Stock Up: Cleveland
We start off with a no-brainer. The Cavs played two inferior opponents, which may mean that they're not as good as they've looked so far. On the flip side, they did exactly what you're supposed to do against inferior opponents: crush them. Last year's playoffs were an anomaly in that the eventual champion Celtics struggled with an Atlanta Hawks team they should have swept in the first round. Usually, a championship team deals with it's weaker brothers in short order. The Bulls didn't lose one first round game in any of their six championship seasons. The Shaq/Kobe lakers swept their first round series two out of the three years they won it all. It's not always a sweep, but if you fashion yourself a championship contender, then you shouldn't toy around and go six or seven with teams you should be taking out in four of five games. Which brings us to....
Stock Down: Los Angeles How on earth do you let the Houston Rockets take you to seven games? Even worse, how do you lose two out of three games to the Rockets when they are without Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady, and Dikembe Mutumbo? OK, them playing without T-Mac is probably helps more than it hurts, but still. What's worse is that in taking so long to dispatch a depleted foe, the Lakers have allowed their weaknesses to be exposed. They will be woefully over matched at point guard spot no matter who they play from here on out and their big men are still soft even with Andrew Bynum, who was supposed to be the cure to ail that ailed them inside, back in the lineup. They were absolutely dominated inside during game six by a combination of Luis Scola, Carl Landry, and Chuck Hayes. Are you kidding me? A month ago, no one would have given the Nuggets a chance against the Lakers in the playoffs, now some people are calling for the upset. That's how far they've fallen.
Stock Up: Carmelo Anthony
Melo averaged 30 points and 6.8 rebounds for the series while shooting 49 percent from the floor and 44 percent from three point range. Now it helped that he was playing against a defensively challenged team like Dallas, but you can't ignore the improvement here. The biggest change is that with Chauncey Billups around he's no longer burdened with the leadership role. He's an executor first and foremost; all the other stuff needed to be handled by someone else and now it is. The big problem with he and Allen Iverson was that they are both executors and not leaders, which meant that there was no one there to tell either of them when to take over and when to back down; they had to figure it out themselves and never were able to. To be honest, that's probably been the biggest problem over the past ten years for the entire league; too many guys who can execute and not enough guys to lead. Denver has appeared to have solved that problem for the time being, so the sky really is the limit here.
Stock down: Dwight Howard
I've had my misgiving about him for a few years now, and they've been proven out over the course of the playoffs. He was right to complain about not getting enough shots (he's averaged 12 per game through the regular season and playoffs), but he still needs to improve his game if he's going to lead his team anywhere other than to second round defeats. He still lacks any real back to the basket game, and has to score his points off of dunks, put backs, etc. The difference in him being a truly dominant player and what he is now is that he still can be guarded one on one in the post and held in check. The free throw shooting doesn't matter; it's an overrated statistic. Shaq never lost a damn thing because of his free throw shooting; go look it up. He was so dominant that if you fouled him 20 times he'd get his 20 foul shots but they'd be in addition to the 20-plus points he scored from the floor. Howard isn't there yet; he can't dominate enough offensively to offset his foul shooting woes, and it's getting in the way. Right now, I'd take a healthy Yao over him. And the sad truth is that he may never get any better. I don't care if he's still younger than 25; he's in his fifth year and guys usually don't find new skills after that point. So what we see right now may be what we get.
Stock down the REFS!!!!!
Good point about Howard. One reason I laughed about everybody up in arms about him not getting the ball, but ignoring the fact that he's offensively inept. When he got the ball down low every time Kendrick Perkins either push him out of the paint or he tossed the ball back out. The only times he scored in the post past minute two in the first quarter was against Paul Pierce and a spin move on Big Baby. He needs to get mean and get advanced right now.