The Southeast Division is the home of potential unfulfilled, a division brimming with upside. If that upside isn't developed, though, either with new support players or the right coaching, it quickly becomes disappointment. Has any team made the moves necessary to join the Magic in the playoff conversation with the Celtics and Pistons? Did the Magic make the moves to stay in that conversation. Let's take a look ...
Orlando Magic

What went right:

Mickael Pietrus signed

One of the few Warriors to flash an interest in playing defense, Pietrus soon found himself fighting for minutes with Don Nelson's Warriors. Now in the land of no state income taxes and playing for a coach who appreciates defense as much as Nelson ignores it, Pietrus not only will help the Magic chase the LeBrons and Paul Pierces, but also help space the floor for Dwight Howard, courtesy of a respectable 35 percent stroke from three.

They made a sensible draft pick

Maurice Evans, Keith Bogans and J.J. Reddick are no way to stock a shooting guard position. Likely starter Pietrus and rookie Courtney Lee are a lot closer to what a conference contender such as the Magic needs. While the former Warrior will handle the heavy lifting, Lee promises to star off a thin magic bench with a shooting stroke that was accurate from long range 40 percent of the time as a senior with Western Kentucky.

Dwight Howard went to school

Credit coach Stan Van Gundy for not genuflecting last season before his franchise center, who was sent to the bench after making a sharp comment to Van Gundy late in a loss to the Cavs. "His focus is on the offensive end," Van Gundy said to reporters after the game. "He gets discouraged when he doesn't get the ball. I think the numbers prove that what we need him to focus on to win is defensive rebounding, but that's not what he wants to do right now and we've got a little bit of a conflict." Howard's summer in Beijing soaking up the lessons of team-first preaching of Coach K and sharing the ball with his Team USA mates should reinforce Van Gundy's lesson.

What went wrong:

Jameer Nelson is still the point guard

Yes, he may be a good guy, and yes, he may organize offseason workouts, but good intentions don't necessarily equal good production. And after four years in the league, Nelson has yet to provide consistent play at the point. One night Nelson is connecting on six of his 10 shots; the next he is missing 10-of-11. As anyone without a LeBron James or Kobe Bryant can attest, you can't win without consistent play from the quarterback.

Where's the beef?

The ranks are dangerously thin behind Howard. Tony Battie missed all of last season after rotator cuff surgery. Adonal Foyle might as well have embarked on his future political career for all the help his two points and three rebounds a night has provided the last two seasons. And Brian Cook is, well, Brian Cook. Those aren't the types of safety valves that will let Van Gundy sleep well at night or give Howard much of a breather.

The East reloaded

With Jermaine O'Neal partnering with Chris Bosh in Toronto, and Elton Brand providing a low-post complement to Philly's athletic slashers, playoff seeds in the East will not be so easy to secure. And for those who do garner them, those cushy first-round matchups against .500 or worse teams are long gone. Getting into the postseason shouldn't be a problem for a team that won 52 games last year; getting past the first round might be.

Grade: B-

Quietly adding Pietrus should pay off in numerous ways this fall on both ends of the floor while expanding a talent base that needed growth. But this team is still missing one major piece to tie an Eastern Conference title together. There isn't a lot of fat on the roster to make it happen through trade, so unless someone gets desperate at the trade deadline, the Magic may have done little but secure another 52-win campaign.
Washington Wizards

What went right:

The grotto will be open for business

Anytime you can retain the services of a player building his own version of the Playboy Mansion grotto in his own backyard, that's a deal you have to make, right? Though Gilbert Arenas' off-court quirkiness has generated more ink in the last few years than his on-court appearances, Agent Zero is one of those talents every team with deep playoff aspirations requires. When healthy and locked in, Arenas can score from anywhere, against anyone. The downside to that, of course, is that anyone often can do the same to Arenas. But the downside to losing Arenas for the Wizards would have been a slide into irrelevance, which was why Washington paid $111 million to avoid it.

Antawn Jamison is back

No sport thrives on chemistry so much as basketball. And Jamison's willingness to play second or third option -- without complaint -- allows coach Eddie Jordan to run teams off the floor with his Princeton offense. Just as valuable as Jamison's ability to shoot, score in the post and rebound is the elder statesman role he has taken with Washington, especially in his attempt to guide young phenom Andray Blatche toward a more mature place. Every team needs a leader; Jamison appears willing and able to be that for the Wizards.

What went wrong:

Andray Blatche didn't grow up

Following a summer 2007 incident in which Blatche was accused of soliciting sex from an undercover cop, the 22-year-old big man celebrated the $15 million deal he signed last year by getting arrested this summer for driving 86 mph with a suspended license. He's only 22, so the tendency is to cut him a break, but Blatche is repeatedly demonstrating a troubling lack of judgment. Would you trust him with a game on the line?

Where's the D?

Eddie Jordan can complain all he wants about his players' unwillingness to play defense, but after five years of employing more red capes than man-to-man, Jordan should realize the blame goes both ways. Washington made some strides in trying to slow down opponents, evident in the fact it allowed less than 100 points a game, but letting opponents shoot better than 46 percent each night showed the effort was anything but consistent.

Clearly, Arenas and most of the Co. aren't too interested in stopping opponents as much as scoring over them, but Jordan clearly isn't making defense the emphasis he needs to for this team to grow beyond first-round danger, either. Few teams are in more need of a Tom Thibodeau-type; few teams will pay for its failure to get one more than the Wizards.

They avoided the mirror

Washington has spent much of the last three springs lamenting loudly about how it has lost to an inferior Cavs team each postseason. That's the type of thinking that has kept this cast together, which the last three years have shown may not be the wisest option. Bringing back a pair of 20-point scorers was the right PR move to make, but dealing someone like Jamison for a look that would strengthen the defense or someone to get the ball out of Arenas' hands and into the flow of the offense would have been the right basketball move.

Grade: C

Re-signing Arenas and Jamison will please the fans, but the Wizards needed more of a change if they hope to make any strides toward an Eastern Conference crown. As things stand, Washington seems in danger of spinning its wheels a bit. Arenas isn't going to suddenly develop into Tayshaun Prince on the defensive end. Jamison, at 32, is Jamison. And Caron Butler? He had a career season last year, but is something more in store in his seventh NBA season? In other words, how will this team improve with the same cast of players and same coaching staff? Simply put, it won't.
Atlanta Hawks

What went right:

Memphis made a play for Josh Smith

With negotiations on a new contract with his hometown Hawks going nowhere, Smith agreed to a five-year, $58 million deal with the Grizzlies. Within 24 hours of receiving the proposed contract, the Hawks had matched the offer, securing the multitalented forward at a salary-cap-friendly rate as well as maintaining a core piece of a team that finally began expressing the potential all its prior lottery picks promised.

Billy Knight exited

It is a testament to Knight's interest in keeping his job more than doing it that he was able to remain the Hawks' GM for six years and only produce a single playoff team. Perhaps Knight's time would have been better spent drafting Chris Paul instead of publicly snubbing former co-owner Steve Belkin in a dispute over the direction, and ownership, of the team.

Or maybe Knight could have researched the free-agent market so as not to burn through $25 million for the likes of any point guard with a pulse (a.k.a. Speedy Claxton). To be fair, Knight assembled the collection of young talent that took the Celtics to seven games in the first round of the playoffs last spring. His replacement -- Rick Sund -- isn't off to much better of a start in the executive office if the Josh Childress defection is any indication.

What went wrong:

Josh Childress opened the door to Europe

Not only did Atlanta botch negotiations with talented sixth man Josh Childress so badly he bolted for Greece and a three-year, $32.5 million contract, but the Hawks also raised the anxiety level of 29 other GMs by making an inferior league a viable option for even the league's biggest stars. The Hawks GM reportedly said matching the three-year, $20 million deal Olympiacos gave Childress would have been irresponsible, but so is letting a key player leave without a shred of return, even in a sign-and-trade.

The Hawks reportedly were offering a deal that started above the $5.6 million mid-level exception, a number that isn't that far off from what Childress accepted. If Atlanta wasn't willing to bridge the gap for a player who made the Hawks' bench one of the league's most dangerous, is it really willing to do all it must to win?

The ownership situation is still unsettled

Now in its fourth year, former part owner Steve Belkin's effort to buy out his former partners and take sole control of the franchise has yet to conclude. Every deposition taken and every court hearing conducted in this dispute, triggered when Belkin objected to the Hawks trade for Joe Johnson and the five-year, $70 million contract he was given, distracts from the business of basketball. That's how players escape to Greece. That's how GMs are allowed to fail repeatedly and keep their jobs. And that's how teams work just inefficiently enough to consistently lose.

Grade: C-

Just when you think the Hawks were on the right path -- with a summer to celebrate a rousing playoff performance, a new GM and (eventually) the good fortune to re-sign Josh Smith at a restricted free agent market rate -- Josh Childress has to go mess things up. Guess it goes to show that just because a house gets a fresh coat of paint, it doesn't mean the plumbing is fixed. Organizations tend to behave as a reflection of its leadership. But when the leadership doesn't even know if it will be in charge come February (when a trial to decide who should own the team is slated to begin), mistakes happen. And losing a key building block without a dime of compensation is a mistake that will make it difficult to return to the postseason next spring.

• somebody tell Mr. Forrester Gump that Jax and Azubuike were the ones doing the chasing for us last season

I think the Warriors are trying to sell tickets