Thoughts on the 2006-07 Season

With the 2006-07 season ready to get underway in under a month, it's pretty exciting once again. It should be a wide open race for the NBA title, because a number of teams seem ready to contend this year. I include Miami, Chicago and Cleveland as my top picks in the East and Dallas, San Antonio and Phoenix as my top teams out West. After last year's spectacular comeback in the finals by Miami, you really can't count anyone out. There's a number of other teams including the Lakers, Pacers, Pistons, Hornets, Clippers, Nuggets and Wizards who are hungry as well. Miami and Dallas seem to be once again favorites, with alot of recent votes going towards Dallas to win it all, behind superstar Dirk Nowitski.

I think one main thing to look at though is a team's core. I almost compare the current Cleveland Cavs with their superstar Lebron James to the core Bulls teams. You had the superstar, MJ, who made all those around him better. While there's no Scottie Pippen type on the Cavs right now, you can argue that they have a better Center than any Bulls team ever did. In addition, they seem to have the role players around Lebron that they need. Guys like Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall and Drew Gooden provide solid skills in the categories of penetration, scoring, draining 3's when needed and rebounding. Lebron is capable of all the aforementioned skills, and he's capable of pushing things to the next level. His team took Detroit 7 games last year in the playoffs and basically exhausted them. I see a potential Cavs-Bulls or Cavs-Heat finals in the East this year. Lebron is just that good.

One more comment on the upcoming season, the rookie of the year race should be open as well this year. Last year Chris Paul won by a landslide, as he ran the Hornets and almost brought them to the playoffs. This year, early favorites are Brandon Roy of the Trailblazers and Randy Foye of the Timberwolves. I would give the edge to Roy due to the fact he is on a major rebuilding team. It would be hard to see Randy Foye scoring alot in the Twolves situation; they already have KG, Ricky Davis and a few others who like to score. It is possible Foye could pile up the assists though. Don't count out Adam Morrison either, he seems hungry for the NBA and to prove his talents and that he's not another fluke Larry Bird comparison.

That said, Im set for another great NBA season to soon begin..