WEDNESDAY THOUGHTS

So what's going on around the league?

--The Celtics are still looking damn good. They've dropped 2 of their last 5--but there's no shame in losing @ Orlando and @ Cleveland (with Lebron absolutely going off).

--Speaking of Lebron, you gotta check out what he's doing so far through the season's first 15 games, this is unbelievable:

31.7 PPG
8.0 RPG
8.5 APG
2.1 SPG
1.6 BPG

Those numbers are *sick*. In his last 7, he's averaging--get this--37.6/9.3/10.0. Those are Oscar Robertson numbers! Better! The Cavs started out 4-4 and were going nowhere fast, but with Lebron loading up the franchise on his back, they're 5-2 since with wins over Utah, Toronto and Boston, and back to looking like a team no one's going to want to meet up with in the playoffs. BTW, it's hard to even fathom this, but LBJ is still only 22, he won't turn 23 for another month. How much better can he get?

--How about those Washington Wizards? After a soul-crushing injury to Gilbert Arenas, who'll be out a reported 3 months, the team reeled off 4 wins in 6 games, including a shocking double digit win over Dallas. I don't think they can keep it up, but I want to call out a couple guys who are really stepping it up for this team:

Caron Butler was on the verge of stardom last year, and has solidly improved--so you do the math. To think the fucking Lakers traded this fucking guy for Kwame fucking Brown makes me fucking...OK, take a breath, what's done is done. For the season, Butler is averaging 23/7/3 and 2.2 steals, and is shooting a ridiculous .528 from the floor, .467 from three, and .892 from the line. There aren't 5 wings in the league with better numbers than that, and SG/SF are easily the most loaded positions in the NBA.

Andray Blatche is right on schedule, the 21-year-old big man averaging a respectable 7.6 & 5.1 in just 20 minutes, with 0.7 steals and 1.8 blocks per. Blatche signed a contract extension over the summer; details weren't disclosed, but it's thought to be in the $2.5-$3M a year range. If so, that's looking like a complete steal for the Wizards, he'd get double that easily if he were a free agent this summer.

--Another team playing some good basketball right now is Milwaukee. Oh crap, they just got hammered by the dreadful 76ers last night. Ah, bad games happen--before that horrifying loss they had piled up five straight wins, including impressive victories @ Cleveland and home against the LA Lakers & Dallas Mavericks. They're not a great team (they're still being outscored on average by their opponents), but they have some promise. Yi Jianlian has had a solid start to his NBA career, the 20-year-old posting a respectable 10 & 6, and Michael Redd has added some all-around skills to go with his always deadly scoring--he's averaging 24/6/4 in the early going.

On the flip side, Andrew Bogut has been a bit of a disappointment, IMO. His 12 & 9 averages are respectable--but exactly what he did last year, suggesting he might be topping out far short of what you want from a #1 overall pick.

--So you might have noticed a couple of teams here have picked up quality wins over the Mavs, so what's going on in Dallas? Good question. Their 9-5 record so far extrapolates out to 53 wins, a whopping 14 short of the 67 they piled up last year. They're 3-4 on the road, as opposed to 27-14 in 2006-2007.

Their scoring is up a bit from last year, but they're giving up 5 more points a game on D. I actually think this is somewhat typical for a lot of teams, you can only get the absolutely manic defensive effort out of a team for so long--especially when you have highly skilled players. If you have a Ben Wallace or a Bruce Bowen, you never have to worry about their defensive effort because that's their meal ticket. But when it's Josh Howard, Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, etc., those guys want to score, they don't want to go 40 minutes a night spending all their energy shutting someone down. You can bitch and moan about "today's players" (who play infinitely better defense on average than "yesterday's players"), but these guys are only human, it's pretty hard to get up day after day and do something you don't want to do. Think about how much you phone it in at your job.

There's also some concern that Golden State gave the league the blueprint for how to beat this team by going small at C and at PF, taking their two big defensive-minded centers (Dampier & Diop) out of the game, and daring Nowitzki to physically beat your undersized PF. But not many teams have athletic enough guys to get away with that.

I wouldn't be concerned if I were a Dallas fan (well, I wouldn't be that concerned). They'll get it going, they're too talented not to, and I wouldn't mind seeing the team go a little while before starting to peak. It's a long regular season, and nobody's giving you a trophy for shooting your load in the first 82 games and then getting stomped out of the playoffs.

But the trend that I'd find worrisome is Dirk's slump. Here's where I think Golden State really did do some damage, everyone is going with the small defender on Dirk and forcing him to do what he doesn't want to do--be physical. Dirk is way down on points, FG% and 3PT% this year. He won the MVP just last year, it's hard to believe he won't snap out of it and go back to being his usual unstoppable scoring machine self--but he's 29-years-old, it's not out of the question that we're seeing the first stage of his decline, coupled with a better strategic defensive matchup by opposing teams.

Fortunately for the Mavs, it's looking like Josh Howard, Jason Terry and Devin Harris are ready to pick up the scoring slack if Dirk doesn't go back to being Dirk. Howard has been fantastic in the early going, averaging 21/7/2 and shooting .513 from the floor and .855 from the line. Terry is average 17.4 PPG with sparkling shooting percentages: .486/.467/.872. And Devin Harris, who I thought was ready to break out last year, seems to be doing just that in the early part of this season, putting up 16/3/5.5 and shooting a solid .463 from the floor.

Another guy I like a lot on Dallas is Brandon Bass, keep an eye on him. He's an undersized PF (ah, there's that phrase again) out of LSU who inexplicably did nothing in two years in New Orleans, but is now putting up a respectable 9.5 & 5.2 in just 22 minutes per game. What I like about this guy is it gives Dallas an athletic big man to throw in there for when teams try to go small against them. Bass is a much better matchup for Al Harrington, Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson than giant old statues like Dampier & Diop (OK, he's a giant young statue).

--Speaking of gaudy shooting percentages above, let's take a quick look at Steve freakin' Nash. Nash is averaging his customary 19 & 11 and leading the way for the 11-3 Suns--and he's shooting:

.551 from the floor (10th in the league, with Josh Childress at .555 the only guy ahead of him who isn't 6'10+)

.524 from three (4th in the league)

1.000 from the FT line (obviously 1st in the league--he's 40-for-40 on the year)