NBA
This is the first ever edition of "The Post-Up Play" by Kevin Cantor. This is a new column where I’ll "dish-out" the issues concerning the NBA for the past week, highlight the player of the week, and much more. So stay tuned and read the column every Wednesday.
NBA Power Rankings are finally here for the 2004-2005 Season. Any and all feedback, complaints, suggestions are welcomed. If I get good responses, I’ll continue to do the rankings weekly. Enjoy!
In all the euphoria of the Boston Red Sox’ historic World Series victory, another basketball season has quietly gotten under way. Over the next two weeks, I will preview each team in both conferences and make predictions on how each team will fare in their chances of winning the NBA title.
So, without further ado, away we go.
The cold, dark hand of poverty strikes many living paycheck to paycheck until, one day, the paychecks run out.
This is going to be the most exciting division in the East. With the Bobcats now in Charlotte, it should make for a pretty interesting and surprising Southeast. It’s also going to be a very exciting time in Florida as the new look Orlando Magic and Miami Heat are going to be battling it out for “Champions of the Sunshine State”.
Last year, I watched parts of three games during the regular season.
I watched the first quarter of the early Christmas game on ABC, I watched a Denver @ Miami game in which Miami scored 100 points in the first three quarters because it was on at Outback when I was visiting Miami, and I watched part of Miami’s classic overtime miracle on Friday night against Dallas in March. The last game was the only one that spurred any emotion.
The Los Angeles Lakers rolled out the welcome mat for an old friend during the off-season when they signed former Sacramento Kings center,and free agent Vlade Divac to help replace the void left by Shaquille O’neal who was earlier traded to the Miami Heat.
The Central Division of the Eastern Conference. Always good teams in this division with players like Reggie Miller, Ben Wallace, Lebron James and Keith Van Horn. The Central is all but a lock down for the Pistons but there will be a few surprises in the back end of the standings. Let’s get right to it.
Driving into downtown Salt Lake for the first time after six month in Las Vegas, I saw a Billboard featuring the University of Utah Football team. It boldly claimed “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet!” Someone must have had the inside scoop, because earlier this morning, Utah claimed the sixth spot in the BCS rankings. If they can hold it, they’re going to a BCS Bowl. A team that many argued would fall to the bottom of the rankings after the loss of Ron McBride is on its way to proving a lot of people wrong.
The 2004-05 season is about to be under way. With that in thought, I’m here for my yearly predictions and analysis of each division. This will be a seven part series. First I will start off with the East Atlantic Division. There won’t be many surprises this year out of the Atlantic but as they say, you never know.