Chasing the Title

Coming up on the halfway point of the season and with the trade deadline approaching, teams are racing to make the one move that will put their team into contention.  Who is in the chase for the title, and what moves have yet to be made?

by Austin Peters



In basketball, you hear the phrase "one piece away" a lot.  It is always hard to tell which teams are one piece away.  Some teams have what it takes already and need extra depth.  Some teams need one more star or go-to player to make them more threatening.  Some need a certain skill set to fill in a hole and cover up a weakness of the team.

No team is invincible.  Anybody can be beaten.  In today's day in age, there isn't one team that can be an absolute guarantee to win the title.  Each team, to some degree, has flaws and can lose on any given night.  In theory, every team is "one piece away."

Take for example, Golden State.  After routing the Thunder on Monday night in a game that wasn't really even close, they looked unstoppable.  The Thunder are a title contender and with KD and Russ both back in uniform, they're supposed to be terrorizing the league.  The Warriors absolutely demolished them.  It wasn't close from the start.  When they get going, the Warriors look upstoppable.  They have so much shooting and playmaking they don't even know what to do with on offense.  Defensively, they switch just about everything and have the versatility on their roster to stump almost any offensive action you can think of.  There are no mismatches that you can take advantage of either.  They have guys that get buckets, guys that can get stops, and guys that are hungry to win a title.

But even they have a few flaws in their system.  In a defense that switches a lot like Golden State, you can become a victim of overplaying screens and anticipating too much. Switching leaves a split second of space and time for the screener in the action to make a dive or slip to the rim.  On guard-handoffs, the wing has time to cut backdoor behind an anticipating defender.  Switching is great because it doesn't create mismatches, but if the Warriros play a team like the Spurs in the playoffs, you know Pop is going to do everything he can to exploit that.  With a team like San Antonio that moves the ball well, slips lots of screens, moves well without the ball, runs lots of hi-lows, and makes tons of off-ball screens, they could throw a switching defense into a flux.

That seems really complicated but to beat a team that seems unbeatable, you have to find little things and take advantage of it.  Poppovich does the best of it, as seen in the Finals last year.  With a blitzing defense like Miami that gets into passing lanes, traps ball screens, and tries to create havoc, there is always going to be someone open on the extra pass. This is how San Antonio got tons of great looks and set tons of records for passing in the playoffs.

All that being said, I categorized the playoff race and put teams into categories based on the one piece that they need to put themselves into the title chase.

JUST GET ME HEALTHY
Teams: Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, Toronto Raptors, Chicago Bulls
Bogut is out again, just like he is every year.  A lot of those actions that could potentially give Golden State fits like I talked about above can be negated with an elite rim protector like Bogut.  What is really impressive is that Golden State clearly misses Bogut, yet they look darn near perfect without him still.  It's a weird dynamic that makes Warriors fans giddy and the rest of the league scared to death.

San Antonio has the potential to be in the same boat as Oklahoma City as far as being a bottom four seed without home court advantage, but also a team you don't want to face in the first round.  Kawhi has missed a ton of games, Tim/Manu/Tony will always be rested a ton, and other guys like Diaw/Mills/Splitter have all missed chunks of time for injuries.  They always start slow and always make a huge push at the end of the season.  This season isn't any different.

Once DeMar DeRozan gets healthy, it will solve some of the Raptors defensive problems because of his great isolation defense.  He has good size and it is hard to find a mismatch against him.  Playing Williams/Vasquez/Ross/Lowry in some sort of combination leaves them small and susceptible to mismatches. It will also give them another potent, go-to scorer that can take pressure off of Lowry. I've also talked about their assets and how they could be a sneaky trade team too.

The Bulls are gaining steam as Derrick Rose gets healthier and looks more like his old self each game he plays.  Butler is an All-Star, and I covered a ton about him last Friday.  They need to play Jimmy less minutes to save him from getting hurt from fatigue.  Noah is always banged up and McDermott is that extra wing piece they need to spread the floor.  Despite all this, the Bulls look scary and are in the same boat as Golden State as far as teams that have versatility at every position on the floor.

Having luck in the injury category is a huge part of success.  San Antonio has found a formula for that and is willing to sacrifice regular season games to rest guys and have them in tip-top shape heading into the playoffs.  This is so hard to predict and makes depth that much more important.

WAIT AND SEE
Teams: Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks
I talked ad nauseam a few weeks ago about how Oklahoma City absolutely had to make a trade to reinforce their title chances.  Monday night, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported that the trade they decided to make was for Dion Waiters in a three team deal with Cleveland (more on them later) and New York (side note: New York is a huge winner in that trade, clearing cap space and saving over $20 million in luxury tax payment).  For Oklahoma City, I absolutely love that they made a move. Dion is a huge risk, and they know the risk they are taking with him.  They had to do something, though, and for a protected first round pick (that they are more likely to keep this year than people think), it's not all that bad.  He has a lot of potential to come in and do nice things for them and he is going to know his role right away.  Going from an unstable situation to a very strict and tight locker room is only going to do good for Dion.  We will see if he ends up being the missing piece that I said they needed.

Houston didn't make a trade but they are in a "wait and see" mode because of their huge signing of Josh Smith.  It amazes me how the Pistons are standing at 6-0 with wins on the road at Cleveland and San Antonio after they waived J Smoove.  Nevertheless, it was time for the sides to part and Detroit clearly looks like a better team without him.  You can't deny that the waiving of Smith isn't a huge part of this winning streak.  As for Houston, Smith can do some really nice things for them.  The trouble with him is he has never been willing to play his role and stay within his own game (hence why he is always chucking long jumpers).  Hopefully being with his best friend, Dwight, will help him calm down a little bit.  He might be the one piece they need, but I would love to see them get a legit starting point guard (to the trade machine!).  Houston is 3-4 since he joined the team with a huge game in Cleveland tonight.  Jury is still out on whether Smith is the missing piece the Rockets need. 

In Dallas, they made the biggest splash so far this season by being the team that finally went all in for Rajon Rondo.  Much was said about how the Mavs wouldn't be a good fit for Rondo, how he is going to ruin the good thing they already had going, etc.  Since the trade, Dallas is 7-2 with wins over San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Washington, at Cleveland, at Brooklyn, and currently on a six game winning streak of their own.  While it is true that their offense is significantly better with Rondo off the court vs. on the court, when Rondo takes the bench, the Mavs defense goes from a stifling 96.4 defensive rating to a putrid 107.9 when he sits.  A team that needed to drastically get better on defense improves by a mile when Rondo takes the court.  They are currently sitting in fourth place in the west while they are on their hot streak.  Still to early to tell, but it is looking like Rondo was the guy the Mavs needed to push themselves into the title discussion.

PROVE IT TO ME
Teams: Washington Wizards, Atlanta Hawks, Memphis Grizzlies, Portland Trailblazers
As of right now, there aren't necessarily things that are wrong with any of these teams.  Each of these teams look content to roll with the squads they have in place without messing with their chemistry and making a move to change things up.  All of the teams listed above are sitting in the top four in their respective conferences and have looked the part of contenders at times this season.  But the common theme amongst all of these teams is that they haven't proved that they are contenders yet.  All of these teams made the playoffs last year, but were all knocked out in either the first or second round.  Continuity is an asset to have in the NBA, and these teams are looking like they are going to bank on it.  I've talked a ton about Portland and how they are believing in their team growth.  Memphis had the best record in the league when Gasol returned from injury last year, and they could've very well upset OKC in the first round last year.  Atlanta pushed Indiana to seven games last year and that was without Al Horford.  Washington is counting on the development of their young guys, and with Wall having an incredible year, it just might be paying off.  These teams just need to prove, come playoff time, that the growth as a team pays off with a trip to the Finals. 

ONE MORE TRADE
Teams: Los Angeles Clippers, Cleveland Cavaliers
A lot is being said about why it is the Clippers aren't dominating the league like everyone thought they would.  The claim is that they "don't like playing with each other."  This is new news to most but to some, it has kind of been known for a while.  Chris Paul has a reputation of not being a fun guy to play with, Matt Barnes called out his team on twitter last year, and guys like Blake and DeAndre don't respond well to that.  In the summer, Blake Griffin was having issues with his back that forced him to miss out on the Team USA World Cup.  We have seen with Dwight Howard and other guys that back injuries linger and can have a long term effect on the way you play.  If Blake is currently dealing with that, I wouldn't be shocked if that was the reason he is taking more jumpers and not posting up as much anymore, causing his efficiency to drop.  All of this adds to why LA has struggled, and are looking to upgrade a position. The Clips are currently shopping for another wing player and guys that come to mind are Jeff Green and Wilson Chandler.  Both would be perfect fits for the Clips, but I question whether or not they have the assets to get the piece they need. Boston owns their 2015 first round pick, and they are hard capped after using their full Mid-Level Exception on Spencer Hawes this past summer.  A sneaky name to watch out for would be Ray Allen.  If he decides to suit up this year, you can guarantee that the Clips will be amongst the frontrunners for his services.

Ironically, another team that has been linked to Ray Allen since the day LeBron came home is Cleveland.  While it is still a possibility that Ray decides to sign there, he isn't the missing piece they need.  Cleveland needed a wing defender, and Shumpert has the potential to be that guy.  He is going to fit well with LeBron and Kyrie because he isn't going to demand the ball at all.  He can go guard the team's best perimeter guy and then feast off of backdoor cuts and alley oops.  The tricky part about him is that they will have to deal with his Restricted Free Agency next year, and Iman is one of those players that could very well be in the category of "guys who you have no idea what his value is."  Back to that missing piece... It seems that Cleveland is trying very hard to find that starting center who is going to play defense and protect the rim.  They've been trying to get that player from the start of the season, not just since the Varejao injury.  The Varejao injury made the problem worse, but they were always going to need someone that could protect the paint.  They keep getting linked to Timofey Mozgov and Kosta Koufos, but as of right now, it doesn't look like their respective teams are willing to give them up.  I am betting that Brandan Wright is the one they end up making a deal for because he is available and would give them a nice rim running, paint clogging big.  Their first priority though? Getting all their guys healthy. Even though Chicago looks frightening and Atlanta/Washington/Toronto are playing well, Cleveland still has the talent to make it to the Finals.  That's the perk you get when you have the best player in the world.