Interesting teams next season in the West - Nuggets, Minny, Nola, OKC......

Don't sleep on Portland. They were 18-8 after the Nurkic trade. They have him all year now.

This is all making our MEM 2nd round pick look good. However, they can also give us their MIA pick, instead. MIA could make playoffs now.

 

Nuggets are very interesting and dangerous now.

 

Every team in the west is interesting for one reason or another except Utah if they lose Gordon Hayward. Even the kings are somewhat interesting if only because they are such a dumpster fire. Even the lakers have the Lavar/lonzo thing going on.

By interesting I don't necessarily mean wins but just from a potentially entertaining standpoint either on or off the court.

 

GSW, HOU, OKC, SAS, MIN, MEM, DEN, NOLA

Idk why people are shrugging off OKC like they didn't just add a top 10 player. How can you not view them as a threat when in actuality we barely scraped by them. Game 1 was the only exception, which we also did to the Spurs and still lost. Adding a player like PG to the Thunder is damn close to Westbrook and KD. Probably the closest you could get. I understand we added CP but at this point in their careers PG is the better player and as we all know this is a wing driven league. All I'm saying is I don't like that matchup in a 7 game series considering we barely beat them last time.

 

Denver's lineup is very solid, but they're still in need of a PG. Their frontcourt is great though.

They still have a trade to make. If the Jazz don't get Hayward, they should flip Rubio to that team for Mudiay, Arthur & Beasley.

Rubio / Nelson
Harris / Murray
Chandler / Barton / Hernangomez
Millsap / Faried / Lyles
Jokic / Plumlee

Rubio is a perfect fit on that Denver team. They'd be an insane pass oriented team.

 

Jokic/Millsap seems like a really nice pairing. Millsap is mobile and can cover for Jokic on the defensive a little bit and is really good offensively. I expect Jokic to be an even better offensive player next year. Though the defense needs to improve too.

 

Mudiay needs to find a team that doesn't worship the 3 ball. Minnesota seems like a good fit. I'd love to see his resurgence.

 

Jamal Murray is a rising star. I watched some of their games and he jumped out. Everyone tried to get him from DEN this off-season but DEN are not that stupid.

 

Very good point about the defensive help.

 

Murray is still a ways off.

Gary Harris is the one who is going to become a star sooner, easily one of the most underrated young players in the NBA. I think he takes a huge jump forward this year, he was a bit injured last season but shot 50% from the field and 42% from 3. Gary Harris' percentage on catch & shoot 3 point attempts was one of the highest in the NBA for high volume shooters, he finished at 46.6%, and for comparison Klay was 43.8% and Curry 46%.

Denver doesn't get enough credit for how they absolutely dominated the 2014 draft. One of the best drafts for a single organization in a single year ever possibly. They traded the pick that ended up being Doug McDermott for Gary Harris & Nurkic in the 1st round and then drafted Jokic in the 2nd round, all three players they found outside of the lottery. Its incredibly rare to find 1 starter who isn't a lottery pick let alone 3, and two of them are some of the most coveted assets in the league now.

 

The clips may not take a massive step back, but you are nuts with the Lou to reddick comparison. This was the first year Lou was respectable as a shooter. He's normally an inefficient checker. Even still reddick trounced him.

Reddick shoots insanely high efficiency bullets

 

I tend to agree that there is a lot of overhyping what we've done and underselling what other teams have done here.

However the thunder still have issues. Losing Taj Gibson means they are weak at the four again and they still don't have enough shooting and I'm unconvinced they won't run a broken offense because of wedtbrook.

But absolutely agree, idea that we are locks for the two seed and everyone else is playing catch up is ridiculous.

Houston, OKC, Minnesota, Denver, San Antonio....

This is likely to be another one of those years like the wcf year for us where the seeding is up for grabs to the very end.

 

I just meant Lou is a 6th man of the year candidate and JJ is probably the 4th or 5th best starter on a good team. I really like JJ Redick, but I think Lou will be fine in that spot.

 

Lou is a Jamal Crawford type. There is a reason those guys don't start on good teams.

 

Wolves still have a steep learning curve ahead before they are a threat to anybody. Also, let's hope Thibs doesn't run his players into the ground before they gain some valuable playoffs experience. I would put them at an 8th seed at best in the West. They should learn a lot from a Warriors' sweep.

 

Minnesota will finish higher than OKC, I really don't think this Westbrook/George pairing will work out.

Its FAR more likely that Towns takes a major step forward towards superstar status, and Wiggins making improvements, with veterans around to take the lead than it is likely that Westbrook & George suddenly figure out how to coexist.

The supporting cast on that team other than Adams is crap too. I think OKC is fighting for the 7th & 8th seeds.

 

Wait, Westbrook led the Thunder to the 6th seed all by himself this year, so how did you come up with a 7th to 8th seed projection after the addition of George?

Westbrook and George combined have more playoffs experience than the entire Wolves roster including Butler. The nightly grind of an 82 game season favors having 2 superstars over 1 allstar.