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After the Los Angeles Clippers demolished the Phoenix Suns on Sunday night for their franchise-record 13th straight win, there were two telling quotes coming out of the losing locker room.
The first came from Suns coach Alvin Gentry, who was very impressed.
“That is the best team we’ve played,” said Gentry, whose club has faced Miami, Memphis, New York and Golden State but has yet to play Oklahoma City or San Antonio.
With a quarter of the season already completed, we are starting to get a feel for the identity of most teams.
There is still plenty of basketball left to play with plenty of questions about many teams, but if you were wondering if the Toronto Raptors or the Cleveland Cavaliers could potentially make the playoffs before the start of this season, those thoughts are probably no longer there, given the struggles of those respective teams.
Although there is a general picture painted of what we can expect for the remainder of the season, a bunch of teams still remain enigmatic because of who they are missing. The following critical players have missed all of or most of this season: Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, Andrew Bynum, Eric Gordon and John Wall.
Until these players return for the teams they play for, it’s mostly difficult to get a read on how good or bad their teams will be this season. Luckily, there is positive news for the status of most of them, found below:
The best team flying under the radar has two rookies in its starting lineup. But it’s not the Charlotte Bobcats.
It is missing its oft-injured big man. But it’s not the Philadelphia 76ers.
It has All-Star candidates at point guard and power forward. But it’s not the Los Angeles Clippers.
It is an original NBA franchise that has not won a title since the 1970s. But it’s not the New York Knicks.
Remember back in 2010, when Kenny Smith boldly claimed that Kevin Durant would be the best basketball player in the NBA in three years?
It sounded pretty crazy then, mostly because of the guy that just won Sportsman of the Year, along with just about everything else you could possibly win over the past calendar year as a basketball player.
What separated LeBron James from Durant back then was his ability to create for others on offense, something the Thunder forward had yet to develop at the time. In fact, Durant has never averaged more assists than turnovers in his entire career – until now.
Trying to diversify all facets of his game, Durant is averaging 4.4 assists and 3.3 turnovers on the season. While it’s not at the level of James, Durant is certainly doing his best to close the gap on creating offense for his teammates.
In order to make things easier for our readers we have decided to split the weekly planner into a weekly review to be published on Saturday and weekly preview on Sunday. For Saturdays, we are replacing our lessons from the Week That Was with an expanded review of roster changes including injuries and rotation updates in addition to our Depth Chart. Come back tomorrow and we will preview the Upcoming Schedule and make our picks of Sits and Starts.
Today’s column includes a more in depth look at the return to relevance for Chauncey Billups, Derek Fisher, Mikael Pietrus and Jerry Stackhouse, each of whom struggles to shoot even 40% from the floor.
