Continuing with our divisional tour of best teams by franchise, we come to the Central Division, where we have some tough choices to consider. If you’re interested in the parameters of our discussion and our standard of review, you can check out the intro here. But going forward, we get to look a pretty fun bunch of franchises, all of whom had several different years of success to measure against each other…
Best Team In Franchise History: Atlantic Division
Sure, we have the Olympics to keep us quasi-interested in basketball this summer but usually we like to get a bit historical in the summers. In particular, we like to play with the usual unanswerable (and sometimes irrelevant) questions that we all think about. This summer we’ll tackle the question of which team is the best in each franchise’s history. This question is complicated on several levels. First, you have to define “best.” Obviously, winning a title may seem like a pre-requisite if you are defining “best” by the team that accomplished the most in a single season. Playoff success is something to consider but, for better or for worse, we are defining best by guessing who would win in a head-to-head match up most often. This leads to the next question of whether the level of play has improved over time and how that fact should be incorporated into any assessment. Our standard answer on this point is that the level of play jumped up in the 1960s and has steadily risen since then. So, we are skewed more towards modern teams in this inquiry but certainly there are exceptions to this rule.
Quick Thoughts
1. Team USA Is A-Coming: With the Olympics has approaching, we find ourselves again watching another Team USA take a shot at the gold, that has eluded them to varying degrees since 2000. When we examine this issue, we are quick to point out a few things. The idea that the United States hasn’t won the gold isn’t some sort of silly national shame. Rather, the world has improved, the rules of international basketball (shorter court, three point line, and length of game) encourage upsets, and Team USA has made some bad choices. Still, the United States team is obviously the favorite. Here’s a quick look at the notables on the other squads:
Transactions 7/9-7/17
Boston Celtics
7/16 Sign Patrick O’Bryant
O’Bryant was predictably a washout for Don Nelson’s small man offense. In fact, he barely played in Golden State in two years but did block a lot of shots. His 2007-08 NBDL stats are also pretty good (16.8 ppg, 10 rpg, 3.5 bpg, 21.0 PER). Given the fact that he’s still very young and not without talent, O’Bryant is still worth taking a flier on.
Quick Thoughts
1. Some Summer League Fun: Here we are nearing the dead zone of the NBA year. Most of the major NBA free agents are taken care and a few trades may pop up in August and September and the Olympics won’t be coming until that time either. The only games right now are those wacky summer league games. I thought I’d go through and throw out some fun names that we haven’t seen for a while:
Transactions 5/17-7/9
Atlanta Hawks
5/28 Name Rick Sund general manager
6/17 Sign coach Mike Woodson to contract extension
Atlanta has been a weird a dysfunctional organization for a while now. How does Mike Woodson survive but GM Billy Knight get the axe? One would think that Knight and Woodson, having been together for so long, were tied to the same train. Actually, Knight apparently made several appeals to ownership to can Woodson during the season. Knight was ignored and Woodson led the Hawks to their best season since 1998-99. Viola! Woodson wins the power struggle and Knight is outta town.