Central Division

My thoughts for this upcoming NBA-season.

Chicago Bulls

Bulls is still a team for the future, they drafted Coby White in this summers draft and they took in Tomas Satoransky and Thad Young in FA to be mentors for this young team. This Bulls team will be exacting to follow in the near future in the East but for now they are still a bit of a punching bag and won’t come out of the lottery positions for a couple of years. It’s doubtful if coach Jim Boylan is the right man to lead this team forward, he isn’t well liked by the players and is not that good at handling the youth at the club. He’s strict in training and how he coaches the team. Last season players boycotted practice because he wanted 2-3 session a day and he wanted them to do cardio workout as one of the sessions, add this to players playing every 2 days in the NBA and it’s no wonder people got upset.

The offense of this Bulls team is great, they have a lot of firepower with Lauri Markkanen as the number one scorer. Their defense is the opposite, the team is a hole on defense in every aspect, maybe Wendell Carter can be a good defender for them with Thad Young being there as a mentor on the floor to anchor the defense together with Carter. Kris Dunn is also a okey defender with his long arms and wingspan at the point guard position.

Speaking of Dunn, he’s a question mark regarding his place in the starting five, he will probably come off the bench. He’s, like I said before, a good okey defender but his shot and playmaking are mediocre on this level. Bulls took in White and Satoransky this summer and it’s a indicator that Dunn is stuck at the back of the rotation.

Bulls like I said have good youth and is the future of the NBA with Markkanen, White and Carter, it will be exciting to see what they can do going forward.

Cleveland Cavaliers

Cleveland decided to tank last season pretty fast, Kevin Love got injured and they let JR Smith sit out the rest of the year too. With that in mind I think the Cavs will play a better brand of basketball this season. They got rookie Darius Garland in the draft, even though he was injured and missed a big chunk of time last season at college. I think he will be a good addition of what I could find on Youtube and clips of him, he’s got a good stroke from beyond the arc and he’s good at making plays for his teammates. Sexton and Garland will be the keys to this Cleveland team and for the future of this franchise and it will be up to them to show us that they can be something like Portland have in Dame and CJ.

K Love and Jordan Clarkson will get traded at some point during the season to dumped their contracts and they don’t really have a place in this team anymore.

The team will be at the bottom of the league and the East this year but the future is bright for them if Garland, Sexton and Osman can prove themselves and play at a high level. They got a new coach and the Cavs will have growing pains trying to get to know the new system and players and it will take awhile before results come. He’s a veteran coach even though he’s new to the league, coach Beilien has a big bank of knowledge from the college game and it will be a good fit with this young Cavs team. It will be exciting to see what this backcourt can do this year.

Detroit Pistons

Pistons this season, like the previous one, will be about minimizing Blake Griffins injuries. He together with Andre Drummond will be the key factors to success for this team. Griffin is the teams playmaker, he gets the ball in the hoop and his passing is on a high level while Drummond, like always, is getting them boards both on the offensive and defensive ends. Drummond is a UFA next summer, he will want to show the league that he’s worth a max contract, if not in Detroit then somewhere else, and he will give a 100% every time he’s on the court.

Like I said before, Griffin is one of the keys to success for this Pistons team. They don’t have as much talent as they would like in the team, sure they picked up Derrick Rose and Joe Johnson but these two veterans aren't to be trusted to play 82 games. Rose with his knee issues and Joe Johnson playing in the Big 3 'til recently will have to take their time to adjust to playing in a new team and a different tempo.

Pistons will have a tough time getting to the playoffs this season, they need to fight teams like Brooklyn Nets, Miami Heat and Orlando Magic to get there and the biggest of all is that the other teams have upgraded their squads while Pistons haven’t really done that. But I think all four teams have a good chance to get to the playoffs. I think Pistons will take the last spot in the East again if they can get somebody else going besides Griffin and Drummond on a high level. The team on paper is looking thin when it comes to shooting, the last 4-5 seasons they have struggled mightily from the three point line. They had Wayne Ellington as of february but he went to the Knicks in the summer. If they can get Luke Kennard to hit 3-4 threes a game and get defenders to respect his shot, that would do big things for the Pistons.

Detroit will have it difficult fighting teams in the NBA, they can surprise a few teams that have a tough schedule, like a back to back or 5 games in 7 days or if Griffin came up clutch together with D Rose in a couple of games like the beginning off last season when they played horrible but Blake came up big and bailed them out.

No big expectations for this team as they don’t have the spacing you need in the NBA to win and if Griffin isn’t having a big day it looks thin in the rotation for players to take over his production. A injury prone team, especially on key players and it can end up being a place in the lottery next summer.

Indiana Pacers

Pacers lost Bojan Bogdanovic and Thaddeus Young but they got three new good players to the team in Jeremey Lamb, Malcolm Brogdan and TJ Warren and with a comeback from Victor Oladipo (hopefully this season) and this team will be dangerous. Pacers have the organization as a team and the best team defense in the league to support them and with Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner in the middle they have a solid inside presence both on offense and defense.

This Pacer team will be ish where they were last season, the team fights for homecourt advantage in the playoffs and even if they lost a couple of players I still think this is a team worth counting on. The bench will look a bit thinner then last season without Sabonis, as he will come in as a starter, hopefully the Holiday brothers and McDermott can come of it and contribute with a bit of fire.

I like this Pacers team, I think they are a bit of a sleeper team in the East and will probably be underrated betting wise after losing Bogdanovic and Oladipo still injured at the beginning of the season. I will keep an a eye on this team, especially at home.

Milwaukee Bucks

Is this a do or die season for this Bucks team? If they don’t get to the ECF will Giannis be gone in FA 2021? If they win the title, will he stay? Have they a strong enough team to reach the finals this year or is Giannis weaknesses to big for them to take the chip? Giannis, how it looked last season, he needs to shot so much better then 27% from three point range for this team to get through to the ECF. It’s to easy knowing what he will do each trip down the floor, it works in the regular season when teams don’t play defense as much when it’s 82 games to play. In the playoffs it’s different, every team is scouted to the max and everyone has a gameplan for you. Lopez and Middleton needs to step up a couple of levels in the playoffs to help Giannis out a bit more, they couldn’t do that last time out.

Bucks will be a good regular season team like they were last season but it’s in the playoffs it counts, can they get their weaknesses in check to get to the finals? That’s the big question for this team and for their future and FA in 2021.

//@jalsjalley