I don't know about anybody else, but I've learned quite a bit about a few teams in watching the first 3 nights of the NBA regular season.
The Miami Heat are not as great as everybody thinks, and I don't think they'll be as great as most think they have the potential to be. LeBron James is a fantastic player, but the Heat are asking him to do some things that he has never been accustomed to doing. He is not a point guard, and he is also not a post player. He is a slashing player, he is fantastic in transition, perhaps the best in the league at half-court isolation plays, but he isn't a point guard. That is evidenced in his 17 turnovers in the first two games of the season. Chris Bosh looks lost on this team as well. He is at his best when he plays as a big man on the perimeter. The problem is that all of the other players on the floor with him are also going to be on the perimeter, so they need him to play inside, something he isn't comfortable doing. Don't get me wrong, the Heat will win alot of games this season, and they'll figure out their chemistry issues. They aren't getting anywhere near 72 wins though. Of course, after writing this post, the Miami Heat destroyed the Orlando Magic in their home opener, 96-70.
As for our Chicago Bulls, I thought they did some good things in their opening night loss on the road against Oklahoma City. Derrick Rose is a beast, plain and simple. He absolutely dominated the first half of the ball game (20 pts and 5 assists). He gets to the basket so easily, it's unreal. One part of his game I didn't like was his willingness to shoot quick perimeter jumpers. That isn't his game. I know he's been saying his outside shot has improved, but he needs to show us that in the natural flow of the game. The only player I have ever seen that could do something on the court just to prove his point was Michael Jordan. Rose isn't Michael Jordan.
Joakim Noah was a beast in the second half. He finished the game with 18 points, 19 rebounds, and 5 or 6 assists. I don't know that he'll score 18 points night in and night out, but if he plays with that high level of energy, he will be in the running for the all-star team. I also thought that CJ Watson played a strong game off the bench. Rose got in early foul trouble, and Watson gave the Bulls some needed minutes, scoring a few baskets when the team was struggling on offense.
The Bulls need to work on their team defense. The Thunder did anything they wanted, especially in the fourth quarter, with very little resistance. The Bulls aren't going to outscore many teams in run and gun type of games. They need to keep teams under 100 points. Hopefully that will improve as the season goes along. The Bulls also need to get more production from their bench. Korver was kind of quiet, and Ronnie Brewer was flat out awful on the offensive end. I was surpised not to see Omer Asik in the game. I thought he looked good in the preseason, and deserved some minutes in the opener.
Another area the Bulls need to work on is running their half court offense when Rose is not on the floor. They looked lost at times when Rose was on the bench, and that has to improve. Hopefully all goes well in tonight's home opener against the Detroit Pistons. The Pistons are 0-2 coming into the game this evening, and the Bulls should look to take advantage of a bad team on their home floor. I would look for a huge game from Rose, and more contributions from Luol Deng as well.
It has been fun watching the games on TNT and ESPN at the start of the season. Blake Griffin looks like he's going to be a superstar very quickly, while John Wall looked like a deer in headlights most of his NBA debut. The Portland Trailblazers and the Oklahoma City Thunder are going to be fun teams to watch. Both are improved from a year ago, and they both have dynamic shooting guards/small forwards in Brandon Roy and Kevin Durant. It's great for the NBA to have so many superstars going right now. It should be fun to see how the season plays out.
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