The Hoops Nerd gives MIP Awards to the most intriguing player in each team during the NBA pre-season. We have finally reached the Southwest Division, home of the NBA title finalists of last year, the San Antonio Spurs. There is a lot of positive and negative intrigue both in that division and we have contenders to the title also. The ghost of last finals, the one-shoed wonder Mike Miller also moved to Southwest Division when the Miami Heat ABANDONED HIM (assholes!). He signed with the Memphies Grizzlies, who badly needed a clutch old fart like him on their bench. So here are the most intiguing players in the Southwest Division.
DALLAS MAVERICKS
Arrogance and shoddy management transformed a championship-winning team into a post-apocalyptic version of farang bar in Bangkok. It's all hopes unfulfilled and washed up players nobody else wanted. No, I'm not a believer in Monta Ellis, I think his playing style can choke the life out of a team. But the Mavs lucked out while trying to trade down and out of last draft to save cap space for free agent season. They got two intriguing prospects in Shane Larkin and Ricky Ledo. The latter is especially intriguing since he didn't play last year because of some bullshit NCAA inegibility rule, yet he impressed everybody in the NBA combine. So much, there were rumors he would go in the lottery. But in the end, nobody took a chance on him and the Mavs picked him in the scond round. I say give the kid the ball and see what he can do.
HOUSTON ROCKETS
Dwight Howard (C)
Damn you Dwight Howard for still being intriguing. You don't deserve anything good after what you put the world through. But goddamn, wasn't it the righteous decision to take or what? For once, somebody stuck it to the Lakers. I'm full of questions about Dwight's tenure with Houston: How is he going to mesh with James Harden? Does he think he can out-awesome the bearded bandit (he SO can't)? Is he going to take post playing lessons from Hakeem Olajuwon and Kevin McHale to further his career? For once in his life, Dwight took a VERY good decision for himself. But I'm still worried. God knows I have reasons to still be worried about Dwight.
MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES
The Grizzlies are the antithesis of intriguing. They are a well-oiled machine of rationality. They don't exactly play the most interesting brand of basketball, but these guys all play hard and the ego level in the locker room is at an all-time low. My only worry about them is the future. Basketball is a sport that hates you a little more year after year for growing old and I do not see many young playing emerging. I like that Pondexter kid, though. He was given more minutes after the Rudy Gay trade last winter and he showed encouraging signs of being ironed in the mold of the Grizzlies' spiritual leader Tony Allen. Pondexter isn't exactly a budding superstar, but the grit n' grind mantra is going to have to live through him as the starting line-up is slowly walking into the sunset.
NEW ORLEANS PELICANS
It was an off-season marked by change for the now-named Pelicans. They made bold moves to get immediate help by trading potentially precious draft picks for Jrue Holiday and by signing the mercurial Tyreke Evans. How is that going to work with current, yet always injured superstar Eric Gordon? Are they going to get along. Can Gordon keep his starting job despite having Evans to constantly challenge him? Will all hell break loose at some point? It's a pressure cooker in the big easy. They are pretty much the antithesis of a well-oiled machine of rationality right now. They're a team built on the moment, with the ressources of the moment and a lot of hope. The Pelicans have foregone the concept of long term vision and are therefore full of intrigue.
SAN ANTONIO SPURS
Here is another beacon of rationality in the NBA. Not much of what the San Antonio Spurs did in the last ten years didn't make sense to me, but if the debacle of last finals proved something, it's that their legendary starting five is old and winded. Enter the poker-faced Kawhi Leonard, who looked like a PhD candidate at defense guarding LeBron James last playoffs. What is Leonard actually? A budding superstar or just a really efficient role player? The Spurs relied on him too much against the Heat and it cost them. He shouldn't have had to pick up the slack of guys like Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. It was as unfair as it gets, yet Leonard pulled off some monster games under pressure. We'll find out this year if he's a building block or an entire foundation to something new.
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