PARIS (George Eddy's International Show) - In 10 days, a new NBA season will commence and I feel it will be a noteworthy campaign for several important reasons.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and the league's top decision-makers have taken a big step towards putting the players health and well-being at the top of their list of priorities by reducing the number of back-to-back games and limiting the hellish four-games-in-five-nights scenarios.

Players like LeBron James and Dirk Nowitzki, coaches like Gregg Popovich and Doc Rivers along with some media types like yours truly have been lobbying for these changes for years. Popovich agrees that preparing an NBA schedule is a nightmare but he seems happy with the adjustments this season.

After already lengthening the All-Star Break to give more rest time at mid-season, now we even have a more logical playoff format where the final conference standings will depend solely on winning percentage and eliminate the unfair advantage which was given to the division winners.

Now if we can only get those same decision-makers to take steps towards eliminating tanking and "Hack-a-Dwight" type fouls along with one day, qualifying the 16 best teams regardless of conference for the playoffs, then everything would be hunky-dory!

More and more coaches are copying Popovich's strategy of resting his players during the regular season and all the modern technology invading the NBA sphere can also be used to calculate the best playing time for an individual in order to to avoid player injury due to extreme fatigue.

Computer programs are not just being used to convince coaches to hoist up a lot more three-point shots or to find the best shooting spots for each player and this, too, goes in the right direction towards assuring player health and well-being.

All this good news makes me feel that the overall quality of play will be better this season.

As usual, the Western Conference will be globally much stronger than the Eastern but the best team on paper to start the season and the bookmakers' favorite are the Cleveland Cavaliers, from the Eastern Conference.

As with most elite teams, the key will be avoiding injuries to major players (funny how that keeps popping back up). This, probably, already cost Cleveland the title last season. Of course, don't say that to MVP Stephen Curry and his team because the Golden State Warriors feels slighted and disrespected after their long awaited trophy.

Rivers pointed out with malice that the Warriors didn't have to play his Los Angeles Clippers or the San Antonio Spurs during their run to the title and this seems to have seriously motivated the team to repeat as champs! I love their style of uptempo, "shoot it when you're open" basketball which many are going to try and copy.

The Clippers look much stronger after strengthening their bench considerably and keeping DeAndre Jordan, so they feel comfortable talking up a storm.

As usual, the Spurs aren't saying much but after adding LaMarcus Aldridge and David West and bringing back their aging "Big Three" as mentors to Aldridge and Kahwi Leonard, they look just as dangerous to me as the Clips and the Warriors.

The fourth contender for the crown in the West is the Oklahoma City Thunder... if their major players can avoid injury. Will Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka get back to their best level consistently? Will Billy Donovan find common ground with Russell Westbrook and finally prove that a pure college coach can become an NBA champion?

In the East, things should be much simpler with the Cavs dominating from start to finish, especially if they can fix the Tristan Thompson contract stalemate.

The rest of the Eastern teams will be also-rans unless some incredible surprise takes place. If not, we'll see if LeBron can get some payback against the future Western Champs!

In any case, there is a lot of noteworthy material to get us psyched up for the start of the 2015-2016 NBA season, n'est-ce pas?

George Eddy

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