Here ya go: The barnburner of a series between Memphis and Oklahoma City is finally over after seven games and four overtimes, but these two did more than just give us the best series of these playoffs thus far. They may have given us a preview of several more such confrontations in the coming years. The times in the West, they are a-changing. On the surface, it may not seem that way. The three best regular-season records belonged to the Lakers, Spurs and Mavericks, and the Mavs will be favored to win the conference finals that start tomorrow. If Dallas prevails, it would be the 13th straight year that one of those three teams was your Western Conference champion. The Lakers have won the West seven times and the Spurs four; Dallas is gunning for its second title. As for the other 12 teams in the West? It's a dozen years and counting of futility. But they've never been far off the scent. The West has been the league's better conference for 11 of those 12 seasons; every other team has won a series and most came very close to winning the conference. Denver, Phoenix, Portland, Utah, Minnesota and Sacramento have had a taste -- and now Oklahoma City gets one -- with each making the conference finals, but none broke through; Portland and Sacramento missed in particularly heartbreaking fashion. Four other franchises -- New Orleans, Houston, L.A. Clippers and now Memphis -- were vanquished in seven games in the second round. Even the lowly Warriors won a playoff series in dramatic fashion. The good news for the unfortunate dozen is that the tide finally seems to be turning in their favor. A quick scan at birth certificates reveals why. Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki are 32; Tim Duncan in 35. With the exception of L.A.'s Andrew Bynum, the role players aren't any younger: Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Manu Ginobili, Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion and Jason Terry are on the wrong side of 30; Tony Parker and Tyson Chandler (28) aren't far away. This postseason showed their warts. L.A. struggled with New Orleans and had no answer for Dallas; its problems against quick guards were only magnified by age. San Antonio couldn't stay healthy and didn't have enough answers defensively. Dallas, the last team standing, may yet survive, but they're the oldest of the bunch. Or consider this: Nick Collison is considered the Thunder's old man because he's been with the franchise for seven years. He's the second-oldest player on the Oklahoma City roster and was the oldest until a midseason trade for Nazr Mohammed. And yet if he were traded to Dallas tomorrow, he'd find seven rotation players older than he is, plus an eighth in the injured Caron Butler. The Lakers, Spurs and Mavs won't go away quietly, of course -- each should be at least a 50-win-caliber team again next season. Certainly, they should be in the playoffs. But the nagging conclusion remains that we're seeing the end of their days of dominance in this conference. So ... who's got next? Here's a look at the candidates to rule the West over the next several years: Oklahoma City Thunder The team of the future in this conference, and the team that everybody else will be chasing and figuring out how to match up against. The Thunder have had the serendipitous combination of good fortune (landing Kevin Durant in the lottery), wise management and perfect timing that enabled them to blow up the team and start over just as they moved to the plains. With their four best players all aged 22 or younger and airtight cap management that hasn't wasted a single cent, Oklahoma City's advantage may only increase if the next collective bargaining agreement imposes more rigorous salary cap rules. In any event, the Durant-Westbrook-Harden-Ibaka nucleus virtually guarantees a spot in the conference's top four for the next decade or so. The only question appears to be which of the teams below will be joining them in the race to supplant the Dallas-L.A.-San Antonio vortex. Memphis Grizzlies OK, let's deal with this Rudy Gay stuff first. The Grizzlies were 14-19 after 33 games this year, largely because they were starting Xavier Henry and barely playing Tony Allen, and because Acie Law was the backup point guard, and because they were still trying to get minutes for Hasheem Thabeet. None of that had anything to do with Gay, and if you thought the Grizzlies were good in the playoffs, you should have seem them when Gay was playing with the rest of the current rotation. Starting Dec. 27, when Henry didn't play and Allen played 34 minutes off the bench (he became the starter the next game), and continuing until Gay was hurt, the Grizzlies were 18-9. However, six of those games were missed by either Gay or Allen. Take those out and Memphis was 15-6 with a plus-94 scoring margin, and one of the losses came on a 50-foot shot by Sacramento's Tyreke Evans. Included in that stretch were two of Memphis's best wins of the season -- a 19-point beatdown of the Lakers in Staples Center and a comeback, overtime win in Oklahoma City that yielded Allen's now-legendary "all grit and grind" postgame interview. In other words: The notion that Memphis should trade Gay is ridiculous. He's 24 and a near-All-Star-caliber performer, and he had made notable strides in his defense, passing and general understanding of the game prior to his injury. Watching the Griz melt down offensively in Game 7 underscored how badly they missed his perimeter threat against elite teams. Presuming the Grizzlies can keep restricted free agent center Marc Gasol, it seems as if they're going to be in a lot more playoff tussles with the Thunder. Again, the birth certificates: Gay is 24, Gasol is 26, Mike Conley is 23, Darrell Arthur is 23, Greivis Vasquez is 24, Sam Young is 25 and even Zach Randolph is only 29. Those guys aren't going away. Memphis' overly generous contract extensions for Gay and Randolph may make it difficult to keep O.J. Mayo, but if Gay is playing I'm not sure his absence will be noticed. In fact, that stretch I noted above coincided with Mayo's 10-game suspension. The irony, of course, is that while the Thunder have done everything by the book since leaving the Pacific Northwest, the Grizzlies have committed several notable blunders. Yet this team's rugged style may be the best counter the West has to the Thunder's dominance in coming years. Denver Nuggets No, I'm not counting Denver out of the conversation. It's a huge offseason for the Nuggets because of all their free agents, but if they can keep the important ones in the fold at a reasonable price they're going to be very good in the coming years. Not as good as they looked post-trade deadline, perhaps, but good enough to win multiple playoff series. It all starts with Nene; the Brazilian center is one of the league's most underrated players, and they'll never be able to fill his absence if he goes. But Denver should be able to re-sign him. If the Nuggets can keep young, productive wings, such as Arron Afflalo and Wilson Chandler, they'll have an outstanding foundation. Trade Raymond Felton for frontcourt help and you're looking at a deep, solid rotation with a strong cap situation and multiple trade assets. The problem? There's no star, something that proved problematic in losing Games 1 and 5 against Oklahoma City. The Nuggets need to pull off a reverse-Melo deal (swapping multiple assets for a star) somewhere along the way; otherwise, they're facing the near-impossible task of winning with the 2004 Pistons' bunch-of-really-good-players model. Houston Rockets Houston won 43 games with a plus-2.2 scoring margin last year; this team isn't as far away as you think. Otherwise, Houston is in a similar position to the Nuggets. Yao Ming's expiring contract puts it in a really strong salary cap position; the Rockets don't have any dog contracts and their superior depth and assets (Houston has three first-round picks owed from other teams in the next three years) should allow them to make a multiplayer deal, if and when the next Melo situation arises. The only other advantage for the Rockets is the potential for Yao to come back and play like Yao again; while the presumption is that his career is in serious jeopardy, if he can make it back, my sources assure me that he'll still be 7-foot-6. Speaking of injured centers ... Portland Trail Blazers Yes, Portland can still join this group, and I say that for one reason: This team would be on a completely differently level with a healthy, productive Greg Oden, and the odds still say that at some point he's going to get through a season upright. The Blazers have other needs, such as outside shooting and perimeter defense, and a potential problem if they're paying Brandon Roy $15 million to average 12.2 points a game next season, but they had those same problems this season and still won 48 games. Additionally, a productive Oden would open the door to making other moves to shore up those weaknesses. Trading Marcus Camby becomes a lot more palatable if Oden is playing, so does dealing Andre Miller for a point guard who can shoot, since the Oden-LaMarcus Aldridge combo would make the Blazers the most post-heavy, inside-out team this side of Memphis. But in the big picture, Portland can be quite good without any trades at all. The Blazers won 98 games over the past two seasons, despite being ravaged by injuries in each season. If they can ever get through a season healthy, it stands to reason they'd threaten to join the conference's upper crust.
