1. Los Angeles Lakers 2. San Antonio Spurs 3. Sacramento Kings 4. Dallas Mavericks 5. Minnesota Timberwolves 6. Houston Rockets 7. Seattle Supersonics or Portland Trailblazers or Phoenix Suns 8. Phoenix Suns or Seattle Supersonics or Portland Trailblazers and maybe Memphis Grizzlies 9. One of the teams in #7-8 10. Another team in #7-8 that doesn't make it 11. Probably Grizzlies 12. Golden State Warriors 13. Denver Nuggets 14. Los Angeles Clippers 15. Utah Jazz 1. New Jersey Nets 2. Detroit Pistons 3. Philadelphia 76ers 4. Orlando Magic 5. New Orleans Hornets 6. Indiana Pacers 7. Boston Celtics 8. New York Knicks or Toronto Raptors or Cleveland Cavaliers 9. One of the above 10. One of the above 11. Atlanta Hawks 12. Miami Heat 13. Chicago Bulls 14. Milwaukee Bucks What do you think?
The east seems pretty accurate. I don't agree with the Sonics being so high in the west. right now i see it like this 1. Lakers 2. Spurs 3. Sacramento 4. Minnesota 5. Dallas 6. Portland 7. Houston 8. Phoenix Lakers/Spurs could go either way. San Antonio to me has a better all around team and very easily could have made my number 1. sacramento would probably be champions today had Webber not gotten injured. Their window is closing fast but remains cracked. Minnesota/Dallas could flip flop. The dallas style of offense while playing no defense works great in the regular season. Minnesota looks good on paper which is why i rank them where i do. But what do i know, the Clippers looked great on paper last year as well. Portland lost Pippen but that's it. This team is still going to win 50 games. Bonzi, and Rasheed are still there at least for now. Houston will run the inside/outside offense. Yao will be the number 1 option. The rockets are loaded at the 1, 2, and 5 spot. Piakowski fits in perfectly with the type of offense that will be run but this will be a transistioni year from 1 system to another and Yao will continue to improve. Phoenix could jump in the standings. They have Marbury, Marion and Amare but the west is loaded, this team probably would be a top 3 team in the east. 9. Sonics 10. Warriors 11. Clippers 12. Denver 13. Memphis 14. Utah
I think the Bulls will finish higher up than that. I'm not gonna make a prediction list yet cause it's really kind of early still, but based on how the teams look now I'd say SLA has it pretty good (as far as the west goes). I still see the Rockets fighting for 8th seed though.
Kam New Orleans is in the Eastern Conference. SLA left out the Washington Wizards in the East and in the west all the team's are right but he left 2 spots blank when it should have only have been 1.
New Orleans will be in the West when the 04-05 season begins, once the Charlotte team also starts play
