Review: NBA Preview Rags Ah, it's that time of year again. The air is soon to turn cooler. Training camps are only a couple weeks away and the NBA preview rags are on newsstands. As usual, they are full of errors because they were written too early, but it doesn't feel like fall or preseason without my yearly trip to the magazine rack to pick up future recycling material from Sporting News, Lindy's, Street & Smtih and Athlon. There is good and bad in all of them and I'll try to give a basic review from a Rockets perspective here. #4 Magazine: Sporting News Team Writer: Michael Murphy Quality: Piss poor We've all seen Murphy's gaffes here on the BBS - calling Eddie Griffin a three, insisting Francis is a two guard and claiming Yao will struggle under Rudy. Whatever. Why they hire a writer who doesn't follow the team to do the recap is beyond me, but it's their dime. Beyond the team write-up, the magazine ranks the Rockets backcourt as #5 behind Dallas, Sacramento, Seattle (???) and Milwaukee. They rank the team as #8 in the power rankings ahead of Portland, Boston and Minnesota among others. #3 Magazine: Lindy's Team Writer: Michael Murphy ( I guess he needs the cash) Quality: Not good Murphy again. Pretty much the same re-hash as the Sporting News. If I were Lindy's, I'd be pissed. The headline, "Are they playing the same game?" about sums up his opinion. Tex Winter ranks players at every position. Only Francis and Mobley rank with them each at #9 at their respecitve positions. Francis is bested by Cassell, Nash, Bibby, Davis, Miller, Payton, Kidd and Stockton while Mobley is bested by Miller (Reggie), Iverson, Finley, Jordan, Allen, Carter, Stackhouse and Bryant. These combine all-time and current rankings and seem fair. Winter calls Francis, "maybe the best in the league talentwise." Also, they give the Rockets an A for offseason moves for their choices of Yao and Nachbar. #2 Magazine: Street & Smith's Team Writer: No Credit Given Quality: Sub Par The team section is very honest. I'll give them that. They talk about the poor defense and the selfish play but they do not acknowledge the injuries last season in talking about the shortcomings like the poor shooting. They say that Franics and Mobley, "Never met a rim they couldn't bounce a shot off of" and say the Rockets starters would make the best bench in the league. They do, however, call Nachbar "a potential steal and a future star," which seems to be the assesment of many places. Ugly, but generally fair. The magazine is not enamoured of Yao. They gave the Rockets a 78 out of 100 for the draft while handing New Orleans an 82 for dumping their pick for Courtney Alexander, Boston an 80 for drafting Darius Songalia in the second round and the Bulls a <b><i>98</i></b> for Jay Williams. Yikes. They say that Shaq can't wait to "put (Yao) into the fifth row of seats if he tries to get in his way on a dunk" and compare him to Bradley. They further say Francis won't have patience for Yao and "watch for another migraine attack the first time Ming impedes a Francis drive to the basket." They like Nachbar but say that, "maybe they should have traded (their picks) for veterans instead." Nice. What almost sent them to the bottom of my list was the fact that they ranked the top 5 #1 draft picks of all time. 1. Jabbar - ok, I'm cool with that 2. Magic - ditto 3. Shaq - I can live with that 4. David Robinson - <b>WTF!!!???</b> 5. Dream Are they kidding? Robinson better than Dream? They even ranked their numbers. Olajuwon played more seasons (18 to 13) and averaged the same amount of points (21.8 to 21.9 for Robinson). Nevermind that they guy won two championships, one where he obliterated Robinson. Ugh. However, on the positive side, they rank Yao as #2 and Nachbar as #5 in the "next five sure-fire stars in the foreign wave" quoting long-time NBA scout Marty Blake on Yao and comparing Nachbar to Hidayet Turkoglu. #1 Magazine: Athlon Sports Team Writer: No credit given Quality: Decent They seem to be Yao fans. They call him "a good passer, excellent shooter and tremendous athlete." Unlike any of the others, they talk about the injury problems of last season and are fair in their representation of how good the team is. Their assessment is "If Ming provides any semblance of an inside game and the rest of the club stays healthy, there is more than enough talent in Houston for a run back to the postseason." The most pro-Rockets write-up. There wasn't much else in the magazine on the Rockets, but the write-up was enough to make it the best on my list. Of course, if this was just a magazine full of blank pages, it would have won by default because the others were so bad. My two cents.
thx Jeff for the compilation The best draft pick of all time was selecting Larry Bird a year before his draft. Now THAT! is a #1 pick. After that selection, they changed the rules and outlawed Red Auerbach from doing that again. also, I don't get this calling Nach a sure fire star and comparing him to Turkoglu. ummm...Turky is good and all in a Croshere kinda way. but a star????
Jeff, can you make this a poll? After all those ESPN/Sporting News polls and rankings ("Which is less significant: Hakeem Olajuwon or an old stick of chewing gum?" "Who had the best 2002 draft: the Knicks or the Lakers?"), many of us would like to return the favor.
Thanks Jeff, I even thought about going to the newstand today. I had seen Lindy's and had cringed. I seem to recall (this was over a week ago when I read it, but this is close) that Tex Winter in analyzing Francis' weaknesses said "he looks like he's afraid to play defense" and "I'm afraid he's just not a system guy". Great things to say about a point guard. That analysis has kind of kept me away from the newstands. But I am always interested in what the pundits barf out, especially this year. Thanks again.
Thanks, Jeff, great reporting, now I know what NOT 2 buy! I still CAN"T believe that the rank the "Admiral" ahead of the "DREAM"!!!??? What were they smoking!?
Thanks Jeff. Great summary, i probably won't buy any of them, just cuz i think i can form my own opinion on where teams stand, but i find it interesting where the writers put them (just not 5 bucks interesting). But i liked your summarys.
The one I've liked so far is called "Baketball News". Comes out before the season every year, but hasn't come out just yet. Like their format, but still, I've become such a rabid bball fan that there isn't really anything I don't know in any of those mags. Jeffy, did you buy all these mags or just browse through them? Those things are too damn expensive.
This is pitiful- rating an entire yearbook based on a limited sample- whether they profiled your preferred team accurately. How about the rest of the league, the other articles, the fantasy prediction, next year's draft, etc., etc., etc. The title of this thread should be as follows: "NBA Preview Rags rated according to the tastes of the Houston Rockets homers"
After having read preview mags in just about every sport at some point, I have come to the conclusion that they all suck. The writers don't know any more about sports than I do...they just happen to have Francis' scoring average on Thursday home games with a full moon, and I don't.
I'm with you, Crisco- BBall NewZ is the phattest yearbook in town. Hey, whatever happened to those old zines where every player was rated, according to particular skills, such as Defense, inside scoring, outside scoring, floor leadership, intangibles, etc.? i think 1999 or 1998 was the last one. Imagine the depression i immediately sunk into once i realized they weren't churning those technical, informative yearbooks anymore. In fact, i do think my bball knowledge has suffered after they stopped cranking those yearbooks out (that also went for pro football too) ~Subjectivist~
Jeff, thanks a bunch for the reports from the NBA Preview magazines! You just saved me money in picking them up. I understand that they want to get a jump on the season but it doesn't make any sense to release these things this early. They do this in football too. Too many player transactions and such happen AFTER these rags are released and pretty much make their assesments pointless, not to mention that some of them are completely off the mark to begin with! Chris
Seems TSN's review of Yao and the Rockets wasn't as bad as Jeff mentioned; maybe I'm thinking of a different mag. Has the 2002-03 Fantasy Basketball magazine come out? The team write-ups...well, I don't remember how good those are...but every player in the league gets a little writeup. It's about 10 bucks but I usually like it. Haven't seen this year's version, though.
This SHOULD have been at the bottom of the list...even if it gave the most wonderful, accurate, and thorough analysis of the Rockets upcoming season that could ever possibly be created...it still should have been at the bottom of the list. That is absolutely disgusting.
Thanks Jeff for the skinny on these rags. Everyone should put the $20 you just saved us in the tip jar. I agree with the other posters, that I can form my own opinions on the team.
I could live with Shaq ahead of Dream. . .if he had stayed with the team that actually drafted him. I don't think Orlando got all that great a return on the investment. the person who put the Admiral ahead of the Dream is clearly a Spur fan. that is the only conceivable explanation. that or a gun held to a head.
OK, The Admiral better player than Dream is not even a joke, it's a sick lunacy... However, and I am just being the devil's advocate here, if you are talking which one was a better pick, then maybe you have to factor in that Rockets could have picked Jordan instead? I don't know...
