Not going to rank them Just going to say I think there will be very few games separating the 8th seed from the 1st seed, with only 1-3 games separating the top 4 seeds. Overall the conference is pretty balanced. There's not that true dominating team now that the Lakers lost Odom and Phil Jackson. If I had to pick a 1 seed I'd probably pick OKC
So the majority opinion is: Top 3: OKC, Dallas, Lakers Bottom 3: Sacramento, New Orleans and one other. Middle? Fuck knows. Most wildly varying prediction: Denver.
1 Zombie Sonics 2 Mavs Oklahoma City returns a bunch of young athletic guys in a rapid strike season, a group that went to the WCF; they are the clear favorites. The Mavs are returning a strong deep team as well, those two clubs are clearly ahead of the rest in the west. 3 Clippers 4 Blazers 5 Lakers 6 Grizz 7 Spurs It'll be very tight from seeds 3-7, all these teams are solid but have some major question marks preventing them from winning the conference. It's really a crapshoot with the 3-7 rankings, all these teams will be in a battle for the 3rd seed. Darrell Arthur is a big loss for the Grizz, he's their best backup big man. McDyess likewise is big loss as a backup big for the Spurs. 8 Nuggets are in the lead for the 8th seed but the Suns and Warriors will give them a battle. Denver overachied after the Carmelo trade, that was a bit of a fluke as we saw in the playoffs. Now they don't have Wilson Chandler, who is possibly their best player and Kenyon Martin, who formed a solid big man rotation along with Nene. Jazz, Kings, Twolves, Rockets, and Hornets dwell in the cellar.
Actually, as I recall, they were the best team in the league last year aside from the time Dirk missed with injury.
With Bynum suspended the first 5 games I'll be very curious to see how the Lakers start. Another factor we all should probably be looking at that honestly I haven't is strength of schedule. Its a much bigger impact this season, as the premier teams play each other more often whereas teams like us, Memphis, and the Clippers don't play the top teams on national TV as often. The Lakers, OKC, Dallas, Miami play much tougher opponents.
Seedings won't matter as much this season because teams will be rusty when the season starts and may make significant progress by the end of the season even if it doesn't show in their overall record. Remember, in 1999, the 8th seeded Knicks reached the NBA Finals.
Memphis OKC Dallas Lakers Phoenix Clippers Minnesota New Orleans Portland Denver San Antonio Houston Sacramento Warriors Jazz
thunder mavs lakers blazers spurs clippers memphis jazz golden state clippers are going to move up, but not as much as many people think this year. why is everyone so high on the griz?
1. Thunder 2. Lakers 3. Clippers 4. Blazers 5. Mavericks 6. Grizzlies 7. Spurs 8. Jazz Hornets Nuggets Warriors Wolves Suns Rockets Kings
