Out of the four major sporting leagues, I would say the NBA is the most predictable.\u00a0 Each year you know that the Utah Jazz will make the playoffs, LeBron James will be in the\u00a0top three in scoring average and Ron Artest will do something stupid.\u00a0 Fortunately enough, the NBA does have its share of surprises as well.\u00a0 Here are four surprising things I have noticed about this young season:<\/p>\n
Brandon Jennings<\/strong><\/p>\n Who saw this coming? I had a friend tell me before the season that Jennings was going to win rookie of the year, but he really doesn\u2019t know much about the NBA so it went it through one ear and out the other; I should have listened to him.\u00a0 Through 15 games, Jennings is averaging 22.3 points and 5.5 assists a game. I\u2019ve caught a couple of Jennings\u2019 games on TV and he looks like a left-handed Tony Parker except with a better jump shot.<\/p>\n Phoenix Suns<\/strong><\/p>\n The Suns are leading the Western Conference with a 14-3 record as of Nov. 29 and they didn\u2019t even make the playoffs last year. The main difference in this year\u2019s team comes at the center position. Channing Frye is manning the middle for Phoenix this season after they traded four time NBA champion Shaquille O\u2019Neal to the Cleveland Cavaliers this past offseason.\u00a0 Frye, 25, is averaging six points less per game for the Suns than Shaq did last season, but his agility and perimeter shooting (46 made three point shots) have allowed Phoenix to revert back to their old fast break style they were so successful with just a few years ago.<\/p>\n Andre Bargnani<\/strong><\/p>\n To put it bluntly, I thought this guy was a bust, but he is proving everybody wrong with his impressive play so far this year for the 7-11 Toronto Raptors. Bargnani, 24, is averaging 17.2 points and 6.4 rebounds a game, far acceding his career averages of 12.7 points and 4.5 rebounds. Maybe the Raptors trading for Jermaine O\u2019Neal last season sparked something in this guy or perhaps this is just the natural progression of a young foreign born player who is still somewhat new to the American style of basketball.<\/p>\n Chicago Bulls<\/strong><\/p>\n The Bulls are currently holding the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with a 6-8 record, which is basically where I projected them to be. But, the thing that has surprised me about Chicago is how much they have been on TV. Between ESPN, TNT and NBATV the Bulls have gotten televised an estimated 6 times already. I don\u2019t have anything against the Bulls, but they are a very boring team to watch, especially with Derrick Rose still recovering from an ankle injury that has him playing less than 100 percent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Out of the four major sporting leagues, I would say the NBA is the most predictable.\u00a0 Each year you know that the Utah Jazz will make the playoffs, LeBron James will be in the\u00a0top three in scoring average and Ron Artest will do something stupid.\u00a0 Fortunately enough, the NBA does have its share of surprises […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1402],"class_list":["post-3586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-samuel-huist"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-VQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3586"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3600,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586\/revisions\/3600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}