http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=All-Breakout-Team-081020 Maybe Hollinger figures that rookies (Oden, Fernandez, Bayless, Batum) can't technically have breakouts. But it seems weird to me that he doesn't mention Aldridge. The most interesting part of his article from a Blazers' perspective is his view of the weakening of the West: He's got an interesting point about the decline of the West. I definitely don't think we're going to have to win 50 games to get into the playoffs this year.
Wow I came away from that article wondering why he is writing articles being a "basketball expert". The "Stealth all star canidates" part of it was worth a good laugh, at best.
I'll just put it out there now that I have had issues with Hollinger's system, ratings, and predictions for about 2 years now. This way, when I bash him at length during the season (starting now, I guess), you'll know it's been festering for a while, not some johnny-bash-lately gig b/c the electricity in Mom's basement shorted out my Simulated 2K9 season.
how can he degrade the West for having top teams getting on in age and then turn around and praise the East for having Boston and Detroit??? I know ESPN and the league are desperate for the East not to be the overall embarassment it's been, but about the only thing truly of note is Brand going to Phili. Here's guessing Portland adding Greg and Rudy more then offsets that. STOMP
A lot of the reasons that teams from the West were so good, was that the teams in the east, were so bad. The reason that Boston and Detroit got better records was because they play more games against the bad teams than the teams from the west do. If I was looking at anything as an indicator, I would be looking at the IR report. Monta Ellis out for months. Baron Davis out for months. Shane Battier out for months. Tracy McGrady possibly not ready for the season. I do agree with him that they got some better coaches over there, but I don't see any of them having much to work with in the first season.
I can't say I have any big argument with his approach. When I think of "breakout" players, I think of guys already in the league - not rookies. As for LMA, he "broke out" last season. He may continue to improve, but not at the rate he did between his rookie year and last season. His great leap forward already happened, and was pretty impressive.
i'd still take each of the top 8 teams in the west(lakers, rockets, hornets, blazers, spurs, jazz, suns, mavs) over all but the top 3 teams in the east(celtics, cavs, pistons). so if 8 of the top 11 teams are in the west(and i know not everyone will agree with me there), i'd have to say the west is significantly better than the east.
