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S0ns won't even get out of the second round with their weak frontcourt. Even the Jazz or Nuggets would abuse Phoenix quite badly.
Heads or Tails: Who will be 2008 NBA Champions, Suns or Celtics
Sam Elliott and Michael Fischer
Issue date: 10/25/07 Section: Sports
The News Record
http://media.www.newsrecord.org/medi...-3055463.shtml
Just as Peyton manning used to be the greatest NFL quarterback never to make it to a Super Bowl, Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash may be the best player in the NBA today to have never taken a trip to the finals.
That should all change this coming season as Nash and the Suns are on track to be the 2007-08 NBA Champions.
After being eliminated by rival San Antonio two of the last three years, including last season's controversial Western Conference Semifinal series involving the suspensions of Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw following a Robert Horry flagrant foul on Nash, this season's finally going to be Phoenix's year.
"Mr. MVP," Steve Nash, the league leader in assists last year (11.6 per game), will be back with a vengeance and ready to quarterback his team all the way to a championship. The offseason acquisition of Grant Hill adds another scoring weapon to this already high-powered armory.
Hill, Leandro Barbosa and Shawn Marion have each averaged 14.5, 14.8 and 15.3 points per game respectively this preseason, with Nash chipping in another 11.3 and nine assists per game. This is a team in which everybody can and Nash can get the ball to all of them.
Los Angeles Lakers Kobe Bryant was quoted earlier in The Arizona Republic saying, "The Suns are in an elite class, not just in the Western Conference but in the league [NBA]. Everyone else is trying to catch up to that."
Nash and the Suns look on track to prove Bryant right.
Suns are the pick, but watch out for Rockets
01:02 AM CDT on Thursday, October 25, 2007
http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/nwsl...r.26eb551.html
The NBA season starts before you'll get the next newsletter, so it's time for predictions.
As always, these are intended for informational use only and are not recommended to anybody who might find themselves in Vegas this weekend.
First, the NBA champion. You may have seen already that Sports Illustrated is picking the Mavericks to win it all. I personally think it would be a great story if the Boston Celtics won it all, recapturing the glory days of a legendary franchise gone bad.
But I can't pick either of those teams. Nor can I pick San Antonio, because they seem content to win the thing every other year. Who wouldn't be, by the way?
So I have two teams for the le, a favorite and a long shot. The Phoenix Suns are the favorite because Grant Hill will help them more than anybody knows and Amare Stoudemire is going to have an MVP season once he gets healthy.
The dark horse? Houston. The Rockets made more moves than anybody in the Western Conference with power forward Luis Scola and guards Mike James and Steve Francis returning to Houston.
This team, as always, will have to prove it can stay healthy. But if Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady are hale and hearty instead of Laurel and Hardy, this team is primed to make major noise.
I'll also take a stand on Kobe Bryant (addressed below in question 1). If Phoenix starts slowly, expect them to make a serious run at the Lakers' superstar. Ditto for Chicago, Detroit and Dallas. But the Mavericks' problems are never in the regular season, right? And you can't make trades in the playoffs.
Expect Bryant to simmer in LA until December or January. Then he's off to the Eastern Conference.
Western Conference: San Antonio Spurs +225
http://experts.covers.com/includes/a...Art=152774&t=0
Lee Kostroski
It’s hard to not go with the Spurs as the favorite to take the conference and advance to the NBA Finals for the second consecutive season. They went 16-4 in the playoffs last year en route to winning their fourth le in the Tim Duncan era. They won 58 games during the regular season. And they return their top 11 players from a year ago, with only the little-used Jackie Butler no longer with the team.
While San Antonio's role players – namely Bruce Bowen, Michael Finley, Brent Barry and Robert Horry – are starting to show their age, the All-Star core of Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili are still relatively young. The Spurs are also one of the league’s most consistently healthy teams; their top six scorers missed just 26 combined games. Combine that with head coach Gregg Popovich’s ability to keep this team constantly motivated and San Antonio is a threat for the conference crown year-in and year-out.
The one constant with le-winning teams is defense and there hasn’t been a better, more consistent 'D' over the years than San Antonio’s. The Spurs have been in the top three in scoring defense every year since 1997 and there’s no reason to believe it will be any different this year. San Antonio led the NBA with just 90.1 points allowed per game last year and held opponents to just a 44.3 field-goal percentage.
The Western Conference is full of potential championship contenders but San Antonio has fewer questions than any other contending team. Will Dallas be able to rebound from its first-round exit of a year ago? Can Phoenix avoid potential chemistry issues and fatigue come playoff time? Can Tracy McGrady ever get out of the first round of the playoffs? The Spurs have no such questions.
Continuity plays an integral role in the success of an NBA team. And there’s no team in the league with more continuity than San Antonio. It has played the same, extremely successful style for the last decade. It returns almost its entire team from a year ago. And, most importantly, it knows how to win in the postseason.
Only one goal had eluded the Spurs over the years. They have never made back-to-back trips to the NBA Finals. This will be the year that goal is reached.
S0ns won't even get out of the second round with their weak frontcourt. Even the Jazz or Nuggets would abuse Phoenix quite badly.
wgaf about back to back... All I know is four.. i'm down with that... the only goal i would like to see is Dallas and Phoenix never win .
Re: Who will be 2008 NBA Champions, Suns or Celtics
"But if Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady are hale and hearty instead of Laurel and Hardy, this team is primed to make major noise."
That was supposed to be funny?
Awful. Just awful. I'm emailing Eddie Sefko now...
Suns or Celtics?
I didn't realize the finals started on October 25th.
How about this:
The Suns are overrated and undersized.
The Celtics are overhyped and unproven.
Suns or Celtics?
None Of The Above
I guess dominant centers winning 8 of the last 9 les means you can all of a sudden win an NBA le with one run and gun frontcourt player who gets abused in the half court sets defensively. Some people just need to stick to watching "Streetball" re-runs on ESPN.
I almost question how many people today even know who Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were. I realize that the age demographic for newspapers is older than other media consumers, but good grief...
...it's like making a "Silent Cal" joke. It may be funny, but no one's going to get it.
Well i'll give them credit, at least they didn't say Suns or Caviliers.
Oh.
I thought the question was "Who will be the 2008 NBA RATINGS CHAMPIONS"
Only 2 choices? Damn.
Who cares. The ratings would be OFF DA MOFUGGIN CHARTS!!1111!!11
Nobody realizes that Sean Elliott wrote this?
Heck I would even bet those two wont even make it to the Finals.
Uh, better look again. Why would Sean Elliott be writing for a University of Cincy student newspaper?
Oh. . Thanks for pointing that.
Until the Suns learn to play defense they won't win anything. As for the Celtics they need a year or two to jell.
It said Sam Eliott, but for some reason I kept on reading Sean Eliott and I was thinking WTF is Sean Eliott thinking?
The Spurs are in the dynasty conversation.
I don't recall hearing the Cavs in that conversation.
@ the Sports Chokers Class of 2007-2008 which no longer includes my homeboy Manning. Suckers.
It's better for the Spurs if they fly under the radar and everyone counting on someone else to win. So, I'm happy to let people think this is the Suns' year, which, BTW, people have been saying for the last 2-3 years about the Suns.
Realistically speaking, however, the Suns' best chance was this past year, and they couldn't get it done. Their main nemesis is Duncan, and their own lack of consistent defense, and they've actually gone BACKWARDS from last year in both areas.
This has nothing to do with the foul by Horry or Amare and Diaw being out. NBA playoffs are a 7 game series, and the best team always emerges, ultimately, because if a team isn't good enough to overcome 1 bad game or 1 game of questionable calls, then it isn't really the best team. Had the Spurs dwelled on the .4 debacle as long as the Suns are dwelling on the suspensions of Amare and Diaw, they would never have bounced back in 2005 and 2007 to win it all. Suns and Mavs have a long way to go to prove they have the mental perseverance to bounce back.
True. So some people aren't picking the Spurs to win. When the were predicitions really the way it was anyway? Experts get wrong all the time.
I never get excited about predictions since most are wrong and based on CW. Reality usually has its twists and turns with the unexpected thrown in. An injury here or there and many teams are out of the running. If TD goes dowm we're toast.
But I will predict this though - Phoenix won't get to the Finals -no D and no body to guard TD.
The only Cavs conversation is based on this.....The Spurs are in the dynasty conversation.
I don't recall hearing the Cavs in that conversation.
The only Cavs conversation is based on this.....
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