After 1/3 of the season, the Western Conference once again is showing how competitive they are as most of the predictions, outside of Lakers , have been thrown out the door. There are only 3 teams with winning road records: Lakers, Dallas, and Houston. That is simply amazing and shows how much the teams have improved IMO. Going to OKC, Sacramento, or Memphis is no longer a gimme, while Phoenix have restored their homecourt dominance. Where do you rank the teams thus far this season? Here's mine: 1. Lakers 2. Dallas 3. Denver 4. Houston 5. Phoenix 6. Utah 7. San Antonio 8. Blazers
1. Lakers 2. Denver 3. Dallas 4. San Antonio (I think they'll turn this around) 5. Utah 6. Phoenix 7. Houston 8. Portland I have this burning desire to put OKC at #8...but right now, I'll leave them on the cusp and give Portland the benefit of the doubt for experience and a current better record. However, I think the Thunder have the talent to make a push for the 8 seed, and I don't think Portland is as good as they were last year, especially now that Oden is out, and they still don't start their best PG for whatever reason. Who cares if Andre Miller can't shoot the ball for shit, he's still hands down the best PG on that team.
Oh, I would also like to add that it won't matter what the seedings really are. No one is going to stop the Lakers in the West. I can't see any team beating them 4 times, hell, I don't know how many teams would last past 6 games. They're so much better than the rest of the West that it's not even remotely funny.
I don't know, Dallas seems to be pretty good this year and I could see them getting it to 7 games possibly. They did give Lakers that beat down in LA this year also, so there won't be any fear going into Staples for them either.
I think if any team will give the Lakers trouble, it will be Denver. Kobe brings out the best in Anthony and I think Melo was effective trying to wear Kobe down. Denver in general is a physical team that could wear down the Lakers in a 7 game series. Still think the Lakers advance to the finals, but that is the team I could see giving them trouble.
Yup. Without Pau Gasol. I agree with Moo, I do not see any team from the west beating us 4 times in a 7 game series. But Dallas, Denver, and San Antonio (if they wake up) can all give us trouble. Do not sleep on these teams, or it'll be Houston all over again. Except this time, all three have the talent available to upset us.
I don't care who played and who didn't, it was convincing. The point of it is not that they are better, but they have confidence they can win @ LA, which I wouldn't over look. I'm interested to see if Josh Howard can comeback and be a contributor to the current team they have.
I actually think Dallas is the only team that has a shot (but likely improbable) at taking the Lakers down. Melo can post Kobe up all day, but you forget that we now have Artest who's more within Melo's weight class than Kobe (Kobe is only 205 lbs.). As much as I like the Nuggets and how physical they are, they won't make it to 7 games against the Lakers.
The main issue about the Dallas game is that we didn't have a full team at that point, so I'm not really going to call that a convincing win until they beat us with Pau. And Denver, I don't think will give us too many issues. They pounded us earlier this season, but that was the 2nd night of a back to back, which is never easy, and we also didn't have Pau for that game. If either of those teams or the Spurs manage to beat us convincingly with Pau in the lineup, I might worry. Until I see that, no worries here. We're 15-1 in our last 16 games, 14-1 since we got Pau back. And we're not just winning right now either, we're dominating. Only 2 of those wins have been by less than 10 points, and one of those was by 9 points. And the scary thing here is that we can still get better. We still don't have Luke Walton and Kobe is nursing that fractured finger. When we get Walton back, he gives us a guy who can facilitate the offense with that 2nd unit and somewhat stabilize it, and obviously Kobe's finger getting healthy means his shooting will go back to normal, which will help his cause (even though he's been almost as deadly with it fractured). There might be teams who MIGHT be able to give us a scare...but a scare does not yield 4 wins in 7 games. Maybe a couple, but I just can't see a team taking 4 games from us.
1. Lakers 2. Denver 3. Dallas 4. Phoenix 5. Portland 6. Houston 7. San Antonio 8. Utah Here's how I'd currently rank the West.
Absolutely. I wouldn't be surprised to see them fall out of the top 8 spots with all the injuries they're dealing with.
I actually think OKC might get that last spot w/ the Maynor addition. He is someone that can come in and run that team efficiently. I wouldn't be surprised to see him get possibly starter minutes, or at least steal some minutes from Westbrook.
Thunder, Hornets, Kings and Grizzlies could all be battling it out for the final seed along with the Blazers. Kings could make a serious run at it when Kevin Martin returns assuming he fits in with their current rotation.
I actually thtink moving martin woulkd be best for the kings. They can probably get some expiring contracts or another big him. The emergence of Evans simply makes Martin forgettable. A team like the Bulls would love to have Martin.
The Bulls won't get much better with Martin and they'd have to give up too much to get him. He'd also basically kill any shot at getting a premier FA this upcoming offseason. I think the Kings will hold on to him for at least a few weeks after he comes back to see how he and Tyreke coexist this time around. They could always look in to moving Martin to the SF to keep Tyreke at the PG (though I'm not sure how well that works with how wiry he is). I think the best thing initially though will be to hold onto him and see how things work.
