The Snoozefest starts tomorrow folks!
It really is going to be bizarre with Duncan, Kobe, and Garnett all in retirement. They were pillars of the NBA for as long as I've been watching basketball and now they're all gone. That makes me feel old. The Garnett retirement affects me the most as I can say that he's my favorite player ever, barely ahead of Nash. (who retired in 2015) He was never a superstar-level scorer but he did every thing else at an elite level. I'm biased as hell but he should've won MVP in 2008 :ninja: It was so great blowing out the Lakers in Game 6 for the title but you always remember the ones that got away. 2009 would've been a repeat had Garnett not injured his knee. We had a few bench players banged up too but the team was rolling before he went down. I can get into senseless what-ifs with other seasons but they aren't exactly related to Garnett
I'm going to remember him as the 2nd best PF ever. Offensively he's not the alpha-dog like some others that have played his position (I see Malone, Barkley, and Dirk ranked above him way too much. Heck even Mchale once or twice)For the record, I'd still take Garnett's offense over any of those guys. Yes even Malone's. /bias. But there's something called defense too and he's arguably the best team defender of all time. Allen stopped looking like a turnstile on defense playing next to Garnett and Pierce morphed into an above average defender.
It's a shame that he had more than a handful of absurd seasons wasted with bad supporting casts but he wasn't the first to go through that and he surely won't be the last. I like seeing the torch getting passed on to Towns who is going to be scary in the near future. I wish him better luck in the West than what KG had to deal with. But with an annoyingly young core in the Warriors, Towns is going to have to wait his turn lol.
Here's my standings predictions so I can revisit in 6 months to see how rightwrong I am.
Western Conference
1. Golden State
2. San Antonio
3. Los Angeles (yeah that one)
4. Houston (my long shot pick)
5. Memphis
6. Utah
7. Oklahoma City
8. Portland
9. Dallas
10. Minnesota
11. New Orleans
12. Denver
13. Los Angeles (yeah that one)
14. Sacramento
15. Phoenix
Eastern Conference
1. Cleveland
2. Boston
3. Toronto
4. Atlanta (my other long shot pick)
5. Indiana
6. Detroit
7. Charlotte
8. New York (whaaaaa?)
9. Chicago
10. Milwaukee
11. Miami
12. Washington
13. Orlando
14. Philadelphia (wishful thinking for Brooklyn's pick)
15. Brooklyn (wishful thinking for that draft pick)
My East picks are mostly just shots in the dark. Would I be surprised if Orlando somehow puts together a better record than Atlanta? Not at all, there could be another Dwightmare