A little early to be making predictions. If Yao comes back 100%, the Rockets have a chance at the 2nd or 3rd seed. If he doesn't, they will be struggling. I also question putting the Thunder above the Mavs. IMHO, Dallas has at least one good year in them.
given health, I rate the Blazers Lakers and Rockets the top 3 teams in the West... they have the best talent which team is most likely to be healthy? The oft injured young Blazers? Yao (nuff said) and the Rockets? Or the much older Lakers coming off back to backs? Some of health is random/luck, some is physical makeup, and some is due to putting in the right sort of work in the offseason STOMP
People are really convinced the Thunder are the second best team in the west...Am I dumb or is that team not nearly as good as projected?
Ive said this before in other threads but the stars were completely alined for the Thunder last year. They snuck up on people, Durant took the "next step" and they had almost NO injuries. I cant see those 3 things all happening again this year so although I think they will be a good team, a playoff team. Im not convinced they are going to be able to moved up to a top 3 team though. I could be wrong ...
I don't think you're dumb. I fail to see how a team that won, what, 42 or 43 games with everyone healthy can be expected to improve by 10 games or so with no major changes in personnel, but teams killed by injuries are expected to get worse with their players healthy. NBA has fads like everything else and Thunder are current fad.
The thing with Houston is though, Yao is a bigger ? mark than Oden, imho. And after Yao, the Rockets are basically Martin, Scola, Aaron Brooks and an aging Battier. I'm not saying we ARE going to be better, but I must be under estimating just how crappy the rest of the conference is if Houston is considered a top 3 team.
An interesting thing, to me, is that Portland won 51 games last year, and the Thunder won 50 or 51 (I thought they tied us). They had NO injuries of note, and Portland lost something like 9 billion games to injuries last year. Now, of course some of the reason why the Thunder are considered (by some) to be better is because they're the popular team right now, but that the Blazers have players who could be injured again. But considering the freak nature of Joel's injury, Batums injury (which shouldn't be a problem) and at the time Travis's odd injury, having those guys healthy (at least, Batum) will make a HUGE impact on the teams overall record. If Oden can be healthy for 65 games this year, Joel plays around 50-60, and Batum plays the majority of the games, it will have a major impact on our record. I think even if Oden doesn't play many games this year, but we are relatively injury free otherwise, we should finish with a better record than the Thunder. Having a season start off with a starting 5 of (assuming no trades) Roy, Miller, Camby, Batum and Aldridge will be a big deal. Even if they do trade Miller, having the same starting 5 that ended last year (sans a PG) will be huge to start to the season. They can get used to each other from the start instead of having to adjust to drastic changes midway through the year. Having a healthy Oden, and a lineup of R,A,M,B,O, (and a backup of M,B,C,C,(P) ) would be a top 4 team easily. Our placement in the conference depends (too much) on their overall health. I'm not really sure I made any point here.
The Rockets 2 votes are baffling. Let's assume Yao does come back and stay relatively healthy - how much can you really expect from him? 20/10? Hard to imagine. In the last month of the season, Houston averaged 110 PPG (and gave up 110 PPG), with the the Run-n-gun back court of Brooks and Martin. How does Yao fit into that? They obviously have to slow the pace of the game down for him, and become a half-court team. Problem is, there is no Ron Artest or T. Ariza around to play defense. They still have Battier, but he's getting older and has been slowed by injuries in recent years. They used to have a grind-it-out identity, and had a reputation as a physical team. But now they have guys like Chase Budinger, Kevin Martin, and Courney Lee. Not exactly a murderers row of guys who can intimidate you. So if Yao is back, and they dump the run-and-gun tempo for the half court/slow pace . . . it doesn't seem like they have right personnel for that anymore. They'll be alright, but good enough to seriously challenge for the West? Unlikely.
The Thunder hav been improving each year, won 50 games last year, are a young team and have a superstar who is just now starting to emerge as one of the top players in the entire league. If the Thunder roster was the Trailblazer roster, I think posters on this board would be ranking that roster as a potential championship contender.
This list isn't a predicted order of finish for the West, it's a list of the number of votes that each team received for finishing first in the West from 93 judges. All but 5 said that the Lakers would finish on top.
I actually like the Thunder as the 2 seed. I think they've got the MVP on their team this upcoming year, they've got one of the best PGs in the game running the team, and they're just going to keep getting better. That team is still so young that I don't think they've fulfilled their potential.
We technically won 50 if you remember. We "threw" the last game by resting the starters and playing like Cunningham, Pendergraph, Bayless, Howard and Rudy against a Golden State team that we could have beat with our eyes closed had we played any decent starters. So we really were a 51 win team and OKC was a 50 win team, but because the 6th seed was locked, we took a game off and looked like a 50 win team on some record books. But your premise is spot-on. OKC is a 50 win team when Durant scores 30 a night and Westbrook and Green have great years and all three are uninjured for 82 games - and nobody looks twice at OKC as a threat as nobody did last year for the first half of the season. Are they a 52-55 win team now? Obviously not until they manage to again stay healthy and have some of their younger players improve while their current stars retain those absurd stats, highly unlikely. I'd give them 48-50 again.
you're right. I don't know why I thought it was 51 wins. Interesting note, the Blazers won the same # of games as the Eastern Conference Champs (and probably an injury away from being NBA Champ) Boston Celtics.
Nope. I would be pining for a decent big. It would be a constant source of discussion, more so than the everlasting PGOTF discussions on Blazer boards. Name the last NBA champ without an All-Star, scratch that All-NBA big? Gasol KG Shaq Duncan Pistons did it with DPOY Wallace and former, but not current All-Star Wallace, but only won because 39yr old Karl Malone was hurt. If he was healthy the better bigs Lakers win that one too.
