9 Predictions for the 2013-14 season 1. Pau Gasol will get traded When you are a rebuilding team, as the Lakers are, and when you are a rebuilding tam that does not have many future No. 1 draft picks (the Lakers owe their second-round pick in 2014 to Milwaukee, their 2015 first-round pick to Phoenix and their 2015 and 2017 second-rounders to Orlando), you have to go out and get new ones. Look at what Boston did: When the Celtics traded Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry to the Nets, they got back three first-rounders plus the right to swap places in an additional first round. Nobody on LA has more trade value than Gasol, who is in the final year of his contract and can be the difference-maker for a championship team. My thought is that the Chicago Bulls will go after him the hardest, because they need him to match up with Indiana (and Miami) and they have the assets to get a deal done (though a third under-the-cap team – like Philly – would be needed to be a facilitator). Chicago has the rights to a future Charlotte Bobcats pick (protected 1-10 in 2014, 1-8 in 2015 and unprotected in 2016). 2. The 76ers will be the worst NBA team of all time Chevy Vega, a best-seller in 8/74. They will need to win 10 games to avoid matching the worst 82-game record in NBA history, set by their predecessors in 1972-73. And they do not have a lot to work with outside of Spencer Hawes and Evan Turner (especially when Hawes is the better shooter). Do you know who James Anderson is? He is one of the projected starters for this motley crew. Do you know who Andrew Wiggins is? (You should.) He is the top prize in the ballyhooed draft class of 2014, and Philadelphia will want to lose as much as possible to increase its chances of winning the draft lottery (even though no NBA team with the worst record has won the lottery since Orlando in 2004. 3. The Pacers will be atop the East for most of the regular season No team improved as much in the offseason than the Pacers. (And yes, Nets fans, that includes you. KG, PP and Jet were all nice players – once. But did you see them fall apart last season?) The additions of Luis Scola and Chris Copeland were huge for a team that had zero bench strength last season, yet still took Miami to Game 7 of the conference finals. And when you add Scola’s low-post repertoire to the multi-faceted games of Roy Hibbert and David West, this team can beat you down low better than anyone in the Association. Plus they have Danny Granger back, which makes Lance Stephenson less of a make-or-break commodity. Get out your calendar and circle these dates: Dec. 10; Dec. 18; March 26; and Apr. 11 — those nights bring us Pacers-Heat games. 4. Adam Silver will be a popular commissioner The NBA does not do popular commissioners, and the fans in Brooklyn let Silver have it at the start of the second round at the NBA draft. But that was just for fun. Silver is a protegé of David Stern; Silver’s father was actually Stern’s mentor when Easy Dave was a young, aspiring attorney. But he does not carry himself with the type of grumpy “I’m smarter than you” demeanor that Stern relished showing off. Whereas Stern came off as a dictator, Silver comes off more as a head of state – much more diplomatic. And while Stern liked to remind everyone who is boss (he used to terrify young NBA staffers by grilling them in the elevator on their knowledge of the game), Silver is much more cheerful and easygoing. He is patient, not impatient, and wise without coming off as a wise guy. He has already made one long overdue change – going back to a 2-2-1-1-1 format for the NBA Finals – and it says here his next change will be allowing teams to put advertisements on their game jerseys in such a way as to not overwhelm the team name and logo. In other words, small ads. Trust me, this is going to be like a preview of post-Castro Cuba. 5. Trey Burke will be the Rookie of the Year The Jazz decided in February that the Michigan point guard was the guy they wanted in the draft, and they made the necessary moves on draft night, dealing picks 14 and 21 to Minnesota for the No. 9 pick) to ensure that they got their man. Burke will have an opportunity to do what Damian Lillard did in Portland last season — play somewhere in the area of 40 minutes per night and put up heavy numbers as a result. It will help if Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter have honed their pick-and-roll games, because Burke’s assist numbers and assist-to-turnover ratio will be especially scrutinized if he has a worthy competitor when it comes time to vote. If the Jazz can win 30 or more games, it will help his cause tremendously. But if Burke’s shooting percentage is below 40, it will hurt him. His main competition, IMHO, will come from Anthony Bennett in Cleveland, where the Cavs will be a playoff team (and please, please let there be a Cavs-Heat first-round playoff series). 6. Nikola Vucevic will put up better numbers than Roy Hibbert Not that it will matter on the All-Star ballot, because you can’t vote for centers anymore. But I am a huge fan of Vucevic, who was the prize acquisition in the ill-fated Dwight Howard-to-the-Lakers deal. (Howard and Andre Iguodala turned out to be one-year rentals and Andrew Bynum never played a game for Philly. Can’t wait to see what Rob Hennigan ends up getting for Jameer Nelson at the deadline. He has set the bar pretty high for himself.) FYI, last season Hibbert averaged 11.9 points and 8.3 rebounds, shooting 44.8 percent. Vucevic averaged 13.1 points and 11.9 rebounds on 52 percent shooting, so this does not qualify so much as a prediction as a statement of the obvious. 7. Steve Novak will make more 3-pointers than Andrea Bargnani First of all, Novak is a better shooter. Flat-out. Second, Glen Grunwald threw in a first-round pick and two second-round picks. When you include the two second-round picks he sent to Houston in the Marcus Camby trade, it makes for an astonishing five (or six, if you include Toney Douglas, who went in the Camby deal) draft picks to acquire the only player in Toronto who was nearly as unpopular as Vince Carter. For the record, Bargnani made 38 3-pointers (on 123 attempts) in 35 games last season, playing an average of 29 minutes, while Novak worked his way into Mike Woodson’s doghouse and shot 149-for-351 on 3s. The previous season, Novak made 133 and led the league in accuracy. Bargnani was 34-for-113 that season (29 percent). 8. Canada will get a wild-card berth into the 2014 World Cup In a disappointing finish at the Tournament of the Americas, Canada failed to make it to the elimination round, falling short in its final attempt by losing to Argentina. Mexico went on to win the tournament, and you could have had 500-1 odds on that happening. Tournament MVP Gustavo Ayon will be playing for the Hawks this season, FYI. The Bucks waived him amid their decision to extend Larry Sanders for $44 million. Anyway, if Andrew Wiggins commits to playing on Team Canada in 2014, it says here that Canada will get one of the four wild-card berths disbursed by FIBA in late November (China and Italy are virtual shoo-ins). Canada can field a team of five NBA starters, too, including Tristan Thompson, Anthony Bennett, Kelly Olynyk, Andrew Nicholson and Cory Joseph. They have some other youngsters in their junior program that will make them medal contenders at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. 9. The Pelicans will make the playoffs Basically, there are two spots up for grabs from last year’s playoff field – the one that went to the Lakers, and the one that went to the Nuggets. The Lakers will be in Tankapalooza mode even before they trade Gasol, so we can count them out, and the Nuggets will be without Danilo Gallinari at the start of the season after losing Andre Iguodala and Kosta Koufos from their starting lineup and Masai Ujiri and George Karl from their team hierarchy. So who is in contention for those two spots? I’m telling you, the Pelicans are one of them. Anthony Davis is on his way to becoming the NBA’s best American-born center, Tyreke Evans and Jrue Holiday are outstanding additions, and Ryan Anderson can light it up like he did back in Orlando now that he is surrounded by other players who can break down defenses and kick out to an open teammate at the 3-point line. I’ve got them sneaking/surging into the No. 8 spot with a great finishing kick in April. -Chalmers
Posted on: Mon, 07 Oct 2013 20:02:09 +0000
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