Dante’s Speak, Installment 11

FINALLY, the last week of preseason basketball is upon us. The final rosters are almost set, which means some guys are battling for their NBA lives hoping not to get cut, and others have made the team but are hoping to be active come Opening Night, not one of the three players on EVERY roster with patella tendinitis. What an incredible league-wide coincidence that 90 of the most physically fit athletes in the world all have sore knee caps at the same time. I'd like to see some more creativity on this injury list, like in 1993 when Orlando's own Keith Tower went on the injured list due to a non-healing skin legion. Now who's going to question that? In addition to roster spots, this is also the final week to figure out starting rotations, player combinations, what new guys play best with others, and what rookies do we wish we never drafted. With the end of preseason, the referees can also put those pesky whistles away. No more 80 foul games in Macon, Georgia. Travelling? What's that? "Yes, Coach that WAS a lane violation when we were in Winchestertonfieldview, Iowa, but during the regular season? Not a chance!" Alas! With the impending start of the regular season, I give you my twenty predictions for this 2004-05 campaign:

20 - Twenty is the number of dunks Tracy McGrady will have against the Orlando Magic on, coincidentally enough, January 20th. It's T-Mac's first game against his former club and it's IN Orlando. We saw first hand how much he enjoyed clobbering his old mates in Toronto, so expect a rather memorable performance on this night. Yao has already been told to stay out of the lane.

19- This is the number of three-pointers Antoine Walker will miss per game, now that he's with the Atlanta Hawks. I know, this is only up slightly from his number of misses in past seasons with Boston and Dallas, but let's face it, with the exception of Al Harrington no one on that team should be allowed to shoot anyway.

18- Eighteen marks the amount of stitches Kobe Bryant will take to the forehead after trying to dunk on Shaquille O'Neal. Shaq's return to the Staples Center will take place on Christmas Day, and he'll have a national audience, Phil Jackson will be courtside broadcasting for ABC, Shaq will be booed the entire game and he'll be seeing red from the minute his plane lands in L.A. Kobe STILL thinks he's bigger than Shaq, he'll see an opportunity to slam one down on his former teammate, and Shaq will drive him through the floorboards, shattering the utterly worthless "floor cam". OR he may just snap and tackle Kobe while he's shooting a free throw, either way, stitches will be required.

17- This is how many games the Charlotte Bobcats will win this year, and I think it's actually a little high. Looking at their roster, they've really set themselves up for an NBA record six wins, however, because the Wizards and Bulls call the NBA home, the Bobcats will grind out seventeen "W"'s, leading to the most successful season in Bernie Bickerstaff's career.

16- This is how many Championship banners will STILL hang in the Boston Celtic rafters at the end of this year, and well, many years to come. Luckily for Doc Rivers the Red Sox won the World Series and the Patriots haven't lost a game since the late '80's, so no one in Boston has noticed/cared about how bad the C's preseason has been. Raef LaFrentz and Tom Gugliotta have Celtic fans longing for the days of Joe Kleine and Dina Radja. There's only so many times David Ortiz and Tom Brady can do the ceremonial jump ball to get fans to the games. Larry Bird ain't walkin' through that door folks............

15- It will be right around game fifteen of the regular season when that terrible "jumper's knee" flares up again on Vince Carter. The Raptors will be 5-10, Vince will be tired of getting booed on his home court, he'll again say he wants to be traded and when GM Rob Babcock can't find anybody to take him, Vince's feelings...uh....I mean knee will be hurt. It's so predictable, and it's as wrong as the folks who hand out apples to kids for Halloween.

14- How many millions will Penny Hardaway make this year coming off the New York Knick bench? That's right $14 MILLION to back up Tim Thomas, the OTHER most overpaid small forward in the NBA. Penny Hardaway will make more money this year than Tracy McGrady, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Vince Carter and Dirk Nowitzki. If there was ever a case to be made about the NBA doing away with guaranteed contracts, it would be right here. I'm sorry, maybe you didn't catch it the first time......Isaiah Thomas and the New York Knicks will pay PENNY HARDAWAY $14 MILLION!!! If I walked in and held up Fort Knox it would be less of a crime.

13- This is how many times per game Jim O'Brien will have to remind Allen Iverson that he has teammates. Iverson is averaging 2.8 assists per game this preseason and he's playing THE POINT! With the loss of Eric Snow to Cleveland, "The Answer" is the man distributing the ball, which is what Larry Brown tried to avoid at all costs. For Sixer teammates, getting the basketball from Iverson will be harder than prying "the precious" from Gollom of Lord of the Rings.

12- While twelve COULD be the age of the person who created the Memphis Grizzlies' logo (it looks like an evil care bear), twelve is actually the number of players Hubie Brown will use each game. Hands down Memphis has to be the deepest team in the NBA, and the exact same team that won fifty games last season is back again this year. Brian Cardinal is the only new face on that roster so chemistry will go a long way for that team, look for them to host a first round playoff.

11- Triple-doubles this year for Kevin Garnett. KG finally got a taste, taking his T'Wolves out of the first round and all the way to the Western Conference Finals. Sam Cassell and Wally Szczerbiak are healthy and Wally is fighting for a starting job, Eddie Griffin has impressed in the preseason and Spree has a year under his belt in Minnesota. KG is a double-double machine with points and rebounds, but now that guys are around him that can hit shots, his assists will be up, and he'll lead the league in triple-doubles.

10- It will be ten games into the season until the San Antonio Spurs lose their first game. This team is scary and according to a recent GM survey, the Spurs are favored to win the NBA title this year. Game number eleven is at Memphis and that will be their first loss. An already deep team added Brent Barry, and Manu Ginobili added a gold medal to his resume.

9- $9 million is what Jamal Mashburn will earn this year to NOT play. If anyone, besides Grant Hill, has had horrible luck staying healthy it's been this guy. The Hornets are playing for the first time in the Western Conference, and now their leading scorer is out for the season. In eleven years in the NBA, Mash has played all 82 games......once.

8- Interestingly enough, eight is the number of "Johnson's" there are in the league. "Williams" is the most common with ten, then "Smith's" at nine. Oddly enough there are no "Marchitelli's". Sorry, I don't know where I was going with that.

7- How many times the World Champion Detroit Pistons will let someone over 95 points this season. Rasheed Wallace was re-signed during the summer, Antonio McDyess was brought into the fold, Ben Wallace felt his appendix was slowing him down, so he had that taken out, and Richard Hamilton has emerged as one of the biggest clutch shooters in the game. Not to mention Tayshaun Prince (was that not the greatest block of all-time?).

6- This is how many more times I can watch the NBA on ESPN commercial where the mimes re-enact Dwyane Wade's playoff buzzer beater last year. After the sixth time I view this......I will snap!

5- How many "No-Smoking" signs the Lakers had to remove from their locker room when they signed Vlade Divac. It can't be packs he smokes in a day, that's somewhere between two and three, or even more now that he's not playing because of his sore back.

4- The number of Phoenix Suns players whose names I can't pronounce. Zarko Cabarkapa, Yuta Tabuse, Maciej Lampe, and Leandrinho Barbosa, I can give it a shot, but I'm sure it would be wrong. And if I can't pronounce those names, I can only imagine what their teammate Steven Hunter has come up with.

3- This is the number of Portland Trailblazers that will NOT commit a felony this season. I give the Blazer players credit, they have pretty much run the criminal gamut, but I haven't given up on them just yet. I don't mean to make light of a serious situation, but how many chances should you get in this league? How many times can you be caught with marijuana and say, "my friend put that in my bag".......oh......sorry, wrong team. Well, that excuse is taken, hope Damon Stoudamire has a back-up plan.

2- This is the number of times that Kobe Bryant WON'T lead the Lakers in scoring, the other 80 times....he will, in fact, he'll probably lead the league in scoring, he should. He had no problem taking thirty shots a game with the most dominant big man to ever play the game, standing right there between him and the basket. I can only IMAGINE how many shots he'll take this year, especially with a player's coach like Rudy T, and finally.

1- As in the best, the greatest player in the game, numero uno, this year's MVP will go to Shaquille O'Neal. He's in the Eastern Conference, he HAS to score and rebound on that team, he has a giant chip on his shoulder, KG won his last year and although he shouldn't, Shaq has something to prove this year. Shaq could easily win this award EVERY year for how much of a match-up problem he creates for opposing teams, but this season it's his hands down.

Dante welcomes your comments, questions and alternative opinions. E-mail him here.

Dante’s Speak is solely the opinion of Dante Marchitelli and does not reflect the views of the Orlando Magic or the NBA. Marchitelli has served as radio producer in the Orlando Magic's Broadcast department for six seasons.