2018 Preview

Is This 2018 NBA Team Any Good?: Minnesota Timberwolves

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by Fox Doucette The Minnesota Timberwolves added Jimmy Butler to a team that already has Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins. They shipped out Ricky Rubio, who can’t shoot and who gets as many assists as he does precisely because he can’t shoot and has to get rid of the ball to guys who can (Rajon Rondo on the Celtics built his reputation that way.) They’re coached by a defensive mastermind in Tom Thibodeau. But this is also a team that couldn’t guard anyone last year, that always seemed to be less than the sum of its parts, and that had …

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2018 Preview

Is This 2018 NBA Team Any Good?: Portland Trail Blazers

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by Fox Doucette Seattle, where this site is based, is not the hotbed of NBA activity it once was. Most of this city’s denizens hold nostalgia for the Sonics; the folks my age remember Payton and Kemp, while the grizzled old folks remember the ’79 title team that brought this city its first (and, until the Seahawks won Super Bowl 48, only) championship. Folks don’t follow today’s game, not since the team naffed off to Oklahoma City. Still, there are Blazers fans in the midst, folks who decided that the dream of the ’90s is alive in Portland, at least …

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2018 Preview

Is This 2018 NBA Team Any Good?: Utah Jazz

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by Fox Doucette The Utah Jazz won 51 games last year, dispatched the Clippers in the first round of the playoffs, then gave Golden State…not a damn bit of trouble, losing all four games by double digits and shooting 41.9 percent as a team for the series. But hey, the Warriors were 16-1 last year in the playoffs and put up one of the greatest seasons of all time, no reason to panic, right? Well, Gordon Hayward is on the Celtics now. It is time to panic. Utah is now left rebuilding a defensive identity and trying to be a …

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2018 Preview

Is This 2018 NBA Team Any Good?: Oklahoma City Thunder

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by Fox Doucette Russell Westbrook got himself some friends to play ball with this year. A team that featured Westbrook and nobody the goddamn hell else managed to win 47 games despite being the worst three-point shooting team (a cover-your-eyes 32.7 percent), completely incapable of getting an assist that Westbrook didn’t dish out (they were 25th in the league overall, and don’t blame the counting stat on pace; they were ninth-fastest in the Association), and exceptionally turnover-prone (19th in turnover percentage.) On the bright side, they were fantastic at offensive rebounds (grabbing a league-high 27.9 percent of that cavalcade of …

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2018 Preview

Is This 2018 NBA Team Any Good?: Houston Rockets

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by Fox Doucette Houston is the archetype of the modern NBA analytics revolution. The Rockets won 55 games last year by pulling off the curious combination of looking at the stats on the court and the effect that obvious lack of chemistry got them in real numerical terms. The eye test guys always squawk about how you can’t measure things like team chemistry. If that were the case, Dwight Howard’s departure wouldn’t have been good for 14 wins. The offense was 6.4 points per 100 possessions better, second only to Golden State’s unstoppable juggernaut in terms of efficiency. The defense, …

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2018 Preview

Is This 2018 NBA Team Any Good?: San Antonio Spurs

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by Fox Doucette Are the San Antonio Spurs any good? Of course they are. They’re the Spurs. Next question. “OK, wiseguy,” you may say at this point, “are the Spurs good enough to hold their ground in an increasingly top-heavy Western Conference and make a run at the Finals?” Well, of course they are. They’re the Spurs. Let’s take a closer look. Stats via Basketball Reference, over/unders via Sports Insights. 2016-17 Record: 61-21 2018 Over-Under: 54.5. The Spurs You Know And Love Tony Parker’s still rehabbing from offseason surgery but will be back around the All-Star Game if projections hold. …

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2018 Preview

Is This 2018 NBA Team Any Good?: New Orleans Pelicans

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by Fox Doucette One of this site’s biggest running catchphrases is the term “Scott-Hollins Syndrome”. Named after disgraced NBA coaches Byron Scott and Lionel Hollins, whose failure to embrace advanced analytics and the offensive tenets from which we draw our name here, it is our term for when a coach, team, or (Charles Barkley, looking at you) TV guy shoot themselves in the foot with their ignorance of modern basketball. Well, if Scott-Hollins Syndrome put on an NBA uniform and trotted out a team, it would be the 2017-18 New Orleans Pelicans. The Pellies feature DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis, …

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2018 Preview

Is This 2018 NBA Team Any Good?: Memphis Grizzlies

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by Fox Doucette The Memphis Grizzlies have finally, sort of, not really, blown up a squad that might singlehandedly have demolished the idea that sportswriters ought to be in NBA front offices. Since John Hollinger gave Lionel Hollins his walking papers for being half of the namesake of one of this site’s coinages for eye-test dinosaurs (as in Scott-Hollins Syndrome), the team has gone from 56-26 to 50-32, 55-27, 42-40, and 43-39, as Mike Conley’s $33 Million Salary has been good for an 87 rating in NBA 2K18, Zach Randolph’s been shipped out of town and his pumpkin turned back …

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2018 Preview

Is This 2018 NBA Team Any Good?: Dallas Mavericks

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by Fox Doucette Man, it’s been a long summer, hasn’t it? As a guy who doesn’t get too deep into the offseason stuff (I wouldn’t do any better on “Who He Play For?” than does Charles Barkley), this has been a bit like a school teacher’s summer, and change in the offseason has been as much a part of my life (new apartment, new girlfriend, new-ish night job I’ve had since April) as it has for 30 teams across the NBA. With that in mind, we tip off our 30-previews-in-30-weekdays set of NBA previews in the Southwest Division; we’ll have …

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