For years, the West Finals used to be the NBA Finals. Now, the East is rising and the way things are going, they may not even hold the West Finals.
The Lakers, of course, rule the West, and the second-best team is… is…
There is no second-best team.
The aging Spurs aren’t what they used to be yet, having gone from Twin Towers to a single tower, with Matt Bonner, a 6-10 small forward, alongside Tim Duncan.
The young Hornets aren’t what they were, either. The Jazz need Carlos Boozer back to see if it can be what it was. The Nuggets are twice as good as they were, which leaves them half as good as they need to be. The Suns and Mavericks aren’t lost causes but definitely aren’t what they were. The Trail Blazers just emailed the doctor who did Greg Oden’s microfracture surgery, reserving the right to sue to protect their interests if Greg doesn’t pick it up.
The T-Wolves are on an amazing run but I’m not sure they’re ready for the Lakes and it’s a tad early for the promising (well, one day) Grizzlies and Thunder, too. The Warriors are deciding between competing and imploding as Monta Ellis arrives and Chris Mullin packs. Sacramento is trying to get Rick Adelman back, or at least Reggie Theus. The Clippers just got a notice from Staples Center to win the occasional game or go back to the Sports Arena.
Who does that leave?
Oh yeah, the Rockets, the pre-season favorites to challenge the Lakers. No, really, you could look it up.
After picking up Ron Artest and Brent Barry, they looked formidable, indeed, on paper.
On the floor, however… well, we don’t really know what they look like because they’ve only been on the floor three times.
With injuries to Artest, Barry, Shane Battier and, of course, Tracy McGrady, they never saw their entire rotation until Dec. 22, when they beat the Nets in New Jersey.
Not that cohesion was an issue but the only other two times they were all there, the next night in Cleveland and a week later at home against the Wizards(?!), they lost.
With all the games they’ve lost (Battier 22, Barry 14, McGrady 12, Artest nine, Rafer Alston six), it’s impressive that the Rockets have played as well as they have.
Unfortunately, the problem isn’t as simple as getting healthy. The problem is T-Mac. Whatever is going on with him has been going on for years, and it’s getting worse.
For sure, his body is breaking down, coming off knee surgery, with chronic problems with his back and shoulder that have caused him to miss 15-4-35-11-16 games in his last five season.
The problem is, no one seems to know how bad any of Tracy’s conditions is, including Tracy.
He’s always announcing he’s shutting it down (as opposed to the Rockets’ medical staff announcing it), then coming back and playing in a game or two, then shutting it back down in another game or two.
On the floor, he looks like he’s hurting, coasting or both. His teammates were sympathetic but their displeasure began to leak out several weeks ago, as when Alston was asked if they were all on the same page, and answered, “Not at all.”
For his part, McGrady, who with his cousin, Vince Carter, might be the NBA’s nicest star players, has been a totally stand-up guy and completely out of touch.
Adelman was finally obliged to talk to ask him to pick it up, in practice as well as in games, noting, “I told him today, ‘There’s going to be times you’re going to succeed and times you’re going to fail, but that shouldn’t have an effect on how hard you play.’”
Tracy laughed it off as a momentary inconvenience, telling the Houston Chronicle’s Jonathan Feigen, “Kick me when I’m down, because I swear to you, I’ll be back up.”
Tracy also said his friends were keeping him up on all the criticism and the slurs aimed at him. “They know how I eat that up,” he said. “They know how I take that all in and use it as motivation.” He then played 42 minutes and scored 26 points in their next game, a win at Oklahoma City. Then he shut it down, once more. Finally, after another return and shut-down, they announced he would take two weeks off to work of his conditioning.
Three months into the season, coming off surgery, with all the problems he’s had and he’s just now going to get in proper condition?
The worst part for the Rockets is that McGrady is still their best offensive player, the only one creative enough to knit everyone together as playmaker and scorer.
Make that the second-to worst part. The worst part has become that the rest of the dressing room is now fuming.
There was even a report that Yao Mingno longer speaks to Tracy and wants him traded, which Houston press people say isn’t true. Yao and Tacy still chat amiably as they always have, although that means nothing. The Houston guys say Yao is as upset as everyone else.
Signing Dikembe Mutombo to come in and block shots again at 42 was done in part to bring his sunny elder-statesman’s countenance in to help calm everyone.
Of course, with the gregarious Deke’s charm, you also get his candor, as when he tacitly acknowledged how bad the situation was in his inimitable style.
Announcing he would hold a secret team dinner, Mutombo joked, “I’m planning to get people under the ground and into the bunker and we’re going to discuss the problems like Vice President Dick Cheney. Just let me get them into the bunker like Vice President Cheney. I won’t start any wars. And I won’t shoot anybody in the hunting field either.”
This may not have gone over well throughout Houston, corporate headquarters for Cheney’s old company, Halliburton, but then, Deke’s standing may now be higher now than Cheney’s.
In any case, the Rockets have a major issue and it’s not togetherness.
It’s Tracy and unless they resolve it, by getting him over the hump or figuring out a way to get it done without him, they may go down as the best team no one ever saw.
No, really, I think this Ron Artest trade has turned the West completely around.
Well, until the season starts, anyway.
After that, everybody in Houston will be on their own, as everyone always has been everywhere Ronnie has been. Even after a relatively quiet two-plus seasons in Sacramento, Ron Artest isn’t like anyone else – not even in the NBA, which is largely comprised of eccentrics.
He’s more like the crocodile in “Peter Pan” who swallowed a clock so wherever he goes in search of Captain Hook, Hook can hear him ticking.
Of course, it’s not totally impossible that, having tried everything else, Ronnie just shows up and plays… So what then?
Are the Lakers, Spurs, Hornets and Jazz going to swoon?
How about the young Trail Blazers with Greg Oden joining Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge on a team that was good enough to go 41-41 last season?
Even if the West no longer has all the super teams it did from 2000 to 2007 when the Lakers, Spurs, Kings, Suns and Mavericks posted nine 60-win seasons, the conference still has a wide selection of The Next Best Thing.
The Lakers should be better, not to mention more than a collection of cream puffs, with Andrew Bynum rejoining the team that made the Finals without him.
The Spurs aren’t what they were but with Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili in their primes and Tim Duncan close enough to his, they aren’t over, either.
The Hornets wouldn’t go away last season and may not this season either, with Chris Paul and Tyson Chandler still coming and a nice pickup in James Posey.
Utah is coming off back-to-back 50-win seasons, has won three playoff series in two years and has Deron Williams, The Chris Paul Nobody Knows, still coming, too.
Artest won’t be a patented misfit in Houston as Shaquille O’Neal was in Phoenix, turning the Suns, the team no one could guard, into a team that couldn’t guard anyone willing to involve Diesel in a pick-and-roll.
Nor will this be a cultural clash like Dallas turning over an offense built entirely on isolations to Jason Kidd and telling him to do his magic.
Unfortunately, the Suns and Mavericks got it backwards. Shaq was the Mavericks’ play but the Suns beat them to it. Kidd would have been fine in Phoenix.
The real problem for the Suns and Mavs was being in the West, where the burden of proof was so high. The Suns looked scary at the end, winning 15 of their last 20. Then they blew double-figure leads in Games 1 and 2 in San Antonio, the Spurs started running about 50 pick-and-rolls a night, Parker wound up averaging 30 points and the Suns wound up on vacation.
At the top of their game, the new Rockets with Artest, Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady, Luis Scola and Shane Battier would be truly formidable. They were already a tough defensive team and Artest is a lot tougher and a better defender than anyone they had, even Battier.
Now to see how close they ever come to the top of their game.
This isn’t like putting together an all-star team in baseball, where even if you hit third and I hit ninth, I’m still getting my three at-bats. Basketball teams have to mesh. If Artest has a problem with Yao and Tracy getting more shots, this won’t work.
Artest has always been a unique talent, not only capable of scoring 20 points but of knocking the other team’s 20-point scorer down to 10 or so, whether the opponent is a two, a three or a four. With Ronnie’s big, wide body, he can post anyone up and command double-teams, freeing up others.
The problem – on the floor – has always been that he takes a lot of bad shots, then gets upset when he can’t take more and the offense goes through someone else, like Jermaine O’Neal. The overriding problem is that when Ronnie’s upset, we’re not talking about merely being upset.
This was still a slam dunk for the Rockets, who weren’t sure of getting out of the first round – and hadn’t since 1996. Great as McGrady is, the less you have to have from him, the better he is.
Rick Adelman is one of the last of the players’ coaches who can actually coach. He and Artest are already on good terms, from their half-season together in Sacramento.
In the most compelling reason, Artest is on the last year of his contract, so how much trouble could he be?
Oh, I forgot. He’s Ron Artest, capable of being more trouble than any team – or league – can handle. Remember the Auburn Hills riot that set the NBA’s image back about 40 years and is the reason we have to watch those “NBA Cares” spots? That was all Ronnie.
By the way, even if the East had something of a renaissance last season, this is why the league should seed the playoffs. With the overall imbalance, there’s an East mindset (what, us worry?) and a West mindset (us worry). That’s why 55-win West teams like the Rockets go out on limbs while East teams chill, as when Boston let Posey go.
Not that anyone knows how this particular move will turn out, but the West just got even more Western.
You don’t normally like to see your roster go belly up in the Finals which, even that far along, suggests a fundamental problem. Take the Lakers. The Celtics just did.
It’s not good to discover you’re not tough enough, especially up front since no one is likely to be inclined to send you one of their tough big men. Nor would the draft be of much use, even if they were in it, which the Lakers almost aren’t, with only one pick at No. 58. However, this is an extraordinary case with the Lakers expecting seven-foot, 275-pound, 20-year-old Andrew Bynum expected back next fall.
Bynum, who missed the second half of the season, had been breaking out in his third season, looking so impressive that Kobe Bryant, who had excoriated Laker management, demanding to be traded, changed his mind about the whole thing.
If this was embarrassing – Bryant also railed at the Lakers for not trading Bynum for Jason Kidd – Kobe is now on board in a big way (“He’s a legitimate, 7-1, long-wing-span, natural shot blocker so add Andrew, it takes us to another level defensively.”)
Hurt on Jan. 13, Bynum was expected back in March but wound up undergoing arthroscopic surgery and missing the rest of the season. With Pau Gasol arriving to take his place – another piece of good luck for the Lakers who wouldn’t have been pursuing the deal with Memphis if Bynum hadn’t been hurt – the Lakers were never sure how good they were.
They certainly weren’t physical and or imposing defensively. On the other hand, their offense was so good – – they were 34-8 with Gasol in the lineup going into the Finals – there didn’t seem to be anyone better, or close.
It was almost as if they were on a lark. They would be better next season but in the meantime, why not try to take advantage of the opportunity at hand?
They wound up running into the Celtics, who looked out on their feet after going seven, seven and six games deeps in the three first rounds, but seemed quite refreshed in the Finals.
Bryant, who had smoke coming out of his ears in the interview room after their Game 6 loss in Boston, was over it by the time he talked to Laker beat writers three days later after his exit interview with head coach Phil Jackson.
“I’m comfortable with what we have,” Bryant said. “Whatever Mitch [Kupchak, Laker GM] decides to do, he decides to do. It’s more of a relaxing summer for me because I know we have an opportunity to win. It’s exciting.”
With Bynum’s rehab now progressing, the Lakers do have one decision to make with Andrew up for an extension at or near the maximum-salary.
Nevertheless, the Lakers can let it play out according to their own comfort level.
They could extend him this summer (unlikely), wait to see how he holds up in training camp and sign him before the opener (possible) or wait until after the season, when he’ll be a restricted free agent and they can match any offers (also possible).
Aside from that, the Lakers just have to make the pieces fit with Bynum at center and Gasol moving to power forward.
That would move Lamar Odom to small forward… if he ever gets there.
At the moment, there’s speculation the 6-10 Odom will be shopped for a more small forward who’s a better outside shooter.
(That means, forget those Shawn Marion rumors. Like Odom, shooting from the outside is the worst thing Marion does.)
(As for those Richard Jefferson rumors, shooting isn’t what RJ does best, either.)
In what could be viewed as a preview of next season, Boston’s Kevin Garnett roamed off Odom in the Finals, just as the Lakers did with Rajon Rondo, giving Lamar any outside shot he wanted.
Odom faded, Garnett helped jam up the high-powered Laker offense inside and that was that.
Jackson wanted a small forward who could shoot and space the floor badly enough to start the inconsistent Vlade Radmanovic while labeling him “my favorite Martian.”
Beyond the question of how Odom will fit in the new configuration, he has one year left on his contract at $14.1 million and wants an extension. Meanwhile, the Lakers have financial issues. These don’t threaten the franchise, which probably grossed $175 million last season, but they’re issues, anyway.
As a result of the Gasol trade, Jerry Buss is looking at an additional $90 million in additional salary and luxury tax over the last three years of Pau’s contract – which was the reason Memphis got so few offers – unless the Lakers get some money off their cap.
With trade-Lamar stories all over the local papers, an irate Kupchak said the team hasn’t even had those discussions yet. However, Odom was originally in the package going to Memphis for Gasol, until Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley took him out, opting to lesser players and more savings.
And the Lakers will be holding those talks soon, with only one problem position, small forward.
Jackson, who wants to get tougher – and has never minded getting loonier – loves Sacramento’s Ron Artest, who just happened to be hanging this postseason, even going to Boston for Game 6.
Artest has tried to get himself traded to either Los Angeles team for years and can opt out of the last year at $7.4 million on his Sacramento contract. However, with the Kings unlikely to do a sign-and-trade unless they get Bryant, Bynum or Gasol, Artest could only get the Lakers’ $5.4 million veteran’s exception.
Of course, with Artest and Jackson, anything’s possible from Ron-Ron in purple and gold to a peaceful summer in Lakerdom.
For years, the West Finals used to be the NBA Finals. Now, the East is rising and the way things are going, they may not even hold the West Finals.
