The NBA season begins this week, and there will be some changes for several teams. There are a couple of teams specifically that everyone should keep an eye on.
Houston Rockets
Sometimes, in sports, and life in general, a change is needed. The Rockets realized that this summer. So they fired Jeff van Gundy and hired Rick Adelman, who is perhaps best known for coaching the exciting Sacramento Kings in the early part of this decade.
The Kings always had an offense that was constantly in motion with non-stop cuts to and around the baskets by Mike Bibby to set up shots or thread-the-needle passes from big guys Vlade Divac and Chris Webber.
Adelman also sports a .610 winning percentage, the highest among active coaches. This year’s version of the Rockets will similarly be more offensive-minded, thanks to Adelman’s style, and will easily score much more than the 80 points that they seemed to tread around every night with Van Gundy at the helm.
Houston also acquired former Rockets Mike James and Steve Francis. I like the Stevie Franchise move a lot, and he showed in the preseason that he can still make the acrobatic plays like the Stevie of old.
While last season’s Rockets had nearly no scorers other than superstars Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, the new Rockets have plenty of options in Francis, James and Bonzi Wells, who played for Adelman in Sacramento.
Because of this new talent, star Tracy McGrady won’t have to always handle the ball this season, and will have plays set up for him to score on. And this obviously makes the fans happy, especially those who have McGrady on their fantasy basketball teams, such as myself.
Boston Celtics
This Boston team is the only team in the trio of Boston’s major teams that has been disappointing. While the Patriots and the Red Sox have won championships in the last couple of years, the Celts have continuously performed badly.
This will change this season, thanks to their huge offseason.
The acquisitions of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen will make for a potent offense. "The Big Three,"consisting of those two and perennial Boston All-Star Paul Pierce, will definitely make up for any shortcomings the rest of the team has, and will lead to Boston being an elite Eastern Conference team.
If everything works well, the Celtics might be joining their NFL and MLB counterparts in the winner’s circle in the near future.
Phoenix Suns
This team features back-to-back MVP Steve Nash, as always.
But it’s the presence of the oft-injured Amare Stoudemire for an entire season that will make this team one of the best teams this season.
Having Nash and Stoudemire on the court for the entire season will be one devastating combination.
Not to mention other helpful Suns players such as Leandro Barbosa, Boris Diaw, who is in shape this season and Raja Bell.
But Stoudemire’s presence will ultimately be the difference, because of his raw scoring and defensive presence in the middle that the Suns desperately needed last season.
