The National’s resident basketball fans Jonathan Raymond and Kevin Jeffers count down the days until the NBA’s October 26 tip-off by discussing the league’s hottest talking points.
What better place to start than with the league’s two powerhouses, the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers?
• Raymond: Warriors and Cavs. Let's get this over with.
Look, not to be too glib (I’m a Warriors fan, after all!), it’s just that it seems daunting to come up with something to say about these teams — Golden State in particular — that hasn’t already been said.
Cleveland will coast into the play-offs and then go as far as LeBron takes them. The Warriors are already tampering expectations, talking about experimenting, bracing everyone for a 2010-Heat-esque start (when LeBron and Friends were just 10-8 at the end of November in their first season together).
Is there really anything meaningful to observe about either of those teams before April?
• Jeffers: A third straight Finals between the two is inevitable. That takes a lot of fun out of what should be our generation's Lakers-Celtics. Then again, many of those Finals were inevitable, too, but there weren't 30 teams, billionaire owners or such a global NBA market in the 1980s. It just seems boring to think we're doing a full season in the guise of anything other than the long coronation for Kevin Durant.
That said, each team carries their own intrigue, regardless of how obvious the end result will be. The Cavs just threw out crazy stupid money to keep JR Smith, who isn’t the most reliable personality. If James is going to win a record-tying fifth MVP, this might be his best and final chance before the miles catch up to him (plus Curry and Durant should cancel each other out for that award). Kevin Love is still a square peg, and is the most obvious chess piece should the team look to build a more well-rounded, Warriors-adjacent team. Kyrie Irving was the Game 7 hero, so can he continue that good will and become his true superstar self for a full year?
For Golden State, I’m trying to figure out how they lose more than 12 games. The preseason over/unders have been in the mid-60s, which should be insane, but isn’t the more you think about it. They’ll be favoured every single time they take the court. I guess the intrigue with them lies in just how great they can be, but we just went through that last season, and it was kind of boring by the end.
Also, the Warriors blew a 3-1 lead in the Finals to the Cavs. People forget that.
• Raymond: People do not forget that.
There are interesting things in the details with both these teams. The Warriors have a couple young pieces, Kevon Looney and Pat McCaw, trying to earn their way into the rotation. There have been some encouraging preseason reports about Looney, and I’m particularly excited about McCaw as a 3-and-D piece off the bench. Damian Jones is more of an uncertainty right now, but he’s also around and getting healthy.
The Warriors are thin now — people forget that! — and it’ll be down to guys like Ian Clark and James Michael McAdoo to show they’re real NBA players, guys like David West and Anderson Varejao to prove they’re still useful.
Mike Dunleavy is a new, underrated piece for the Cavs. They have Channing Frye for a whole season.
This is all interesting. But it’s still at the margins.
With the Warriors, at least, we don’t know quite precisely what we’re getting from the get-go. Whaddya think, how long will it take before they consistently look like how people expect them to look? I think it’s entirely possible that Christmas Day, when they play the Cavs, could arrive before we’ve seen them hit torch-the-earth levels.
• Jeffers: I have no reason to think Durant's integration into their system will be anything but smooth. They can learn from the Heatles' precedent when it comes to handling the day-to-day expectations, the hostile road trips and things of that nature. And from all accounts Durant has been friends with these guys for years, and the recruitment started long before free agency. They all seem to be unselfish personalities who only care about winning.
I expect them to be the best team from the opening tip, with only multiple injuries capable of slowing them down. That’s a dull, boring answer, but any other response would just be purposely contrarian. The Warriors shifted the entire fabric of the NBA two years ago, and it feels like we’re about to see an even better version of that. It’s dumb they even have to play 82 games then three rounds of play-offs. Fast-forward to June already.
• Raymond: Well I will contradict, just a little bit. I don't think what this team can be can just spring forth, fully formed, fresh out of the box.
I mean if anyone could it’d probably be these guys, but I still think an adjustment period is in order. My Public Prediction is that the Warriors lose a handful of games the opening couple of months and the basketball world’s opinion of them will be one big thinking face emoji.
But yeah, it won’t mean anything.
• Tomorrow: Who are the teams who could possibly challenge the two favourites?
jraymond@thenational.ae
kjeffers@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE
Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/TheNationalSport