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Tim Chisholm
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9/21/2006 7:14:18 PM
Some teams can't win for trying.
As I've been sitting here for the month writing up daily previews of the NBA teams for the upcoming season, I realized that there was probably one caveat I should have laid out before I got started. It's not a huge thing, and to some it's implied, but I thought I'd throw out there why there seems to be a double standard being applied to the teams in my articles.
As I see it, it wouldn't be fair to compare a team in the early stages of rebuilding to a team who is competing for a Championship. Everyone knows that Miami is better than Portland, or that New Jersey is better than Atlanta, so what good does it do to base a team analysis on that fact?
Instead, I see there as being three basic stages to a team's development that I unofficially stick to when I try and decide how I base my opinion of an NBA club.
I put the 're' in brackets for the sake of expansion teams like the Charlotte Bobcats who are only building their team up for the first time, but the rest of the teams this applies to are definitely in the re-building stage.
This refers to teams who are essentially in search of a new identity. Generally, you are dealing with teams who have identified a core player or players that anchor the team, but are still experimenting with how best to compliment them to turn into a winning franchise. This can take on several forms, be it too much youth, dealing with mismanaged cap space or even just waiting to see if a nucleus can gel as built or not.
This category can also be divided into two by teams who are in this stage but elevating out of it, or teams who are just now plummeting into it.
Teams like Orlando, Toronto, Utah and New Orleans are teams who are considered, by me at least, to be the best of this bunch because they are not only touching the ceiling of this classification, they are also on the way up. That differentiates them from a team like Philadelphia or Sacramento because while those teams are at the same point, teetering outside playoff contention, their stock is on the decline.
These teams are judged based on how clearly they have identified their plans and goals, and how effectively they are sticking to them, and how realistic their goals are. If a team is putting all of their stock in Stephon Marbury and Eddie Curry, for example, then perhaps their plan is a touch flawed.
PLAYOFF CONTENDERS
This is sort of a transition stage. Once a team has reached this stage they have to be judged not on whether or not they can compete for the first or second round of the playoffs, but instead if they are on a path to compete for a championship.
Think of it this way: How many teams put together units that are perfectly suited to get to the playoffs each year, but have no hope of advancing to the Finals? These are teams that seem interested only in qualifying year after year, trying to maintain the stats quo, while not doing the things that are necessary to elevate themselves to the next level. These would be the teams that would rank at the bottom of this category. Teams like Indiana, New Jersey and Washington come to mind, teams that refuse to admit that their strategies need some serious work, not mild tinkering, to reach the next level.
At the other end of this spectrum are teams like Chicago, Denver and the LA Clippers. These are teams who aggressively augment the cores that they developed when they were rebuilding and do so with an NBA Championship in mind, not simply repeated playoff appearances. These teams tend to get judged by how they've chosen to augment their teams and whether or not they seem to support their cores or whether or not they've added facetiously, bringing in new faces that do little to help their cause.
It's this category that has seemed to ruffle the most feathers with readers this summer, as people didn't understand how I could be so negative about a team who could pull out 45-50 wins per season. The answer to that is that for teams in this category, success in the regular season is nice, but it's also expected. These are teams that should be in the middle of the playoff pack every single year for a season to avoid being called am abject failure.
However, I don't think any franchise has its heart set on repeating a second-round exit each and every year, and so if their expectation is to improve beyond that, then as a team they are going to be held to that standard. If that means that Cleveland comes off sounding like a worse team than the Hawks, it's only because the Hawks have done more to improve their standing as a rebuilding team than the Cavs have done as playoff contenders.
CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDERS
This is the money round. It's almost impossible to crib the NBA Championship nowadays, even towards mid-season, so being among the elite teams in the league who have a legit shot at the title is an enviable place to be because any one of them could be the ones who walk away with the crown.
Dallas, San Antonio, Phoenix, Detroit and Miami are the only teams that I see as fitting into this category this season. Teams here have the hardest job out of any of the teams in the league because as hard as it is to get here, it's way harder to stay here (a feat that makes the Spurs that much more impressive). Here, a team has to keep pace with what they did to get here, trying to keep their core in tact when the players that make it up have the highest values of their careers, while at the same time trying to find that one missing piece that puts them over the top. It's a very, very delicate process that is easily upset by the most innocuous moves (as Sacramento and Philadelphia found out all too recently) that can knock a team out of this standing as quickly as you can say Chris Webber.
For the people that disagree with my system, or the way I've slotted teams into them, I encourage you to come up with your own way of measuring teams fairly against each other. It can bring a new appreciation to a management like Utah's or Orlando's. Sure, compared to Dallas and San Antonio they don't even register a blip on the radar, but if in a few years they're knocking on the door, you can say you saw it coming years ago.
Tim Chisholm can be reached at timchisholm@telus.net.
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