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The song goes "So this is the New Year, and I don't feel any different," but obviously Death Cab For Cutie hasn't been paying attention to the NBA. Only 6 teams have kept their standings from last time, but more importantly 2007 brings a new #1 team.

[All stats from games up to & including 1/7/07]

It's undeinable that the Mavs are the NBA's hotest team, and OTTER has catapulted them to the top of the list. Dallas' streak of 13 straight wins becomes more impressive when you consider which teams they have faced. Admittedly they played some softies (Philly, Charlotte, and Seattle twice), but Dallas took on 3 of the top 5 teams and came away with wins. Phoenix (ranked #2), San Antontio, (#3), and the Lakers (#5) were all trampled in the Mavericks' stampede. Los Angeles ended the Mavs' streak on their second try, and Utah (#4) was the last team to beat Dallas prior to the run. Dallas played 4 of the top 5 teams, and beat 3 of them. That's quite impressive.

Meanwhile San Antonio seems to have hit a rough patch. Losing to Dallas was understandable, but the Spurs have lost to some dubious opponents. Cleveland? You could argue they're a strong Eastern team. Milwaukee? Maybe the Bucks have been on an offensive tear, but San Antonio's terrific defense could have handled them. Minnesota? Well I guess they still have Garnett. Losing three in a row? Eep! Sound the alarm!

Take into account only the 2007 stats, and the Spurs are ranked 4th overall. In otherwords ModCol puts the Spurs outside of the supposed "Big 3." Simple mathematics shows that even the best team can loose 3 in a row. Considering Utah's poor point differential and the Jazz's foul prone defense, and you'd have to expect San Antonio to rejoin the top 3 at some point in the season.

OTTER shows the East's best to be second tier teams. Accounting for only the 2007 results, and the West holds the top 6 spots. So which of these 4 Eastern teams would you consider the best? Cleveland has LeBron James and the best overall record. Detroit has "playoff experience", and they match up well against Cleveland. Chicago made the big off season free agent signing in Ben Wallace, and they have the best point differential in the East. Washington has an explosive offense, led by the incendiary Gilbert Arenas. Right now OTTER has the Pistons in the lead, but like the West, the East is a tight race, and the spots should change as the season progresses.

Minnesota loses the Iverson sweepstakes, and what do they do? Since Christmas they have won 6 of 8 games and have beaten a few heavyweights in the Bulls, Spurs, and Rockets. The conventional wisdom after the Iverson deal was that Garnett would follow suit and request to be traded. However it seems that KG is content to make the best with what he has. The team still could use offensive help, as Kevin Garnett is still the only reliable scoring threat, nonetheless the Twolves are winning with their defense.

I wonder what happened to the Clippers - isn't this the same team that won 47 games last year? According to ClipperBlog:

I picked the team to win 50 games and return to the Conference Semifinals as a (4) (5) seed with San Antonio, Phoenix, and Dallas, with a similar outcome — a hard-fought series loss to a superior, better-seasoned opponent. I'm not going to backtrack on that prediction and tell you it was a blind act of patriotism. Sure, Clipperblog may have been wearing a fabulous pair of Paul Smith rose-colored lenses, but there was good reason to believe that only Cassell and Tim Thomas would not replicate their numbers of last season, and that the growth of players like Kaman and Livingston — along with a healthy Maggette — would compensate for any dropoffs.

In looking at the team today, I wonder about this notion that the Clippers are a team awash in talent. Are they? Do the Clippers honestly have the kind of shot-creating personnel, the offensive repertoire, the gunnery from the outside to compete with the better teams in the league?

I'll leave this as an excersize for the reader: What do Ryu Seung Min, Wang Hao, and these teams have in common?

Published on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 5:52 pm