Getting top heavy
NBA was supposed to be top heavy this season but it didn’t seem like that during the first month of the season. Hawks were hot, Suns were outstanding. Miami and Milwaukee were doing very good also. Few weeks ago it seemed that the predictions that few elite teams will dominate the league are going to turn out to be wrong. But what has happened since then? Lakers have won 9 consecutive games, Boston has won 7 in a row. Orlando, Cleveland and Denver all have won 8 out of the last 10 games.
Let’s look at the 4 teams that I mentioned which were hot a few weeks ago. Atlanta and Phoenix have each won 6 out of last 10 games which is not bad but that’s certainly not elite. Miami Heat record throughout the last 10 games is 4-6, Milwaukee Bucks record is 3-7.
So is everything falling into place? Yeah, Atlanta has improved and they have a great young team and I could go on and on and on…. but I still think that they will finish 4th in the Eastern conference when everything is said and done. Same with Phoenix Suns – don’t expect them to be higher than LA or Denver at the end of the regular season. Miami is a 2nd round team at max even though Wade is brilliant. And if Milwaukee doesn’t make the playoffs at all – I wouldn’t be very surprised.
There are always some teams that start way better than expected but in 90% of the cases these teams soon cool down. Until a team makes some noise in the playoffs it is hard to call it a serious championship contender. Only exceptions are when there have been a huge and I mean HUGE trade during the offseason. Like when Celtics created their big three by acquiring Garnett and Allen in the summer of 2007. I wish Phoenix and Atlanta all the best but I’m 95% sure that none of these two teams will make it further than the conference finals and even that would be a nice accomplishment for them.
