okay. so i was reading Gothic Ginobili and Truehoop and everything else and so i thought i would put together some storylines i hope to see this nba season.
1) Josh Smith somehow get traded to a contending team, get his brains put in the right place by his coach, and become the most ridiculously effective third banana since 2009 Lamar Odom.
One of my favourite players in the game has to do something about his game. Stop shooting long 2s and ATTACK THE HOOP like the beast he is on every play. continue to play mad help defense. and stop looking for stupid shots. Josh Smith’s game is video-gamelike: the highlights are incredible, and everything is done with bang and shazam. the dunk. the block. the chasedown. the alleyoops. the sneaky passing. but he’s got to put it together. i hope Josh Smith gets traded to a place with a tried-and-tested big man and a great ball handler who knows how to make use of the incredible force Josh Smith is. imagine J-Smoove playing with Dirk at some mad hybrid 3/4 combination, and a feisty guard feeding them the ball. man. Josh Smith would become a cross of Lamar Odom and Shawn Marion… that’s some insane stuff there. I love #5… i just hope he performs in real life like how he performs on my fantasy squads in nba2k12. doesn’t get many plays called for him, averages 20 and 10, with 2 blocks and 2 steals a game, all-star, all-defense, and the fulcrum of my squad’s defense. one can hope.
2) Lebron continue to destroy everyone… except this time from the post.
Same thing… my fantasy squads have lebron playing at the 4 because it is a ridiculous matchup advantage. and on defense i switch lebron to whoever is the best player on the opponent squad. lebron is the hack of all hacks… he is an aimbot and a gameshark. i want to see what lebron can do to the rest of the league now that he and everyone else in the world knows that the best player in the world is, without a doubt, one LeBron James.
3) the resurgence of Kevin Garnett at the 5.
Garnett is old. yeah. but he is also my favourite big man in the game. plays with a mad intensity and competitive drive. and is totally phenomenal at what he does. yes his physical talents have dropped off (whose won’t?) but i would want KG on my team. any day.
this season with allen out of miami… KG probably going to have to score more. i don’t know how much scoring game he has left but hopefully they manage his minutes well, KG stays healthy, and keys another incredible celtics run.
#21 in minnesota will remain to me the best power forward ever. if i had to choose between having duncan or KG i would pick KG on my squad. every single time.
4) speaking of minnesota… lets hope the wolves make the playoffs.
the wolves have an incredible mix of talent. rubio, love, derrick williams (?). and some other jokers. no more beasley (though i hope he does well in the Suns). the most exciting part about the wolves? Brandon Roy. brandon roy was on the way to stealing my heart as my favourite shooting guard… a shooting guard that i actually liked. yeah i can appreciate kobe’s incredible skill and wade’s monstrous play and joe johnson’s all-round steadiness and manu’s heady forays and argentine brilliance… but brandon roy was/is the first shooting guard that i really liked. (T-Mac doesn’t count, he’s a strange 1/2/3 who is simply a freak of basketball). i hope roy can recover and play well. and then you have andrei kirilenko. another player whom i like. lets hope the two of them do well and the wolves sneak into the playoffs (powered by a 25/15/4 with 2 threes a game season from KEVIN LOVEEEEEEE) and make some noise.
5) the clippers.
i have this feeling the clippers are going nowhere. sure they have chris paul (incredible top 5 player in the nba) and an absolute beast in blake griffin, but for some reason i just get the feeling that they aren’t a complete team. other than paul, everyone else on their roster is highly deficient in some way or the other. heck, chris paul has injury issues.
despite all this… the clippers will still make lots of noise. but i don’t really like them and i don’t think they will be going anywhere further than conference semis. thunder lakers spurs grizz all can beat them.
6) GRIT AND GRIND
i love the grizzlies and the way they play and how their weird game somehow defies expectations. marc gasol-zach randolph-rudy gay is possibly my favourite frontcourt in the whole league and i just love how their individual games mesh. lets hope rudy gay takes that all star leap… just play with brains.
7) the LAKERS
everyone loves nash, and i would love to see what the lakers can do with their mad roster… but i still don’t want the lakers to win.
8) on the off chance that i go to the USA for exchange… either the Celtics or the Bobcats improve in a huge hurry (okay more the bobcats) so that i can get to watch them!!!!
9a) Michael Kidd-Gilchrist!!!!!!!!!!!! dude is epic.
9b) Harrison Barnes!!!!! more small forward love
oooooh. excited. 11th october… 20 more days till tip off!!!!!!
The Knife Is Clean 
3) He can’t resurge any more than he did last season. Still love him though.
4) Don’t forget Alex Shved, and a crazier Pekovic
5) Agreed, Clippers aren’t going anywhere
6) Clippers are like the Grizzlies – making noise but don’t think they’ll go far. They need to move on from the memories of that series against the Spurs. They all seem to have reached their ceiling, and Z-Bo will only go downhilll from here
7) Want Nash to win a ring too, but don’t really like seeing the Lakers succeed (not this season at least)
Some Eastern Conference Storylines (yours seems to be West Coast) –
Jeremy Lin and how he performs in Houston
How the Bulls do with their new bench
The Senior Citizens experiment in NY, together with Amare’s hopefully vastly improved post game, and the fact that they have to deal with …
their neighbours in Brooklyn. Deron Williams and co. will make the playoffs, they might even meet each other.