Also, I did post my results of my balot a while back and for all the complaining I did about not thinking the team's supporting cast was as good as the cast LeBron has had around him recently, and I stand by that, I still had you placed 3rd.
Yeah but with Washington in the mix on your ballot, I bet I'm 4th, right?
I am neither going to confirm nor deny that but I will say that I think there are five teams in the East at the top that all could win the East. Chicago is one as is Atlanta, Milwaukee, Washington and New York. The seeding at the very top was, for me, very close and there wasn't a real clear cut, this team is much better than the rest, type of team. And that goes in both conferences.
By "win" the east, are you only referring to getting the top seed in the regular season when ballot voting? Or are you referring to playoffs also?
I'm kind of assuming reg season, since ballots are what's being discussed right now. But if you did playoffs, I'd find it interesting that you give NYK a chance at winning the East, but not Indy. They are fairly similar teams w/ Indy having fewer health questions and much more playoff/championship experience.
I give Indiana zero chance of winning the East in the playoffs. Why? Kobe backlash on Celticsblog and the fact that besides Kobe and Marc Gasol, I just don't see you team as being that good.
But NYK is? Let's leave cblog backlash against Kobe aside for now since you seem to think my team just isn't that good. I'm going to focus this on comparing my playoff team to the NYK playoff team.
Kobe > Wade (arguable, I know you say no, but yes). Put it this way, can Kobe be argued as the #1 player in the NBA? Yes, and I can find real NBA analysts (Kenny Smith for one) who will say so. Will a single NBA analyst say that Dwyane Wade is? I haven't heard a single one since '06. He's not even the best player on his team. If you still refuse to consider Kobe > Wade in playoffs, I will lower down to equal, only if you are willing to do the same. Otherwise, I will argue to the death what I really believe.
Gasol > 2nd best NYK player. Role players? When we're talking playoffs, Fisher and Pietrus have more deep recent playoff experience than anybody on NYK. (KMart has done very little in that regard since 8 years ago.) I drafted those role players for that very reason, assuming Kobe could carry Indy into a playoff birth. Also, NYK's 6th man is a rookie.
Indy has 0 injury prone rotational players. NYK has Oden, KMart, and the poster-child for ankle injuries Grant Hill. OK, OK, Hill has proven himself healthy recently, so I'll leave him out. I'll leave D-Wade out too since he's had 2 consecutive 70+ game seasons. Still two question marks though in Oden and KMart.
So, I don't see how NYK is in the top 5 mix where there's "not one team being clearly better than rest" and Indy has 0 chance.