Last Season:	63-19
Preview prediction:	58-24
Oddsmakers:	56-26

There’s also the question of finding a starting center from the likes of Elson, Oberto and Butler. Or maybe somebody could remind Tim Duncan that guys who are 7’ tall and play predominantly with their back to the basket (which he did in the playoffs when he wasn’t (understandably) babying his injured foot) are actually centers. Look for Pop to experiment a lot with smaller lineups.

Sounds good—I have never understood why Duncan continues to get most of his minutes at the 4 despite the fact that we're down to 1 or 2 premier centers in the league. When you're able to give more of Rasho Nesterovic's Francisco Elson's minutes to Michael Finley, good things should ensue. For that matter, I'd like to see Dirk Nowitzki and even Kevin Garnett play more center. The overachieving Suns have certainly benefited from their recent strategy of keeping their top players on the court, regardless of position.

Besides center, the other question mark seems to be at backup point guard, where Beno Udrih has fallen out of favor and Nick Van Exel has retired. Matt actually listed Van Exel's retirement as a positive, and John Hollinger spent 6 full paragraphs of his Spurs preview explaining why Nick the Quick may have cost San Antonio the title last year.

Clearly, Spurs fans are expecting another trip to the Finals this year after last season's early exit. The team's terrific overall history (see chart below) is only overshadowed by its amazing run over the past 9 seasons. San Antonio has only missed the playoffs once since 1989, and they even did that well—losing 62 games and winning the Tim Duncan lottery. Oddsmakers currently have the Mavericks, Heat, and Spurs in a virtual tie at 9/2 odds to win the 2006-07 title, with Phoenix just barely behind at 5/1. If these teams can stay healthy, we should be able to look forward to another wide-open postseason.