ready to welcome Ha back home again (which is not a never situation, as proved by Steve Nash's triumphant return to PHX). Ha for two consecutive MVPs.
Is ... unsettled. There are no squabbles about who should be starting, they seem to have upgraded their talent on the perimeter, but with the latest comments from Roy about wanting the ball "a lot more" and the up-in-the-air status of GO and Pryzbilla it just seems like this group could be in for some rough times despite their high overall talent level -- this doesn't feel much like a team yet.
Thus far, no one thinks we're worse. Based on some of the recent chatter I've seen in here, that makes me feel a little less uneasy.
I think talent wise we're about the same (perhaps a little worse, but not measurably), but I assume we're not going to miss 311 games to injury this year. Therefore, we're better.
I like the Matthews addition, plus I think the team is likely healthier than last year, so I think they're better.
Better then last year due to the Mathews addition, Bayless in his third year, Camby for the whole season and Joel will play a great deal. If Oden plays even 50 games then I would upgrade my estimate to ALOT better.
We should be much better because of the upgrades at our weakest links: Portland was 14-13 (.518) when Juwan Howard was our starting center last year. It was 36-19 (.654) when he wasn't. Having a quality center who could rebound and defend is just absolutely critical for this team. Between Camby, Oden and Przybilla, I just don't see us going 27 games where we have to field a center the caliber of Juwan Howard. Now let's talk about Rudy Fernandez. In the 17 games he played more than 27 minutes, our team lost 8 (.529). When he played fewer than 27 minutes, we won at a .630 clip. I think Rudy is a little bit of a "garlic" player--you add him in some and he can really do wonders. You add too much of him and he ruins the sauce, because his offensive style is less of a surprise and coaches and starting-quality opponents get a chance to exploit his crappy defense. (Of course, Rudy also got more minutes when Roy was out, so to be fair it wasn't always just a case of too much Rudy, but also too little Roy.) With Wesley Matthews in there, I don't see why we should hardly ever play Rudy big minutes unless there's a blowout. Add in that the odds are that we won't have so many guys injured and the number of guys entering their prime far exceeds the number of guys leaving their prime, and I can't see how anyone can expect them to do the same or worse as last year.
