No Betas Here: A Look at the Alpha Division

[Xist2Inspire]

This wasn't intended to be a diss to the Omega Conference. I originally planned to do a full league preview, but as usual, I bit off more than I could chew. And since I still want dem points (and did half the work already), here you go.

The Alpha Conference has gained a reputation for being competitive, and it's never been more deserved than now. While the Omega Conference may host the title favorites, the tiers just below are dominated by Alpha teams. So, let's take a look at what went down and how we got here.

Johnson Division

Atlanta Hawks
Key Additions: None
Key Losses: William Jackson
Loco's neverending quest for points continues, as players were moved throughout last season and the 5th pick was unloaded to the Nets for cash during the draft. Other than that...not much happened this offseason, to be honest. A recent trade allowed them to pick up William Jackson from Detroit, but that's just Day 60 points bait for someone looking to go all in without giving up too much in return. It's gonna be another long year for Atlanta fans.

Denver Nuggets
Key Losses: John Stoll, Bjorn Ironside
Key Additions: Zeke Nnaji, RJ Barrett, Colby Lopez, Brendan Silva
Injuries once again derailed another promising season for Denver, an especially disheartening finish given the blockbuster deal to bring in Glen Sabo earlier. Obviously Syndicate took the poor playoff finish personally, as he rampaged through the offseason with huge moves. Shipping out Stoll would be a big deal for any other team, but the real stunner was a deal that shipped out Bjorn Ironside for the 4th pick, Brendan Silva. Couple that with Sabo/Bynum's return and the free agency acquisitions of Colby Lopez and RJ Barrett, and once again Syndicate has a versatile team that could go either way. Personally, I have a hard time believing that we'll see an intentional step back even if the team starts off poorly. Syndicate's become renowned for his ability to squeeze quality players out of questionable assets, but he's also known to be quite resistant to a full-on rebuild. Either way, count on another season of relevance for the Mile-High City.

Indiana Pacers
Key Additions: Leonard Washington, Robert Bonnett
Key Losses: Ronald Haile, Micheal Evan
The much-hyped pairing of Bronny James and De'Aaron Fox not only proved to be a complete disaster, it didn't even last a full season. Fox was shipped back home to Milwaukee for Mamadi Diakite, Michael Evan, and Ronald Haile...which honestly seemed like a clear win to me, moreso now that Evan looks to be better than originally thought. Well **** all that though, enter Leonard Washington! I get the reasoning why you would want to bring in Washington, but I don't get why you wouldn't want to pair him with Haile. Adding Evan to that...ehh. I don't quite feel like the Pacers are worse off from this, but I also don't feel as good as I should for a team that just picked up a star. The biggest question for Indy lies with the other half of last season's two-man power trip. As a role player or tertiary scorer, Bronny James has been fantastic. As a star or even a sidekick, Bronny James has been very underwhelming, with Schumann and Orlando's performance last season perhaps being a testament to how not having Bronny on your roster isn't necessarily a bad thing. At 30 and in the last year of his contract, Bronny's rep and future earning potential is on the line, and how he answers those questions will likely have a huge impact on how far Indiana goes this season.

LA Lakers
Key Losses: Jaren Jackson Jr.
Key Additions: Robert Kelly, Mike Burnham, Dino Washington
The first official year of the Age of Lopez in La started with a bang and ended...well, with a losing streak and a first round exit. GM greeple seemed to take it all in stride though, chugging along with the same general plan and filling in when needed. Though he claims he hasn't been as active as he should or wants to be, his acquisitions say otherwise, filling his team full of former Wizards on minimum or value deals. Yes, I am slightly salty. However, that makes me uniquely qualified to comment on his team, as I know what these guys can give him. Losing JJJ will hurt a lot, but Todd's continued growth alongside the unexpected emergence of Mike Burnham will help offset that slightly, at least on the defensive end. And if that doesn't prove enough, he can always make a trade, using his stupidly loaded wing rotation to do it. Lopez, Giguere, Kelly, Cage, Maravich, Bias, Washington is a ridiculously solid rotation that can do it all and mix and match to suit any situation. None of them will blow you away outside of Lopez and Bias, but the efficiency and general effectiveness should be on point. Outside of a question mark at the 4, this is exactly the type of team you put around a star wing. But it's all up to Lopez to prove that he's the type of wing that you build around, not with.

Sacramento Kings
Key Losses: None
Key Acquisitions: Barrett Kukyendall, Miguel Thomas, Norrin Radd, Bertram Pugh
Though #2 certainly isn't bad, the combination of not getting #1 again on top of a bad draft seems to have tested Nola's patience a bit. Instead of standing pat, he decided to put his cap space to work this offseason and bring in win-now talent like Thomas, Radd, and Pugh. And as his young guns continue to grow, this suspiciously looks like a team primed to make some noise again. And unless a can't-miss deal comes along that gives him the opportunity to align the trajectories of his core more closely, I don't see a move to step back coming. Keep an eye out for these guys.

San Antonio Spurs
Key Losses: Robert Bonnett, Norrin Radd
Key Additions: None
After another hard-fought 7-game series against the Wizards, the Spurs came back this offseason with...nothing. With both Bonnett and Radd leaving, this team looks like a shell of last season's edition...and yet it probably won't matter all that much, because the duo of Lewis and Yandell will probably be the most unstoppable one-two punch in the league this season, by far. They'll have to both be MVP-level if this team wants to make a serious run though, because unless some moves are made to bring in both talent and depth, the Spurs are very thin and somewhat at a disadvantage at every other position that doesn't have Lewis and Yandell slotted as a starter.

Washington Wizards
Key Losses: Robert Kelly, Shareef O'Neal
Key Additions: Paul Cassel, Renato Mosher, Derick Hunter
After 47 seasons, the Wizards finally did it, capping off a decade of 50+ win seasons and playoff berths with a second consecutive Finals appearance and a championship victory. It seems as if that was the last hurrah for that era, though, as this team looks quite a bit different from last season's squad. Gone is the giant frontcourt of O'Neal and Cuomo, as O'Neal was shipped off to Cleveland, and Cuomo appears to be heading towards a team mentor role. Robert Kelly bounced to LA, leaving newcomer Renato Mosher and a gang of rookies to hold down the 2-guard spot. It's an interesting mix of veterans and youngsters surrounding the Kidd/Cucone combo, and it'll probably take some time for this new crew to get on track.

Mourning Division

Brooklyn Nets
Key Losses: William Caine, Ike Creighton
Key Additions: Tres Trinkle
The Nets have continued to keep the train rolling in spite of the whole team (not Fang though) being on the block. That might work out to their advantage this season, though, as the mix of veteran continuity and youthful energy could provide RPF with a strong starting 5. Key to this is Tres Trinkle, who had an unexpectedly strong offseason and looks to be an early favorite for ROY. Fang Shuo also had a solid camp, and still has ample room to grow. This team could make some noise as-is, but it's high time for RPF to make up his mind on whether or not he wants to roll with Hector, Waters, and Wesson or try something new with a team geared more towards synergizing with the Fang/Tres duo. It's only going to get harder to press the reset button and get good value from this point on, so if they gotta go, they gotta go quick.

Cleveland Cavaliers
Key Additions: Shareef O'Neal, Fredric Hughes
Key Losses: Chris Ridley, Paul Cassel
After several seasons of treading water, drifting in and out of the league, LHamilton suddenly reappeared to make a push geared towards showing UFA Chris Ridley that he means business. Out went up-and-comer Paul Cassel, in came Wizards big man Shareef O'Neal, fresh off a championship run. But apparently the damage had already been done internally, as Ridley said "hell no" to Cleveland and moved over a little to Chicago. That pretty much put a huge damper on the entire offseason for Cleveland, a gloom that seems to have extended all the way to now. If Harms, O'Neal, and Hughes can break out of their offseason funk and produce once the season starts, they might be able to do a little something, but there's no doubt that Ridley dealt this franchise a huge blow when he blew town.

Milwaukee Bucks
Key Additions: Clifford Paugh, Charlie Porter
Key Losses: None
Quail did as Quail does last season, making moves just to keep things interesting. This time Diakite got the axe, being sent out alongside Haile and Evan (who was acquired through an earlier trade involving Ernest Long) to facilitate the return of the Fox. It was too little too late though, and the Bucks were quickly taken out by the Spurs in Round 1. And outside of Paugh (another former Buck) and Porter coming aboard, no major changes were made. With the Alpha being more open than last year there's an opening for Milwaukee, but they need some receipts on Pastor and Olney. They've been hanging on for a while now, and now it's time for them to produce. Pastor is especially critical due to his fresh contract and the Bucks' relative weakness in the post. But then again, who actually believes that Quail's gonna run with this squad for the whole season?

New York Knicks
Key Additions: Bjorn Ironside, Matthew O'Connor, Geoff Rickly, Brooks Jackson
Key Losses: #4, Ritchie Plott
Furious from bad lotto luck dropping them from #1 to #4, the Knicks promptly wrecked their plans to wreck the league by trading the 4th pick for Bjorn Ironside. And just like Ridley's betrayal of Cleveland, this pretty much put a damper on what would otherwise have been a pretty nice offseason. Instead of having a nice young stable of talent in Plott, Quackenbush, Silva/Trinkle, O'Connor, and the newly acquired Brooks Jackson (a rare big RFA trade acquisition), the Knicks now have two big-money guys who need to win now and three youngsters still getting their feet wet. In other words, this season's a wash, wait 'til next year, when their cap opens up again, to really see what Kavarga has in mind for this squad.

Orlando Magic
Key Additions: Tex Harrison
Key Losses: Matthew O'Connor, Isaiah Stewart
Seemingly out of nowhere, the Magic were right back to being amongst the top teams in the league, led by Schumann, Hunt, Candelaria, and one of the biggest surprises in sim league history, current reigning ROY and DPOY Matthew O'Connor. Who is now on the Knicks, so if he was the catalyst for Orlando's sudden defensive dominance...welp. False9 still has an eye towards the future though, and with that in mind, he struck hard and fast to pick up Tex Harrison from Miami as soon as he became available. Making that move leads me to believe that we could see a hard shift towards rebuilding around a Reynolds/Harrison core if the Magic don't get off to a hot start. I don't think a slow start's likely though. That leaves the Magic in an interesting spot, given that there's not too many ways to improve their roster aside from low-profile moves to consolidate decent depth into quality role guys. Definitely a team to keep an eye on.

Philadelphia 76ers
Key Additions: None
Key Losses: None
The Sixers finally took off last season, adding the right veteran talent to shepherd their young core into a playoff spot. Inexperience got the best of them against the Wizards, but overall, it was a great start to the new era Sixers management had been promising. To that end, no major moves were made, because why mess with success? That success seemed to have gone straight to the heads of Wiseman and Toppin, because they both showed up to camp horribly out of shape. They've proven talented (and young) enough to overcome it rather quickly, but that's not the kind of start K100 was looking for. Honestly, if it wasn't for the aforementioned TC disaster, I would say that the Sixers are the clear favorites. But that might've been a sign that the future isn't quite here yet.

It's definitely going to be a wild one this year. One trend I've noticed is that most teams seem to have strong 1-2 punches, with another solid guy or two added in. This provides an opportunity, as the first team to either trade for a third wheel or see one develop naturally could have a leg up on the competition. But who knows for sure...

[false9]

+7

[IamQuailman]

Milwaukee Bucks
Key Additions: Clifford Paugh, Charlie Porter
Key Losses: None
Quail did as Quail does last season, making moves just to keep things interesting. This time Diakite got the axe, being sent out alongside Haile and Evan (who was acquired through an earlier trade involving Ernest Long) to facilitate the return of the Fox. It was too little too late though, and the Bucks were quickly taken out by the Spurs in Round 1. And outside of Paugh (another former Buck) and Porter coming aboard, no major changes were made. With the Alpha being more open than last year there's an opening for Milwaukee, but they need some receipts on Pastor and Olney. They've been hanging on for a while now, and now it's time for them to produce. Pastor is especially critical due to his fresh contract and the Bucks' relative weakness in the post. But then again, who actually believes that Quail's gonna run with this squad for the whole season?

Hell hath frozen over