Surprises of the season so far

[Andrew]

What are some of the things that have surprised you, a little over a month into the 2009/2010 NBA season? For me, it would be...

The Nets going 0-18. Not that I expected them to be tearing up the league, but I wouldn't have picked them to be this bad and get off to the worst start in league history.

Channing Frye: 51 threes made after 19 games, at a 46.8% clip. It took me by surprise when I saw him freely launching threes in a game a couple of weeks ago but now I see more than half of his field goal attempts have been from the outside and he's knocking them down at a very good percentage. He's turning out to be a good pickup for the Suns. Speaking of which...

Phoenix Suns, currently 14-5. Had them pegged as fighting for a low seed in the West this year. It's still early, but it looks like they'll be a top four team in the West instead.

Brandon Jennings. He's cooled off a little following the 55 point game but I didn't think he'd be as impressive as he has been. It wouldn't have surprised me altogether if a) he'd stumbled after the brash remarks leading up to the draft b) Skiles held him back on the bench but so far so good for Jennings. Good for him.

Atlanta Hawks, currently 13-5. Another team around the top of their conference that I expected to be lower in the standings.

Assorted teams around .500 that I expected to be in the basement or around the 9th/10th spot. Oklahoma City, Milwaukee, Sacramento. Especially Sacramento, given the injuries.

Philadelphia 76ers, 5-14. Injuries don't help and it remains to be seen what happens from here, but the Elton Brand signing that looked like a major coup at the time continues to look like a major bust.

[J@3]

Josh Smith taking 3 threes all season
Iverson bitching about court time after 1 game
Effectiveness of the rookie point guards
Bobcats ranked #1 in the league in opponent PPG
Gerald Wallace's rebounding
Marc Gasol's offensive game
LeBron trying to back out of the dunk contest... joking, we all saw that coming
Bucks are 7-2 at home, Suns are 6-0
Hornets 1-9 away, Kings 8-2 at home, 1-6 on the road
Omri Casspi 47% from three, 59% TS
Mini LeBron; Tyreke Evans

[JaoSming]

Brandon Jennings blowing up.
The whole Iverson fiasco.
How decent Sheldon Williams is playing.

[NovU]

So many surprises this season as usual. Some teams are pleasantly surprising to see where they're at the moment. The Rockets at this pace will likely make it to the playoffs and so will OKC, but then West... it somewhat reminds me of 2 seasons ago when it took 50 wins to take 8th seed in West. I'm not saying it'll be that competitive this season, but again, it'll be really interesting late season I am predicting.

Another surprise is I'd say decline of greats like KG, Duncan, Shaq and etc. I know some are still quite effective to a point, but the size of impact they used to make in the game, just isn't there anymore for most of them. Contrary to their decline, some younger players have been making a big difference in this season already. Kevin Durant being on one of them. Also quite a few this year's rookies I think will turn out to be solid players, Chase Budinger of course being my favorite.

[Andrew]

I'm not sure that Duncan has declined much from last year. His numbers are about the same despite playing slightly fewer minutes. KG's numbers are down a bit on last year but I think it has more to do with him still recovering from knee surgery and the depth of the Celtics. I think he's still got the skills to get 20 and 10 or more on any given night but it's no longer required of him night in, night out. Shaq's also playing six fewer minutes than last year so while he's (presumably) closer to retirement than Duncan or KG, I'd say it's more a case of him simply playing less rather than having lost a step since his rejuvenation in Phoenix last year.

[Martti.]

- The number of good PG-s in this class. (Jennings, Flynn, Evans, Collison, Teague, Lawson, Maynor)
- The Nets 0-18
- The Suns 14-5
- Carlos Boozer.

[NovU]

Yeah, I shouldn't have used the word decline as it isn't fair to say that for all players, but whatever the reasons are, whether it's taking a back seat, decreased playing time, lessor role within the team, or injuries, for the players who were considered franchise players, many seems to affect the game unlike the way they used to. Such as Elton Brand, I didn't expect him to be diminish this fast from the one of the better players to a normal one. Well, anyways I can't expect to see all playing at the highest level forever.

[Al Ka Pwn]

In a negative fashion, the raptors being worse than last year.

[Modifly]

For me, the biggest surprise would have to be Brandon Jennings, especially that jaw dropping 55 points game.

Rockets wise, it'll have to be Chase Budinger and Carl Landry.

My worst surprise is Ariza's shockingly poor field goals percentage.

[Its_asdf]

How defensively inept the Raptors are. I knew that the roster wasn't exactly an elite defensive team coming into this season, but it's getting unbearable to watch the Raptors get down by 10-20 points consistently and then attempt to get back into the game with long range 2 point jumpers.

[Kenny]

-The Suns winning record
-The Nets losing record
-AI going back to Philadelphia
-Blake Griffin without a game so far
-Nathan Jawai actually getting minutes

[air gordon]

-DA Washington Wiz being this bad
-Tyreke Evans shooting 45%
-Chris Kaman resurgence
-Steve Nash and the pHxSuns
-Andre Miller's signing a bust for Portland
-Iverson back in Philly
-Josh Smith returning to his status a fantasy beast. most welcome surprise for Smith owners

Brandon Jennings has to be the biggest surprise this year

[Andrew]

Iverson's return to Philly was definitely a surprise, though I highly doubt it would've happened if not for Louis Williams' injury. His retirement announcement also caught me off guard but I wasn't completely surprised by what happened in Memphis, as soon as he complained after his first game on the bench it was a warning sign that things were not going to end well there.

Andre Miller's signing a bust for Portland

Agreed, that seemed like a shrewd move at the time but it's not really paying dividends so far.

[benji]

Dunno, seemed like a lateral move even back in the day.

[Alpha_]

- PGs in this class - Evans, Jennings, Curry, Flynn, Collison, Lawson, Teague
- Omri Casspi and Chase Budinger
- Sacramento Kings and Milwaukee Bucks
- Carl Landry and Marc Gasol
- Nets with 0-18 record
- Phoenix Suns 14-5
- Chris Kaman 19.0 ppg.

[Lightning Strike]

On a note of short term surprise, the Knicks beating Phoenix a couple of days ago and then beating Atlanta today, really wasn't expecting that...

[Andrew]

Me either, those seemed like easy points in the predictions game.

[Alpha_]

Memphis def. Dallas 98-82

[Andrew]

The Spurs being only 9-8 so far has also taken me by surprise. They've had some key players miss a couple of games through injury but I thought they'd be at least a little better than that.

[Null17]

I expected them to be on the top of the west be now. At least DeJuan Blair is doing well.

[NovU]

The Spurs being only 9-8 so far has also taken me by surprise. They've had some key players miss a couple of games through injury but I thought they'd be at least a little better than that.

It sure was surprising to me, since it's the team that is built around Tim Duncan. It was the reason why I mentioned about lessor level of impact TD, Shaq, and other super stars bring to the games now days. His stats might have not dropped by a lot compared to other super stars, but team's win ratio did drop quite a bit, considering where they were just couple seasons back. At times I had thought, that his impact to the game has declined or I have given too much respect to TD's stature, thinking that him alone can make the team a contender just like Shaq's prime days. But I think it's more than just those reasons as like surrounding issues also could play a factor in team's woeful season start. Last year I thought was somewhat excusable since Manu was never healthy and group of young players were learning to play bigger roles but this year hasn't looked too good as a SAS fan.

[Andrew]

It should be noted that they got off to a bit of a slow start last year though, only to come back and win 54 games. It's probably not a cause for concern just yet, especially as injuries have probably cost them a couple of winnable games thus far.

[NovU]

Also surprising to see Gerald Wallace's rebounding number. He's a small forward too.

[benji]

That the Warriors had to fake dress people for a game in order to hit eight.

And that they won said game.

[Modifly]

Also surprising to see Gerald Wallace's rebounding number. He's a small forward too.

Same here. At the time I'm typing this he's actually leading the league in rebounding at 12.2 per game. That's really impressive especially when he's only 6'7 and play small forward, like you've already mentioned.

It'll be interesting to see how his rebounding numbers increases/decreases as the season progress though.