NBA Playoffs 2014: Who Gets In From The East?

Derrick Rose will be making his highly anticipated return in 2013-14 and looking to lead the Bulls to a strong run in the NBA Playoffs and possibly a title. (Flickr.com/Keith Allison)

The Eastern Conference is stacked with talent at the top but once the elite teams have been accounted for, it’s a toss-up to determine the rest of the spots for the NBA Playoffs. Here’s my best prediction of who will earn a post season slot.

Miami Heat

For the Miami Heat, it’s a case of the rich getting even richer as they added some more talent to their back-to-back championship winning squad. The offseason saw the return of Michael Beasley after his troubles with the Phoenix Suns led to his release.

Miami also added some much-needed height and post presence with the signing of center Greg Oden.

If Beasley can behave himself in South Beach and Oden stays healthy, then Miami will be lifting the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the third straight year.

Chicago Bulls

Even without their star player, the Bulls were still good enough to earn the fifth spot and get to the second of the playoffs in the East, relying heavily on defense and Nate Robinson to spark the offense from time to time. This year, coach Tom Thibodeau will have Derrick Rose back and fully healthy, so expect Chicago to be ranked much higher than when they were after coming in dead last with 93.2 point per game.

The loss of Nate Robinson–despite getting Rose back–will hurt them as they no longer have their Energizer bunny providing scoring off the bench. Losing Marco Belinelli will also hurt as the shooter’s absence will mean less space for Rose and Co. to work with inside, but the addition of Mike Dunleavy will help.

Brooklyn Nets

Apparently Mikhail Prokhorov is a rap music enthusiast and maybe he has been listening to a little bit too much Fat Joe, because recently he has been making it rain on the NBA. The Nets’ Russian billionaire owner has laughed at all those owners shying away from the luxury tax threshold by building up a wage bill of $101 million in 2013-14, which will incur an $82 million penalty.

Unfortunately, in his attempts to buy a NBA championship, Prokhorov has paid a premium price for players such as Kevin Garnett ($11.5 million) and Paul Pierce ($15 million) who are lot closer to the twilight of their careers rather than the prime. That’s on top of Joe Johnson’s $21.4 million, which is the sixth highest salary in the NBA.

I doubt the Nets will be parading through the streets of Brooklyn with a trophy come June, but if it’s any consolation they will comfortably make it into the postseason and will worry teams.

New York Knicks

Will Stoudemire be back in the starting lineup or will he become the highest-paid sixth man?(Flickr.com photo by Bryan Horowitz)

With Amar’e Stoudemire coming back fully healthy and rested, it will be interesting to see how the Knicks line up after playing Carmelo Anthony in the 4 spot for their small ball lineup that proved so effective early on and late in the season.

But the absence of J.R. Smith, for God knows how long, will also be a bit of an issue as the swingman will be suspended for five games as soon as he is cleared to play following his recovering from offseason knee surgery. Then again I suppose missing the reigning Sixth Man of the Year will only hurt a little bit, considering the offensive talent the Knicks have. Having the last season’s top scorer doesn’t hurt either.

Overall, in order to make the leap into being bona fide contenders, New York will have to find ways to share the ball and play better defense, simple as that. They were able to score at will in the regular season, setting a record for 3-pointers made and attempted, but too many times it became a case of Anthony isolating while the rest of the team simply stood waiting to launch 3s. And in the playoffs, they just went cold.

To make things worse, they were also unable to get the stops they needed and that’s where Tyson Chandler comes in. The center has to find the form that made him the Defensive Player of the Year two seasons ago and anchor the Knicks defense.

Indiana Pacers

With the imminent return of Danny Granger, Indiana is another team with a bit of a selection dilemma. Paul George earned Most Improved Player honors without Granger and playing in his natural small forward position.

Furthermore, Roy Hibbert and Lance Stephenson also came along nicely as Indiana’s defense dominated the NBA, allowing just 90.7 points. But that’s not to say the team is completely satisfied just yet as the front office continued to work hard and add as well as retain talent, signing Luis Scola and C.J. Watson in addition to retaining the services of David West.

Washington Wizards

John Wall signed a big, fat new contract this summer and the Wizards fans can’t wait to see their money’s worth, especially after he ended the season with some outstanding play, averaging 23 points and 7.7 assists in March and April.

Fans will be hoping the best is yet to come from Nene Hilario and Emeka Okafor, as the duo hasn’t been particularly outstanding so far in their tenure in Washington.

Bradley Beal will continue to develop and be an even better combo guard with rookie Otto Porter bound to make an impact one way or another. I don’t know about you, but I really like the Washington Wizards this season.

Toronto Raptors

The Toronto Raptors will have on of the most athletic starting lineups in the NBA this season with Rudy Gay and DeMar DeRozan flying on the wings, Amir Johnson and Jonas Valanciunas inside and Kyle Lowry at the point. With such athleticism from 1 to 5, dare I say Toronto may have the potential to be as good a defensive unit as Miami’s because they will have the speed to burn on rotations.

However, they may struggle offensively due to the lack of perimeter shooting, though they have that in abundance off the bench.

Valanciunas seems ready to have an impact following a strong summer league campaign in which he averaged nearly 19 points, 10 rebounds and shot 56 percent from the field and 88 percent from the foul line, taking home MVP honors.

Although I believe Toronto has what it takes to make it to the NBA Playoffs, I would also be very surprised if new general manager Masai Ujuri doesn’t make any big additions to the Raptors ranks during the course of the season.

Cleveland Cavaliers

The biggest issue for the Cleveland Cavaliers recently has been injuries to key players. Anderson Varejao went down last year, which forced an undersized Tristan Thompson to play center at times for the Cavs and thrust role players such as Tyler Zeller into starting roles. Now, the Cleveland Cavalivers have taken a pretty big gamble by signing injury hazard Andrew Bynum this summer to a two-year contract worth more than $24 million.

If Bynum manages to stay healthy and he not only makes Cleveland a playoff team, but also enables them to have quality depth. Although it will all be for nought if Kyrie Irving doesn’t manage to stay healthy, having also missed a large chunk of the season, playing just 59 games, which was actually an improvement from the 51 in 2011-12.

Missed the cut: Atlanta Hawks, Detroit Pistons

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