Season Opener Preview, Stern not a Hypocrite, and Other Stuff

Before I get to the Preview for tomorrow night's game, I wanted to touch on a couple other items first:

The Wages of Wins Journal published it's Eastern and Western Conference predictions for the upcoming season. Dave Berri didn't go as far as I did and predict exact minutes for each player on every team he evaluated, but obviously did enough prediction to decide where each team should end up. The Hornets end up in a nice spot.

Second, I was catching up on some TIVO'd sports programs and saw the reactions more than one pundit had about Stern relaxing the rules around referee gambling. They immediately compared his ability to change this rule on the fly to the rule that forced Stoudamire and Diaw out of that playoff game last year, and then called him a hypocrite for changing one and not the other. It's a specious argument that really irritates me. David Stern could have changed that rule last year. He didn't because he likes the rule. He's not a hypocrite, he's making a judgement call, which is what he's paid to do. I won't get into my opinion of that judgement call in this post because I don't want to rant about how players need to take responsibility for their own damn actions.

Er . . anyways:

The Season Opener Preview
Opponent: Sacramento Kings
Relevant Opposing Blogger(and enjoyable read): Sactown Royalty

David West is questionable for the game due to a Grade 2 ankle sprain. It's sad that West can't fight through the pain of an elementary school level injury.(okay that was a dumb joke) As of Tuesday, West said he was going to play, and Byron said he wasn't.

The Sacramento Kings are a seriously depleted. Their starting PG Mike Bibby is injured and out for 6-8 weeks, their starting SF Ron Artest is suspended for the first seven games of the season, serving more than a standard NBA punishment for spousal abuse(Jesus, there's a standard?) due to his past infractions. Rookie Spencer Hawes is out with a knee injury.

So the game should be pretty easy for the Hornets to win, even if David West sits out.

Positional Analysis:
PG: Orien Greene vs. Chris Paul
Advantage: Hornets
Orien who? Exactly. He played a lot for Boston a couple years back, and I remember John Hollinger mentioning him as one of the least productive players in the league that year. His specialty, apparently, is defense. Good thing, because Paul is going to be going right at him. His weakness(according to Sactown Royalty) is playing Point Guard. I expect to see some ugly turnovers under CP3's pressure.

SG: Kevin Martin vs. Morris Peterson
Advantage: Kings
Martin is a terrific, efficient scorer who draws fouls at a surprising rate considering how skinny he is. Despite how the voting turned out, he should have easily been the Most Improved Player last year. Under a new coach more inclined to play to Martin's strengths, the young shooting guard has the potential to put up Michael Redd like scoring numbers. Peterson will have his hands full - and like I've said before, he's historically a slow starter and unlikely to do much offensively this early in the season.

SF: John Salmons vs. Peja Stojakovic
Advantage: Hornets(by a hair)
Salmons is essentially the King's Morris Peterson. He is a decent scorer, passer, rebounder and defender. But decent is about all he can be called. Peja has all the offensive talent in the world, though his defense is poor. This should be no contest, but Peja hasn't proven anything so for now, I'm barely willing to give this edge to the Hornets.

PF: Kenny Thomas vs. David West or Melvin Ely
Advantage: Hornets or Kings
If David West plays, this is no contest. Kenny and he are both undersized, but West has a more complete offensive package with similar defense and rebounding. If Ely plays, Kenny's got the edge due to Ely's fairly one dimensional game and low rebounding numbers.

C: Brad Miller vs. Tyson Chandler
Advantage: Hornets
Two former Bulls go at it. Three years ago, this would be Miller without question. But Miller declined badly over the last two years and hasn't shown he's regained his form. Chandler, on the other hand, has the athleticism to run circles around the slower Miller. Miller will hit his mid-range jumpers and have a few nifty passes, but Chandler is going to dominate the glass and the paint.

Bench
Advantage: Hornets
With the do-it-all plug-anywhere Salmons forced to start, the Hornets gain a big advantage here. At this point, the Kings bench goes only three deep with Mikki Moore, Francisco Garcia and Shareef Abdur-Raheem, all of whom aren't striking fear into anyone. The Hornets can go five deep, and have some explosive players off the bench. The second units can't compare.