As we approach the All-Star break, its about time to look back at five of the most intriguing story lines of the first half of this NBA season. We’ve listed them in no particular order, and the list is not meant to be comprehensive, so let us know you think we’ve missed anything.  I will be posting a more fantasy-germane entry next week, FYI.

1.  The Most Boring Team in Sports is at it Again.

In case you haven’t noticed, the San Antonio Spurs win championships every other year like clockwork. They are like the A-Rods of NBA titles (what, you haven’t noticed that ever since he joined the Yankees, A-Rod alternates between really, really incredible years and just merely good ones?  Go ahead, look it up).  Nobody has really been paying much attention to them this year, what with the Meteoric Rise of the Cavs, the Return of Mr. Big Shot and the Lakers .800+ winning percentage, but there they are, sitting right behind LA with the second-best record in the Western Conference again.  Oh, and in case you forgot, the Spurs did make it all the way to the Western Conference Finals last season.  And who knows how it would have played out if Manu Ginobili had actually been healthy?  Well now, Manu is healthy, and the Spurs keeping reeling off victories.  Would it really surprise you to see them knock off the Bynum-less Lakers in the West and continue their pattern of winning every other year?

2. The Resurgence of D-Wade and the Miami Heat.

This year Wade has shown everybody exactly why he is one of the most valuable players in the game when healthy.  Last season he battled knee pain until finally shutting it down with nearly a quarter of the year remaining, and Miami ended up winning just 15 games all season.  At the half-way mark of the 2009 campaign, a fully-healthy Wade has led Miami to the sixth best record in the Eastern Conference.  Granted, he hasn’t done it by himself, as he is enjoying a full season of Shawn Marion and #2 overall pick Michael Beasley.  But really, this is all about D-Wade.  He is toe to toe with LeBron James for the NBA scoring title, averaging over 28 points, 7 assists and 1.5  blocks per game. If Miami continues at its current pace, Wade will have led the Heat to one of the greatest single-season turnarounds in NBA history.

3. Cleveland’s Meteoric Rise to the Top.

When the New York Knicks traded Jamal Crawford and Zach Randolph to clear cap space for the vaunted summer of 2010, the entire league’s attention shifted to James, who will be the most prized free agent of that year’s bumper crop.  As LeBron danced around the issue of whether he will be relocating to Madison Square Garden, the Cavaliers slowly began to gel as a team.  Almost overnight, the Cavs went from being a 50-game winner to a bonafide heavyweight, and with a 39-9 record, they are second only to the Lakers in winning percentage this season.

Granted, LeBron has taken the Cavs all the way to the NBA Finals already, so on some level this team has already entered the NBA elite.  But that year (‘06-’07) the Cavs were a decided underdog in each of the final two rounds, whereas this year’s model should be considered at least even money against anybody they face, including the defending champion Celtics (who they took to 7 games in last year’s conference semi-finals, by the way).  

Could this be the beginning of the LeBron era, the year that he separates himself as far and away the premiere player in the league?  Some fans may believe that he has already done this, but there is no clear consensus; there are still many people who can and will make a strong case for both Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade, each of whom, unlike LeBron, have led their teams to at least one NBA title.  I think that this is his year, and once he climbs the mountain, there will be no looking back.  He will win his first championship and his first MVP all at once, and really, the only question is whether he will go on to become the greatest of all-time.  That will require at least four or five rings, so I suppose we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here.  But when you’re talking about this kind of talent, you can’t help but wonder what he will become.

4. Mr. Big Shot Strikes Again.

How quickly the fate of a franchise can turn.  When Denver traded Marcus Camby to the Clippers in what amounted to a textbook salary dump, fans all over the great state of Colorado must have let out a collective gasp.  Their franchise, after being mired in mediocrity for so long, had finally assembled an exciting core of talent built around Carmelo Anthony, Camby and Allen Iverson.  The Camby deal was the functional equivalent of waving a white flag and saying, OK, we surrender!  Granted, the club wasn’t going to win a title as currently constructed, but they surely could have gotten more for a stud like Camby, couldn’t they?  As it turned out, that deal paved the way for the emergence of the long-forgotten Nene Hilario, who is perhaps the NBA’s most improved player this season.  Nene has been an absolute monster this year, averaging over 15 points and 8 boards per game, along with a league-best 62% field goal percentage.  He has proven to be a fantasy gamer’s dream, because he is filling up that the stat sheet in the defensive categories too, where he is averaging nearly 1.5 steals and blocks per game.  

But the real story in Denver this year is the trade of Allen Iverson for Chauncey Billups.  The trade made perfect sense for both teams: Detroit’s core had grown stale, and GM Joe Dumars rightfully concluded that he could not win again with that cast of characters.  The deal allowed Dumars to swap Billups’s monster contract (which runs through 2011) for Iverson’s expiring deal, meaning Detroit will be under the cap this summer.  Denver, on the other hand, was able to balance out to a roster that had two elite scorers but no true point guard to create shots for them.  While Detroit has predictably struggled to incorporate Iverson into their offense, Billups immediately embraced his role as the team’s new floor general, and the Nuggets have coasted to a 33-15 record, which currently ranks 3rd best in the NBA’s rugged Western Conference.  Armed with a proven clutch performer like Billups, Denver might just be that one team in the Western Conference playoffs that one no one will want to face.

5. The Evolution of Kevin Durant.

ESPN’s Bill Simmons, one of the great sports writers of our time, really hit the nail on the head with this one.  Sure, everybody figured Durant was going to be a great pro, but very few people insisted that he should have been taken first overall in the 2007-8 draft ahead of Greg Oden.  In a June, 2007 column for ESPN.com, Simmons wrote, “So if Portland takes Oden, it will happen because of conventional NBA logic (you always take the franchise center)…I’m not saying those reasons are wrong. In fact, I understand them completely. But if I’m Portland’s GM, I’m taking the guy with a legitimate chance to go down with Bird, Magic, MJ, Baylor, Oscar, West, Duncan, Pettit, Havlicek and every other great non-center who ever played in the National Basketball Association. I’m taking Kevin Durant.”  

Of course, this debate is far from over, but as things stand today, I don’t think there’s any doubt that if Portland could go back in time and do this one over, they have to take Durant.  Granted, Oden lost a full year of development due to injury last season, and it’s probably true that he is alot better than he has looked so far this year, but still – Durant has already emerged as one of the league’s 10 most productive players, and he is only 20 years old.  It’s truly amazing how quickly this guy is developing.  Think about it: he spends one year in college, averages over 20 points per game in his rookie year, and now, halfway through his second season as a pro, he is averaging about 25 points, 6.5 rebounds, 1 steal and 1 block per game, all while shooting 47% from the floor and 85% from the stripe.   True, his team is still terrible, and until he can lead them deep into the playoffs he will not be considered a truly great NBA player.  But still, there is no denying the fact that we are watching a future superstar blossom right before our eyes this season.  Four years from now, when Durant is LeBron’s current age and LeBron is Kobe’s current age, it will be interesting to see whether we are having the same debates about who the best player in the NBA is.  If Durant is good enough at age 24 to actually make a case, then the NBA will have itself another newly minted superstar, and Bill Simmons will end up being right.  Again.

– Dr. Quez

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