2009 Offseason: Spurs Reloading

Among the trades that took place right before the draft was the Bucks trading Richard Jefferson to San Antonio for Bruce Bowen, Kurt Thomas, and Fabricio Oberto. Oberto was subsequently traded to the Pistons for Amir Johnson. Expectations are that Oberto will be waived by the Pistons, and Bowen by the Bucks, after which they will find themselves back in San Antonio. Add to this the drafting of potential lottery pick DeJuan Blair in the second round and it looks like the Spurs have reloaded. This is how their lineup looks at this point (including the anticipated return of Oberto and Bowen):

Starters:
C - Fabricio Oberto
PF - Tim Duncan
SF - Richard Jefferson
PG - Tony Parker
OG - Michael Finley

Bench:

6th Man - Manu Ginobilli
PF - Drew Gooden
SF - Bruce Bowen
PG - George Hill
PG/OG - Roger Mason
SF - Ime Udoka
PF/C - Matt Bonner
PF - Dejuan Blair

This is a pretty deep lineup, with quality reserves at all positions. It should also be sufficient to allow the team to limit the minutes of Duncan and Ginobilli, and ride Parker and Jefferson during the regular season. Ideally they would get another C/PF who can start alongside Duncan (Gooden, Oberto, Bonner are all reserves; Blair may blossom into a starter caliber PF if he lives up to the hype). All in all though, it seems that the Spurs have successfully reloaded.

2009 Season: Final Ratings

Having conluded the season with the Lakers victory over the Magic, and before the roster shuffles go full swing in preparation for the 2009-10 season, it might be good to take one last look at the season that was and check out how the teams performed. I initially plan to just review the season for the key teams but let's see how far we can take it.

RATING SCALE: Simply Meets Expectations, Does Not Meet Expectations, Exceeds Expectations

1. LA LAKERS - Meets Expectations
Despite having won the title, I feel that the Lakers just met expectations. Anything less than a championship for them this year would have been a disappointment. Even with the injury to Andrew Bynum and his subpar play in the playoffs, they still had the most balanced lineup with the best chance of winning. Their experience showed in the playoffs as they won the games they had to win.

2. ORLANDO MAGIC - Exceeds Expectations
While they did not win, and really did not play like a championship team in the finals, you have to admit that no one expected them to win the East. Everyone was talking about either the Cavs or the Celtics, at least before Garnett's injury. Just making the finals was good enough for them this year. Next year, however, would be a different story.

3. DENVER NUGGETS - Exceeds Expectations
No one expected the pre-season Nuggets to contend for the championship. They were not even a lock for the playoffs, specially after they dumped Marcus Camby in an effort to trim salaries. And while Nene's emergence as a center was unexpected and key to the team's success, it was the Billups-Iverson trade that upgraded them from a fringe playoff team to a contender. And even with Billups, they were not expected to make it all the way to the conference finals, let alone give the Lakers a serious challenge. It was because of the Nuggets' toughness that the Lakers were able to fine tune their game and lineup on the way to the title.

4. CLEVELAND CAVALIERS - Does Not Meet Expectations
The 2008-09 Cavaliers proved to be the modern version of the 90s Portland Trailblazers team - dominant regular season performance but playoff flameouts. Hopefully they can correct it over the offseason. What the playoffs showed was that Cleveland was more of a one man show than the stats indicated, since their other supporting players couldn't perform when it counted. It also exposed Mike Brown as a coach who won only because of Lebron. His inability to adjust during the Magic series was a critical flaw that cost the Cavs their season.

5. BOSTON CELTICS - Meets Expectations
Even though they were the defending champions, I did not see them as the strongest team coming in to this season. Without KG, the Celtics were no longer a title contender and would have been a marginal playoff team. Despite this, however, they got past the Bulls in the first round and stretched the Magic to 7 games.

6. HOUSTON ROCKETS - Meets Expectations
I was tempted to say they exceeded expectations based on their playoff performance without Yao and T-Mac, but this was offset by a regular season where they did not stand out. If you consider them as a team with T-Mac, they performed below expecations, but if you consider them as a team without T-Mac, they exceeded it. They are somewhere in between, hence they met expecations.

7. ATLANTA HAWKS - Meets Expectations
As expected, they improved on their performance last year, where the goal was to just make the playoffs. They managed to get home court advantage this year, took care of business in the first round agains the Heat, and consequently were taken care of in the second round. Nothing to crow about in terms of achievements, but also did enough to meet the expectations.

8. DALLAS MAVERICKS - Meets Expectations
If you consider the Mavs as an elite team, then the rating would be does not meet expectations. From my end, however, I see them as a regular season team which just doesn't have enough to be taken seriously as a playoff contender. From that perspective, they did just enough to get into the playoffs. In the first round, they faced a team that had a better record and rank, but whose team on the floor was not as good as theirs given the injuries. They beat what was a weaker team in the first round and then were booted out without much difficulty by the Nuggets in the second round.

2009 Playoffs: Filipino Commentators

The past couple of games of the finals have been covered by a Filipino team of Mico Halili as the play by play guy and Andy Jao as the analyst. While Mico has been fine as the play by play guy, Dr. J has been a disappointment as an analyst He does not bring anything to the table, basically just repeating what happened in the play by play. I did not see any real analysis, or perhaps more accurately, no analysis with any depth. He seemed to have trouble just catching up with the play by play and understanding what was going on, and any analysis he did was shallow if not irrelevant. They could have achieved the same results by just having Mico do the play by play and let the audience analyze on its own, since that's what we ended up doing anyway given the quality of the analysis. It was not so much as the analysis being wrong, but it tackled items that the viewers could assess on their own. There was nothing in-depth or outside what we could see on the screen.

In fairness, this may be because our broadcast team does not have the familiarity with the NBA nor the access to the teams. How would they know if a particular play was something that was developed specifically for the series or that a particular player was a secret weapon against this particular opponent.

All in all though, I would have preferred to listen to the NBA broadcast team, since they have the familiarity and the inside stories. They have more authoritative information, and bottom line, give more to me as the audience. I don't see any reason why it has to be telecast by Filipinos, unless they do the telecast in the local language to reach those who can't understand english. Unfortunately they don't give you the option on TV to watch it on the US broadcast. Too bad.

2009 Playoffs: Lakers Well On Their Way

It's over - series in 5 or 6 games to the Lakers. The Magic had their opportunities but they blew it. At least they got their first (and perhaps only) victory in a finals game, so they at least accomplished something.

I'd have to say that the Lakers pulled it out with talent and championship poise. While I was personally rooting for the Magic (and owe someone lunch because of it), it was because they were the underdogs. The Lakers have the stronger team, but the Magic seemed to have the best chance of an upset. Unfortunately, they blew it, giving away games 2 and 4 which they should have won. In the end, the difference not just in this series but in the whole playoffs was that the Lakers won when they had to. They won the games they should win. The games they controlled early, they did not give up. That's what experience and championship poise can do. The Magic, while winning games they should not have, also kept losing games that they should have won. Unfortunately, in basketball, there is no such thing as a moral victory - a win is a win, a loss is a loss. And at this point, the Lakers have won and the Magic have lost.