Applying the Formula

In my last post, I identified the Thunder, Bulls, and Lakers as the only teams that meet the criteria of every single champion since Watergate. The criteria real quick: at least two stars, defensive/rebounding bigs, and a defensive swingman. Once those pieces fall into place, then it comes down to degrees of each category and matchups.

*The Bulls seem unmatched in the East, with no team able to compete with their interior presence or their scrappy swingmen. Only the Heat top them in star power, but the Heat are much weaker at the other categories. Chicago's offense gets a bad rap but they've climbed lately, making their way up to 12th in offense efficiency. My question is in the playoffs, when the formula becomes the real deal, is Boozer and Noah enough star power? Does having two guys being semi-stars make up for not having a legitimate #2 like Amar'e? Boozer and Noah may have their limitations but their in the upper echelon of basketball players, and I'm leaning to them being enough supplement to Rose's star.

*The Thunder with Perkins in the lineup: 12-3 (equivalent to a 66 win team) +8.5 point differential (or, good for best in the league). 111.0 OffEff (Best in the league) 102.0 DefEff (7th in the league). That's impressive. For me, though, it comes down to how it matches up with the Lakers. The Thunder have two advantages, one huge and one less huge. The first is the Lakers can't guard Westbrook. He carved them up last year in the playoffs, before he even figured himself out. He's a great player this year and Kobe, the man who checks Russ, has slipped defensively. Dwyane Wade was blowing by Kobe on Christmas, and Westbrook is even quicker/faster. The other advantage is the bench, which is unofficially, the best 2nd unit in the league (Maynor, Cook, Harden, Collison, Mohammad). The Lakers have a solid bench, but you can't beat the best.

The Lakers have advantages, too, including likely home-court. Also, size advantage. Westbrook/Durant, Kobe/Pau is basically a wash, but the Lakers have the advantage in size. If you get really generous with your rounding-up, the Lakers have 3 guys over 6'10" with 20+ PERs. You can praise the Thunder's newfound tough frontline all you want, but they aren't better than Pau/Bynum/Odom. The important thing for the Thunder, though, is their big men can check the Lakers big men. The Lakers' bigs won't obliterate them like they probably would have with Jeff Green at the 4.

The other advantage was Artest shutting Durant basically every time he played him, but last night, Durant (with the help of Perkins' screen-setting) finally played KD-type basketball against the Lakers. If this trend of not being shut down continues, the Lakers are going to lose a huge advantage. And as we saw last night, KD/Westbrook + the bench might be enough to get the champs reeling. At this point, can you really make a sound prediction? Just enjoy watching all.