The Atlanta Hawks pulled off a major surprise last season, soaring to the top of the Eastern Conference and making the first Eastern Conference Finals in franchise history. Which team might become this year’s Hawks… or simply outperform expectations to a considerable degree, perhaps by nabbing a No. 8 playoff seed instead of being buried in the middle of the lottery pack?
Our roundtable tackles this issue today:
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SEAN WOODLEY
Sacramento gave snarky NBA writers a never-ending stream of comedic material this offseason. DeMarcus Cousins and George Karl may or may not have a problem with each other; the team traded away a former lottery pick and future picks for cap space to use on a player they didn’t even sign; and Rajon Rondo is now the starting point guard. This team is all kinds of weird.
Yet, there is also talent.
Cousins is a top-15 player. Ben McLemore and Marco Belinelli will provide much-needed spacing. The versatility in the frontcourt provided by Cousins, Rudy Gay, Kosta Koufos and Willie Cauley-Stein will allow Karl to experiment with different styles of play. This probably isn’t a playoff team, but a .500 record and a ninth-place finish aren’t out of the question.
JARED MINTZ
As difficult as it feels to select a Western Conference team due to the likelihood that there’s little room for teams to move up, I think the Phoenix Suns stand as good a chance as any non-OKC, non-playoff team from last season to make their way into the playoff picture.
I’m worried about the Markieff Morris drama, but the addition of Tyson Chandler should help ‘Kief both on and off the court, mainly on. That’s the great thing about Chandler — he’s a great teammate who does the little things, the dirty work if you will. He’s a great help defender, and he knows where to be on offense even though he barely has plays run for him. He is the big man the Suns have desperately missed for years.
Chandler will serve as a great mentor to Morris and third-year big Alex Len. Having offensive pieces like Eric Bledsoe, Brandon Knight, T.J. Warren, and rookie shooter Devin Booker makes this team as dangerous as any non-OKC, non-playoff team from last season.
BRYAN GIBBERMAN
You can go in many different directions with this answer, such as a middle of the road playoff team making a jump or a non-playoff team reaching playoff status. I’m going to go with the latter, because I’m in on the Phoenix Suns. They have more depth than people realize, and their starting five of Tyson Chandler, Markieff Morris, P.J. Tucker, Brandon Knight and Eric Bledsoe is strong. Phoenix might not have a “superstar,” but the Suns have a lot of talent with pieces that fit well together. I see the Suns making the playoffs in a tough Western Conference.
JOE MANGANIELLO
Andre Drummond hasn’t known any other way in the NBA besides awkwardly shuffling around Greg Monroe in the post. Lineups built around Drummond and Monroe were too slow of foot to guard anybody, and a lack of spacing made points hard to come by. Heading into Stan Van Gundy’s second season, the Detroit Pistons have finally turned the team completely over to Drummond — Monroe’s in Milwaukee, and Drummond is surrounded by shooting. His pick-and-roll partnership with Reggie Jackson looked strong in limited time last season, and Detroit should flirt with being a top-10 offense. Drummond should crack his first All-Star team, and Detroit will fight like hell to make the playoffs for the first time since 2009.
MATT ZEMEK
I didn’t think this would be a surprise pick, but when NBA general managers tabbed the Milwaukee Bucks to finish seventh in the Eastern Conference, I realized I had no choice.
The Bucks will finish in the top four of the East this season. Skeptics do have a point — the team was not the same since the Brandon Knight trade. Yet, Jason Kidd has shown that he’s a very resourceful and able coach who will get this team to defend at a high level. Moreover, the absence of Jabari Parker from the lineup last season means that if he plays 75 games this season, Milwaukee should become a much better offensive team.
Yes, much like Memphis, Milwaukee does seem to have too many of the same kinds of players. The Bucks have a lot of long, rangy defenders, much as Memphis has a lot of fours and fives as it seeks to impose its strengths on the opposition while failing to address its chief weaknesses. The Bucks, like the Grizzlies, suffer from a noticeable lack of perimeter shooting. That could be their downfall this season.
Yet, I look at the East and see stagnation in the middle tier of playoff seeds. Toronto, Washington, and Atlanta are three teams which should not move upward in the standings this season. The Bucks are young and growing. They can fill in that vacuum below the Cavs, the Bulls, and the Miami Heat, which appear to be (to me) the likely top three seeds in the East this season.
The Bucks in seventh? I’d say fourth, and certainly with a strong chance of playing in the 4-5 first-round matchup in the East.
