Bits of Tid from Petersen's Preview...

[pio@edu15.coe.ufl.edu (Mark Piotrowski)]

I picked up Petersen's Pro Basketball Preview this weekend (The Sporting
News has the best one for my money, but I'm a junkie for such mags around
this time of year).

There were a lot of interesting things that I thought I'd pass along, along
with some things that dawned on me while I was reading:

* They listed Travis Knight as one of the 5 most UNDERATED players (after
Marbury but before Brian Williams, Bobby Phills and Vin Baker). Personally
I think Williams is one of the most overated and would instead include
David Wesley, Avery Johnson, Kendall Gill and Grant Hill. Williams would
join Chris Webber, Kevin Garnett, Alen Iverson and Chris Childs on my
overated list.

* Golden St. (Adonal Foyle and Mark Jackson) and Atlanta (Ed Gray) were
listed among the Best of the Draft, while Boston was not. Mercer alone will
do more than all 3 of those chumps combined!

* Boston is #4 on the Most Improved list: Minnesota, Washington, San
Antonio, Boston, Orlando

* Walker (who I think is still under 21) was left off the "Best Players who
are still minors" list while Ray Allen and Kobe Bryant were included. What
about Greg isn't he Minor? (sorry I couldn't resist)

*  Billups joins Derek Anderson, Battie, Van Horn and Duncan on thier
all-rook team. And is picked as ROY in the Eastern conference.

*  They rate Boston 22 of 29 teams, after Golden St., Toronto, New Jersey,
and Cleveland but ahead of Milwaukee.  I agree that the worst team this
year will be Dallas, not Vancouver. I wouldn't be surprised if the Grizz
finish ahead of Sacramento and Philly and Golden St.

* There is a real interesting article about a scary trend in the NBA:
Paying the #1-3 players lots and lots and paying you're 7-12 players the
minimum. Here's some excerpts:

1/3 of the players in the NBA last year made the minimum.

NBA plyaer agent Don Cronson: "So, you'll have your top 3 [making
incredible money] and your bottom 5 happy just to be in the league making
peanuts.  But your 4-7 guys are the major contributors you need to keep
happy--and they're notgoing to be happy , if they'll be there at all, that
is. There is going to be a lot of jealousy and dissension, more than ever
before. A huge salary gap means serious locker room problems every time."

Houston's Big 3 (Hakeem, Drexler and Barkley) made $21 million last year,
Mario Ellie and Kevin Willis making "middle class [NBA]" salaries and 8
minimum salaried players.

Cronson: "From what I heard [Houston] was one unhappy team"

Make's you think that Pitino was wise to bring in several "middle of the
road salaries" (i.e. Mills, DeClerq, Knight), allow Mercer, Walker and
Billups to develop into stars, then pay them out the nose once chemistry
has been established and they've proven they deserve it.

* Mystery Man Bruce Bowen was one of 12 guys dubbed "most likely to be
wearing NBA duds this season". A lot of folks on this list keep saying
"this guy didn't even score a point last season and we give him a 2 year
contract! God is Pitino an idiot".  Wait a minute.  First, only the 1st
year is guaranteed.  Second, he averaged 17.3 ppg, 4.5 rpg, and 1.8 spg for
the Rockford Lightning in the CBA. Before you say, yeah but that's the CBA,
remember 3/5 of the Hornets starting line up this year will be CBAers (my
beloved Wesley, Bobby Phills and Anthony Mason).  Throw in Issac Austin,
John Starks, Chris Childs, Mario Ellie, Matt Maloney,Voshon Leonard and you
could field a damn good team just with ex-CBAers.

* Bowen's listed as 6-7, 185 and a shooting guard.  Does that mean that
Minor will be moved primarily to the 3 and that Mercer will spend a little
more time there than I thought? Here's what they say in the aforementioned
CBA article:

"The Heat fell in love with Bowen and signed him in Marcha for teh
remainder of the season.  He's got great all-around talent and belongs in
the NBA (!). Bowen has good size for the 2 spot and he can shoot from long
range as well as slash to the basket.  The Heat or some other team will
likely lock him up before the season begins (obviously this magazine went
to press before he was signed by the C's)

* Boston is picked as 6th in the Atlantic Division.

* In the 3 years before Pitino came to the Knicks they won 71 games. In his
2 years there they won 90!

* Each team has a "Player to Watch" profile. Ours? Eric Williams

* Here's what they say about some of our new additions:

Mercer: Is he a 2? Is he a 3? Who cares? He's a wonderfully-gifted,
offensive minded player.  In the backcourt he brings more size. Up front
he'll bring more quickness.  And if anyone can maximize Mercer's potential,
Pitino is it.

Mills: Very solid. Will play until he collapses. Averaged nearly 40 minutes
a game last season  A touch small and slow, but a good shooter.

DeClerq: Flourished toward the end of last season, becoming the Warriors'
most consistent rebounder and highest energy player. (My note: This was on
a team with Joe Smith)

* They have charts for each team's last 10 years' wins.  The Celtics have
been in decline EVERY YEAR since 90-91, except 94-5 (when Ford slipped them
into the playoffs):  Win totals since 87-88:  57, 42 (Bird hurt his back),
52, 56 (90-1, the begining of the slide), 51, 48, 32, 35 (the playoffs),
33, 15.  Sad, sad, sad.

* On a related note, its interesting to compare what happened to the
Pistons and Lakers, the other giants of the 80s:  The Pistons missed the
playoffs three times (92-95) with one of those seasons w/ 40 wins and a
narrow miss. They avoided bottoming out b/c of Grant Hill primarily.  The
Lakers missed the playoffs just once (93-94).  They restocked first through
the draft then by signing O'Neal.  they had 2 sub-40 win seasons in the
last 10 years.  By way of comparison, the C's have missed the playoffs 3
times in the last 4 years (you could throw in 94-95 if you wanted since
they got in with 35 wins) and have had 4 straight sub-40 win seasons.

* Over the last 10 years, the Sacramento Kings have had the worst winning
percentage: 35% or 28 wins/season. The Celts: 51% or 42 wins/season over
the last 10 years.  Since 92 however, they are at 40%, or 33 wins/season.

* In 1993, Acie Earl was picked ahead of Chris Mills, Sam Cassell and Bryon
Russell.

* So, instead of Acie Earl, Junior Burroughs, and Michael Smith the Celtics
could have drafted Chris Mills, Andrew DeClerq, and Shawn Kemp (or Tim
Hardaway). Stupid, stupid drafting!

* I saw Walker play about 10-14 times last year and was mildly impressed,
but taking a look at his #s was interesting.  He averaged as many rebounds
as Grant HIll, Tom Gugliotta and Hakeem Olajuwon.  He avged as many points
as Kenny Anderson, Mookie Blaylock, Rod Strickland, and Eddie Jones.  I
know #s don't mean everything (even less on an awful team), but the
combination of #s is impressive.

* Walker : 17.5 ppg, 9.0 rpg, 3.2 apg, 1.3 spg, 0.6 bpg
K.Garnett: 17.0 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 3.1 apg, 1.4 spg, 2.2 bpg

Does this mean Walker is going to demand Garnett-like money? I hope not, I
hope Pitino can teach him the word "team".

* The mag says Garnett actually had a growth spurt this year and is now
over 7 ft., but insists on being listed as 6-11 b/c he's afraid of being
asked to play center. Hey if Toine can do it why can't Garnett?

* Wesley averaged more assists than Gary Payton, Kenny Anderson, Terrell
Brandon, and Mookie Blaylock, more steals than any of Brandon, Iverson,
Stockton, and Jordan.  And he's still not considered a top-flight point
guard, c'mon. Oh by the way he avg. more minutes a game last year than
Grant Hill, Gary Payton, Michael Jordan and Kevin Garnett. And he came from
the CBA. And he'll be better than Billups next year.

* The Suns have 3 players under contract for next season: Jason Kidd, Steve
Nash and Danny Manning. Scary.

That's all folks.

Thanks for playing,
Mark Piotrowski