Denton's Mailbag: Much to Talk About

By John Denton
October 26, 2010

ORLANDO – At long last, the NBA’s preseason is over and the regular season is here. It starts tonight with the Miami Heat – what a shock! – in Boston and the World Champion Los Angeles Lakers getting their rings before facing the artist formerly known as Yao Ming.

This is easily the most anticipated NBA season in years. With the NFL adrift in dull parity, violent hits and declining attendance, now is the NBA’s chance to shove its way back into the sporting conscience and daily workplace water cooler conversations.

Seemingly everywhere you look in the NBA now – Cleveland being the exception, of course -- the sport is bubbling with juicy storylines. The league has its powers spread out in the Southwest (Lakers), Southeast (Magic and Heat), Northeast (Celtics), Midwest (Thunder and Bulls) and to a lesser degree the Northwest (Blazers). There’s prima-donna drama with Denver’s Carmelo Anthony and New Orleans’ Chris Paul and there seems to be no basement to the depths of the lunacy of Washington’s Gilbert Arenas and L.A.’s Ron Artest.

And that’s just the start of it in the NBA this season. Here are five other storylines that I will be checking out on a nightly basis this season:

• The Sunshine State Showdown. With Miami re-tooling and the Magic locked into a championship-or-bust mission, the bad blood between these two teams is bound to spill when they collide. And collide they will, four times during the regular season and most likely again in late May in the Eastern Conference Finals.
  
  The summer was filled with sniping between the two sides and it’s likely to intensify with a championship chance on the line. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh will undoubtedly form an unstoppable trio, but the Magic are taking comfort in knowing that their best two players (Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson) will exploit the Heat’s two weakest spots. In the end, the two teams will be good for one another, pushing each other to 60-plus wins in the fight for the coveted top seed in the East. And they just might convert Florida from a football state to one that covets the roundball more.
  
  
• Kobe Bryant’s drive for a sixth title. Kobe won three titles with Shaquille O’Neal and has played to June each of the past three years, capturing two more rings with Pau Gasol. If Kobe can get a sixth ring it would equal him with Michael Jordan, and basketball types would have to begin mentioning Bryant as the greatest player of all-time. For my money, he’s at least in the conversation because of his unbreakable will and cold, killer instinct.
  
  The Lakers will hardly be challenged this season in the West, and that might be a good thing considering that Bryant will be trying to round back into form following knee surgery. He should be fine by June when he will almost assuredly get a shot at a sixth ring. But will it be against the Magic, Celtics or Heat? Stay tuned.
  
  
• Who will win the MVP? With James so eager to play the sidekick role in Miami with Wade and Bosh, the expectation is that his numbers will fall off some this season. That should open the door for players such as Howard and Kevin Durant to make serious runs at the MVP. Howard’s offensive growth combined with his defensive brilliance should make him the overwhelming favorite to win the award, but sadly tough rebounds in traffic and blocked shots rarely make the ESPN SportsCenter highlights. But if Howard can boost his scoring to 23-25 points a night and continue to dominate the defensive end the way no player has in decades, he could unseat James as MVP. To his credit, Howard has said repeatedly that the only hardware he wants to hold overhead is the Larry O’Brien trophy given to the NBA champion.
  
  Durant is almost like a too-good-to-be-true superstar who keeps his head down and practically lives in the gym with his tireless work ethic. He earned points this summer by pulling an anti-LeBron, re-upping with OKC without a nationally televised, look-at-me press conference.
  
  
• With NBA graybeards Shaquille O’Neal and Jermaine O’Neal now in tow with Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce, can the aging Celtics hold up for a long season and thrive again come playoff time? When Boston went 17-17 after the All-Star break last season, management contemplated breaking apart the roster and most in the basketball world almost universally figured the Celtics to be dead. But that veteran group remarkably got its second wind at playoff time and the Celtics defense smothered James’ Cavs and then the Magic. And in the NBA Finals, they were a quarter away from hanging their franchise’s 18th banner.
  
  Knowing that they aren’t getting any younger, the Celtics went out this summer and actually got older. Shaq’s in shape, but he’s a shell of his former self. Jermaine O’Neal, whose time as a dominant player died about three years ago, was to be the starter at center, but his body is already breaking down. Enter Shaq, who will love the limelight early in the season but has never been one much for this regular season thing. So don’t count on that lasting too long either.
  
  The Celtics still have plenty of veteran savvy and defensive toughness, but at some point their run has to run out. Injuries and old legs are bound to catch up with this cast sooner rather than later, and the guess is that the fall will come this season.
  
  
• Will Anthony and Paul be traded and swing the balance of power in the NBA? How bad does Anthony want out of Denver? The franchise has been trying to get him to sign a $66 million extension for months and he’s turned his nose up at it. But I give ‘Melo credit for wanting to win a championship and he knows that is never going to happen in Denver with the Lakers bullying everything west of the Mississippi River. But I hate to break it to Anthony, but the Knicks or Nets aren’t going to win a title anytime soon either.
  
  Could a franchise such as the Magic, Celtics or Bulls pull off a blockbuster for Anthony or Paul midseason that would vault them ahead of the Lakers and Heat as championship favorites? As currently constructed, the Magic love their roster with their loads of depth and talent at every spot. President of Basketball Operations/GM Otis Smith has never been a big fan of mid-season moves, but Smith knows that the Magic aren’t going to pay the luxury tax forever and they might need to take their biggest, hardest swing at trying to win it all this season.
  
  So Anthony and Paul, who both want out of their current situations and would prefer to team up somewhere a la the Miami Thrice, could very well swing the balance in the NBA come February. Denver and New Orleans aren’t winning much this season, and the trade deadline could be the point where they are moved to a contender.

Now, onto this week’s abbreviated Ask JD mailbag:

QUESTION: Hey JD! What’s your take on the fiasco over in Tampa the other night with the floor being too wet for the Magic and the Heat to play on? Me and my boys had driven over there for the game hoping to boo LeBron and cheer for the Magic. Should the NBA stop playing games in these cities that don’t already have NBA teams? – Manny Molina, Kissimmee

ANSWER: What happened last Friday night over in Tampa was terrible for a lot of reasons. There were more than 18,000 fans who had purchased tickets for that game and were understandably disappointed by the cancellation. ESPN was there to televise the game nationally, and in the state fans were eager to see how the Magic would stack up against the Heat and vice versa.

But the league absolutely made the right call wiping out the game because the court was unsafe to play on. All Magic fans need to know is that one of the slickest spots on the floor was on the lower left block – Howard’s favorite spot on the floor. A twisted knee or a torn hamstring caused by the floor could have ruined the season here, so the league made the right move.

I know that players, coaches and executives are always leery about playing games in non-NBA cities because of the unfamiliar surroundings, but it’s important to the league to continue doing so in order to grow the game. Just as long as the league as willing to step in when the conditions are unplayable I see no reason why the league shouldn’t keep playing in non-NBA cities in the preseason.

QUESTION: Hey JD, whatsup? I was just reading your analysis for the Magic-Mavs game and I noticed that second-round draft pick Stanley Robinson was recently let go. Do you think the Magic were a little hasty letting him go? Or was their roster just where they wanted it to be? -- Zach Santilli

ANSWER: There wasn’t a player on the roster or coach at the Magic’s facility who didn’t take an instant liking to Robinson, a quiet, Southern kid who kept his head down and worked hard every day. The Magic still think that Robinson has the body, athleticism and work ethic to someday become an NBA player.

But Robinson got caught up in a numbers game. Because the Magic have the NBA’s second-highest payroll and deep into the luxury tax, they could only afford to keep 14 players. They were always going to lean toward veteran Malik Allen, who can help out at both power forward and center and won’t grouse when he’s used only sparingly this season.

Robinson is expected to go to Europe to play – much more money there than the Developmental League – and don’t be surprised to see him resurface on a NBA roster if he continues to improve.

QUESTION: Hey JD! Thanks for your answers so far! Quick question, could, in your opinion, Rashard Lewis guard Joel Anthony? Cause if so, then going for a tall ball lineup (Lewis/Gortat/Howard) against the Heat, we could have Gortat on Bosh, Howard on LeBron, and Lewis on Joel Anthony. Would that work? – Sam Millner

ANSWER: Ummmmmm, no. The Magic want Howard protecting the rim and rebounding the ball, so the likelihood is that he will be guarding Anthony, Juwan Howard, Zydrunas Ilgauskas or any of the other slugs that the Heat have signed to play at center this season. That position should be a huge advantage for the Magic this season.

Orlando has plans on using its big lineup this season, but I don’t think that Miami is one of the opponents that it will be necessary against. Bosh is a finesse forward who prefers to step away from the lane, so Lewis would be the perfect choice to guard him because he is agile and especially good in pick-and-roll defense.

The Magic’s biggest concern against the Heat is keeping Howard out of foul trouble because Wade and James are going to relentlessly attack the rim and go right at the Magic big man. Said Stan Van Gundy: ``When you look at their team and their personnel, as soon as they put those guys together, the first thing I thought of was that we’re going to have to try and keep them out of the paint, which isn’t going to be easy. But you really have to try to keep them off the free throw line and that’s three of the league’s leaders in free throw attempts. You have to be good with what you are doing or they are going to be at the line 40 or 45 times and you are going to have a lot of guys sitting down. And you certainly are going to need your best players if you are going to beat them. Avoiding foul trouble, defending them without fouling, is going to be key. That’s an easy thing to say, but it’s a lot harder to do.’’

John Denton writes for OrlandoMagic.com. E-mail John at jd41898@aol.com. Submit a question to John for his mailbag segment at AskJD@orlandomagic.com.