The NBA regular season is finally here after a fun preseason and with the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat playing on Tuesday night to start things off, a number of other teams will be debuting on Wednesday and those include the Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets and New Orleans Pelicans, who are the most improved teams in the league this year.
It's all a matter of opinion of course, but those teams appear to be much better off than they were last season and while that isn't saying they are among the best in the league, it just means they have the chance to be. The Houston Rockets obviously have the chance to be much better after adding Dwight Howard and with Jeremy Lin coming off the bench as well as Omer Asik, the team could have one of the deepest rosters in the league. Patrick Beverley established himself this preseason and James Harden is on the cusp of being the next breed of superstar in the NBA and Howard will be the focal point after signing away from the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Rockets and Howard will have their debut at home against the Charlotte Bobcats to start the season and later next month they have some tough games, including one against the NY Knicks. New York has the chance to improve despite winning over 50 games last season and maybe they won't win more games, but the team has a more talented roster in 2013. It isn't a team that likely can beat the Miami Heat, but adding Andrea Bargnani, Metta World Peace and Beno Udrih makes for a solid group and getting back JR Smith and Pablo Prigioni should help with depth as well. Things will run through Carmelo Anthony like last season and he came through, leading the league in scoring and he very well could do it again with a new cast of players to work with. Anthony has said that he will become a free agent after the season and while that makes some fans worried, he likely isn't going anywhere.
The Knicks will debut the new Madison Square Garden with the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night and then they will play against the Chicago Bulls on Thursday on the road on Halloween. The health of Tyson Chandler and Amare Stoudemire will be key and the fact that the Brooklyn Nets made that trade with Boston makes the division much more interesting this season. The Nets have one of the best point guards in the league and now the team has Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce in the fold along with Andrei Kirilenko and they should be one of the best teams in the conference after coming in fourth last season. The team lost in seven games to the Chicago Bulls in the playoffs and now they will be looking to get at least into the second round if not the conference finals.
The Golden State Warriors were one of the most surprising teams in the league last season after upsetting the Denver Nuggets in the playoffs and now the team should be even stronger with Andre Iguodala in the fold. The team will have a healthy Andrew Bogut (they hope so) and along with young stars like Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes, they have some of the best talent in the league and could have another surprising year. The Pelicans should be much improved on the floor and with their record, as they pulled off two huge trades for Jrue Holiday and Tyreke Evans and that should make the team much better this season and they possibly could make the playoffs as one of the lower seeds.
