colorado incident has skewed Kobe’s overall legacy, and it’s totally reasonable to assume the same is going
to happen for Rose. This saga is definitely something that will be on our radar
for the remainder of the season, and possibly for the rest of Rose’s career. Jesus that got intense. Hey look, puppies!
LOOK AT IT! EMBRACE THE CUTENESS!
DeAndre Jordan
The DeAndre saga was by far the most compelling story of the
summer. It was so rich in twists and turns that I would not be surprised if it
ends up as a 30 for 30 someday. If you need a refresher, he’s the jist of it:
DeAndre Jordan was an unrestricted free agent that felt he was not being used
to his full potential playing for the Los Angeles Clippers. Despite his
relationships with Doc Rivers and Blake Griffin, he reportedly butted heads
with perennial pain in the ass Chris Paul and felt that he needed a change of
scenery. Being from Texas, the Dallas Mavericks, thanks to an incredible
recruiting effort by Chandler Parsons and Mark Cuban, agreed to a deal with
Jordan before free agents were allowed to sign and make it official. What
happened next can only be described as shenanigans. Realizing they were about
to lose one of their key players, Doc Rivers, Blake Griffin, Paul Pierce, JJ
Redick, and Chris Paul (in mid freaking vacation!) went to DeAndre’s house in
Houston and literally locked themselves in the house until Jordan signed with
the Clippers.
Now, deals falling through happens more frequently than we
think in the NBA (speaking of Paul, don’t even get me started on that trade),
but never has a blown agreement played out quite like this before. I can’t
think of a more entertaining free agency watch in my life. While this whole
saga was hilariously awesome (unless you’re a Dallas fan), what it also did was
put DeAndre and the Clippers under a huge microscope. After all, the Clippers
famously chocked their way out of the playoffs and the jury is still out on
whether Jordan is actually good enough to deserve a max contract. Not only
that, but the expectation is that DeAndre is going to be more involved in the
offense this year and expand his role beyond rim protector/ dunker. This leads
to the possibilities that A) DeAndre gets his wish and gets more scoring
opportunities, which takes away from Blake and CP3’s touches and ultimately
tanks the Clippers B) Jordan gets his touches, thrives, and the Clippers
finally break through to the conference finals C) The Clippers play the exact
same way they did last season with DJ on the outside looking in, which leads to
him becoming disgruntled and really regretting
his decision D) The same as option C, except Chris Paul and Blake Griffin go so
HAM that they lead the Clips to the championship and Jordan is happy because
fuck it, now he’s a champion.
Or some whacky combination of all those things
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see how this
plays out. Ultimately though, I don’t think it can ever live up to the greatest
offseason show ever as far as entertainment value goes.
Stay tuned for part 2 of this list and other posts!!!
Stats, pics, and other shit courtesy of:
