Filowitz's Friday Five

1) Let us say goodbye to the Philadelphia 76ers. They gave Detroit more of a series than anyone expected. Considering how this season started, with them battling with the Knicks for the worst record in the East, to make the playoffs as the 7 seed and take two games from the team with the second-best record in the league, it's a huge accomplishment. They've got some intriguing young talent, Iguodala, Dalembert, and in particular Thaddeus Young and Louis Williams. If they pick up a guy who can shoot to take Willie Green's spot in the lineup, they could have something very interesting next year.

On a side note, can we stop with the revisionist history on Billy King? He gave out some contracts that are completely indefensible, like the ones to Dalembert (he's paid way more than what he plays like), Willie Green, Kevin Ollie. He was rarely able to put a good team around Allen Iverson in his prime. He was, and is, an atrocious GM. Which is why the Knicks are definitely hiring him.


2) Let us say goodbye to the Denver Nuggets. Way back in November, Kris and I both pretty much nailed this team: plenty of talent, good enough to make the playoffs, but not quite good enough to do much once they got there. Nice job by me and Kris (just don't go look and see what we said back then about the Bulls. Yikes.) It'll be interesting to see if they give another try with this group, or if they blow it all up. My guess is they fire George Karl, bring in Avery Johnson, and try to find a point guard in free agency. And, by the way, JR Smith is awesome, and insane. I'm not sorry to see the Nuggets go, but I will miss getting to see JR's brand of batty ridiculousness. He can do this.


3) Let us say goodbye to the Phoenix Suns. And not just this year, but the whole recent conception of the Phoenix Suns, where saying "Phoenix Suns" meant something different in the NBA. Actually, I'll point you to some places that said goodbye better than I could, such as Simmons' column, Henry Abbot's TrueHoop post, and Kelly Dwyer's take on Ball Don't Lie. But before we go, we must say F You to Boris Diaw. I think it's all his fault.


4) Let us say goodbye to the Dallas Mavericks. I never wanted to see them here in the first place - I would have preferred to see Golden State. Two years in a row they fail in the first round. To me, this is just proving that Josh Howard is way overrated. He wasn't great against Golden State last year, and he came up very small against New Orleans this year. You can't put it all on Dirk, especially if you have a second so-called star on the team that's not doing anything in particular to help the team win. Sorry to see Avery Johnson get fired, but he'll get a job with someone soon, and he'll succeed (as long as he stops micro-managing the point guards.)


5) Let us say goodbye to the Toronto Raptors. If a playoff series happens and no one can watch it, does it make a sound? It does if Dwight Howard is putting up Moses-Malone-like numbers, which he did in this series (who gets three 20pt-20reb games in a series?) The Raptors have some great players in Chris Bosh and Jose Calderon. They have some interesting players like Jamarrio Moon and Anthony Parker. They just need to get some freakin' time on national TV, so people can see that they play entertaining, up-tempo basketball. Stupid anti-Canada bias.