You don't know jack about basketball. Just shut it already. Nuggets are clearly a lock at the top 4 position. They will be the dark horse in the NBA in my honest opinion. With a young, healthy line up of Lawson, Iggy, Farried, Gallo and McGee, they will cause Havoc in th NBA and are clearly a lock for the playoffs.
The nuggets and clippers are definitely making the PO's. Same with the LAL OKC Spurs. Memphis & Mavs are also highly likely to make the PO's. This team is so new so need to see how they gel but once again making the PO's is unlikely. Expectations are wilding.
Our half court success and efficiency is going to be determined by a couple factors: 1. How well do our bigs finish on the pick and roll. We've got Asik, Patterson, Donuts, White, and Jones essentially as our bigs. We've got plenty of guys that can initiate the pick-n-roll in Lin, Martin, Lamb, Parsons, and the other backup guards....along with White and Jones. But after the pick is set and the picker is rolling to the basket....do they have the ability to finish at a highly efficient level? Patterson is athletic enough. I suspect he's healthy. And I suspect he's going to be much improved on the finish off the roll. Asik is a huge unknown. How improved is he going to be in pick and roll sets?? He's got to be good enough to get his share of dunks and he's also got to be good enough at the FT line to knock 'em down. Otherwise we're gonna have to wind up sitting him down if the D goes to hack-an-Omer. Donuts...another unknown at this point on the pick and roll. 2. We have to have more options that can be run proficiently off the pick-and-pop play. Pick and Pop by itself is a recipe for a lottery team if they run it as their primary offense and the big man takes the 17 footer out of it all the time. That's basically what we had last year. We'd run pick and pop for Luis and Patterson...and all those guys would do is jack the J. Won't get it done. What needs to be added is...............another pick and roll with the big man being able to dribble to the rim and/or pass to the other big man going to the rim.....ala Vlade and Webber. We are going to be running pick and roll ad nauseum all season. So, we're gonna have to be able to play off that. When the D packs it down and overplays the PnR, you've got to go to PnP just to mix it up a little. And then you've got to play off PnP, not just stand there and fire the Juwon Howard jump shot (the worst shot in basketball). Half court offense is going to be a work in progress. You gotta have at least one skilled big out there. Asik won't cut it. He's not going to be able to handle, etc. So, you've got to have a multi-dimensional 4 on the floor with him that can do a lot of things offensively. I think we've got the pieces. I think it's going to take some time to gel. And I do have a question about the sophistication of McHale's coaching ability. Will he see what needs to be done and explore developing plays off the PnP (like Adelman would)? Or is he gonna be Coach Stick-in-the-mud that shows no innovation and simply pushes the D to lock down tighter and get the guys in transition? This group of guys has more talent than last year's team by far. By the end of the season they should be playing at a higher level than last year's team...if they have been coached up properly.
I think it will be up to the other coaches to develop expand the playbook for half court. McHale has the final say, though. Hopefully, he lets his coaches have a little fun. I fear the Rockets need so much time on preparing the defense, they may not have enough time to get the offense flowing.
When we were in the playoff run we did, then our two centers started alternating with injuries, so they couldn't play as much and the addition of Lowry coming off the bench didn't provide the defensive or offensive impact he had prior to his infection. The length provided by Asik, Motiejunas and others will help against teams with legit centers and big men. Miami doesn't really have a legit big man outside of Bosch, but Lebron literally can play every position on the court so it will take a combination of our athletic forwards to handle him.
I think the Nuggets will make the playoffs, but they're far from a lock for Top 4. Iggy is not a go-to guy (at best 3rd guy on championship team). Farried is a 2nd year player. McGee is McGee (could revert to Wizards McGee). Gallo is injury prone. If Gallo goes down with an inevitable injury this team could have a lot of trouble scoring. They lost their 2nd and 4th scorers (Afflalo and Harrington).
