NBA coming soon

The NBA regular season is about two weeks away and pre-season action is heating up. With a couple of games already played, one can give a pretty good assessment about which teams have the talent to win, and, more interestingly, which players are already good to go. We all heard about Shaq adding extra pounds over the off-season, saying he felt weak and human last year, and waiting whether the size upgrade will lead to 82 games of dominance. Also, it shocked every basketball fan to hear that the Suns’ Amare Stoudemire will miss four months due to knee surgery. One has to wonder how Phoenix can hold up without Amare. There are a lot of things to watch out for in the upcoming season. Here’s a few I’d really like to see develop.

The Phoenix Suns sans Amare Stoudemire – Last year, they torched everyone with their up-tempo style and Amare’s dominance. To start this year, Phoenix has essentially lost three out of five of last year’s starting squad, with Amare going down to injury and Quentin Richardson and Joe Johnson getting traded. Now is the time for Steve Nash to show how much of an MVP he really is and carry this team back to the playoffs. He still has high-leaping All-Star Shawn Marion by his side, as well as decent big man in Kurt Thomas. It would be interesting to see if Nash and the Suns can make their way back to the playoffs amid losing their biggest weapon

Vince Carter, Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson – We barely got to see this highlight reel trio together last season because as soon as Carter played for the Nets, Jefferson went down with an injury. Although RJ made it back to the playoffs and gave us a little peek at the potent trio together, a full training camp together should provide us fans with an exciting show for next season.

The Flip Saunders-led Detroit Pistons – After bowing down to the Spurs in the Finals, Larry Brown got fired and hired former Minnesota Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders. Saunders is said to be a more offensive-oriented coach than Larry Brown was, so it might be difficult for the extremely defense-oriented Piston team to adjust. The Pistons’ offense for the past years has been average at best, but that might change with Flip calling the shots.

The fully-loaded Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs – If you were to ask me last year which teams needed the least improvement, I would’ve said Miami and San Antonio. So for them to be two of the teams that stocked up the most came as a shocker. With all the talent these two teams have, it’s easy to pick either to be the next champ. The Heat and Spurs could easily blow everyone out of their way to a title. They could just as easily implode with all those personalities under all that pressure.

Andrew Bogut – The number one draft pick has been compared to the likes of Vlade Divac and Arvydas Sabonis in the sense that he’s a big man with great passing skills (and maybe because he’s also a white non-American). We’ve been wowed by the number one picks of recent years, like Lebron James, Yao Ming and Dwight Howard. Let’s find out how much this year’s highly-touted rookie fares in comparison.

Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant – It’s been well-publicized how much Jackson was displeased with Bryant during their last year together, to the length that he called Kobe "uncoachable." It seems that the L.A. Lakers have been a little NBA sideline drama after they lost to the Pistons in ’04. This year, Jackson and Bryant are reunited with the modest goal of returning the Lakers to the playoffs. Will the two biggest egos in Los Angeles clash again? We will soon find out.

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For questions, comments or complaints, please e-mail me at emailcarlramirez@yahoo.com.