NBA Western Conference Preview
It’s time for the big dog, the big brother, the big kahuna. The Rap Up will be previewing the Western conference for NBA week, and boy what a magical conference it is. The Western Conference has seemed like the superior NBA conference for over a decade now, and while the talent balance does seem to be getting more even, the Western conference is still vastly superior from top to bottom. The West has viable candidates to win the title from the number one spot all the way down to the four or five spot and while I put five title contenders in that section for the East, I was being very generous with what I considered a title contender. In the East being a title contender means having a legitimate shot to go to the NBA Finals. In the West, being a title contender means having a legitimate opportunity and the talent level to actually win the whole thing.
Today the intro will be a bit shorter. I broke down how this article will work yesterday, but if you missed it, basically I am going to go team by team and put them all into one of four categories. Those categories are: title contenders, playoff upset potential, the play in tournament candidates, abandon hope all ye who root for these. So without further ado, let’s make some bold predictions.
Predicted Standings
Los Angeles Lakers
Denver Nuggets
Los Angeles Clippers
Utah Jazz
Dallas Mavericks
Portland Trailblazers
Golden State Warriors
Phoenix Suns
Houston Rockets
New Orleans Pelicans
San Antonio Spurs
Memphis Grizzlies
Sacramento Kings
Minnesota Timberwolves
Oklahoma City Thunder
Title Contenders
The Lakers are going to repeat this year. I really don’t want them to. As a matter of fact I predicted on the first episode of the JRJV Sports Report that a different team would actually win it all. Honestly I was just trying to be counter culture. The Lakers won the title last year and did nothing but get better. They turned Danny Green into Dennis Schroeder. They also added Montrezl Harrell, Marc Gasol, and Wesley Matthews. They lost Avery Bradley, JaVale McGhee, Rajon Rondo and Dwight Howard. Other than Avery Bradley they managed to just upgrade. It may be hard to replace the playoff numbers and experience of Rajon Rondo but when you have two of the top five players in the NBA it tends to heal all wounds. The Lakers are the best team in the NBA and it is up to the rest of the league to find the solution to this nightmare of a problem.
The Denver Nuggets are my semi-official pick to win the NBA title. The pairing of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray is the best pair of under-26 year old stars in the NBA. Yes they are better than Embiid and Simmons, and yes they are better than Jayson Tatum and Jaylon Brown. Jamal Murray looked like a completely different and fantastically lethal player in “The Bubble” this past season and if he can continue even 85% of that form throughout this season, the Nuggets will be a viciously hard team to compete with. The X-factor for this team is Michael Porter Jr. If Porter can earn consistent playing time and adequately replace the scoring of Jerami Grant, then the ceiling on this team is an NBA title.
The Los Angeles Clippers are this year's top contender for playoff disappointment, again. The team still has Kawhi Leonard and regular season Paul George on it so they have a very solid chance to end up as a top three seed. As for getting to the NBA Finals, they didn’t really and any inspiring pieces to the roster, and they lost Montrezl Harrell. The Clippers also have Pandemic P on the team and he has forever lost my trust when it comes to the postseason. This team has the talent to win the title, it's just a matter of whether or not they can put it all together.
I have the Utah Jazz finishing in fourth. This is a weird team. They didn’t really lose any one significant in the offseason, and they only really added Derrick Favors. Their draft was also uninspiring. The team did however lead the Nuggets 3-1 in a playoff series last season and that speaks to the level of talent this team possesses. I don’t have a ton to say about this team other than that. They have lots of talent but Rudy Gobert is an issue as far as the locker room is concerned and the longer a team stays together the more they grow to hate the locker room cancers on the team. If they can hold it together and stay healthy then they have the potential to go far.
The Dallas Mavericks are in this section for one reason. That reason’s name is Luka Doncic. The Atlanta Hawks trading Luka for Trae Young will forever be one of the biggest blunders in NBA Draft history. Luka is the current odds on favorite to win the NBA MVP award. He would be pushing Derrick Rose for the record of youngest MVP if he did so. The amount of growth Luka showed between his rookie season and last season is almost unimaginable. With a healthy Kristaps Porzingas and the addition of Josh Richardson, this team will continue to get better and better as time goes by. This team will be a legitimate title contender for a very long time starting this season.
The Playoff Upset Potential Teams
The Portland Trailblazers are once again good enough to make a splash but not quite good enough to make it past the top tier of the league. Damian Lilliard continues to show the NBA why he is arguably the best point guard in the league currently, and the trailblazers added some good pieces in free agency. Their biggest issue will still be defense but they should be much healthier this season and able to compete all season long should they not have any setbacks, particularly of Jusuf Nurkic.
Golden State just cannot catch a break. After a dynastic run like the one they went on though, their luck was bound to run out. With Klay Thompson missing a whole year yet again, it looks like the Warriors just won’t have the firepower to keep up with the teams above them. Stephen Curry should come back and do his thing, but Andrew Wiggins is not enough to make this team whole again. They got their hopeful long term solution in the middle of the floor in James Wiseman but he won’t be ready to be the secondary guy that Steph needs to take this team back to title contention.
The last team in this group will also fit in the next group but they will genuinely be too good to not be in this group, so say hello to the new Phoenix Suns. The Suns were the best team in “The Bubble” last year and they did nothing but get better this offseason. Not drafting Tyrese Haliburton was just an all time blunder but they still have an amazing core of young talent led by Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton. They also added Jae Crowder in the offseason. This team probably doesn't have the gas to take the first round series off of the Lakers, but they can absolutely give the Lakers a hell of a six game series.
The Play-In Tournament Contenders
This is a very weird category to write about. Only the eight, nine and ten seeds will be in the play-in tournament, but I can realistically see the eleven, twelve, and thirteen seeds being involved in the process until the last two weeks of the season. The Houston Rockets still have James Harden for now and that is enough to get them the wins they need early to be in it late. The roster still has other talent on it including John Wall. I think they will be in it til the end of the season. The New Orleans Pelicans on the other hand are just loaded from top to bottom with young talent. Zion Williamson is the key here because if he can stay healthy he will be more than enough to replace what Jrue Holiday gave them. Brandon Ingram continues to impress, and as long as we see regular season Lonzo Ball and not “Bubble” Lonzo Ball, they are all set at that position as well.
The teams I see being relevant but not making it are as follows. The San Antonio Spurs still have some star power and Greg Popavich as their coach. They added the raw talent of Devin Vassell to the team. He could not have landed in a better spot to develop as a player. The Spurs might not be in the playoffs but they should make their presence felt. The Memphis Grizzlies are in a similar boat as the Pelicans. They have tons of talent and the closest thing we have seen in a point guard to young Derrick Rose since Rose himself. Ja Morant is the real deal and can help lift this team to playoff contention. They are still a few years off but it looks very good for the future in Memphis. Lastly I am going to throw the Sacramento Kings into this group. Sacramento nearly made the playoffs two years ago. They fell off last year but with Buddy Hield gone and the additions of Hassan Whiteside, Tyrese Haliburton and Glenn Robinson III they absolutely made moves to point them in the right direction. The departure of Bogdan Bogdanovich will hurt, but with the additions they made and the continued growth of De’Aaron Fox, they should remain a competitive team that flirts with a .500 record.
The “Abandon Hope Ye Who Root for These” Teams
The only team I feel really belongs in this group is the Minnesota Timberwolves. They have a weirdly young core that doesn’t appear to be going anywhere fast. Karl Anthony-Towns hasn't taken the step towards superstardom that everyone expected, and D'Angelo Russell has too high of usage rate for the kind of player he is. He will never be able to be the efficient number two a team like that needs to be successful. As for the Oklahoma City Thunder, this season is going to suck. The Thunder will not be good. However they have nineteen first round draft picks over the next six years and if that doesn’t inspire confidence I don’t know what does. This is “The Process” on steroids, and ketamine.
And with that, the NBA conference previews are done. I am at least fairly confident these predictions are not utter crap, and I am excited to see how close I can get to these standings becoming a reality. The West this year is a murderers row of superstars young talent laden teams. The team that comes out on top will almost certainly be the team that ends up winning it all. The East just is not ready for what the West can bring over a seven game series.