The Hoops Nerd, Pre-Season MIP Awards - Southeast Division

The Hoops Nerd gives the pre-season MIP Awards to the most intriguing player in each team before the start of the season. Today, I go over the Southeast Division, home of the latest NBA Champions, the Miami Heat. Southeast will not be even remotely close this year, yet it has its load of intriguing players. Most teams in that division are looking for a leader, somebody to lead them out of the hole they dug themselves in with subpar management. So the pre-season MIP Awards in Southeast Division go to...

The Team-by-Team Analysis of the Most Insane NBA Draft Ever, Part One

It was a night to remember, but not for the right reasons. The NBA Draft rarely reaches its insanity potential, there is always a lot of talks but not much ever gets done in one night. Last night was the opposite. It got suspiciously quiet after the 2 PM trade declaration deadline and came showtime: BOOM! An avalanche of bizarre picks, questionable fashion statements, David Stern's mic skills, hilarious play-by-play commenting and bold-as-hell trades poured over the Barclays Center.

I have reached a nerdout level I thought was only reachable through comic books and geophysics.

Now that it's over and the fallout of awesomeness is raining down on us, it's time to analyze who got the best of this draft crop and who made a fool of themselves. Because there is a lot of both. I will go over the haul of every team in order they drafted and give you my honest thoughts over their drafting strategies, the future of their picks and the direction they're going. Because now we know. Some say the basketball year begins on November 1st, I say it starts right now.

The Nerlens Noel Conundrum

The NBA finals are raging on. The Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs are playing such pride and grit I don't remember seeing since the nineties, which makes the games both emotional and enjoyable for us, mere mortals. But nothing is set in stone yet, and journalists who claim it is are liars. It doesn't look good for LeBron and his minions, but they still have every chance to dig themselves out of the difficult situation they created for themselves, so in the meantime, let's talk about another fascinating subject: The NBA Draft.

The draft is my favorite off-season moment in every sport, because it's where teams shape their identity. It's where this edition of the Spurs sure did. It's where they drafted Tim Duncan the last time they sucked (1997). It's where they stole Manu Ginobili in front of everybody's nose in 1999, drafting in at the very end of the second round. In 2001, they Jedi mind-tricked everybody into thinking Tony Parker was a risky bet and snatched it at 28th. Last, but not least, they took the ballsy decision to trade George Hill for recently drafted Kawhi Leonard in 2011 and ask LeBron how it went for San Antonio. See what I mean? You can understand where a team is going from the way they're drafting.