The Give and Go: Mea Culpa

Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

The Give and Go is a quick back and forth between Paul Mitchell and Chris St. Jean about a relevant subject in the NBA at that moment.

Paul:  We’ve entered the sixth week of the NBA’s 2014-15 season, and I feel like we can finally start looking at the stats and numbers without the small sample size caveat. Teams that found themselves struggling for the first few weeks of the season have begun to figure some things out (or vice versa), and maybe we’re at a point that we can revisit some of our preseason predictions and re-evaluate. So I’m wondering, which team(s) are you ready to admit that you were wrong about heading into this season, for better or worse?

Chris:  That’s actually kind of difficult. As you mentioned, we’re dangerously close to a point where small sample size loses it’s steam. Although, if you look back at last season, teams like Toronto and Brooklyn, and even Indiana and Portland to some degree, showed that a lot can happen between January 1st and the end of April. But things have already started to level off a little bit this season. I picked the Clippers to have the best record in the West for the regular season and after three weeks that looked ridiculous. But today, even though they are 7th in the West after five straight wins, they’re only three wins back of first. If I posed this question to you two weeks ago or even last week, you might have said that you were way off in thinking Denver was a frisky playoff contender, but they’ve won 8 of 10 and are a half game out of the 8 spot.

Charlotte’s too obvious (and I thought they might struggle, though not this much) so I’m actually going to go with Phoenix. Don’t get me wrong, I loved watching the Suns last season, but they got a career year out of Goran Dragic that I didn’t think was possible to replicate even before Isaiah Thomas was brought in. They lost Channing Frye, one of their most reliable big men, and so many of their role players from last year had career seasons (Gerald Green, P.J. Tucker, The Morris Twins). I didn’t expect them to fall apart completely, but I thought they would have a 2013 Minnesota-like, 40-42 season, never really having a chance at the playoffs.

That’s not the case. Phoenix will be in the mix until April and that race for the 8 seed is going to be crazy. OKC will be charging with Durant and Westbrook both playing this week. As I mentioned, Denver could be in the mix if their play continues (especially Ty Lawson), and you have young upstarts in Sacramento and New Orleans that are going to hang around. Phoenix has withstood poor starts by both their star point guards to cling to that 8th seed in an insanely difficult West all amid ‘media reports’ swirling as Isaiah Thomas comes off the bench and wins Phoenix games. Thomas and Green have been dynamic, combining to average 29.9 points per game and an outlandish 47.7 points per 36 minutes. Markieff Morris has been great as a starter, averaging 14.8 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 2.6 assists, and they’ve even gotten some really solid contributions out of second year center Alex Len, adding to their already gluttonous depth at a position of need on the bench unit.

I’ve been impressed with Phoenix’s resolve. At the start of the season, I saw them as a regression candidate, but now I see them as a young team that continues to develop and would love to get some playoff experience much like last season’s Wizards. What were you wrong about?

Paul:  Well, you mean besides picking Russell Westbrook to win the MVP award, and leaving Elfrid Payton off of both of my All-Rookie teams? I’ll try to stick to teams, though.

First off, we, and every other NBA writer and prognosticator, will probably be wrong on the Oklahoma City Thunder. Injuries suck. Russell came back last week and Kevin Durant is mere hours away from making his season debut and shredding Tyreke Evans and John SaLOLmons. I have no doubt a healthy Thunder squad will play .600 basketball in the next few months and will present major match-up issues if they finish with a #7 or 8 seed in the Western Conference. So maybe the Thunder won’t be a top-three seed, like most of us assumed in the preseason and before all the injuries hit, but they will be a playoff team, and watching KD and Russ play with a “sense of urgency” to overcompensate for the team’s 4-12 record in their absence should be amazing.

This whole exercise could look foolish if we look back on it in a couple of months, much as it would have last season after burying the Nets, Raptors, and Grizzlies early into the schedule. I liked Denver’s depth enough to think they could finish over .500 and claim the 9th spot in the West, ala “last year's Phoenix Suns”, and even though they’ve battled back to win 8 of their last 10 games, Ty Lawson really needs to play like an All-Star for this team to reach that level.

I’m a bit hesitant to claim the same with the Charlotte Hornets, in case they make a trade or get Michael Kidd-Gilchrist back healthy and go on a run, but 10 games under .500 by December 1st is a tough hole to climb out of, especially for a team that can’t score. Lance Stephenson and Kemba Walker haven’t really gelled yet in the same backcourt, and neither are great catch-and-shoot players who can spot up off of the others’ drives, but head coach Steve Clifford has to get the team back to shutting off the paint and playing top-10 defense. I’m optimistic that Rich Cho can add another shooter throughout the season, whether a minor piece or a starter-type, but if last season's defensive dominance was a fluke then it’ll be a long season in Charlotte.

On the optimistic side of the spectrum, the Sacramento Kings have been everybody’s surprise team after the first couple of weeks, but injuries to DeMarcus “BOOGIE!” Cousins and Rudy Gay have sapped some of the acclaim, as they’ve lost their last three games and 6 of their last 10. They’re about average to slightly-below on both sides of the ball, but leading the league in rebounding percentage and free throw attempts per game. Younger pieces like Darren Collison and Ben McLemore have shown signs of competence, along with steady veteran big men Reggie Evans and Chuck Hayes. Talk about another team that could use a shooter, though…

Finally, I was wrong about the Portland Trail Blazers, but especially their offseason additions. I had Terry Stotts’s squad as my regression candidate in the Western Conference, falling to the 8th seed after finishing 5th last season, due mostly to my high esteem for the rest of the conference and unfavorable opinion of Steve Blake and Chris Kaman to back up at the point guard and center positions, respectively. Instead, Kaman is averaging 11.1 points and 7.2 boards (in just 19.3 minutes) on 50.6% shooting, while Blake is still struggling shooting the ball (4.4 points on 34.8% on 2’s and 31.5% on 3’s) but is averaging 4.5 assists in 22.1 minutes per game. Wes Matthews has been exceptional so far in his contract year (18.8 points with 61.1/40.9/66.7 triple-slash percentages), along with team leaders Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge. Nic Batum’s injury was mostly offset by bench players like C.J. McCollum, Will “The Thrill” Barton, and even Meyers Leonard stepping up, and the Blazers sit at 13-4 with the 4th-ranked offense and 6th-best defense. The West is so good that the Blazers could still fall to the 8th seed by the end of the season, separated by merely a couple of games in the standings, but the team has improved its defense and depth from last season and look like a top-4 seed in the loaded Western Conference. My bad, Blazers fans.