Is it ever too early for playoff talk? I think not. It starts when the season starts. Heck, for some of us it starts when the previous season ends. When the summer draft formulates the many scenarios of the upcoming season.
This season so far has been one of the best in ages. We’ve seen a resurgence in the true competitive spirit that makes the NBA unlike any other sports league.
The glory days have finally come again where showmanship, respect, and integrity have finally come together to produce some of the best basketball in ages.
This years playoffs have more at stake than in previous years. Not only is it the ring, the trophy, and historic glory, but this years playoffs may very well determine where some of the biggest stars in the NBA end up next season.
Fans and analysts alike have been gobbling up the 2010 free agency news like a free buffet. New questions are constantly thrown into the flurry. Lebron in New York? Lebron and D-Wade together in Miami? D-Wade in Chicago? And my personal favorite: New York signing LeBron, D-Wade, and Chris Bosh. Can you imagine the horror a team like that would inflict on defenses?
These scenarios, these super squads, may become reality if certain players respective teams don’t produce come playoffs.
Most likely we won’t see LeBron go anywhere. The King is rolling with the best crew in the league while putting up MVP numbers next to a still productive, though obviously aged, Shaquille O’Neal.
Danny Ferry and his staff have done everything they can to keep their hometown pride and joy right where he belongs. They even went as far as to sign another 20 point scorer in Antawn Jamison, a big decision with short-term implications all to show LeBron that he means more to the Cavs than a few extra million in luxury tax.
Both Wade and Bosh have good chances to take each of their teams to the playoffs. As of right now Toronto sits in fifth place. Miami is under tremendous pressure to hold onto the eighth spot in the east with a determined Charlotte team biting at their heels.
Wade wants out, we know this. He’s said he would leave if the team could not win. Unlike LeBron, there is nothing holding Wade to the city of Miami and unlike Bosh and another soon to be free agent Amar’e Stoudemire, Wade’s team isn’t winning games.
Wade will likely end up in his hometown of Chicago with the Bulls. A team that, in trading away Tyrus Thomas and swingman John Salmons, have made it very clear that Wade is a target. Even with Wade the Bulls still may be one piece short of a championship caliber team, but that is leaps and bounds ahead of the crumbling situation in Miami.
Bosh may not move with the Raptors at least holding their own in the standings. Teams like Dallas and New York have all shown interest, but unless one of the other two heads to New York, or Dallas loses in the first round again, neither of those teams with have the luck, or the strongest intent, to sign Bosh.
So we’ll see. The balance of power in the NBA may never well shift dramatically. It all depends on how tough teams choose to get in the postseason and how much each player, coach, and manager wants to keep things the same, or flip their teams upside down.
