This is our fifth segment on the best teams in franchise history by division. As always, our standard of review for this series of articles can be found here. The Northwest is one of the few divisions without an original NBA team in its midst. Still, they have some teams with robust and fun histories, a few of which are particularly interesting.
Denver Nuggets
-Kyle’s Best Team: 1976-77 (50-32)
-Most Wins: 1987-88 (54-28)
-Best Playoff Run: 1984-85 (8-7)
1. Marbury Happenings: One of the few subplots actively brewing in the NBA right now is the Knicks’ dealings with Stephon Marbury. Before this week, there were strong rumors that Marbury was going to be released and the Knicks were going to buyout the $22 million left on his deal for 2008-09. The situation is very interesting because there really are a myriad of options here. Granted, the Knicks won’t be very good and Marbury has been a complete headache the last few years but it is not necessarily clear that cutting Marbury is the right move at this point. So let’s go through the options:
-Keeping or Cutting?: Marbury has specifically asked the team to get it over with one way or another. The problem is that Marbury has some value, he’s certainly better than Chris Duhon and there are plenty of teams that would take a flier on him for a cheap contract (he’d probably get a midlevel exception money from someone). He seems to fit quite well for the Heat, who need some depth and took a flier on Tim Hardaway in a similar situation in 1996 (who was also viewed as a declining malcontent) only to find T-Hard inspired by Pat Riley. Other places where Marbury on the cheap makes sense includes some pretty good teams that need more guards like Cleveland, Houston, and San Antonio.
Having finished our Eastern Conference review of the best teams in franchise history, we now turn West. Our first Western division is the Southwest, which gives us the teams of Texas, all of which have fun histories, as well as the less ballyhooed recent expansion teams (and recently moved franchises) in Vancouver/Memphis and Charlotte/New Orleans. As always, our standard of review for this series of articles can be found here. Now let’s get to it…
Dallas Mavericks
-Kyle’s Best Team: 2002-03 (60-22)
-Most Wins: 2006-07 (67-15)
-Best Playoff Run: 2005-06 (14-9)
Atlanta Hawks
7/29 Sign Maurice Evans
7/30 Sign Randolph Morris
8/8 Re-sign Josh Smith
8/11 Sign Thomas Gardner and Othello Hunter
8/13 Sign Flip Murray
At the end of the day, the Hawks avoided the worst case scenario–that Smith would take a one-year qualifying offer in order to set up a run at unrestricted free agency in 2009. It seemed that Smith wanted to leave Atlanta pretty badly but not badly enough to risk injury or decline that could kill his market value in 2009. Smith is a young athletic leaper so I thought the risk wasn’t inordinate but $58 million is hard to turn down.
We now turn to one of the “new fangled” divisions, the Southeast, which was created to accommodate the expansion Charlotte Bobcats and even out the divisions (in case you missed it, an explanation of our “best” inquiry can be found here). Aside from Charlotte, the division contains two old franchises (Atlanta and Washington) and two newer guys (Miami and Orlando). The division lacks the obvious compelling best in franchise debates that we see in many of the other divisions but there may be some hidden teams or facts we never considered, so let’s check it out:
Atlanta Hawks:
-Kyle’s Best Team: 1986-87 (57-25)
-Most Wins: 1986-87 and 1993-94 (56-26)
-Best Playoff Run: 1958-59 (8-3)
1. Gold: In reality, the United States only lost one Olympics in a row but the feeling of futility has been palpable in the World Championships in 2002 and 2006 as well. So, now the United States has returned to gold in the Olympics and the question is what does this all mean?
I suppose it does touch on all of our jingoistic pride but winning the Olympics doesn’t validate (or invalidate) the notion that the United States produces the most and best basketball players in the world. But some notions coming the Team USA had coming into the Olympics are quite clear:
