Sports

NBA season ready to tip off

After a busy offseason, new look league has a new favorite heading into play

By Liam Nee

Posted on Sept. 29, 2010, at 11:05 p.m.

A much-hyped 2010-11 NBA season will tip off in roughly one month and there is no question it will live up to its promising expectations.

Team practices are underway starting this week. Here is an early look at three teams who are in great position to have a successful season.

The logical favorite has to be the Miami Heat. Miami entered this summer’s NBA Free Agency period with nearly $45 million in salary cap space and proceeded to add two of the best players in the NBA, LeBron James from the Cleveland Cavaliers and Chris Bosh from the Toronto Raptors, to join their star player Dwayne Wade.

Labeled promptly as the new “Big Three” of the league, James, Bosh and Wade have an extreme amount of pressure going into this season. All three players were chosen in the draft class of 2003 with Wade going at No. 5, Bosh taking No. 4 and James being the No. 1 overall pick.

One problem the Heat face is figuring out who will start amongst this “Big Three.” A clear choice at point guard is 24-year-old Mario Chalmers but center remains still left questionable. Canadian Joel Anthony and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, reunited teammate of LeBron James, top the list.

The defending champion Los Angeles Lakers will begin their 2010-11 season one man down. Center Andrew Bynum has already publicly said he will not play his first game until late November, which will hamper Los Angeles in the start of their season. Bynum suffered a knee injury during the 2010 NBA playoffs in Game 6 of the first round against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Lakers seem to be behind already because they chose to make no significant changes during the offseason other than re-signing fan favorite point guard Derek Fisher, but don’t count them out. Although they will play without Bynum for the first couple of months, they still have a solid bench to support the four remaining starters. Bynum left the team last year in the first round of the playoffs and they still managed to win the NBA Finals.

The Boston Celtics also had their fair share of acquisitions over the summer. Center Jermaine O’Neal was added in July from the Miami Heat to help substitute for the injured Kendrick Perkins and, most notably, in early August the Celtics signed 15-time NBA All-Star Shaquille O’Neal for his 19th NBA season. O’Neal may be 38 years old and still a poor free throw shooter, but he brings a large amount of motivation to a team that still remains a league powerhouse.

After a 2010 season that saw the Celtics suffer a Game 7 NBA Finals loss to bitter-rival Los Angeles, Boston is in need of redemption. The original “Big Three” — Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce — will need to stay healthy along with 24-year-old point guard Rajon Rondo.

The 2010-11 NBA regular season will begin on Tuesday, Oct. 26 live on TNT when the Miami Heat visit the Celtics in Boston.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 29th, 2010, 11:05 pm. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.