NBA Preseason Primer

It's the most wonderful sports time of the year!

Football season is in full swing, basketball is less than a week away, and baseball is almost finished.

(Note: Baseball is boring. Who cares if baseball is "Americas Pastime". The keyword in that phrase is 'PAST'. I'm a huge sports dan and I didn't go to one Mariners game this year. End of rant.)

The only thing that could make this time of the sports year better is if the NHL went on strike again!

Most of you are casual NBA fans and are only reading this for one of the following reasons:
A) You are using the restroom and already caught up on Instagram and Twitter.
B) You think I'm 50% funny about 50% of the time.
C) You are related to me.

I'm calling this my NBA PRESEASON PRIMER. It's basically 10 things to think about before the season gets started. These are in no particular order.

1) THE SPURS WE'RE BASICALLY "CO-CHAMPIONS" LAST SEASON
I get mad every time I see that Ray Allen corner 3 pointer. (cough, cough, TRAVEL, cough cough) The Spurs were SOOO close to winning the title. That was as even a series as I have ever seen. Of course, everyone is dismissing the Spurs again because they are "to old", "to slow" and "not exciting". I've been hearing that jargon for 10 years. I think they can be better this year. Kawhi Leonard looks ready to be an all star. They added Marco Belinelli who is an upgrade off the bench. And Matt Bonner signed a new deal to continue wearing New Balances. All is well.

2) THERE ARE 10 LEGIT NBA TITLE CONTENDERS
WEST
San Antonio Spurs
Oklahoma City Thunder
LA Clippers
Houston Rockets
Memphis Grizzlies

EAST
Miami Heat
Indiana Pacers
Chicago Bulls
Brooklyn Nets
New York Knicks

3) THE NEW YORK KNICKS ARE ALL KINDS OF CRAZY
There is a theory that you need some crazy on your team to truly contend for a title. I buy into this and think that most teams can handle 1 or 2 crazy guys. That is if you have a solid culture, good coaching and sound veterans. The Knicks have ALL KINDS OF CRAZY and lack most of the other combatting pieces. Here is a quick rundown:

• Metta World Peace - Probably holds the title of "Craziest NBA Player Ever". Even Dennis Rodman never changed punched any fans.
• JR Smith - Good player who ends up on TMZ more than Sportscenter. He's also rumored to be trying out for the new version of prison break...he's already got the tattoo map thing going.
• Carmello Anthony - He could choose free agency this summer...meaning he's probably gunning to be the highest paid player in the league. And his girl LaLa may want out of NYC.
• Kenyon Martin - He has a red lips tattoo on his neck.
• Jeremy Tyler - Left high school after his junior year to go play pro ball in Europe. Who does that?

4) TANKING

This next years draft is supposed to be the most loaded of the past 15 years. There are at least 7 teams (BOS, PHI, UTA, CHA, ORL, PHX, SAC) that appear to be tanking to get a higher draft pick. And I see 5 others that may join the party if they struggle early (TOR, DAL, POR, MIL, WAS). Many are calling this "Riggin For Wiggins". Andrew Wiggins is the expected #1 pick last year. He'll be a freshman at Kansas.

5) PELICANS IS AN AWESOME NICKNAME

Take a gander over to YouTube and search for PELICAN ATTACK. It's mildly entertaining. The new Pelicans uniforms are very strong an
d have a classic color scheme. And the timing is good to make a change because they've retooled their roster at the same time. Ultimately, I'm just glad that the Hornets name is freed up to go back to Charlotte...which could also rebirth the puffy Starter jacket trend.

6) THE LA CLIPPERS WILL BE BETTER...BUT STILL HAVE HOLES

Doc Rivers becoming their coach will be a HUGE deal. Few coaches can motivate and relate with players like Doc. However, he doesn't have Kevin Garnett to anchor his defense. Instead, he gets Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. Both guys just want to block shots on the defensive end. Also, neither of these guys can shoot free throws. So at the end of games, opponents just need to foul them. Jordan shot 25% from the free throw line after the the all star break last season. Thats abysmal. I think they will probably be the #1 seed in the west after a stellar regular season, but won't make it to the conference finals.

7) WE NOW GET TO SEE WHO THE REAL LAKER FANS ARE

Most bandwagon jumpers made it off the Lakers bandwagon and onto the Heat bandwagon safely. Very few injuries occurred. Those of you who still are touting the Lakers...I commend you. Because they are really going to struggle mightily this year.

8) THE WARRIORS STAY THE SAME

They are the "sexy team" in the NBA right now. Great shooting, young players, passionate coach, fun uniforms. They even added an all star to their team in Andre Igoudala. However, I feel that last seasons run was a fluke. They defeated a beat up Nuggets team who obviously had some infighting in the locker room (Note: they fired their coach...and he was the NBA Coach of the Year). Then they played the Spurs tough for a few games after San Antonio had been off for about a week. There are to many injury prone guys on the Dubs (Steph Curry, David Lee, Andrew Bogut) and they aren't deep enough to overcome that.

9) NBA JERSEYS ARE GETTING OUT OF CONTROL

I like the short sleeved jersey look from most of the teams that have worn them. I usually play basketball in a tee shirt, so I would probably be ok with playing in a jersey-tee. But what is on the horizon is scaring me. There are rumors of long sleeved jerseys, nicknames on the back instead of last names, and jerseys where everything is one color (jersey, name, number). This all seems a bit to MLS to me. Even my Spurs are getting to radical after introducing these camp uniforms. Yuck.

10) DERRICK ROSE IS REALLY GOOD

Three years ago he was the leagues MVP. He took all of last season off to rehab. So he should be ready to go at full strength. The roster around him in Chicago is built to win now. Most of their key players are in their prime
and they have great depth at every position. They defend better that any team in the NBA and they have guys who battle all night long (Noah, Butler, Deng, Gibson).

My NBA Finals prediction is Spurs over the Bulls in 6 games.

-Spencer