09/10 NBA Predictions Options

[ZoomSlowik]

I know it's a little early, but the off-season is winding down and there's nothing else to talk about before football starts anyways.

What teams do you think are going to be legit threats? Who are your sleepers? Who is going to underachieve? What players are due for a breakout?

[ZoomSlowik]

I seriously doubt they bench Villanueva given the contract that they just gave him. Wallace probably won't be useful for more than 5 minute bursts or so at his age, because of that he's probably a bench player.

Also, Wilcox is not better than anything the Bulls have. He is a pretty good finisher but has no post moves or shooting range at all, he only hit like 30% of his shots outside the immediate basket area and like 3/4 of his inside shots were assisted. They don't have anyone that you can definitively call even an average big man when you factor in all of their abilities. At least the Bulls are semi-competent inside between Noah, Thomas and Miller, especially on defense. That's more than you can say for Villanueva and Wilcox.

They have three decent to good wing players, that's the only real plus with their team. They ALL rely extremely heavily on their jumpshot. 85% of Hamilton's shots are jumpers, 80% of Gordon's shots are jumpers and Prince gets 50% of his shots on 2-point jumpers and only hits 36% of them (he's a better finisher than I thought but not amazing).

You win in the NBA because of your top-3 players, and Detroit's top three is Gordon/Hamilton/Prince. That's not getting you anywhere. At least the Bulls have Rose, the only guy that is a star-level player on either team. Hamilton and Prince aren't exactly light years better than Deng and Salmons either, while Thomas and Noah have considerably more upside than the Pistons' frontcourt.

It's not impossible for the Bulls to finish below Detroit or for the Pistons to make the playoffs, but the odds aren't in favor of it.