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The NBA season is almost here.

First of all, WOOOOO!

Second, um, hello. I come to you with my predictions for the season, along with reasons I’m excited about each and every team that I’ll be watching on League Pass from this week till mid-April. We know how difficult it is to prognosticate in October and that injuries and trades will change everything, but hey, predictions are fun! Feel free to call me out when some of the things I say look hilariously dumb a month or two from now. Here we go:

Eastern Conference

1. Miami: 66-16 (last season: 47-35)

I might actually be selling them short with 66. They’ve got weaknesses (old and slow bench, subpar centers) but their strengths are so strong that they should win most regular season games fairly easily.

I can’t imagine trying to gameplan for them. We’ve seen that it takes a total team defensive effort to limit LeBron and Wade separately. Now, they’re together, with Bosh?! They’re going to punish teams on the break and get to the line a billion times a game. It’s going to be amazing to watch.

Excited about: Finding out if they care about winning 70+, seeing if Spoelstra gets creative with his offense, and discussing LeBron’s on-court brilliance instead of his off-court madness.
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Mark J. Terrill / AP

We start with the Clips, move on to the teams dominating the preseason so far (ORL, MEM, UTA), and touch on the expectations for the Thunder and Andrea Bargnani. We go over some interesting preseason stat lines and end with Julian complaining about Shaq being a statue and Ron Artest’s shenanigans.

Runtime is 42:04.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Recommended links:
Lee Jenkins on the Thunder
Sebastian Pruiti on Andrea Bargnani
Ben Q. Rock on Vince Carter

Pat Sullivan/AP

We know Houston’s trade deadline deal was very, very good. Few would argue that Carl Landry is a better fit than Kevin Martin and it’s not hard to understand the value of a 22-year-old big man with potential and future first-round picks, especially considering the track record of the man who has the power to use them.

It’s important to note, though, that Daryl Morey would have done the Landry-Martin swap even if he had not received all those goodies from the Knicks. If we’re to believe the reports that surfaced late last Tuesday night, the Rockets were prepared to receive Sergio Rodriguez and Kenny Thomas (and their expiring deals) from Sacramento to complete the trade if New York was not going to be involved. Continue Reading

Fernando Medina/Getty Images

Tuesday night, Julian and I chatted about all things NBA. Or, more accurately, some things NBA. Like the Raptors, Nets, Hawks, Thunder, Warriors, Magic, Bulls, Bucks, and Bobcats. And Joe Johnson, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, Omri Casspi, Kevin Martin, Vince Carter, Courtney Lee, and Vinny Del Negro. And, y’know, a bunch of other stuff. Totally forgot to talk about Darko’s weird, expletive-laden interview, though. Next time.

And next time, Eric Wagman will join us. We were kidding about him hurting himself.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

I took a break from daily recaps last week, but trust me when I tell you I didn’t take a break from watching ball or reading about it. There’s no way I can let a week of action go by without sharing my thoughts, so here’s a mammoth recap. Continue Reading

I tried this weekly recap thing last week, using Twitter as a guide. This week, I’m at it again. Same idea, but I’m going to use video as a guide. These clips are mostly from a few fantastic YouTube uploaders, but there are a couple of NBA.com videos in here too. This won’t be quite as good as actually watching the games as they happen, but it should at least give you an idea of what you’re missing. Continue Reading

Terry Gilliam/AP Photo

I’ve heard a lot about how tough it is to make predictions this season. Well, here’s an important term for 2009-2010: mediocrity. Outside of the top and bottom 3 or 4 teams in each conference, pretty well everyone is stuck in it. So yes, it’s going to be a tough year to predict in some ways. But you can count me among those to say that this year the difference between good teams, great teams and shit teams will be more noticeable than ever. I was originally just going to just rank the teams without win totals. Why? Limit the damage, baby. Limit the damage. Unfortunately, I’ve been told I need to do wins/losses too. So, totals in brackets after the pick. Continue Reading