2008 NBA dark horses- HoopsCorner.com

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March 12, 2008

By Tyson Wirth

With tax season approaching, so too are the NBA playoffs, where it’s never too early to blow that $600 government rebate check you haven’t received yet. What on? Betting on the 2008 NBA champion, of course!

The Spurs are perennial finalists, never a bad bet. The Lakers are a sexy pick, with the new-and-improved supporting cast. Either the Celtics or Pistons could cruise through a cushy Eastern Conference and be well rested for a battle-weary Western rep.

Then again…

The New York Giants won the NFL’s Super Bowl, shocking then-undefeated New England. The Colorado Rockies rose from nowhere to win the National League pennant. Could the NBA produce an improbable champ as well?

Yes.

Seven-game series make underdog title runs difficult, but if there’s ever a season primed for the improbable, it’s this one. There are obstacles for every non-elite team, of course. The Suns, Mavericks, and Rockets have all belly-flopped in the playoffs before. The Hornets and Magic are first-time contenders. The Jazz are weak on the road and the Cavs never did acquire a real point guard. Yet the saying “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” applies to our money as well as our activities. With that charitable approach in mind, I’ve ranked which good-but-not-great contenders you should throw your money away on first.

Utah Jazz
After tossing out the big two in each conference (Boston, Detroit, LA Lakers, San Antonio), EVERY playoff-poised team in the West, seeds 3-8, has a better winning percentage than ANY playoff-poised team in the East, seeds 3-8. The West must be represented here, and the Jazz earn the nod over the Hornets. Why? Utah can play both slow (first-round victory over Houston last year) and fast (second-round victory over Golden State last year) and has steamrolled opponents to a 26-6 record, a 67-win pace over 82 games, since the acquisition of dead-eye shooter Kyle Korver. Jerry Sloan’s unit is OK defensively (13th in points given up per possession), but a subtle juggernaut offensively (a hair behind Phoenix for 1st in points scored per possession).

New Orleans Hornets
If your heart wants to believe in the Hornets but your checkbook still doesn’t, consider what kind of odds Vegas is giving New Orleans; 15:1 at many outlets. Considering the outfit is 42-20, and a 40-23 Dallas team only fetches a 5:2 payout on such sites as www.vegasinsider.com, it may be prime time to capitalize on others’ reservations about this new heavyweight.

There’s a lot to like about the Hornets; they’ve got an MVP candidate in Chris Paul (21.3 points, 11.0 assists, and 2.7 steals per game), a second budding star in David West (19.7 points, 9.0 rebounds), an elite rebounder and defender in Tyson Chandler (12.0 points, 12.3 rebounds), and one of basketball’s greatest floor spacers in Peja Stojakovic (46.6% 3-point shooting).

The concern here is… without any playoff success, can this group really make the leap from 39-43 to world champions in just one season? A 4-0 overtime record suggests the Hornets might have the moxie to believe it.

Phoenix Suns
I know the Suns are 4-6 since trading for Shaquille O’Neal. They’ve fallen from first to sixth in the West and the playoffs aren’t guaranteed. The sky is falling.

Except it isn’t.

Sunday’s victory against San Antonio proved Phoenix can still be an elite team when playing to its strengths, running with Shaq out and slowing it down with him in. If the roster gels quickly the Suns could soon be good enough – again – to give elite squads heart attacks. The Daddy (The Big Cactus sounds just too darn immobile!) is giving top effort, engulfing 18 and 16 rebounds against Denver and San Antonio this week after never snaring more than 14 for Miami all winter. But Los Suns will only go as far as their defense, and the one-game-on, three-games-off routine must end.

Houston Rockets
I might regret this. Pegging a Yao-less Houston ahead of Dallas and Cleveland makes my gut start pacing. But it does seem to agree with logic. The Rockets are the only ones in the world not buying “the Rockets are dead” rhetoric. Since Yao went down, they’ve rolled to a 6-0 record (all double-digit wins, but with just one on the road), yet the schedule gets tougher soon.

A big reason for the success is Houston’s defense, the second-most efficient in the league behind Boston. Add that to outstanding rebounding (even without Yao, the Rockets outrebounded opponents 46.3-39.3 in the recent stretch) and Houston looks like it’s cooking with the same recipe Cleveland used to advance last postseason.

Dallas Mavericks
In the spandex-tight West, Dallas sits only four games out of first. It has the talent to go the distance, with Dirk Nowitzki, Josh Howard, and now Jason Kidd. But the stomach? The results cry, ‘no!’ The Mavericks have gone 0-6 against above-.500 playoff teams since Feb. 4, including 0-5 with their new floor general, Kidd. Ouch.

Forget the talk about Dirk’s playoff struggles – Dallas must first focus on just making the postseason. All but two of its final 15 games come on the road or against a postseason-probable team. But like the Suns and Lakers, this fresh roster should be better in April than it is right now.

Cleveland Cavaliers
As long as they’ve got The King, the Cavs have a puncher’s chance. The temptation to rave about Lebron James – 30.9 points, 8.0 rebounds, 7.4 assists – is enormous, but Cleveland’s chances must be evaluated as a whole. The bottom line is this; this team got swept in the Finals last summer. GM Danny Ferry knew that combination had peaked, so he swapped out Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes and parts for Ben Wallace, Wally Szczerbiak, Joe Smith and Delonte West. The Cavs are 5-3 with the new roster, but against a pathetically weak schedule (average opponent winning percentage of 38.7%).

Basically, the experiment’s too nascent to evaluate. But you know Clevelanders are nervous about the fact they couldn’t add a real point guard, never mind the fact their team has scored fewer points (97.5) than it has given up (97.9 per game) this season.

Orlando Magic
The Magic have two advantages; A) nobody expects a deep run, with Dwight Howard still in his first real year of superstardom, and B) they’re inconsistent. The latter dimension is actually a positive, because if this team were uber-consistent, it would fold to better talent and systems. But because the Magic rely on nearly 25 3-pointers a game, second-most behind the Warriors, their pulse can be unusually hard to snuff.

Howard’s obviously their best player, but if guys like Hedo Turkoglu (19.6 points, 39% 3-point shooting), Rashard Lewis (18.5 points, 40.1% 3-point shooting), and Jameer Nelson (10.8 points, 37.3% 3-point shooting) get hot at the same time, the Magic could be a nightmare matchup for any opponent. Just don’t bet on it.

E-mail HoopsCorner writer Tyson Wirth at: Tyson-wirth@uiowa.edu

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