Number Five-The Orlando Magic
Dwight Howard is not Super Man and even with Vince Carter’s help The Magic are just barely an elite team. Still, The Magic are good enough. After the Magic, the rest of the league doesn’t count.
Number Four-The San Antonio Spurs
Right now Texas has three real solid teams that are well coached. San Antonio is the best of them this year. Tim Duncan should be injury free. Tony Parker played like a NBA Live version of himself last year by becoming a scoring machine. Plus Parker is still in his twenties with more than 10 years of NBA experience. Manu Ginobili is expected to be healthy this year as well. Then add to this mix former all-star forward Richard Jefferson and The Spurs can play with any team. The only negative to the Spurs will be Greg Popovitch demanding the team play the most boring brand of winning basket ball you’ll ever see.BE ON THE LOOK OUT FOR: Forward DeJuan Blair is playing with a level of excitement and showmanship that’s been missing in “San An” since George Gervin and Gene Banks. Hopefully Popovich will let this “horse” run a little bit.
Number Three-The Cleveland Cavaliers
LeBron James is without a doubt a one man gang. The problem’s been to win in The NBA you need a team. To win and play into the summer play off months you need a team and at least two super star calibre players. So during the off season “The Cavs” picked up Shaquille O’Neal. Now the question will be how long will it take for Shaq and Le Bron to be able to co-exist and win? Will we see “The Super Man Shaq” that delivered championship rings for Kobe Bryant and Duane Wade? Or will we see the Bizarro-Shaq that seemed to make a Phoenix Suns team with Steve Nash and Amari Stoudemire worse? BE ON THE LOOK OUT FOR: Maybe a new coach. They love Mike Brown in Cleveland but his ability to draw up other plays besides “give the ball to Lebron” remains to be seen.
Number Two-The Los Angeles Lakers
Rule number one; is that the champs are the champs until somebody beats them. The problem is this Lakers team didn’t play the real Eastern Champs last year. Some how, Orlando defeated Boston and Cleveland and ended up in the NBA Finals. That won’t happen this year. Barring an out break of clumsiness and “scrub-itus” The Boston Celtics will return to get back what they feel is their championship. Still The Lakers have the best closer in the NBA in Kobe Bryant who last year learned how to share. If we see that Kobe as opposed to the selfish kid who never saw a shot he wouldn’t take? The Lakers will be in great shape to come out of the west this year.BE ON THE LOOK OUT FOR: Ron Artest’s ability to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. In the past Artest has been known to melt down. If Artest complains about having to share the ball with Kobe? A team National Impact considers a consensus number two could quickly fall out of the status of elite teams.
Number One-The Boston Celtics
# 1 Boston Celtics-The Celtics have, what should be a super team. The last time an NBA team like this was put together Karl Malone and Gary Payton teamed with Shaq and Kobe. The difference between that Lakers team that got robbed in the play offs and this Boston team is coaching. Doc Rivers will successfully be able to coach not just manage his super star team. Rivers will get Ray Allen’s jump shot back on track. He will inspire Paul Pierce to believe he is the number 3 or 4 player in the league. More importantly Rivers will get Pierce to out play the number 2 player in Kobe Bryant again. Rivers will keep Kevin Garnett’s minutes low until the playoffs. Rivers will by the end of the season find a way for KG to play power forward and Rasheed Wallace to play small forward. Rivers ability to make adjustments in a 7 game series will ensure that by the time The National Impact Baseball preview comes out Boston will be NBA champs again.
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