the scary thing about the spurs is that they actually play smother defensive with Kwahi Leonard and Tiago Spliter. the spurs are just mindblowing how they reloaded. this organization is just 3 levels about any other team in professional sports.
I completely agree. I just was making an observation that they have 0 impressive wins so far this year. There was a lot that went wrong when they lost as well. Like Manu breaking his arm and the Thunder getting insanely ridiculously hot.
No. Sorry. Elite Rockets OKC Contenders SAS Almost Contenders LAC POR Pretenders Warriors Trash Everyone else
Why are people putting OKC as contenders??? They have two superstars and NOBODY else that can take over for stretches. No way they come out of the west with Westbrook throwin up shots left and right. If anything the Clippers will go further with a better coach and deeper with an actual point guard that'll get everybody involved.
the fuhh??? Portland? Portland gets off to a hot start every year and then crumbles. 6th seed at best.
Yea, but you said "The elite" lol. In terms of regular season, only two teams are elite, OKC and SA. For the playoffs only two teams are elite so far, SA and HOU. I say that because we can run n gun, play half court and lock down on D when we have to. SA is the only other team that comes to mind. The clippers are too mentally weak and will be plagued by injuries to griffin again.
Elite records to date, yes. Now, if your saying Portland cant keep it up, or doesn't have what it takes to excel in the playoffs, you are in good company.
Everything is pointing to OKC and HOU as the elite in the West. The Rockets will get healthy and Westbrook will get back to his old self. L10 games point differential says it all. SAS? A really solid team but they have shown themselves to be vulnerable over the last half decade. Could they put together another magnificent season like last year? Sure. But IMHO it will not happen again this season.
OKC has the best 1-2 punch in the league; no other team can claim two undeniable superstars. You can say all that you want about Westbrook, but the truth is that he is a net positive and an absolute gamechanger. Ibaka had a bad run, last year, but is still a force on the court. The biggest improvement OKC has had is with their bench. Guys like Reggie Jackson, Steven Adams and Jeremy Lamb have gelled very well and are no longer a liability. Even Perry Jones has shown flashes of competence. It remains to be seen how far they will go, but don't count them out.
I agree Houston has a diversified toolset. One that potentially allows them to win in more ways than most teams. And certainly this is an advantage to have when the climb to the finals means facing three teams that will all create different challenges. But having a great toolset isnt the end of the story. Merely the beginning. I am a HUGE Rockets fan, but IMO, they haven't evolved their tools to work in complimentary fashion consistently. While our parts are better than most teams, the teams performance overall is less than the sum of the parts we have. What I mean by this is that the full potential of the Rockets team has only been realized for minutes or a quarter at a time. Rarely for a whole game or for a run of games. In some ways, we are the opposite of the team we were pre-Harden, pre-Howard in that our ceiling as a team was lower, but we played at a level right at that ceiling most of the time. Where now, our ceiling is much higher, but we are way short of playing near it.
Houston has shown nothing this year that says they can "lock down on D when we have to ". SA and OKC are clearly the elite of the West right now and probably for the playoffs too.
It is developing. The Rockets have three new starters this season while SAS and OKC are integrating them in one at a time. Defensive dominance takes time to develop. Rotations require understanding your team mates at an innate level. Give them another 1000 minutes together. If injury does not intervene 60+ wins this season.
I got SA and OKC ahead over everyone in the West too. Rockets definitely could improve on the defensive end but at least so far they are in the rare group that are both top 10 in offensive and defensive efficiency (#3 and #8). The only other teams in this group are the Heat, Thunder, and Spurs.
the spurs have a great front office - probably the best in the league but its far easier to "reload" than rebuild - they are the one franchise that did tanking right and were rewarded with probably the greatest player of his generation (sorry kobe) having duncan allows you to be able to reload and not have to go out and find that all-star/cornerstone which is much harder to do. I am very curious to see how they actually perform once Duncan decides to retire - I do not believe the Spurs will be good again for some time, Parker is still amazing but he alone at his age cannot carry a team the way Duncan did.
Clippy, you have to overlook rocket fan. They think dhoward = lockdown d, automatically. It doesn't. They probably have a deceit interior d, but they will routinely get murdered in the picknrolls.
I didn't intend to imply they couldn't get there, just that they are not there yet. Agree with your post as a whole.
splitter is better than you think. the guy is a beast, and so is leonard. parker is still in his prime. so i still think the spurs will be a top 5 team for the next decade as long as pop is there.
