Rise: 1. Boston - Top 3 coach, decent young talent, marquee players want to go there and play for them, easy to bully weak conference 2. OKC - Too much of a risk for Durant to go anywhere else. GM had it right all along. 3. Clippers - Will finally stop underachieving , crying and attract marquee FA's 4. Lakers - Dynasty backcourt of Russell and Ingram with scrubs to fill the min cap for next few years, but expect big name FA's to sign there in 2+ years. Few years away , but steadily rising. 5. Orlando - Have all the right role players to make it work in the East - a horribly, ****ty conference 6. Minnesota - Maturing core of grown man talent Fall : 1. Memphis - Peaked as hustling but respected first round fodder, peddling Parsons as a second star to appeal to suburban bro's will show in their W/L column and spineless playoff showings as an 8th seed. 2. Houston - The epitome of mediocrity for the last decade, will be forced to trade Harden within the next 18 months and start a rebuilding project they never had the balls to (nerd incompetence - groupthink) after Yao went down. 3. Dallas - Not much to fall from, another mediocre team with no future and an owner everyone knows is all talk and flash, without an eye for talent 4. GSW - Yesterday's news. Carried by Thompson and Green in the playoffs, exposed by OKC and Cleveland, expect them to be frequently upset in the playoffs over the next 3 years. 5. Chicago - Kool aid, bad owners, red flag for FA's 6. Atlanta - Memphis of the East - tough scrimmage team and nothing more
Lakers? Lol Ronny, you are just a Kobe fan You do not care about his ex ballclub and they are stuck with bad contracts.
Saying the Lakers are a team on the rise after they only won 17 games is very easy (and silly). They signed Mozgov, JJ and Clarkson. Big time UFAs didn't give them the time of day. The franchise is dead in the water until sold to competent ownership. There is no reason to believe the Clippers are on the rise unless KD sign there, which is extremely doubtful. After the Magic got owned by OKC in the Ibaka trade, they sign a very limited player in Biyombo. IMO, their long-term future looks worse now than right after the season ended. Frank Vogel is an improvement over Scott Skiles, but that isn't saying much.
Alot of scrubs will get $$$ to hit the minimum cap. Whining over every contract Solomon Hill and Rivers get won't change that. The 4 yr, $50 mil are the new MLE's. Marquee FA's want to be the piece to put them over the hump - the rest is in place.
I have nothing against the money Rivers got. I have everything against your conclusion that the clips are somehow now more attractive to marquee FAs. Nothing that happened this summer should lead you to that conclusion
The Warriors are not on the fall. The Cavs had to play manic defense and get lucky to win the way they did. Most would have succumb to bad luck against what the Warriors did even with the defensive endeavor the Cav's had. Warriors still the most efficient team on offense and defense and will probably win the chip next year..
How is OKC on the rise when they have 1 year left before being a bad lottery team once KD/Russ leave?
If it was that much of common sense, there would be no need for a thread about the topic. Philly, logically, should be a riser then, no?
Lol obviously. Gsw is not on the fall. Houston could go either way. Just the way they brought back the same team basically but opted to be hot garbage!
I honestly don't know what to think of that Orlando roster. Elfrid Peyton Fournier(?) Hezonja Gordon Ibaka bench Jeff Green Augustin Meeks Biyambo ..and a new coach in Vogel who honestly got a crappy roster in Indy to overachieve. I mean, they lack a go to scorer/playmaker - that's obvious...but if one of those young guys takes "the big leap" next year(like Paul George did under Vogel) or if a couple of those guys make small leaps, they could be a playoff team in the East fairly easily. Maybe not a true contender, but it could be an interesting team...or a complete disaster - I haven't decided which.
