Eastern Conference Preview - Part 1 Well there's enough Bulls team previews out there, notably the one by Mikey from a few weeks ago. I thought I'd change gears and run through the 'competition' in the East. Notice the quotation marks there, they infer that the Eastern Conference actually blows. away we go! 15 - Milwaukee Bucks Startin at the bottom. The big 3 which was one game away from the NBA finals 2 years ago is all gone with the final piece shipped away when Sam Cassell was dealt to Minnesota. George Karl was paid some money to go replace Tim Hardaway on ESPN (and I thank them for that). The Bucks are left with a few talented young wing players in Michael Redd, Desmond Mason and Tim Thomas. The point guard of the future is there in the name of TJ Ford, a name that gets Dick Vitale a little excited in that special place. But they have no size to work with at all. And even less after paying Anthony Mason and Jason Caffey's bus fares out of town. They will battle with Utah for the worst record in the league. (or as I call it, the Pavel Podkolzine lottery) And as you will see Utah will have a huge advantage cause they don't get to play in the East. 14 - Cleveland Cavaliers Putting the Cavs this low doesn't mean I'm hatin' on LeBron. There's no doubt in my mind that LeBron will be special soon. For all those who group him with busts coming out too early and not knowing the game, what separates him from most prospects is that he does know the game, where to be on the floor, and how to find his teammates. As a team though, the Cavs have a lot of problems. As good as LeBron is, he'll need some adjustment time. Darius Miles has still yet to prove anything. Dajuan Wagner is having more knee surgery, and my man Big Z is always an injury risk. This team definitely has talent, but I can't see them winning many close games with so many young players on the court. Hmmm..I don't think I mentioned LeBron James' name enough. I guess I'm guilty of over-hyping him, and now Jay Mariotti will be at my door soon with some sort of blunt object. 13 - Atlanta Hawks Whoo-wee the Hawks are bad. For some reason last season when they traded for Glenn Robinson I bought into the Lon Kruger playoff guarantee. Well, one year later, and not only is Robinson gone to the Sixers, Kruger's gone too! So based on that you can pretty much guess how the year went. The Hawks still have not-quite-stars in Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Jason Terry, and an actual legit center in Theo Ratliff. I'm looking forward to see Eddy Curry match up with Ratliff this year, cause last year old Theo put Eddy in the hurt box. That puts me right there with the 600 Hawks fans left in Atlanta. 12 - New York Knicks Yes, I hate the Knicks, that's why I put them here. However, I also put them here cause they're really bad. Scott Layden refuses to give up and rebuild, continually bringing in more players with more contracts and hoping simply to compete in the East. Which isn't much of a long-term plan. Instead of following up a good draft by dealing Spree for Terrell Brandon's expiring contract and much needed cap relief, Layden instead made it a 4 way deal so he could get...Keith Van Horn. Van Horn is a good player, but like most of the Knicks, severely overpaid. Getting Mutumbo does get them bigger, but signing Dalibor Bagaric would've also gotten them bigger, and neither move gets them any better. They have no starting point guard (sorry not even Frankie Williams), but what they do have is a potential starting 5 of undersized power forwards: Thomas, Sweetney, McDyess, Harrington, Weatherspoon. Oh I forgot, McDyess is still injured and Othella Harrington will be traded to the Bulls for Jamal Crawford. But a man can dream. 11 - Washington Wizards If there's a Wizards team, without the Jordan "last time for the third time" tour, can you still hate them? Instinctively I'll probably still wish they lose every game, but now that the sideshow is gone the team can be re-evaluated. They've signed their most acclaimed free agent in Gilbert Arenas AFTER Jordan leaves. But is Arenas' breakout year last year mean he's ready to have a team built around him? Jerry Stackhouse (when he gets healthy) returns after realizing he was gonna get little on the free-agent market, but both him and Arenas need the ball to thrive. The key for this season and the future will be Kwame Brown. Under a new coach not putting him in the doghouse every other week, Brown has the opportunity to finally show why he was the #1 pick 2 years ago. Watching him have a couple of good games against the Bulls last year showed me that he has the talent to still be special. Other young big men include Brendan Haywood and Jared Jefferies (remember him?), and all will be counted on to make this a successful year. New coach Eddie Jordan will try and employ the same up-tempo scheme that he ran with Jason Kidd and the Nets. It'll be interesting to see Arenas trying to run that show, but unless one of their big men make the leap, the team is still years away. -to be continued...