Surprise Team of the Season

[tamaraw08]

Barton's a PG at heart, isn't he?
And Murray's a 1, or 2 as far as I understand.

They have 3 young prospects at G, and two great prospects at C.

Who do you think they should go with?
I hear Murray's speciality is scoring, and Mudiay is considered the Offense-Runner potential.

Anyway, I love Gallo and honestly I'd love to see him traded to a playoff team, His team (Italy) beat mine in the Eurobasket Knockout Stage (Israel) and the guy was freaking good. Didn't get to watch him as much on the regular season, as I didn't get a season pass and Nugs weren't on National TV that much.

Barton is actually 6-6 and is listed as a SF by espn and other sites plus he is not really a passer at 2.5 assists/gm
Murray, Harris and even Mudiay is listed 6-4 or taller so they can all mix match at the back court and bec there's no smalls now posting up like Payton or Cassell, I don't see them having problems defending the SGs.

[Sportal]

This year could be the most interesting year of basketball for a while tbh. There are so many teams that I'm interested in seeing, at least for the first half of the season.

The teams that have added talent to their play-off teams:

Boston, Hawks, GSW, Pacers..

How will OKC, Bulls, Knicks turn out.

How will the rookies pan out, how will the teams with young talented players do.

A lot of stuff to watch this year, that is for sure.

What I am most interested in this season:

Wolves (KAT, Wiggins, LaVine, Dunn)
Lakers (Russell, Ingram, Randle, Clarkson)
Embiid/Simmons
OKC
Dwight Howard
Celtic
Knicks
GSW
Chicago...

Too much.

Oh, but to answer the question......... Whoever finishes above the Cavs in the East. Celtic/Hawks/Pacers.

[Dr. Cheesesteak]

1. KG is no longer our revered Vet. He left, retired, worked out with Blake Griffin. I hope he sticks around the young wolves because I love his influence. But he is no longer part of the team.

Ahh, I forgot about that

2. Nuggets make the playoffs. I've heard that alot lately in this forum. And on this thread in particular. This is perhaps the oddest, ballsiest prediction people are making here. Especially since other then two solid big men and a PG with potential that has yet to show it in droves, they don't have much. I guess people are high on Mike Malone (I am too) but I still don't see this as a playoff team.

Yeah, it's mostly b/c of Malone. Having seen a lot of him here in Sac for his short time here, I know he can coach. But that Nuggets roster is deep. Extremely young, but deep. I think so deep, I'm actually picking Jamal Murray to be a bust, but that's neither here nor there.

What grabs my attention most is Mudiay possibly breaking out to All-Star status, Jokic and Nurkic being the best starter-backup C combo in the league(?), and then the depth of Fareid, Galo, Barton, Chandler, Harris, Jameer, their 1st rnd rooks, etc.

I'm not completely invested in picking them as a playoff team (my FINAL picks will be next week) since they're so young and the West has a lot of veteran and/or star-occupied teams. But for now, I have them making it. There's a group of 9 (maybe even 10?) teams in the West or so that can all be fighting for 5 playoff spots.

3. Blazers missing the playoffs. Wouldn't be much of a surprise. Honestly I think the Evan Turner/Fetsus Ezeli addition wasn't their best call. I really, really, really like Mason Plumlee. I liked him in his brooklyn days when he shared the frontcourt with AK47 on his rookie year after Lopez went down, and I really liked him going all Point-Center in the playoffs that was boss as shit. But I think that logjaming him and Crabb with two near max players is a big mistake. Also something about Turner irks me. He doesn't do anything bad per say, and seems like a solid starter on most teams, but he has that Brandon Knight/Rudy Gay feel to me (good stats but team will underachieve)

Yeah, I agree completely. I thought last season was a flash in the pan to begin with, but w/ the additions as well as them basically keeping everyone, that could affect minutes, chemistry, playcalling, etc, all for the worse.

I suppose it just comes down to the definition of "surprise". Objective, statistical sways in the W-L column from the previous season? The commonality of "surprise" predictions? How easily predictable they can be? Cuz you're right, Blazers missing playoffs shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. But if they decrease their W's by 10 or so, and if that's the biggest change of any team, then I suppose by definition it'd have to be a "surprise"?