Posted by Nalod:

Miami has too much bone head talent. The sum must be greater than the pieces. Too many chiefs, not enough indians! (role players)

While I agree with that for the most part. They still have Shaq and that makes them the team to beat in the East. I think on any regular team that is assembled with too many stars, like the Heat have done, that it would be a problem but they still have Shaq and that my friends is MORE then enough.

Posted by HARDCOREKNICKSFAN:

Knicks at 20??

I like to leave upside surprise for the Knicks.
I don't have a clue what they are or who is actually playing where, so I discounted them for question marks in the frontline. I had the guards ranked in the top ten and the frontline near the end of the pile and you put a little more emphasis on the frontline.. In the case of Utah, I ranked them dead last in guards and while they have a nice frontline, it's filled with chemistry problems.
I think Philly and the Celtics are on course for disaster. Philly which had all that PF firepower to start last season, replace it with an energy C who is not a PF and will have heavy reliance on a gimp--Webber.

Boston, to me they are an expansion team +Pierce and Ricky Davis. I dont know what the F they are doing-i like jefferson, but they are acting like he is dwight howard, and he is not even sweetney yet.

I put the Clippers as the surprise team 5th seed west, but if you really evaluate just what they have right now, I think its a fair position.

Clev--they probably improved the most, even more than Miami if you think about it reasonably. Larry Hughes is very close to an all star player and Donyell Marshall is a real nice fit, they have tremenous length and the best wing player in the game--maybe the best player? in the game in Lebron. they didnt go through radical change, which I think is important. I think they will add a PG and third big.

Listen, it's a horrible ranking, but it doesn't matter, b/c the offseason isn't over yet. We can do this again closer to October, when teams start putting the finishing touches on their roster...

[Edited by - bobs3304 on 08-20-2005 1:18 PM]

utah has both the 25th and the 27th best teams in the NBA. the state of Utah should seriously think about merging the two teams into one powerhouse

Posted by bigpimpin:

utah has both the 25th and the 27th best teams in the NBA. the state of Utah should seriously think about merging the two teams into one powerhouse

I think he meant to put the Sixers in one of those spots. I am more interested that he believes that the Lakers will jump up to be the 11th best team in the NBA. That jump will be just as significant as the Suns jump. To me I don't see it. You have to be super believers in Brown and Bynum because Kobe and Odom both have high caliber years and they finished just sightly ahead of the Knicks last season.

kidding... Pacers, Heat, Spurs and ... Houston. (yep, I think last year they were better than they showed in the playoffs, and I've not been convinced anybody out west has done anything to make their teams better)

I always felt artest played "big", which used to save them against the other teams toughy.

Well if Granger pans out, you think they'd play Artest at the 4 at all?

i like Houston also, but i'm not seeing anything in that team that leads me to believe they can stop Nash and Amare.