Five to Watch: Week 6

1. Passions - As Miami Turns: The new smash NBA daily soap roles on. This month has been a complete disaster for the Heat. If anyone was actually fanned up in Miami, they might be hearing some boos or calls to "Fi-re Spoe-lstra!" (clap-clap-clapclapclap). The schedule-makers have given them a decent shot at getting right, though with home games to Washington and Detroit before the Lebron Tar and Feathering Party and the Q on Thursday.

2. Ship Be Sinking Alerts: Tough schedule for the wobbling Bucks, at Utah and Denver, home to Orlando. On the other hand, aside from Wednesday's trip to Boston, Portland has a chance to get right against the likes of Washington (sensing a theme here) and Philadelphia. Phoenix doesn't have the toughest schedule in the world, (home to the 'Zards and Indy, away to GSW), but neither the Woyas nor the surprisingly frisky and possibly for real Pacers will be pushovers.

3. Hornets/Spurs the Rematch: After yesterday's VERY impressive win in New Orlenas, the two teams do it all over again this Sunday in San Antonio. Big big game for the Hornets, who have started to wobble a little after their blistering start. Jarrett Jack just loses games, obviously.

4. The Hot Seat: We're starting to get into the part of the season where teams might decide that coaches need to spend more time with their families. Favorite candidates are the aforementioned Spoelstra, the egregiously bad Paul Westphal, the almost as bad John Kuester in Detroit, Lionel Hollins of the underperforming Grizzlies, and my dark horse candidate, Doug Collins. His health problems provide the perfect cover for him to step away from a situation that's to be a much bigger mess than it originally seemed. My guess is he would trade places with Steve Kerr in a heartbeat right now.

5. Trade Time!: With the moratorium on trading players signed to contracts this summer being lifted soon, I expect the rumors to start flying fast and furious. My personal favorite: Francisco Elson, CJ Miles, Jeremy Evans and whatever sweeteners (cash/2d round picks) might be needed to Phoenix for Josh Childress. Phoenix gets to take on 2 expiring contracts to get out of paying their 4th string small forward $6.5 Mil for the next 5 years, plus they get another somewhat serviceable big in Elson and a jumping jack prospect in Evans. Not to mention they save $1 mil + this year in addition to whatever cash is received, which is not nothing to their penny pinching ownership. On the other side, Utah addresses their glaring need on the wing as Childress's defense and energy are a definite upgrade on Raja Bell and the departing Miles. Additionally, if they wanted to explore trading Kirilenko's expiring contract, Childress is capable of filling a very similar role. Win-Win!

I'm also desperately trying to figure out a way for Denver to ship Melo to New Orleans, but it probably can't happen until January when New Orleans can use Marcus Banks' Expiring Contract as part of a deal probably including Trevor Ariza, Marcus Thornton and picks/cash/other prospects.

What's everyone else looking forward to?

Five to Watch: Week 5

After missing last week, where nothing really happened...



erm, my bad.

Anyway, what's going down this week?

1. Spurs at Hornets, Sunday: Under the radar, Los Spurs are 11-1 without really getting a whole lot (by his standards) from Tim Duncan and vaunted addition Tiago Splitter still working his way into the rotation. The Hornets have made a little more noise while also jumping out to an 11-1 start, and we're about a week away from a raft of "Chris Paul is Back!" stories focusing on how he never really wanted to leave and so on. Predictable media narrative is predicable. In any event, this is a huge matchup between the teams vying for the position as "most likely sacrificial lamb for the Western Conference Finals."

2. This week in As The Heat Turn, Udonis Haslem is on the shelf for a bit with a very painful sounding injury (dislocated big toe? yech). Depending on Wade's health, the Heat are down to between 2 and 3.5 guys who qualify under my extremely unscientific and arbitrary "Actual NBA Player" rubric - I give Methuselah Ilgauskas between 1/2 and one on that scale. Time for Lebron James to go into his "get on, folks" routine, but also a big opportunity for the much maligned Bosh to get some of the critics off his back.

3. Relatedly, the travel across Florida for a rematch with Orlando. We all know what happened earlier in the season when Miami completely wood-shedded the seconf half. If they can repeat that feat with their current roster, in Orlando, this would be a huge huge statement win for Miami and probably a pretty crushing loss for Orlando. This would be a nice time for Dwight Howard to go nutty.

4. Thursday night on TNT, I probably won't be watching, nor will anyone else, but the over/under and Charles uttering a variation of "these are two turrible games" over the course of the night has to be around 13.5. I'm sure Sacto/LAC seemed like a good idea at the time to the NBA schedule makers.

5. Finally, the Lake Show in Utah on Friday. I'm basically looking for any sign of a challenge to the Laker's dominance this year. With all due respect to Chris Paul, Pau Gasol is the 1/8th Season MVP in my book. Shannon Brown is either still playing out of his mind or has just gotten lots lots better. Blake and Barnes combine with Shamwow to give them an extremely effective bench, and both Ebanks and Caracter have shown signs of being promising prospects. In short, I hate them. I really hope that the one time BTTITW can do what needs doing here.

What's everyone else looking for?

What to Watch: Week 3.

Story lines to look for, ignoring the still simmering Rambis/Love apparent feud in Kahhhhn-land.

1. Ship be sinking in Los Angeles (Clippers version) and Washington. Two teams I kinda sorta thought might not be totally terrible this year. The takeaway is don't forget that guys who are on bad teams their whole careers are there for a reason. If Andray Blatche is your team leader...



2. What's going on in Houston? With Yao still limited in minutes (and the frankly bizarre decision to sit him vs. San Antonio so he could play 17 minutes of the mauling of the T-Wolves on the back end of the BTB), and Aaron Brooks out for 4-6 weeks, the Rockets might be in trouble in the loaded west. Though it's possible that giving Brooks' minutes to Kyle Lowry and the surprisingly spritely Ish Smith could help them as they get better defensively and start feeding Scola even more.



3. Atlanta vs. Orlando, tonight. Chance for the Hawks to bounce back from their first loss. Jameer Nelson is out for Orlando. Chance for both teams to make an early season "statement" but the game potentially means more to Atlanta who need a legit win after dropping their first real test of the season.



4. On the other side of the coin, Minny at the LakeShow on Tuesday. Do the Lakers double them up or merely win by 40. I think the crowd might start chanting for tacos at around the 3 minute mark of the first quarter.



5. Thursday Night: While the TNT slate of games is pretty huge (Celtics vs. SuperFriends; Lakers in Denver), the third game is perhaps the most interesting with the very frisky Warriors visiting the up and down Bulls. While it's a little early yet to start thinking in these terms, the Dubs are going to have to pick up a few of these types of games if they want to crash the playoff party. The Bulls are fairly fortunate to be playing in what looks the worst division in the NBA, but they still have to be very disappointed with starting 2-3.
   

What's everyone else looking for?

What to Watch For in Week 2

Only a week in and already a few storylines to watch for. The five I'm most interested in this week.

1. Tiago Splitter: He should make his long awaited debut sometime this week. He's a guy we've been hearing about for so long and had so much hype in the preseason (SI even claimed he was THE long term Tim Duncan replacement) that I just want to get a look at him. I fully expect him to be underwhelming early as Pop brings him along slowly, but by the end of the season could be a key cog in a potentially devastating front-court rotation with TD, Blair and McDyess.

2. Kurt Rambis vs. Kevin Love.

Love is averaging a double double in just over 25 mpg (including a faintly ludicrous 19.77 reb/36) and has bristled at the short leash he's gotten from Rambis in favor of such world beaters as Anthony Tolliver and Nikola Pekovic. With a brutal schedule this week (At Miami, at Orlando, home to Atlanta, at Houston), would not be surprised by the Wolves going 0-4 with a blow-up by Love. Kevin doesn't seem like a shrinking violet, so I fully expect a "get me the fuck out of this shithole" from him at some point this year. KAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHN.

edit: just a suggestion but: Turk, a couple young guys and a pick for Love?

3. Chicago at Boston on Friday: Simmering rivalry here with the Rondo/Rose feud brought front and center, not to mention the combustible mix of Noah and Garnett. Also, BullsFan is already taking shots at Paul Pierce.

4. Portland at Milwaukee on Tuesday: Two up and coming teams with rabid fanbases. Still early in the season, but this game could tell us a little something about where one or both of these teams are.

5. The new behavior rules: While there were fairly consistent complaints about the number of soft Technical fouls assessed during the first week, it also must be noted that the instances of vocal, demonstrative complaining over run of the mill calls has dropped way off. Will the officials stick with the rules in the face of the somewhat mild criticism? Will the relatively good behavior of the players last? This is one to watch for a while I think.