no way dude. you're not giving lebron enough credit. someone already said it. prior to 2010, the cavs were a contender with a weaker squad surrounding lebron. this team is loads better and they definitely have to be the favorites out of the east, whether or not they get love. that team is young and is competitive. they have more scoring options available now.
One year you have Dirk, Marion, Carter, and Blair, and another year you have Dirk and Parsons for the same price. I call that a loss. Time will tell if the Calderon/Dalembert for Chandler/Felton swap was a good one. I'm dubious.
Say what you want but Mavs gave the current champs more of a fight than Heat did. And that was without Chandler/Parsons. Still, I'd agree they shouldn't be THAT high. But ranking them ahead of Rockets is completely fair.
It cracks me up how much I keep hearing this. Since when do moral victories count for anything? And they lost 5 players. All 5 of them balled in that series. Say "bah they got Parsons and Tyson Chandler they'll be fine" is nonsense to me.
While I agree with you to some degree, lists of players on paper isn't everything. They have to prove they're worth being ranked high. For example, a couple of years ago the Nash/Gasol/Howard/Kobe Lakers were considered a contender. How did that end up?
Not everyone, and not me. The Rockets got tutored by Portland and lost valuable bench depth this Summer. They haven't proven anything.
These are POWER rankings. Power ranking wise, we were ahead of Dallas last season because we had a better record. That's a fact. You can use Google to verify. Putting them ahead of us for this season means the experts believe they got better and/or we got worse. And it's snapshot of the current situation... Not based on possible players a team may acquire.
Pretty identical players if you ask me, one's just been lucky enough to play with multiple all-stars.
they gave them fits because of bench production. carter/blair/dalembert/calderon were huge for them during the season and offseason. they've lost all that. while i agree the mavs are a threat, losing that bench and only plugging in parsons might screw them up in the long run.
How many mavs games did you actually watch? Dalembert is a loafer, there is a reason he keeps getting shuffled around. He has plenty of physical tools but he's none too bright and he doesn't come to play barely half the night. Having a guy who is dogging it on your team is a whip and a drag on the team. The mavs defense will be much,much better with Tyson but worse without Marion. It's not a wash because tyson is a great PNR defender and quarterback. But they will be much better without Dalembert.
Tyson can't make up how bad they're other staters will be defensively though. That team is gonna allow 105 ppg with their projected starting 5. Felton- awful defender. Or Harris- average defender? Not sure Ellis- bellow average Parsons- bellow average Dirk- way bellow average Tyson- aging, but still pretty good Parsons defense is gonna be even worse in Dallas than it was here because of the offinsive load he's gonna have to carry. With 0 depth as of now, this is a 45 win team.
I'm just surprised they didn't put the Cavs at number 1. Seems rare that LBJ isn't getting an OTPHJ from the media... Conspiracy theory: nba.com hates the Rockets so much they just put the Mavs at 4 just to mess with us
Lol at people thinking Lebron can't carry the cavs which is stacked or even a crummy team to the finals. Lebron is superhuman. I think he might surpassed Jordan.
1. Spurs 2. OKC 3. Clipps 4. Cavs 5. Rockets 6. Pacers 7. Grizz 8. Bulls 9. Golden State 10. Portland
