56% of ESPN experts pick us to win the Central, good for first obviously.</p> 44.4% of ESPN experts pick us to win the East. (Detroit #2, Boston #3).</p> For defensive player of the year, Jalen Rose picked Ben Wallace. Fair enough, he won it 4 times.....but the crazy one was Jack Ramsay picking Nocioni. Nocioni has horrible on the ball defense. He is good at drawing the charges, but outside of that he is a poor defender.</p> Chris Broussard and Chris Palmer pick Nocioni for 6th man of the year. Ginobli and Barbosa are the only 2 with more votes. Fair enough.</p> Jack Ramsay picked Scott Skiles for coach of the year.</p> http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/preview2007/...erts-EastChamps</p> </p>
I think you underrate Nocioni's defense. He's a rather decent on-ball defender and the fact that he's great at drawing charges is a huge part of defense since it's a turnover. Honestly, he's one of the better defenders on the team, at least in my opinion.</p> As for the article, I can definitely see us winning the East. I think Boston might have some issues with depth on their bench. If their big three get forced to play 37+ minutes apiece, that team could wear down rather quickly. Detroit is essentially the same team as they were last year. And quite frankly, in the playoffs, they really showed some weakness. Their defense, while still good, is not as good as it was in years past. Their offense is solid, though they don't have a true low-post scoring presence. Wallace is more of a jump shooter than a post player, and he's their best post-player. Cleveland is a one-man show.</p> In the end, I think Chicago is the most complete team in the conference. They play the best defense out of all the teams. Their offense is extremely balanced. The only issue they have is they lack an inside scorer, however, I think Aaron Gray could be the potential remedy to that.</p>
No insult, but I just don't see much difference between this year and last. Good team, not a great team, not enough scoring inside to reallycontend come Spring.</p>
Honestly, is inside scoring really a necessity out East? Look at the Cavs. They don't have MUCH for inside scoring now that Z is going on the downside of his career, yet they still made the NBA Finals. Plus, the Bulls won 49 games last year without an inside prescence. They may be the same team (mostly) this year, but they've got more experience. Deng is going to be better. Gordon should be better. Hinrich will continue to improve. I think Tyrus Thomas could have a pretty big year as well. So, while it's mostly the same team, I don't think that's a bad thing, because all their young players are going to be even better this year, which will equate to the team being better this year.</p>
