Banter's 2014 UnOfficial Awards

A week ago, I unveiled my picks for the NBA's regular season awards, as usual a little early. I do this (mainly) for two reasons: a) to get the jump on other analysts whose opinions you surely care more about, and b) to avoid letting their logic subconsciously influence my decisions. Maybe I plan this too carefully for someone whose vote doesn't actually count, but according to ESPN's awards forecast pollsters - lots of whom are card-carrying NBA voters - I'm looking decent to go 5 for 6, with the arbitrary Most Improved Player being the lone sure miss.

Most of what I've read suggests Goran Dragic will snag MIP, which doesn't sit well with me. Dragic made a pretty big leap as a scorer this year, but by most numbers, and some general definitions wasn't even the most improved player in his own starting lineup.

Phoenix's season was a huge surprise; a refreshing burst of entertainment in a season when so many teams openly refused to compete (to overstate a point, the Suns were supposed to be one of them). Stellar as Dragic's campaign was, he was far from the only contributor on a team whose (essentially) whole rotation had dramatic career years. And it's also not as though he came out of nowhere.

Dragic should be acknowledged, but he's already a near-lock for an All-NBA nod in a season where a guard-injury epidemic hit perennial candidates Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Rajon Rondo, Russell Westbrook and Derrick Rose. Handing this award to him is akin to erroneously crowning the best player on the best team MVP, and it's especially tough to single out one player, when Phoenix's improvement was such a team function.

Speaking of seasons that need to be acknowledged (and with that rant off my chest) there was plenty more to celebrate in 2013-14 than the NBA's standard awards can cover, so without further delay, here are Banter's UnOfficial Awards:

Bobby Boucher Award: Al Jefferson
The player whose acquisition to a new team created the greatest positive impact.

Big Al was just an offensive beast this year; there's no way to deny his impact on Charlotte's pretty-unlikely run to the Playoffs, putting up near-career-best numbers for a team who exceeded the general preseason consensus by ~ 15 wins.

There's plenty of blame to go around; the team as a whole gelled nicely under a near-COY first year from Steve Clifford. But after Jefferson shook off his early bum leg, the Hornets relied on his post presence consistently, especially during Kemba Walker's absence. Their inspired refusal to tank is largely his fault.

Regards to: The Phoenix Suns, Dwight Howard, Monta Ellis

Canibus Award: Enes Kanter
The young player who was set to blow up this season, had plenty of opportunity, and didn't really deliver.

Not too much went right in Utah this season, and while the aim wasn't exactly for the Jazz to be "good" per se, part of the motivation for for letting Paul Millsap and the aforementioned Al Jefferson walk away for nothing last summer was to clear room for ^this guy to blossom in the low post.

Didn't quite happen, as Kanter's game developed at a rate far slower than any Mormon had hoped, while his presence in tandem with Derrick Favors was mostly dysfunctional. The Jazz are getting a good Lotto pick and have cap room to spare, but any kind of leap from Enes this year would've been encouraging going forward. (In completely, totally, 100% unrelated news, Kanter may or may not have also been one of my preseason picks for Most Improved Player).

Regards to: Ed Davis, Dion Waiters

Kevin Willis Lifetime Achievement Award: Derek Fisher

The player who demonstrates outstanding devotion to the game, defying most laws of common sense and physics through an utter refusal to retire. 

Fisher took this award home last year, but in a season where Russell Westbrook's injuries gave him unfathomable amounts of floor time, Fisher delivered some witty veteran play, often at key moments for the Thunder. He proved he wasn't a total relic, which the meme to your right more or less indicates.

Regards to: Antawn Jamison, Chauncey Billups, Jermaine O'Neal

Energizer Bunny Award: Joakim Noah
The player who just keeps going, and going, and going, and going...

You know how Drake's just been everywhere with basketball these past few weeks? Annoyingly popping up in every little unexpected corner of a game - courtside, in the locker room, in the ESPN studio, afterparty VIPing, or looming from his perch as the Raptors' Human Mascot - just to remind you how "on it" he is?

That was Noah all year. Dude just didn't stop.He combined perpetual movement with flawless execution; his efforts were both more balanced and focused; he did so much for the Bulls, while never taking plays off. It was a joy to watch, and every bit as irritating as Drizzy for whoever was up against it.

Regards to: Jimmy Butler, Monta Ellis, Blake Griffin

Leon Phelps Award: Andre Drummond
The player who caused the most drama with the ladies this season.

In an era where Social Media has more or less devoured actual social behavior, Drummond made headlines last year with his public Twitter pursuit of teeny-bopper Jennette McCurdy. His hashtag-bred courtship (how romantic.) led to several PDA-heavy dates, continuing to feed the viral frenzy around the young lovebirds. McCurdy even penned a very well-articulated op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on all the commotion.

The two became a highly-topical fodder for both gossip media, and members of the ubiquitous "anything's possible on the Internet" movement.

In a shocking turn of events, this hasty celebrity couple didn't last very long, with McCurdy's midseason revelation that her and Andre only went on a couple of dates, didn't vibe too well, and that a tiny teen actress kissing a 7-foot basketball player is every bit as awkward height-wise as you'd picture.

But of course, it wouldn't be a standard NBA relationship without something like this happening at all-too-perfect a time.

Regards to: Paul George, Raymond Felton, Dante Cunningham

The Earl Manigault Rebound of the Year: Shaun Livingston
The player who - against great odds or obstacles - made the most significant comeback this season.

The injury-ravaged career of Shaun Livingston had mostly been a tragic tale of great potential succumbing to a fragile body. Since 2004, he'd seen seasons of 4, 8, 10 and 26 games, only once playing more than 70.

After yet again appearing in just 17 for the Wiz last year, Livingston landed on the Nets - his seventh team in six seasons - and highly improbably dropped near career-best numbers for a Playoff team, appearing in a personal best 76 games, and having been the first sign of life when Brooklyn bombed out of the gate.

The fact that he's still in the NBA is a testament to his will and toughness; what he showed us this season deserves a nod.

Regards to: Derrick Rose, Kyle Lowry, Channing Frye

Ham of the Year: Andrew Bynum
The player who insulted expectations, his paycheck, and the game of basketball the most through continued dubiousness and a general resemblance to a roasted slab of meat.

I don't like to pick on injured players with this award, but in some cases it's just unavoidable. Especially when said injury was incurred while the player was tossing some ten-pin before he was cleared for activity. Enter this season's Andrew Bynum's Saga:

After spending a year on the bench, becoming an internet sideshow, Bynum's time in Cleveland was marked by disconnected play and enough incredulous stories to fuel a Best of Maury Povich DVD. There were sources claiming he'd slept with a coach's wife, others saying he'd spent an entire team scrimmage launching three-pointers off every touch, and one report went so far as him meeting with then-GM Chris Grant, claiming he didn't want to play basketball anymore.

Slotting an early-termination clause into his deal - allowing them to ditch him mid-season in the somewhat-likely event this were to happen - was the best thing that happened to the Cavs this year, turning the ability to fire Bynum into a trade asset. Indiana doesn't exactly have much to say about his time there.

Regards to: OJ Mayo, Andrea Bargnani, Anthony Bennett

The David Stern Award: Anthony Davis
The player who made the biggest power move this year.

I'm introducing this new award, not only as a needed salute to a legendary builder whom we all owe as fans of the game, but as the UnOfficial Awards' answer to Best Picture, Album of the Year, and Choice Hissy Fit.

The best way to explain my logic for this award is a combination of MVP and MIP; a player has to have escalated significantly, but more or less to or within the NBA's Penthouse (ruling out basically the entire MIP field). Like Stern, he's shown tremendous growth that has registered in the most impactful way.

What Davis showed this season was the makings of an all-around big man eerily reminiscent of Hakeem Olajuwon, who Bill Simmons in The Book of Basketball declared a "kajillionpilliongazillionfrazillionfriggallionmaillion to one" that we'd ever see again. The guy can do pretty much everything right now, and is still 21 (twenty-f***ing-one) and has so much to learn that it's almost unfair what he's capable of. When he pulls it all together consistently, he'll be totally unstoppable.

More or less everyone knew Davis was primed for a leap this year after adjusting to life in the NBA and its learning curve, fully healing his leg, and adding some bulk to his wiry frame. Nobody really saw this kind of casual all-around dominance from The Brow; the kind of season that promises he'll be an MVP someday.

It's really only a matter of how long the LeBron & Durant's Jay-Z/Nas duel carries on. They've got now, but Davis took next very decisively, and doesn't look like he's waiting too patiently.

Regards to: Kevin Durant, Joakim Noah, Blake Griffin 

Congrats to this year's winners (your trophies and Tim Horton's Gift Cards are in the mail). See you all on Saturday for what...? Playoffs.

Banter's 2014 NBA Awards

Last night, the UConn Huskies capped off a ridiculous NCAA Tournament in fittingly historic fashion as the first 7-seed ever to be the Last Team Standing. It was their Spurs-esque 4th title in 15 years (mind-boggling when you think about the leagues of teams vying for it), and equally incredible ways for Shabazz Napier and Kevin Ollie to end, and begin, their Connecticut legacies as player and coach.

Napier put on a very convincing Kemba Walker impersonation, doing seemingly whatever he wanted and coming up with innumerable huge buckets through the Huskies' run. His post-game interview only amplified the resonance. Ollie did an outstanding job of motivating and organizing these young men; keeping their play focused and intense through a series of tough opponents who played varying styles of ball. While Napier gets to move on to a league where he'll see a share of the millions his talents generate, we can only hope the next March Madness hero won't "go to bed starving". Hopefully, the NCAA can look itself in the mirror, and see how their priorities and rules about ensuring the integrity of the collegiate experience are hypocritically defeating themselves, before the game, and its athletes, suffer further.

Back in the big leagues, the regular season's coming down to its final games, which means it's time to gear up the annual debate about who deserves each of the NBA's awards. The competition was pretty thick for most of the trophies this season; a few battles with some decisive lead changes and close outcomes. In a season that where the Impiid for Embiid movement and the critical shittiness of the Eastern Conference were Adam Silver's first burdens to carry (along with that bizarre trip of a Dunk Contest), there was still plenty to applaud, so let's get ahead of ourselves by starting things off, as usual, with the future:

Rookie of the Year - Michael Carter-Williams
Carter-Williams can, to an extent, credit Philadelphia's hyperactive pace with his gaudy numbers that led all NBA freshmen in points, rebounds, assists, and steals, and put his rookie season in the same statistical realm as Magic Johnson's.

There's still plenty about his game that needs improvement for him to hit another level - chiefly his awful shooting from outside ten feet - and at 22, he's kind of old for a rookie in today's NBA. But MCW's rangy skill set and size as a PG are huge advantages for a developing player, and his unlikely outburst made him an easy choice amid a predictably shaky rookie class.

Regards to: Victor Oladipo, Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr

All-Rookie First Team: G-Michael Carter-Williams, G-Victor Oladipo, F-Giannis Antetokounmpo, F-Mason Plumlee, C-Pero Antic

Second Team: G-Trey Burke, G-Tim Hardaway Jr, F-Ben McLemore, F/C-Kelly Olynyk, C-Gorgui Dieng

Most Improved Player: DeAndre Jordan 

This award is usually the toughest to decide, not only because there are so many worthy contenders almost every season, but because of the unavoidable issue of whether a player getting more minutes due to a trade, injury, or new roster void constitutes actual "improvement".

Apologies to Anthony Davis and his sudden legions of bandwagoners, but regardless of how high his NBA stock's risen this year, he shouldn't be the MIP. The Brow's had an incredible season, no doubt, but two things work against him heavily; The first is very quantifiable: many of his per-36 averages are startlingly close to last season, indicating most strongly that he was under-appraised as a rookie, even an injured, undersized one. The second is a little more abstract, but it's pretty safely said that some of the hype around Davis has as much to do with the glimpses he's shown as what he's doing consistently, right now. The skills he flashes are so diverse, polished and casual that they promise something greater; making us forget that he's still pulling it together. The quantum leap in his game we all think we're witnessing hasn't even hit yet.

Meanwhile in L.A. DJ's undergone a complete transformation under Doc Rivers. His defensive awareness, positioning and toughness have all risen considerably. He plays with purpose on offense, able to finish without a perfect Chris Paul lob, and in the presence of a defender. As a result his numbers are up universally (both in advanced metrics and layman's stats); he's almost doubled his rebound and block averages (leading the NBA in rebounds, third in blocks) and is shooting a league-crushing .674 from the field, scoring in double-figures on the year for the first time, ranking 16th overall in Real Plus-Minus.

He hits all the criteria for this award in a big way, not only passing the eye and numbers tests, but improving organically, on a competitive team (which has to count for something), who hung tough through injuries partly because of his new level. The frightening angle is that he still has plenty of improving to do, but this season saw serious strides, for a player who - unlike Davis - didn't seem destined to unlock his potential.

Regards to: Anthony Davis, The Phoenix Suns, Lance Stephenson

Coach of the Year: Jeff Hornacek

A very strong field of worthy contenders put up a fight for the most arbitrary and results-oriented of all the NBA's awards, but ultimately whether Phoenix makes the Playoffs or not, too much went right for them this season.

Think back to November; this team was supposed to be playing for ping-pong balls, perhaps the worst in the West on paper. Hornacek was a stereotype of potential coaching failure; a first-year HC, hired by a franchise he used to star for, and a total rebuild facing his roster, with plenty of new faces and no identity.

Only instead, he pulled a literal Cinderella Story, turning pumpkins into stagecoaches, and his Replacements roster into a serious threat, running an imaginatively deadly four-out offensive scheme. He spaced the floor beautifully and took advantage of his shooting bigs, with their ability to move on D allowing them to "small ball" like few other squads.

Once teams realized Phoenix was for real and began game-planning for them, their second-best player conveniently got injured for three months, and the Suns still stayed competitive in the ultra-tough West. Bledsoe's injury is the only thing keeping him from joining three teammates (Miles Plumlee, Goran Dragic, Gerald Green) in the Most Improved Player race, and a fourth (Markieff Morris) who's sure to get some Sixth Man love.

Every player in the Suns' rotation (with the exception of Channing Frye; their elder statesman who missed last season with a heart condition) is having a career year, and that kind of dramatic, consistent improvement is indicative of a coach who not only connects with players very well, but is good at developing skills, and smart enough to employ them optimally on the court. Hornacek's done all that this season which, remember, is only his first. Get Horny.

Regards to: Gregg Popovich, Tom Thibodeau, Terry Stotts

Sixth Man of the Year: Taj Gibson

It seems ridiculous that he's somehow still eligible for this award (what with all the cost-cutting in Chicago and Carlos Boozer not having been amnestied), but in a season where scrappy defensive effectiveness defined the Bulls, Gibson's impact has been huge.

His diverse, disruptive athleticism was invaluable to the Bulls' stalwart D, and averaging an impressive 13ppg off the bench for the NBA's most offensively-challenged team. Those of you who checked out the Real Plus-Minus link above know that Gibson's rated higher overall than Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Blake Griffin, Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard.

The race between Gibson and stone-etched contender Manu Ginobili is very close, but Taj logs 126% of Manu's minutes every night, and hasn't missed a game all year. The Spurs were the epitome of balance and chemistry this season (Spoiler Alert: the NBA's best record has nobody on my All-NBA Teams this year). The Bulls had absolutely no business being this competitive this year, and Gibson's one of the two biggest contributors (leading us to...)

Regards to: Manu Ginobili, Anderson Varejao, Jamal Crawford

Defensive Player of the Year: Joakim Noah
"The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot". - Bill Russell


A small part of me is doing this because I gave Noah this award last year, and now he's belatedly getting hype and credit across the league because of the Bulls' unexpected success. A much larger part of me believes his intensity - either deeply irritating or endearing depending on who you're rooting for - has only become more valuable as he's matured and improved his awareness, making him that much more deserving.

He's a truly unique player; a mental game master who not only plays with a high IQ but knows how to get under opponents' skin painfully well, housed by a long, athletic and quick body, fueled by an F-1 engine on overdrive. Nobody in the NBA does more to constantly disrupt the flow of an opponent's offense in a variety of ways. He can body big centers, move with smaller ones, cover help in the air or on the dribble (and switch back faster than just about anyone), and even step onto the perimeter, contest shots and slow down bigger slashers. He's everywhere.

It's an all-around nightmare of a defensive presence; one that constantly looms: "I'm going to make your life hell for 35 minutes tonight. You're going to be very annoyed no matter what you do. Be afraid". And he's good enough to instill that fear.

Regards to: Roy Hibbert, Patrick Beverley, Serge Ibaka

All-D First Team: G-Chris Paul, G-Patrick Beverley, F-Serge Ibaka, F-Anthony Davis, C-Joakim Noah 

Second Team: G-Kyle Lowry, G-Mike Conley, F-Kawhi Leonard, F-LeBron James, C-Roy Hibbert


Most Valuable Player: Kevin Durant
The King is Dead! Or at least his death-grip on the MVP trophy has been thawed.

LeBron didn't exactly lose the MVP race this year; he played at absurdly efficient, superb levels for a team that almost took for granted his ability to "do everything", relying on him more and more, especially in Dwyane Wade's absence. He put up a valiant defense.

There was just no denying Durant this season. Not with the NBA Jam numbers he put up redundantly, and the way he lifted OKC from preseason doubts, through two Russell Westbrook injuries, to a strong Playoff footing. Again, in the West. It's been said a million times but bears repeating; the gap in depth between the two Conferences was immeasurable this year, and made being elite that much harder, making Durant's Man On Fire act that much more impressive.

LeBron could be the best NBA player ever, but square in his prime, he wasn't the best NBA player this season.

Regards to: LeBron James, Blake Griffin, Joakim Noah

All-NBA First Team: G-Chris Paul, G-Stephen Curry, F- LeBron James, F- Kevin Durant, C- Joakim Noah

Second Team: G-Goran Dragic, G-James Harden, F-Blake Griffin, F-LaMarcus Aldridge, C-Dwight Howard

Third Team: G-John Wall, G-Kyle Lowry, F-Dirk Nowitzki, F-Kevin Love, C-Al Jefferson

Grading Day

Last October, I rolled out nine predictions for 2013-14, ranking them based on an arbitrary mix of boldness and importance to the overall scheme of the NBA. My plan was to review them sometime late in the season, and see how each turned out. The campaign's winding down to single-digit-games for half the Association, and since most of these predictions had nothing to do with the Playoffs, I'm turning back time, looking through hindsight's lens, and assigning grades to each one. Where's the DeLorean...

"9. The '73 Sixers are safe"

There was plenty of buzz in the preseason about just how bad some of this season's write-offs could be, and whether any of them would challenge the single-season mark for futility. The prevailing logic seemed to be "so many of these teams look awful, odds are one might be that bad" and not "so many of these teams look awful, and they're all going to play each other enough".

I figured it wasn't much of a stretch that a widening gap between the top and bottom of the League - combined with so much tanking - would make for many more winnable games between two weak opponents. Enough that the worst single-season record would be more than safe.

It played out somewhat predictably; even with this season's incarnation of the Sixers recently putting on a memorable nose-dive to challenge Milwaukee for the Undisputed World Tanking Champion status, there were simply too many other bad teams for any of this season's hackjob rosters to register historically, or even realistically challenge. This was a pretty safe call, so I won't pat myself on the back too much for it.

Grade: B+

"8. D-Rose won't miss a step"

This one went horribly awry, no two ways about it. In October, all indications pointed to Rose reminding everyone just how good he was. He had just spent a full year-plus recovering from his knee injury, and was talking the same confident game he did prior to his MVP season. "I'm faster". "I can jump higher". "My mom can get it". He seemed like he was taking no prisoners, and had forced us to take his talk seriously.

Unfortunately for Bulls fans, Heat haters, and this prediction, Chi-Town's favorite son was barely starting to knock the rust off after ten games, before going down again and seemingly taking his team's season with him. In a twist that should be surprising us less and less, Tom Thibodeau (the Gregg Popovich to Adam Silver's David Stern) milked 150% out of his roster, and the Bulls wound up doing better without Rose, even after salary-dumping Luol Deng.

This result was somewhat of a fluke overall, especially with Rose injuring his other knee, but even the tiny glimpse we caught of him was far from the player we all remembered. I'll be less presumptuous about his next comeback; he might be too.

Grade: D-


"7. Joe Dumars will seal his coffin"

I've spent a few years feeling very bad for Pistons fans. Basically ever since Joe Dumars traded Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson and forced us all to wonder if the Darko pick wasn't a one-off aberration.

In the years since, Joey D's been one of the worst GMs in the NBA, botching trades and signings left-right-and-center, while his pedigree as a legendary player and architect of the '04 title team have bought him rope within the franchise and clouded judgement of the Motor City faithful.

I saw his latest rebuild attempt as a textbook mismatch of talent that wouldn't live up to expectations, and bashed the Josh Smith (and to a lesser extent Brandon Jennings) signings, but even my negative outlook for the Pistons couldn't compare to the turd of a season they put together.

Missing the Playoffs in maybe the weakest Conference ever, notching the season's only coach firing to date (hold that thought) and submitting a very strong bid for this year's Unintentional Hilarity Award. With the internet's proliferation allowing fans to be heard more, they've slowly joined a growing number of analysts in scrutinizing Dumars, but he runs deep with the Pistons, he'll be tough to uproot.

Grade: B+

"6. There will be a record-low number of coach firings"

This one could've gone either way.

Mo Cheeks was the only bench boss to be axed when the situation in Detroit became comically bad, but several others could've easily bowed out. Mike Woodson somehow survived New York's biggest disaster outside a generic blockbuster movie. Larry Drew didn't take the fall when Milwaukee accidentally tanked. The Cavs haven't realized how much Mike Brown's part of their problem, Jason Kidd turned the Nets around to dodge Prokhorov's hit squad, and it's only a matter of time with Ty Corbin.

Any number of things going slightly the other way could've blown this one for me, but getting through a whole season with just one coach losing his job is a total outlier in today's NBA, and when a team can blatantly lose 26 games in a row without a murmur of firings, it's not total coincidence.

Grade: A

"5. The Cavs will begin The Redemption"

Oops.

Looking back on it, I should've seen the signs. Mike Brown. Andrew Bynum. The Cavs with any kind of debatable lottery selection.

My optimism here was based around Kyrie Irving hitting another level (didn't happen), Dion Waiters adjusting as an off-the-ball scorer (unlikely, especially in a Mike Brown offense), and getting anything out of Bynum (statistically less likely this year than him messing around with a coach's wife).

They turned the Bynum Tax Credit into an All-Star (Luol Deng) and will probably have to watch him walk away in the summer, left with another void to fill on a sketchy roster, with a horribly overrated coach, and possibly-insane owner whose regime is beginning to look very shaky.

And I haven't even gotten to Anthony Bennett yet...

Grade: D-

"4. OKC will make a big move; It will be questionable"

Quite a few things went against me here, negating the need for OKC to even consider making moves:

- First, the Thunder were much better at team defense than I figured them to be with so many new, young bodies,

increased doses of Derek Fisher, and Kendrick Perkins getting more and more obsolete. I thought they'd slide noticeably and it just hasn't been the case.

- Jeremy Lamb and Steven Adams were two complete question marks coming into this season; both have become solid role players who've fit well within what the Thunder need: a rangy defender who can space the floor, and a center who isn't Kendrick Perkins. Hardly enough to make up the margin between five years of James Harden and eight months of Kevin Martin, but hey, who's counting?

- Reggie Jackson made the leap from "guy who put up an inspiring late-season run" to "landslide 6MOY winner if Westbrook stayed healthy"; instant energy and offense, solving the "who will take pressure off Durant?" query with no hesitation.

- And then Durant spent most of the season in Doom Mode, taking his transcendent game to yet another level.

As a result, the Thunder have looked like a top-two team in the West, even through Russ' injuries. As it played, the season couldn't have gone much smoother for them, which crushes this prediction's "trade", even there's still a decent chance Presti could've botched it.

Grade: D-

"3. The Knicks will completely implode"

We've all heard enough about this.

Grade: A+

"2. The Clippers will have the West's best record (and worst Alternate Jersey)"

The jerseys were a close call; so many total eye-sores. The sleeves movement was an awkward shift that the NBA's thankfully moving to ditch, which is great news for everyone, especially the Clippers and their powder-blue pyjamas.

The "best record" part, was a little further off. San Antonio has the West's top seed locked up, but L.A. is still tight with OKC for the 2-spot, having battled numerous injuries all season, especially their biggest new addition (JJ Redick). The immense upgrade from Vinny D to Doc Rivers has done wonders for this team, especially their defensive cohesion and both Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan taking their games to the next level. At full strength, many are giving them credit as strong West contenders.

Injuries are part of the game, so it's hard to use them as a crutch when this whole process is pretty results-oriented, and the Spurs and Thunder weren't exactly models of health this year. The Clippers could've taken the top seed at full strength, but close, no cigar.

Grade: B-

"1. The Heat will Three-Peat"

My #1 prediction was pretty cliché, but I felt it had the right mix of importance and uncertainty to be a pretty standard slot-in. It's also (obviously) incomplete, but based on what we know right now, doesn't look totally awful.

Miami's hit a relative lull at a bad time, but still has three weeks until the Playoffs to flip what we all know is the most automatic "switch" of any team in the NBA. Fortunately for them, the Pacers are in the midst of a meltdown, have surrendered the #1 seed, and are raising their first serious doubts all season, in a drastic way, at a really bad time. Concurrently, the rest of the East - despite revivals from Chicago and Brooklyn, and the deserved optimism in Toronto - just can't challenge the Heat, rested, with D-Wade, in a Playoff series. There's no way.

The picture is far murkier out West, where any number of teams can cause serious problems, and the battle will be infinitely more competitive: More games will be hard-fought and go into overtime. More series will be stretched the distance. More players will have to exert themselves to the Nth degree, risking injury and exhaustion just to survive 'til the next round.

The West is the far better Conference, but that's to its severe detriment in this year's title race. Miami faces a soft schedule, will play fewer games, and spend plenty of time resting (especially Wade) while waiting for the West schedule to catch up as its teams beat on each other. The Playoff landscape couldn't look much better for them right now.

That said, whatever team comes out of the West, besides being well-tested, is obviously going to be very, very good. Miami played poorly almost too often last spring, catching several lucky breaks to prevail in what was likely the tightest NBA Finals ever. If they're not playing a notch above consistently this year, I don't like their chances too much.

Grade: an incomplete B

Overall, I averaged out to a B-, not incredible, but not Eastern Conference-caliber either. My 3-Peat prediction could do me some favors, but I'm not entirely confident in this Miami team down the stretch of an intense Finals (under the assumption they get there). There's a lot riding on a supporting cast that just hasn't looked as sharp this year, and the load LeBron's had to carry (especially with Wade sitting so often) worries me.

Only time will tell, but before it does, we have some trophies to hand out, so check for the 2014 Banter Awards next week...