haven't been on this blogger ish in a minute ... it's gonna be like this from now on I guess ... but with the NBA season around the corner, I wanted to weigh in on that ...
-2010 NBA Finals: The Los Angeles Lakers over The Boston Celtics in a 7-Game Heavyweight fight ... adding Ron Artest and Rasheed Wallace to those already stacked teams is a throwback to the hard-nosed basketball of the 80's and early 90's ...
-in the East: Boston is the team to beat barring injury ... The Orlando Magic IMO made merely a lateral move by supplanting Hedo Turkoglu with Vince Carter, but they're still gonna be tough ... people seem to be bigging up the Shaquille O'Neal signing in Cleveland, but real talk, the "difference-maker" Shaq, I haven't seen him since 2004 ... IMO the sleepers in the conference are: Washington, Detroit and yes I'll say it, Toronto ... but more on them later ... to the other squads, thanks for coming out ...
-in the West: It's the Lakers' conference to lose ... Denver and San Antonio will continue to be solid, but at the end of the day don't have enough firepower to keep up with the Lakers ... people are definitely sleeping on Dallas ... Portland won't catch anyone by surprise this year, with Brandon Roy and Lamarcus Aldridge's continued improvement and the addition of Andre Miller, they should be even better ... Utah's alright, but they don't impress me ... everyone else, pshhhhh ...
-given that I have a 'vested stake in this squad until 2012, I'll go on record now by saying, if Jay Triano removes the blinders and starts Jarrett Jack, J-Smooth will return to Raptor Nation until the end of '12 ... as for the team ... Hedo Turkoglu gives the Raps a LEGIT 2nd option to Chris Bosh, no more scrubs like Anthony Parker for Bryan Colangelo to sell us on ... re: Jack, like I said on Facebook "attacking the rim, pushing the ball, keeping a man in front, all from the PG position ... a new concept in Raptorland" ... Reggie Evans, my definition of the Anti-Raptor, which is toughness ... Demar DeRozan needs time to develop, but Antoine Wright should be a nice role-player for them in the meantime ... in all honesty, everyone else on the squad is expendable ... call me nuts, but I see them winning 50 games, based on the fact that they were trash last year, thus a lot of teams will be sleeping on them ...
~J-Smooth~
2 comments:
I watched them last night, expect more of the same as last year, just with one guy concerned with rebounding. I like what evans brings to them, but I dont see much improvement. I expect Belinelli to log heavy minutes. Same old, same old. 35 games at most.
The best lineup they can put on the floor is:
Bosh/Evans/Turkoglu/Wright/Jack
but these are the Raptors and we both know better, this lineup will only see 5 mins together max per game
but with the improved D from evans, wright and jack, combined with the opposition sleeping on them, they'll be able to sneak out some wins, I'll stand by 50
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