24/25 Season Preview - Part 2
@Solius @hobbers @weetee @V.O. @Dan @Skizzo @BenitoSTARR @The Cat @Stobzilla @Heine
Sonius - Indiana Pacers (52-30, Runners up)
After coming much closer to winning the title than anyone had expected, with the possible exception of
Sonius himself, the Indiana Pacers are surely poised to launch a renewed effort this year. Kevin Knox took a very slight step behind, but although he was vital as a second option, his decline should be more than made up by the improvement of many other Pacers, including Sonius himself. As with seemingly all of our contenders, the team is a bit shallow beyond the excellent starting 5.
Skizzlet - Atlanta Hawks (52-30, 1st Round)
How good are the Hawks,
really? We didn't really get to see them do much last season, but injury struck them very hard as soon as the playoffs started. This year they seem even better, on almost every level. They have a very solid starting 5 (with several of those great Centers that other teams have none of), and a fairly deep team beyond that as well. Is this
Skizzlet's year? There's a load of strong teams in the East, so the goal should be top 4 in the regular season.
Dan II - Philadelphia 76ers (54-28, Conference Finals)
And here's one of those strong Eastern teams I mentioned. The progression bag is a little bit more mixed than it was for the Atlanta, but the Philadelphia 76ers have a very interesting team.
Dan II may have gotten a little bit worse, but he's been putting up gigantic scoring performances with significantly lower overall ratings than this. I suspect he can be an efficient piece well into his low 50s, and honestly even lower if they'd actually play him. The 76ers nearly made it all the way last time. We go again?
BenitwoSTARRLET - Brooklyn Nets (20-62)
The Brooklyn Nets are a very interesting team. They lack that one true superstar, though
BenitwoSTARRLET is
quite good. But beyond that they have a solid starting 5 and a rather deep team. They also have 20 year old Magic Johnson. Is he going to be good old Magic Johnson? I have no idea! All I know is that it's going to be very interesting to watch, and I'm sure BenitwoSTARRLET will be content to go along for the ride.
Stobzilla II - Charlotte Hornets (27-55)
Oh look, it's
Stobzilla II! I thought he retired? No, he'll never retire. Not as long as there are teams without solid Centers out there. Or, in the case of the Charlotte Hornets, teams who only have two other solid Centers in the starting line-up. Our Cafite is very much the old man of the group, which does mean the Hornets could actually become quite good, with a bit of luck. Or without a bit of luck, they could stall and fall back down to whatever they've been doing the last few years.
Heine - San Antonio Spurs (56-26, Conference Finals)
Okay, so the Spurs didn't win another ring. But
Heine proved that he wasn't
just the second fiddle to Nobbers. Winning MVP and DPOY in the same season is very impressive. You'd expect that to fuel another championship run, and in fact I do expect that. The Spurs aren't quite the same team they were last season, though, so it's hard to predict
exactly how good they are going to be. There are reasons to think they'll be even better, and certainly they have one of the better constructed starting 5s in the league. Let's see.
The Cub - Denver Nuggets (30-52)
Okay, so
The Cub is back playing for the worst team in the league. It's been one of those careers. On the other hand, the fact that his new team were so bad last season is also why they were able to draft both Gilbert Arenas and Jerry West. As with Magic Johnson, it's impossible to predict how good they are actually going to be. Surely one of them will hit, though? And if they do, The Cub will be there, guiding into a bright future.
Nobbers - New Orleans Pelicans (37-45, 2nd Round)
4x MVP, 6x Champion, 4x Finals MVP... the list goes on. Well, obviously it does. Just look up. The point is that
Nobbers, while approaching his 30s, is still a
very good player. And with all those accolades in the bank, why not just get weird with it for however long the rest of his career is? The Pelicans aren't supposed to be particularly good, but then they somehow made it to the 2nd Round last year. And with all due respect to BenitwoSTARRLET, Nobbers is on another level. Of course, that playoff performance came from a very unlikely 10th seed, which is... not ideal. Maybe don't try to replicate that.
weeweetee & Lil' V.O. - Houston Rockets (48-34, Champions)
Oh look, it's our newest champions! It took them a few years, but I am sure it's no less sweet. The two superstars are functionally the same players they were last year too, with only the slightest of declines for both
weeweetee and
Lil' V.O.. Slightly more worrying is the fact that two other players in the already extremely shallow team saw some decline, though they also saw players get better. All that is to say, while I wouldn't be betting on the Rockets repeating their championship run, I wasn't betting on it last season either. Why the hell couldn't they do it again?