NBA Season Preview: Focus on Fil-Am Stars Gives Perspective of What to Expect in the Upcoming Season
Atlanta, USA – A new NBA year is upon us. And for die-hard basketball fans, it will be another marathon season of watching basketball day-after-day hoping to see your favorite teams make it to the playoffs by April.
There is a lot of uncertainty with so many roster changes that has happened. Expectations are going to be higher for a lot of the newcomers and young guns. And then there’s the usual suspects who will make it to the top because of their stability.
Continuity
Erik Spoelstra enters his 15th season at the helm of the Miami Heat. He led the team last year to the best record in the Eastern Conference and was named as the Head Coach for the second time at last year’s All-Star game.
Spoelstra recently had a good excuse to miss the team’s media day late last month. He welcomed the third child in the family with wife Nikki, their first daughter named Ruby Grace. They already have two boys – Santiago and Dante.
Spoelstra has been the steady hand that has guided the team thru its ups and downs. He’s been the mentor that has been able to control and temper the egos of star players that go though the Heat system.
This team is almost intact from last season having made it as far as the Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo are back to lead the charge. Duncan Robinson, Sixth Man awardee Tyler Herro and Max Struss continue to be the type of rotation players they need. Hoping to find the fighting form they had are Kyle Lowry and Victor Oladipo – both recovering from injuries this past season.
This team will surely contend again in the playoffs with the leadership that Spoelstra provides. His tenure has seen the team making it in 11 out of the past 14 seasons. That’s just one of the reasons why he was voted as one the league’s top 15 coaches at the 75th Anniversary last season.
Uncertainty
The Utah Jazz was a team that was selling this past off season. They traded away their two franchise cornerstones in Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell. They also lost head coach Quin Snyder after eight seasons with the team.
Utah Jazz CEO Danny Ainge used this opportunity to tear-down and gather draft picks, a signal that it is rebuilding time the team. He’s done this before with the Celtics, and it has given Beantown a measure of success with a young core of Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. That core most recently went in the last NBA Finals losing to the Golden State Warriors.
Jordan Clarkson continues to be the spark off the bench, having garnered the 2021 Sixth Man of the Year. Other veterans in the team like him, Rudy Gay and Mike Conley could still be used by the Jazz to possibly make a competitive team. they could be used as trade baits later in the season with teams looking to improve their chances for the playoffs.
Where Jordan ends up in the latter part of the season will be a mystery. He’s seen this before when he was sent from the Los Angeles Lakers and went to the Finals with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2017. He was then trade to the Jazz in 2019 and found success with the team.
Something to Prove
When Ron Harper Jr decided to join the NBA Draft this year, there were expecations that he would be a second draft pick. Alas, he met the same fate as highly-touted Kai Sotto. But unlike Sotto, he quietly joined the league as a Two-Way signee by the Toronto Raptors.
Harper Jr development as a key contributor to the team could take some time. The Raptors are loaded with stars in All-Stars Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam, who found his groove towards the end of the season. Rookie of the Year Scottie Barnes will have to show that his first year campaign was no fluke.
For Harper Jr, carrying the name of his dad, NBA Legend Ron Harper, has some mighty expectations to it. And just like his team, the Raptors are raring to prove that they can be part of the upper echelon of the league.
Improvements
The Artemis Mission to the Moon rocket launch has been delayed three times this past summer due to various reasons.
The Houston Rockets rebuild might take a while also to get off the launch pad as it continued to add young players to its core this past offseason.
Jabari Smith, initially projected by pundits to go as the first selection of the 2022 draft landed on the Rockets’ lap at number three. He’s got some good motivation to prove that he’s the best player coming out of this draft.
Jalen Green missed out on the Rookie of Year plum from last season and will also want to prove that he can become a better player. A string of injuries early last season and a slump in his performance in the middle of the campaign all but doomed his chances. But a late scoring surge wherein he had 20-plus points in the last 17 out of 25 games heralded the possibility of a better sophomore season.
Pundits want Green to became a better and more reliable shooter which could make him a tougher player to guard. Combined with the scoring ability of Smith, they could be the catapulted as the next greatest scoring duo in Rockets franchise history.
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