Balloween (Part 2)

Parsing Through All 30 NBA Teams for Tricks and Treats

By: Jeff McDonough

Let's jump back into the Sports Addict NBA preview. If you missed Part 1, check it out here.

Memphis Grizzlies

Starting Lineup: Mike Conley (PG), Courtney Lee (SG), Jeff Green (SF), Zach Randolph (PF), Marc Gasol (C)

Bench: Tony Allen (SG/SF), Matt Barnes (SF), Brandan Wright (PF/C), Vince Carter (SG/SF), Benoh Udrih (PG), Jordan Adams (SG), Jarell Martin (PF)

Key Additions: Barnes, Wright, Martin, Jeff Green (trade deadline), Luke Ridnour (traded from Orlando)

Key Losses: Kosta Koufos, Nick Calathes, Luke Ridnour (traded to Charlotte)

Injury Concerns: Martin (Foot, Slow cautious return)

Memphis has made the postseason five straight years, but they have never been higher than the 4-Seed. This is a feisty bunch though and they have made some serious noise in those playoffs, winning 27 games and upsetting the Spurs, Clippers and Thunder. Marc Gasol has become the unquestioned best center in the NBA and the Grizz re-upped the Spanish big man to a five-year, $110 million max extension in the offseason. With Gasol, Allen, Randolph, Conley, Lee and now Barnes on board, this team has been renown for its defense, toughness and grit. The problems have been with whether they can generate enough offense. They brought in Green via trade midway through last season, but the fit has not been great and he has been rather inconsistent on offense, while harming their defense when he’s on the court. I also don’t love coach Dave Joerger.

Balloween (Part 1)

Parsing Through All 30 NBA Teams for Tricks and Treats

By: Jeff McDonough

The NBA season tipped off last night with three games and it’s time to go through the entire league and look at exactly what we have with each club. The remaining 24 teams tipoff tonight. I'll spotlight the rosters, the changes, the outlook and give my official predictions on their win/loss totals. Basketball has become my favorite sport, so I come armed with knowledge, ready to dive in. Let’s do this!

Washington Wizards

Starting Lineup: John Wall (PG), Bradley Beal (SG), Otto Porter (SF), Nenê (PF), Marcin Gortat (C)

Bench: Jared Dudley (F), Gary Neal (G), Kris Humphries (PF/C), Drew Gooden (PF/C), Kelly Oubre (SF), Alan Anderson (SG/SF), Ramon Sessions (PG)

Key Additions: Dudley, Neal, Anderson, Oubre

Key Losses: Paul Pierce, Kevin Séraphin

Injury Concerns: Anderson (Ankle, Out until November), Dudley (Back, banged up but playing)

What a beautiful place to start! Why here? Because I said so. We’re going in reverse alphabetical order. Suck it, Aaron! I was a partial season ticket holder for the Wiz last year, so I got very familiar with this club. I was even there in the playoffs for the “I Called Game” game, which was quite a treat. Last year was the best year for pro hoops in DC — in just about every way — since they last made the Finals in 1979. Losing Pierce to the Clippers hurts. He’s not a superstar any longer, but his leadership and clutch shooting is irreplaceable. Everyone on offense at the end of games often looked lost, except Pierce who was as cold-bloodedly stellar as ever. Once he was gone though, I loved that they brought in Dudley, Neal and Anderson on the cheap as veteran replacements on the wing. Otto Porter, Jr. is slated to take over as starting small forward, however, and after the flashes of brilliance he showed during the playoffs last year, I’m buying into the hometown kid. He, along with Wall and Beal, form a potent, youthful triumvirate that could lead Washington for years to come. Having two hulking big men isn’t what it once was and the Wizards are much better suited to play small ball and allow Wall to freely run and gun. We’ll see how far they’ll wade into that pool this season after years of fighting the NBA’s changing times.

Capital Punishment

The Washington Capitals Fan’s Guide to Dealing with Expectations

By: Jeff McDonough

The picture above comes from the Washington Post, the morning after the Washington Capitals were eliminated from the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs by the New York Rangers in Madison Square Garden. The Capitals had gone up three games to one on the Rangers in their Eastern Semifinal series, only to lose the final three games — all decided by one goal, as was every game in their spectacular series. After a phenomenal postseason run, the Rangers’ Derek Stepan buried a rebound shot past Braden Holtby to win Game 7 in overtime, and all the young goaltender could do was lie there motionless. This is what being a Capitals fan looks like. Never forget.

Now for the good news. This year’s Capitals team looks really good. When the puck drops tomorrow night, they’ll be returning most of the core that had everyone in the DMV so excited last spring. That includes superstar Alex Ovechkin, back to playing at as high a level as ever. Ovie was the runner-up for the MVP Hart Trophy and led the NHL in goals for the third consecutive year. It also includes the aforementioned Braden Holtby, who — behind a solid season and dominant playoffs — has finally stabilized the rotating door the Caps have had at goalie ever since Olie Kölzig retired. Finally, it includes Sweden’s Nicklas Bäckström as well, who led the NHL in assists for the first time last year. That is the triumvirate that will lead the Capitals to the Promised Land, if they ever do get there. This is not to shortchange head coach Barry Trotz, who in one year was able to undo most of the ill will that had been built in the disastrous — but thankfully brief — tenure of Adam Oates. Oh, Adam. What happened to us, man?

The Stupor Bowl

The Impending One-Game Showdown Between the Second and Third Best Teams in Baseball

By: Jeff McDonough

Am I dreaming, or is this really about to happen? Last night the St. Louis Cardinals downed the Pittsburgh Pirates and won their 100^th game to clinch the National League Central division title. This was not a particularly surprising fate for the redbirds, seeing as they have been leading the division for months and hold the best record in the majors. The takeaway from them locking up the Central lies not with the Cardinals themselves, but with the two teams that trail St. Louis in the standings. With two more victories, the Pirates will reach 98 wins — a W-L record that would’ve been good enough for best in the MLB the last three seasons. In 2015, it’s not even good enough to win their division. We’ve seen two really good teams in the same division before though — the Red Sox and Yankees were doing it for years. In 2001, the 102-win Athletics had to settle for the wild card after Seattle won an MLB-record 116 games. The real story here is the emergence of a third NL Central team, the Chicago Cubs.

Everyone knew the Cubs were going to be better, but I don’t think many saw this coming. Entering year four of the Theo Epstein era in Chicago, the Cubs finally had some buzz after three consecutive last place finishes in the division. Manager Joe Maddon was brought in after a freak sequence of events allowed him to opt out of his contract with the Tampa Bay Rays. The young core Epstein had assembled also looked poised for progress, but the progress came instantly. The Cubs, who have 93 wins with four games remaining, currently sit at not only third place in their division but third place in all of baseball. That’s right, the third place Cubs have a better record than the leader of every other division in baseball. In the race for the second wild card, no team is within 10 games of them. Yet they still trail the Pirates by 2.5 games, and will likely lose out on any home field advantage. If the Cubs can keep their hold on the #3 spot over the Blue Jays and Royals for the next four days, the 2015 NL Central will become the first division in history to have the majors’ three best teams. And need I remind you that there used to be only two divisions, not three, and that the NL Central used to have six teams, not five. So it’s only gotten more difficult, which makes it all the more impressive.

So last night, the Cardinals made official what we’ve known was coming for months. This Wednesday, October 7 at 8 p.m. on TBS — preempting a rerun of Seinfeld, I presume — the Pirates and Cubs will duke it out in a winner-take-all Wild Card Game, with the winner going onto the Division Series to face the Cardinals and the loser going home. The march towards this inevitability has felt like a daze. Is this actually happening? How is the NL Central so good? Is this new format awesome or awful? Are we seriously about to watch a 95-win team go home after one game? And how crazy of an environment will that game have with stakes this high? Well, most of those answers are apparent now. It was a pretty listless race to get to this point though. There was a clear hierarchy in the standings. The Cardinals were better than the Pirates, the Pirates were better than the Cubs and the Cubs were better than everybody else. But now that we’ve reached this point, and we know it’s actually going down, it’s abundantly clear that this game is about as huge a deal as games get.