1) 37 Wins. Will not flirt with a playoff birth, but will make a slight push in the last few weeks when other teams start tanking.

2) Standings:

1. Utah – 59-23
2. Portland – 55-27
3. Minnesota – 37-45
4. Denver – 35-47
5. Seattle – 28-54

3) ROY Standings

1. Greg Oden
2. Derrick Rose
3. Michael Beasley
4. Kevin Love

4) Al Jefferson is an All-Star reserve.

5) Foye averages 17 ppg 5 apg, McCants averages 15 ppg, Telfair averages 6 apg

6) Starting Lineups

Mid-Season – Telfair-Foye-Gomes-Love-Jefferson
End-Season – Telfair-Foye-Brewer-Love-Jefferson

7) Probably no trades, but McCants would be the first to go.

8) Western Playoff Picture

1. LA Lakers
2. Houston
3. Utah
4. New Orleans
5. Portland
6. San Antonio
7. Dallas
8. Phoenix

yay!

1) 33 wins (which I think is good, would mimic or even be better than Portlands progress)

2)

Utah 55 wins
Portland 50 wins
Denver 35 wins
Minny 33 wins
OKC 29 wins (they’ll make a jump next year)

3)

1) Beasley (Miami will look good (not saying they’ll be good)
2) Oden
3) Love
4) Gallinari (gotta go with my euro buddy here since I don’t like Mayo one bit. He seems like a poor mans Kobe .. and I really don’t like the way Kobe plays.)
5) Rose (he needs some time because of being a PG)

4)

Jefferson in the Allstar team next year, not this year.

5)

Foye 14 ppg and 5 apg, Mccants 18 ppg, Telfair 9 apg, depending on if Foye plays more point or more sg.

6) Both midway and end of season .. though I’m not really believing there will be any kind of starting lineup. Witt is gonna test out all kinds of stuff for the full year.

Telfair
Foye
Miller
Love
Jefferson
 
7)
   
I’m guessing Mccants and Carney (+booth off course). Mccants will clash too much and even though Brew still won’t break through, Carney won’t either and they took just a flyer on Carney, they used a nr 7 pick on Brewer so Carney out.

8) (this is probably not correct since I’m not completely sure who’s in what division, so I’ll just rank the top 8 teams of the west in my mind :p)

1) Hornets
2) Spurs
3) Lakers
4) Jazz
5) Rockets
6) Blazers
7) Mavs
8) Wolves :p

Wolves begin with 12 losses, release Madsen, and immediately reel off 20 straight wins

1. Wolves get…
32 Wins. Wittman’s leash is getting appreciably shorter. After all the KG rumblings, we are back to where we were before he was traded, but with a much better cap situation, AND some draft choices.

2. Northwest Division standings:
Utah – 54-28
Portland – 50-32
Denver – 35-47
Minnesota – 32-50
Seattle – 28-54

3. I’m still not totally on the Love Boat. The Next White Hype will have a decent rookie season, Sid will be touting the fact that in 5 minute stretches of all games in the third quarter, he leads NBA rookies in scoring and rebounds. Jim Petersen will be telling us—again—how much we don’t know about the game of basketball. Love is 5th or 6th in the voting, which for the Wolves will be more than enough, and result in a new ad campaign for the 2009-10 season…“All We Need is Love”. Big Al gets pissed.

Oden (if healthy)
Rose
Beasley
Mayo
Westbrook/Love
Bayless
Hickson
Thompson

4. Nope. Big Al has to play full court defense, and the Wolves have to win more games before he’s an All Star. There’s too much talent in the West. Love makes it to the Rookie Game, though.

5. Foye’s in the mid teen’s with 4 assists per game.
McCants—hopefully traded at some point during the season—low teen’s coming off the bench, chafing at the sixth man role.
Telfair, depending on playing time will have 5-7 assists per game.

6. Mid season lineup:
Big Al
Love
Gomes
Miller
Foye

End of season: same.

Hopefully one of the goals this season will be for Wittman to establish and stick with a rotation. Since the Wolves are stubbornly holding on to the notion that either Jefferson or Love can play the 5, the rotation will be controversial in nature. By mid season—barring a trade—you’d think they would know what they have.

7. I would agree with Auswolf about Carney and McCants. Shaddy’s not going to be able to handle a bench role on a bad team. I would say Calvin Booth would be another candidate for dismissal.

8. West standings
LA
New Orleans
Rockets
Utah
San Antonio
Portland
Phoenix
Mavericks

I’m showing my disgust with Seattle/OKC, and the fact I copied the division list from Andy G’s post. I meant the OKC Bennetts instead of the Sonics. Sorry.

…which are just enough time to toss a list off:

1- 36 wins. With 8 games against Memphis and OKC and with a squad that should be able to win more than 4 game before the new year; added to a conference that has a weakening Phoenix, Dallas, Golden State; and a crappy Sacramento, the Wolves will have opportunities to win a fair amount of games this year. Portland is positioning itself for the most overrated team in the league. Last year, the Blazers went 15-22 from Feb 1st to the end of the year. The Wolves went 13-24. Portland is adding a guy who just had his knee taken apart, an unproven Spanish player who appears to be all arms, legs, and out of control in international ball, and an undersized combo guard who starred on one of the most under-achieving teams in college ball. Their best player just had his knee operated on again (he has played in 131 games in 2 years) and they have Steve Blake at the point. They have just as much young and unproven talent as the Wolves and they are adding even more new players. If Roy misses any time at the beginning of the year, it will further depress their record. I’m not buying the hype at all and I think all of these sites that have them finishing 5th or better in the West are insane.

2- Northwest Division Standings:
Utah: 60-22
Portland: 42-40
Wolves: 36-46
Denver: 30-52
OKC: 17-65

3- Rookie of the Year:
Beasley
Darrell Arthur
Kevin Love
Marreese Speights
Jason Thompson

Can you tell that I think this year’s rookie crop of guards are completely overrated? I’m betting that Mario Chalmers ends up with the most votes for a backcourt player after he ends the year as Miami’s starter. Beasley gets the nod by becoming Miami’s 2nd scoring option in his 1st year and by gathering a ton of rebounds on a squad that doesn’t rebound. Arthur surprises everyone by being the only inside scoring presence (and rebound demon) on a team filled with perimeter dandies. K-Love wears down near the end of the year but he goes 12-8 with 4-5 assists per game and it’s simply too much to ignore. Speights and Thompson work their way into key roles a’la Landry from last year. Rose breaks down about 35-40 games into the season after being unable to really run the point and Mayo and Gay clash over who gets to take 20 shots a game somewhere in mid-January.

4- Big Al does not make the All Star game. He will deserve to, but who will he be placed on the roster in front of: Melo, Duncan, Boozer, Dirk, or Amare?

5- Points and assists:
Foye: 16.2 ppg
McCants: 15.4 ppg

Bassy will win the starting point position in mid-December and will average between 7-8 assists per game.

6- Mid-season lineup:
Bassy
Foye
Miller
Love
Jefferson

7- End-season lineup:
Foye
Miller
Josh Smith
Love
Jefferson

Minny pulls of the sign and trade after Josh Smith burns all possible bridges during the season. They send Carney, McCants, 2 1sts, and the expiring contract of Collins to Atlanta for Smith. Oh wait, this is the Wolves. They will have Foye at the point the entire year with Brewer, Miller, Love, and Jefferson rounding out the starting 5 at the end.

8. West standings:
LA
Utah
San Antonio
New Orleans
Houston
Phoenix
Dallas
Clippers (seriously)

You should post something like this in the forums. I would but I don’t want to totally rip off Wyn’s idea. Just a thought.

If Brewer does improve greatly, he should not be seeing any minutes. Based on my analysis, he did more to hurt the team last year than anyone else. There’s more team and player analysis on nbagauntlet.com

…we’ll have to have a follow-up post on them at the end of the season.