Injuries and The Heat Contender Profile

Tweet Much apologies about the delay but as always exam season usually wins over almost anything else in life. Before breaking down the Miami Heat and their title chances (hint: they are really really good) I will quickly tangent to talk about a storyline that has gained significant steam over the last few months, that storyline is the one of injuries.

One Bright side to the injury? Less outfits like this.

Earlier today a lot of people may have been disappointed to hear that Russell Westbrook could miss the playoffs after having surgery on his meniscus. Now, my hate for the Thunder is not hidden but even I feel bad for them. I still remember when Chris Webber went down in a heap in a year that Sacramento would almost assuredly have won the title (2003) and it sucks, it really does. You only get so many chances to win a title and Oklahoma City just lost one of them. Having said that, a lot of other teams are dealing with injuries; Rose, Bryant, Gallo, Nash, Ginobili, Lee, Rondo, Chandler, Granger, to name a few that could put a serious dent into what little chances they had to win the title in the first place (This is not even mentioning guys like Kevin Love whose absence greatly affected the Wolves season). The playoffs would be far more intriguing if everyone was healthy, that almost goes without say but isn't it time to consider the big picture here? Just earlier this year Popovich infamously benched his best players for a nationally televised game against the Miami Heat, sighting that playing four games in five nights on the road was a strain he did not want to expose his players to (something that both he and the Spurs were fined heavily for by David Stern). Pop is also among the least shy coaches when it comes to resting players and preserving them over the long haul, more than happy to throw away a few regular season wins for the long-term health of his team. Looking at the Spurs now, Pops method looks like its paying off; the Spurs seem to be getting healthy as other teams around them are crumbling with Ginobili and Parker looking like they are getting back to their best.

Injuries have clearly thrown a massive wrench into the postseason and now at least five fan bases will be left wondering what could have been if they were fully healthy for the playoffs. At what point does the NBA step in and do something? Now I am not asking for anything dramatic to be done, but how about just letting teams rest their players during the regular season without fear of being fined? Or maybe shorten the regular season by 10 games? These athletes are exerting themselves on a nightly basis for over seven months for our entertainment and we are surprised when they do serious damage to their bodies? Hopefully the occurrence of key injuries this year will alert someone with authority to do something about this in the future, because for now we know that Stern will stand pat.

The Miami Heat

One team that has not been affected by injuries to the extend that others have also happens to be the team that is the odds on favorite to win the title, the Heat. There really isn't much to profile about these guys, they can play any style: big, small, fast, slow, 3-point shooting, defense, you name it they have it. At their disposal they have three players who could be franchise players on other teams working in a system that took Miami on an astonishing 27 game winning steak. The Heat have lost only 2 games since signing Chris Andersen (who would have thought huh?) and it would be a massive surprise if they did not win their second straight title this season. The only drama at this point seems to be whether or not they can match the 01' Lakers and their 15-1 romp through the 2001 playoffs. Future editions of contender profiles will focus on what has to go right for teams to beat Miami, who will in all likely hood sweep the Bucks this weekend.

Up next: The Knicks of New York

San Antonio: The Quiet Giant

Tweet Wow! It feels like its been forever since I last posted something. One would think that after four years of University I would have learned to manage my time by now but this clearly is not the case. Better late than never I suppose. 

Continuing my take on the NBA, I feel that tonight is a good night to talk about the Spurs, especially since Pop ruined TNT's potential ratings by sending Tony Parker, Danny Green, Manu Ginobili, and Tim Duncan home early, right before a marquee match-up with the Miami Heat. My first thought? "About time!" I have been waiting for a quirky Popovich story for quite some time now and am glad that he delivered in a big way. Obviously, not everyone was happy about this, but I actually think its both brilliant and hilarious. The reason I like this move by the Spurs is that they know championships are not won on a Thursday night in November. Popovich is thinking long term all the way here, he is absolutely entitled to give his best players a rest if he thinks that they need one. To him, it doesn't matter if they lose an extra regular season game, what matters is that he keeps his players fresh for the games that actually count. Am I a little bit upset that I wont get to watch the best match-up of the year so far? Absolutely. Am I mad at Popovich? Absolutely not, the man is a brilliant coach and people should not be questioning him at this point. As an added bonus, Popovich will get to see what he really has on his roster. He can see if guys like Gary Neal, Cory Joseph, and DeJuan Blair deserve spots in the rotation or not (what better way to evaluate your players than against the defending NBA champions?), and he ultimately may find an x-factor for the playoffs that he didn't know he had.

Now that the major talking point of tonight's game is out of the way I can talk a bit about the Spurs in general. First of all; how are these guys still so relevant? They are winning games and dismantling teams like its 2003 and Tim Duncan has not looked this good in almost five seasons! How good has Duncan been this year? Apart from his numbers being up across the board, he is also top-5 in the league in PER, the go-to formula for evaluating NBA players. Duncan is playing so well that I am beginning to think that he was injured over the past two seasons and was just playing through it. Whatever the case is, if he can maintain this level of performance throughout the season, the Spurs should be considered a serious contender for the title. The more I follow the NBA the more I realize that teams like the Spurs (particularly from 1999 and on) are very rare and it saddens me to know that they can't continue this forever, at least not with this group of players. When was the last time a team in the NBA was picked to 'finally fall off' for almost eight years running and never wavered? Will we ever see another team put together a decade's worth of fifty win seasons, multiple titles, and several great players while flying completely under-the-radar? A team so many people labeled as 'boring' and dismissed them just because ESPN told them to do it, yet even when they give people what they want (a high-scoring Juggernaut that plays beautiful basketball) the people still disrespect them? I realize that most of what I have said does not apply to die-hard NBA fans who take their time and actually watch the games before forming opinions, but these fans are few and far between. So I urge you: forget about your bias, watch this team, and appreciate the things they do, it might be a long time before you see something like them again.