Chicago Bulls Confidential

Like Doug, I too hate preseason predictions. They will never, ever be accurate, because all predictions have to assume static rosters. You can't predict injuries or midseason transactions with any real ability - especially since the two are often reliant on each other - and as such, all predictions invariably wobble and collapse. No one will ever be 100% accurate, of course, but I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone be 85% accurate. There's just too many variables to these things, almost all of which are impossible to predict. All you can really do with a prediction is make yourself look dumb.

However, that doesn't mean that we can't have some healthy competition with it. Doug opened the bidding with his preseason ranking predictions yesterday, and that made things officially on.

I challenge thee, Thonus, to a predick-off. Here's what I got.

Best Of The East (50+ wins):

#1. Orlando Magic.

I generally refute any suggestion that preseason doesn't matter. Preseason games are NBA games featuring NBA teams playing to an NBA calibre. Sure, rotations aren't the same, results don't matter, and coaches tend to play players like Chris Richard in clutch time situations, but the games are still competitive

In preseason, the Magic were awesome. They racked up an 8-0 record, winning every game by an average of 7 jillion points, playing some of the league's best defense. To go with that defense, they have all the three point shooting you an handle, a 20 point per game interior scorer that you can't handle, and more than enough bench offense. They are stacked, multi-faceted, and extremely talented.

The Magic are going to put on a clinic this year. An absolute clinic. I believe they'll crack sixty wins, quite possibly be the best team in the regular season, and easily be the best in the East. Watch and learn.

#2. Boston Celtics

They only just beat us last season, but the Celtics have tooled up this past offseason. Take that playoff lineup, subtract no-one significant, and add Rasheed Wallace, Marquis Daniels, Lester Hudson and Shelden Williams. That's a lot better.

Sheed is basically limited to being a three point shooter these days. His decline has been accelerated, and the defense, rebounding and interior defense have all waned. Nevertheless, he still brings some of everything, and provides a quality backup to Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins where previously only Brian Scalabrine and Leon Powe stood. Hudson may be young and inexperienced, but he has plenty of swagger and is already far better than Stephon Marbury was for Boston. Daniels is everything Tony Allen was supposed to be, with the Predator hair and without the death threats. And Shelden Williams has been underrated for the last two years, providing physical defense, rebounding and a decent jumpshot, attributes that every team needs from its bench bigs.

More importantly, they retain the core four that once won a title. That's enough on its own to contend for the East.

Kevin Garnett remains the obvious question mark; if he's good to go, you could probably bump them up to first on this list. If he's not, you can move them down again. Either way, he's getting older and more injured, as is Paul Pierce, who barely runs forward these days. They have enough talent for one more title push, maybe two. But they have to move now.

3. Cleveland Cavaliers

I'm always partial to an argument that says that the team with the best player on it is always the favourite, but it's not always true. LeBron James is the best player in the world, but the best player he's ever played with is Maurice Williams. That's just not good enough.

The Ferry-era Cavaliers have always need massive infusions of talent to compliment James's talents, and in the 2008 offseason, they finally got some. But this offseason, they did themselves no favours. Apparently unaware that their frontcourt was dismantled by the athleticism and the youth of the Magic's big men last May, the Cavaliers decided to make their frontcourt even more old and slow by trading their principle trade assets for Shaquille O'Neal. Then, to fill their need of athletic swingman who can defend and shoot threes, they opted to sign Anthony Parker (who used to fill that need, but not for two years now) and Jamario Moon (who has struggled to be an average NBA player since the league finalised their scouting reports on him back in Febuary 2008).

That was how they changed their core. They spent the summer downgrading. James will do enough on his own to take them to the third seed and the second round, but he won't do enough on his own to beat the two teams above them.

Comfortably In The Playoffs (mid 40's wins):

4. Atlanta Hawks

I have no idea why the Hawks have chosen to give 2 years and $19.4 million to Jamal Crawford to be their backup combo guard, when Ronald Murray was available for 1 year and $2 million and performed almost identically last year. Yet that move, along with the drafting of Jeff Teague and the signing of Joe Smith, represents the Hawks' only efforts to improve over the summer. They spent the rest of their time and money bringing back last year's team.

Then again, last year's team was pretty good. It had a good balance of offense and defense, a strong starting five, and three quality backups in Murray, Zaza Pachulia and Maurice Evans. The only real need that the team had was more depth, and the additions of Teague and Smith (to replace Acie Law and Solomon Jones) will help with that. The Hawks remain one of the better teams in the East and an obvious playoff team, barring an outbreak of the T-Virus.

But the reason they're never going to join the East's absolute elite remains the same; there just isn't the talent there. Most of their players are good players, and Joe Johnson is a very good player. But when he's your best player, you peter out at the fourth seed.

5. Washington Wizards

You could easily claim that Washington will come eighth or ninth this year. And you could be right. This Washington team is impossible to pin down, mainly due to their perpetually injured core. And true to form, they're at it again; Antawn Jamison has suffered from inflammation in his shoulder, which will keep him out for the first few weeks of the season.

Then again, it would be hard to replicate the injury problems that they suffered last season. Back then, Gilbert Arenas suffered his second straight missed season, playing only the last few games, and starting centre Brendan Haywood (who had just broken out the previous season) missed the entire year as well. Without them, the season was wasted; a coaching change and a jarring lack of defensive personnel didn't help matters either.

The Wizards have added Randy Foye and Mike Miller to their team this year, adding yet more backcourt scoring options to a team that was doing all right in that department anyway. Regardless of any additions, though, injuries are the lynchpin to the Wizards' season, and it doesn't bode well that the hardiest member of their core has already suffered one. But if Gilbert Arenas is within 95% of what he used to be, and if Caron Butler remembers that he's an athletic finisher at the rim, then the Wizards should be in the East's top third, regardless of what other exotic diseases the rest of the roster can attract.

Roughly .500

6. Chicago Bulls

Ask me next week, and I'll have either added or subtracted ten wins.

7: Toronto Raptors

I really do not like the Toronto Raptors long term future. They have the third most committed salary in the entire NBA, and the two teams ahead of them were in last year's NBA Finals. The Raptors, meanwhile, win 33 games.

To rectify the losing, they spent. A lot. Bryan Colangelo continued his love affair with Andrea Bargnani by committing a $50 million extension to him early, then followed it up with a further $52.8 million for the ill-fitting Hedo Turkoglu. As mentioned earlier, I don't like the value of the Turkoglu deal, and the Bargnani deal only becomes validated if he continues to improve in every facet of the game. That means developing his post-up and dribble-drive games more (something he's doing better at every year), improving both his man-to-man and help defense (likewise), and no longer being a historically bad rebounder (no change here).They've spent all their cap flexibility for the next few years in one fell swoop, and that's rarely a good idea unless you're going to contend (see also: 2006 Chicago Bulls). And the Raptors aren't.

Nevertheless, for all the long term problems they may have to face, the Raptors did at least improve in the short term. Between the acquisitions of Turkoglu, DeMar Deroxan, Rasho Nesterovic, Jarrett Jack, Marco Belinelli and Antoine Wright, the Raptors have completed most of their checklist of things to do. They've added a backup centre, improved their guard depth, rebuilt their terrible wing rotation, and added yet more offense. If $243 million gets you anything, it gets you short term improvements.

It's still a very flawed construct of a roster, and it probably always will be. Colangelo doesn't seem to mind that his three starting big men are all sub-par rebounders and defenders. But it has enough talent to get them back into the playoffs. Let's hope that that's enough to achieve their primary aim; of pacifying Chris Bosh.

(No, wait, we're Bulls fans. Let's not hope for that.)

8. Milwaukee Bucks

I don't like Milwaukee's offseason, either. They spent their assets replacing their few bright spots from last season - letting Ramon Sessions and Charlie Villanueva walk,bringing in Brandon Jennings and Hakim Warrick - and stockpiling so much depth in average players that they start to become redundant (they had a third strong lineup of Roko Ukic, Jodie Meeks, Joe Alexander, Francisco Elson and Dan Gadzuric, plus a 10 man rotation in front of them; is all that really necessary?).

But even if some of the depth is superfluous, there's a lot of it. How many nuns would the Bulls kill to have Jodie Meeks as a sixth guard option right now? Several dozen, I'd assume. And Carlos Delfino and Ersan Ilyasova as forwards off the bench? Lovely. This is an obvious strength of the Bucks; they may not have any exceptional players, but they have a lot of solid ones. You need that, particularly when your best players get injured a lot.

More to the point, Scott Skiles gets results. We know this to be true. Even last year, with the Bucks two best players (Michael Redd and Andrew Bogut) combining to play in only 69 games, the Bucks still dragged themselves along to a 28-31 record at one point before running out of steam. If they have more luck with injuries, the Bucks have enough pieces in Jennings, Luc Richard Mbah A Moute, Andrew Bogut, Kurt Thomas and others to form a defensive system that will make them competitive every night, just like he used to do with us. And unlike the Skiles' era Bulls, they have offensive talent.

I have absolutely no idea what the long term projection of these Bucks can be. Scott Skiles hasn't made it to a year four with any team yet, which doesn't bode well down the road, and it's impossible to assess what direction the Bucks are going to go in when not even they know. (2008 offseason: 'win now.' Trade for Jefferson, sign Elson, etc. 2009 offseason: 'screw it, win later.' Dump Jefferson, stop spending, play the long game. Alrighty.) This is also the same team that drafts Joe Alexander over Brook Lopez, and then declines his third year option; I can't say I'm particularly buoyed by their current front office's talent evaluating skills.

But that doesn't mean anything next year. Next year, they could be a playoff team.

This is the prediction that I'm most likely to have to swivel on. Oh well.

Nearly .500, but not quite:

9. Miami Heat

Any improvement from the Miami Heat would have to come from within, because there wasn't any improvement in personnel this offseason. The Heat swapped Mark Blount for Quentin Richardson, re-signed Joel Anthony and Jamaal Magloire, replaced Luther Head and Jamario Moon with Carlos Arroyo and Shavlik Randolph....and that was it. There's not a significant addition amongst them.

Nonetheless, at least one of those players - Quentin Richardson - will play significant minutes. This isn't because he's good, but because the rest of the Heats non-Wade wing rotation has literally nothing going for it. The other options would be Dorell Wright, Yakhouba Diawara or James Jones; put simply,those are just not very good players.

The situation with the big men rotation is not brilliant either. Fluff pieces speak of Jermaine O'Neal's impending return to form, but the last three teams to have pinned their season's hopes on him never cracked the 40 win mark. And since he's still loping around on a knee brace large enough to have its own orbit, that doesn't look like it will change.

If Michael Beasley breaks out, the Heat could be a playoff team. Maybe they will be anyway; Wade has dragged a team single-handedly before, and he can do it again. But the Heat have not improved this summer, and most of their rivals have. That, combined with the lack of potential in their current roster, does not bode well.

10. Detroit Pistons:

Joe Dumars put together the core of Richard Hamilton, Chauncey Billups, Ben Wallace and Tayshaun Prince. At times, he has complimented that core with great role players, such as the trade for Rasheed Wallace and the signing of Antonio McDyess. He has earned the plaudits he got for building a team that was competitive for so many years, and that won a title along the way.

But he hasn't done a lot of right over the last few years, and definitely not over the last twelve months. He traded away Chauncey Billups for nothing more than cap space, and then used that cap space on a decent forward and a man that instantly went to the bench. He has now left himself with a team with only five good players on it, three of whom play the same position (Stuckey, Gordon, Hamilton), and one of whom is already highly disgruntled and wants out (Hamilton, supposedly).

They'll try to make the depth chart work. They'll keep trying to make Stuckey a point guard, get Hamilton some minutes at small forward, and play Ben Gordon starters minutes by hook or by crook. They also have some other nice pieces such as Will Bynum and Chris Wilcox, who will give the Pistons a further scoring punch. But the defense has gone, the star player is gone, the head coach has been changed (again), and the Pistons resemble a team of trade assets at this point. Teams of trade assets tend not to win.

Mid 30's and not as attractive as Milla Jovovich:

11. Indiana Pacers

The Pacers win totals the last three seasons; 35, 36, 36.

Departed this offseason: Rasho Nesterovic, Marquis Daniels, Jarrett Jack, Jamaal Tinsley, Maceo Baston, Stephen Graham.

Arrived this offseason: Earl Watson, Dahntay Jones, Tyler Hansbrough, Solomon Jones, Luther Head, A.J. Price.

At best, that's a wash. More realistically, that's a backwards step. For the Pacers to contend for the playoffs, Roy Hibbert is going to have to fulfill his maximum potential and average 22 points and 4 rebounds. If he doesn't, pencil them back in for the Jovovich. And add another one for the 2010/11 season. Rest assured, though; summer 2011 will be here soon.

12. New York Knicks

I do like the Seven Seconds Or Less offense. It can be ugly on the eye to see a team so afraid and/or disinterested in contesting shots around the rim, and some of the shot selection that it brings about can be frightening. But one of the things I like about basketball is the attraction of constant scoring. And at the very least, the Tony brothers bring that.

But what I don't like is the Knicks overall strategy of roster building. By all means, push for a cap space plan; it's a great way to try to obtain star players when you otherwise don't have any. Make trades such as Al Harrington for Jamal Crawford, and Zach Randolph for pap, as much as you like; those are good trades that represent a plan. But please don't do absolutely nothing at all. Don't just not bother building a future because it slightly hinders the total absolution of committed salary. That is essentially trying to not to win. And that's just not good for the game.

Because of the strategy, the Knicks now face another wasted season. The players know why they're there; they're there so that they may hopefully become LeBron James, and not in the same way that we're hoping James Johnson becomes LeBron James. How this affects them is hard to quantify, since a lot of the players are convicted chuckers already. But with no upgrades on the short term roster, no injury excuse to fall back on, and a stronger group of peers, the Knicks should be no better than they were last season.

The 20 Game Winners:

13. Charlotte Bobcats:

The Bobcats will almost certainly be the worst offensive team in the league last season. They have incredibly little outside shooting, no pick and roll game outside, and even less post-up offense than we do. They've not really addressed the need over the summer, either; the Bobcats ranked 27th offensively last season, as well as 27th in pace, but by swapping Emeka Okafor for Tyson Chandler, they've taken away what little interior offense they had.

Larry Brown can coach, and he's been able to assemble the roster in his vision. But what his vision is is not clear. This isn't a Bucks-type situation; even if the Bobcats maintain their good defense from last season, they don't have the offensive talent to take sufficient advantage of it. Gerald Wallace, D.J. Augustin and Raymond Felton are the team's go-to men; none of them should be go-to men.

The Bobcats challenged for a playoff spot last season, and they have at least improved their depth. But the Chandler/Okafor swap sets back their on-court product quite distinctly, and since it was only a lottery team to begin with, it still will be. A good draft is not enough.

14. Philadelphia 76ers

The best thing to do to a malformed team whose two best players play the same position and which suffers from a historic lack of three point shooting is to not rectify either flaw and to bring in an entirely new offense. Yep, definitely.

Philly's lack of outside shooting is pretty spectacular. They shot .318% from three point range last year, 49 points below their opponents, and hit less than 4 per game. They also have quite the positional identity crisis; Andre Iguodala is not a two guard, but he has to play there a lot because Thaddeus Young is only really a small forward as well. And while they'd like to work in some minutes for Young at power forward, doing so is difficult to do when you also have to incorporate Elton Brand's huge contract, as well as the frankly brilliant Marreese Speights. The depth chart is decidedly wonky, and by losing their only real point guard this summer, it's gotten no less wonky.

They've succeeded recently because of their defense, ranking 11th out of 30th last year, and they return much the same defensive lineup as last year. But it's been weakened a bit; gone are Andre Miller and Reggie Evans, replaced by Jrue Holiday and Jason Kapono, and Theo Ratliff has been replaced by Primoz Brezec. Holiday's a good defensive player, and the other two improve the team's shooting, but at the expense of the defense. Quite badly so, in fact.

Moreover, while Eddie Jordan's Princeton-style offense looks ill-suited to the personnel -- as evidenced by the fact that it's already being scaled back - he doesn't bring the reputation of being a good defensive coach either. By barely addressing their weaknesses, lessening their depth and diminishing their best strength as a unit, the Sixers don't look to me like a team that's going to improve any. Or even to sustain.




#15. New Jersey Nets

The good news is that they're not trying to win. The bad news is that they won't.

Aside from the ownership change, New Jersey couldn't have had a much less productive summer. They traded away Vince Carter for salary savings, swapped Ryan Anderson for Courtney Lee in the process, and drafted Terrence Williams. That's all they did. And it's going to make them a far worse team in the short term.

In theory, a lineup of Devin Harris, Lee, Williams, some arbitrary power forward and Brook Lopez makes for a strong potential defensive line-up down the road. It also boasts a good inside/outside offensive duo of Harris and Lopez, plus a developing scoring option in Chris Douglas-Roberts, and the only non-rookie contracts to extend beyond 2010 are those of Harris and Eduardo Najera.

But that's all in the long term. As of right now, the Nets have incredibly little depth, not enough talent, and the worst forward rotation in the developed world. With their $30+ million in expiring salary coming off the books next offseason, doing nothing wasn't a bad plan for a team in flux. Yet until the date that that cap room pays off for them, the Nets remain a team stuck firmly in the developmental phase. And that phase involves quite a lot of losing.

So then, Doug, are we on? Do we have a bet? Are you a betting man? What shall the terms of the bet be? A cheeseburger? Three million dollars? The ownership of the other man's soul? Name your terms.

You still have time to tweak your rankings. But it's on.