Health is a variable for all teams, more so for us because of the history with 1 and 11. For the purposes of this exercise, let's assume reasonable health, no catastrophic/season ending injuries for any key players on any team. This is not intended to be "power rankings", but rather an attempt to project the seedings for the playoffs. 1. LA Lakers: I hate the Lakers, but I give them the preseason No. 1. They won the WCF and get a healthy Bynum back. The big question is their lack of toughness, particularly with Turiaf gone. 2. Houston Rockets: I almost put us No. 1, but we haven't earned that right. I'm downright giddy with the Artest move and couldn't sleep last night. What I love the most -- now, other teams have to figure out how to match up with us. Yeah, match up with us. We match up with everyone. 3. New Orleans Hornets: Overpaid for Posey, but he's a good rotation player, will help with their wing defense on Kobe and Tmac. He also represents insurance in case of injury. 4. San Antonio Spurs (technically a 5 seed, but HCA against Utah): Spurs are aging but must still be reckoned with. I like the Roger Mason move, but is there enough tread on duncan and ginobli? 5. Utah: same team returns, added a savvy Brevin Knight. 6. Dallas: the team quit on Avery. Carlisle will be a good new start, but there's not enough on this squad to be a title threat. They'll do better, win some games, but the West is too tough. 7. Phoenix: Also not a title threat but will still win games in regular season. That said, this is the team that I think could have all 4 wheels fall off. One injury to Nash and Stoudamire starts padding stats and Shaq opens up a can of quit. 8. Portland: Western Conference playoffs is a tough ticket to punch, but this squad has enough. Health is a key issue for this team; Brandon Roy makes this squad go. GSW: might edge out portland. I actually like the pieces they have together and they have the potential to win enough games. No other team has a legit chance at the playoffs IMO. I think you can put LA, Hou and NO in the top tier, followed by SA and Utah. I think we now match up well against everyone. LA: we can throw Battier and Artest at Kobe. Kobe is going to have to spend a lot of energy guarding Tmac or Artest. LA won't like our physicality or defensive play, particularly their euros and odom. NO: CP3 is a problem for everyone but we matched up well with this squad. They don't have an answer for Yao. SA: we can contain Ginobli like Kobe. Bowen is good on Tmac, but both he and Ginobli are too small to handle Artest. Parker is a problem, but our team defense is sound. Yao and Duncan will negate each other in titanic battles. We have better overall talent and depth. I like our chances. Utah: Artest may be able to help with Derron Williams' physical perimeter play and boozer's post play. Brewer/AK and korver will have to defend Tmac. Harpring will have to play Ron Ron. We've closed the gap with Utah and surpassed them, but I think they match up the best against us among these 4 teams. If this is the playoff seedings, I think it's highly likely we see LA in the WCF.
I would ranked Boston and Rockets as genuine contenders after Artest trade. Lakers, SAS and NO as strong contenders as Lakers have lost Turiaf, SAS (Barry) and NO (Bonzi). I understand Lakers is getting Bynum back but then Lakers do not play stifling defense. NO added Posey but they only have CP3 and West to carry the team. The others are just dark horses.
Pretty much agreed with everything you said, but I think that with this recent MINOR addition, we should be preseason number 1. Although the Lakers do have Kobe Bryant, which means that they can be REALLY REALLY good, or a one man team again if things start to go the wrong way. Oh, and Utah can go to hell. That is all.
Frankly, the one I'm most interested to see play out is how we match up with the Jazz now. Last year I thought we finally played Boozer well, had Deron Williams not killed us. This year I think, yes, we may have finally surpassed the defensive problems they give us. Artest WILL lock down Boozer. He has the strength and speed to stay with him without giving up the height. Okur is a problem from the perimeter, but I think Scola can stay home well. Of course, Deron Williams will still kill us, but we may have enough to free a guy like Battier up to put on him, or even Tmac if he's too quick for Battier. The question is, who does Yao guard among their starting lineup? Or do we play him in a free-roaming role at the back?
Wait until Aug 14th before realigning the world. This is Ron Artest, fellas. Nothing is finalized yet.
For the first time since I've watched basketball, IMO, there isn't an "elite" group in the conference, atleast IMO. I think it's completely wide open and any one of 7 teams could realistically take the conference title. L.A. and New Orleans just did not impress me at all last year. And of course, no one could have predicted how hard Dallas and Phoenix would fall off so fast. This trade puts us right there. We're not pretenders anymore. You can actually say with a straight face that we have the talent to win the West.
OH dahamn I forgot about Portland. Scratch what I said above. 1. Houston-Ron Ron(or Tru Warier) is the missing piece. The question is can Tmac finally succeed something in the playoffs now that we have unquestionable talent and firepower? Oh, and of course, health. 2. Lakers-Kobe + Gasol+Odom+Bynum is indeed a deadly squad by itself. But will Kobe continue playing unselfishlessly or will he go back to "score 80% of my teams points" mode? 3. New Orleans-Chris Paul and his alley oops to Tyson Chandler is a deadly weapon, but really the Hornets will be as good as Chris Paul takes them. David West is only going to become better. But they are not really deep, especially compared to the elite teams, although they have added a veteran role player in Posey. 4. Spurs-same old same old, but only getting a bit older each progressive year. If one of their draft picks(James Gist, George Hill, Malik Hariston) can emerge and step up like Landry or Scola did for us, they will be solid once again. 5. Portland-Man I have to say, aside from our team, I'm really excited to watch this team play. With the addition of a potential All-Star in Jerryd Bayless, this team will ONLY get better. Don't forget that Greg Oden is still considered a rookie, who managed to win half of their games without. Scary young team oozing with talent and potential. (I might be slightly biased on this subject too due to Jerryd Bayless, who some of you may know went to the UofA ) 6. Utah Jazz-Same old douche bags, apart from Deron Williams of course, who I think is just as good as Chris Paul. They once again will finish in 6th place for the last 3 years. 7. Mavs-New coach in Carlisle, so that means defense will be even more of a focus. Mavs? Defense? You know somewhere Dirk is just itching to play more defense. Interesting to see what happens after their once savior of a coach in Avery. 8. Phoenix-They should've kept Marion and just gotten a reliable post man rather than wasting so much for Shaq. Steve Nash and the Diesel is aging, and the latter is aging rather quickly, even though he is still physically dominant-size wise. Porter will insert a more defensive mentality and likely the days of running and gunning will not be as glorious as it once was. But like OP said, this team can go down hill quickly if anything happens to Nash or Shaq, or Amare (this would be the worst case scenario). Phew.
the west is wide open really. what we were 2/3 games out of first place without Yao to help us close the season out? now with yao back and artest i see no reason why the rockets wouldnt be in consideration to win the west. Only the lakers will be adding a significant talent back to their roster in bynum but really yao by himself is worth a whole lot more to his respective team than bynum and also add in Artest. the lakers and rockets imo are at the top, the lakers will probably start out of the gates a whole lot faster but expect the rockets to have an amazing end to the season as they gel even more (like last year) the hornets are really a one man show in paul if we can make paul a scorer and not a distributer (easier said than done) than the hornets are just an above average team, not an elite team imo. the spurs are still dangerous but they dont really have a chemistry and talent advantage over other teams like they did in years past. they are losing some depth too with barry, finley and horry. they did pick up roger mason which was good but he cant replace the contributions of those 3 for sure. the jazz were a matchup problem because tmac was the only perimeter threat but not anymore with artest and barry in the fold and of course yao. they havent added any talent to the team and honestly i see them still being the toughest team for the rockets to face in the playoffs not because they have a lot of talent but because they have the mental edge over this team with the past two years playoff series in their favor. the suns still have a lot left in the team but its really having to depend on shaq at this stage of his career is a risky gamble the mavs still can be trouble but they honestly like the spurs used to beat teams just because they were that much more talented than the teams they faced but not really so much anymore in the west. dirk has been exposed to the league for what he is i dont think anyone in the west are that scared of them last team i would just say portland they have too much talent not to at least come up and make the playoffs with bayless and oden joining the team again. they will be ridiculously scary soon
You know I think this may be the one time I trust Artest. After reading what he said it seen like he really wants to be in houston.
Everyones saying can T-Mac succed in the playoffs like he single handedly held the Team back...T-Mac plays at the top of his game in the playoffs but was never fortunate enough to win, but now imagine T-Mac, Yao, and Artest playing at the top of there games...i mean i think getting out of the first round shouldn't be difficult task if all our players bring there A game
Adelman makes this trade possible and practically guaranteed. Nothing will change, Ron Ron has a man crush on Adelman.
Houston (we have better D than LA, plus the Lakers are inconsistent) Lakers Hornets Jazz(division leader) Dallas Spurs Suns Portland
People-don't underestimate the Blazers. They can easily surprise everyone and break out of nowhere-like the Hornets last year.
Anything can happen, Artest may go nuts, Yao may get hurt, Tmac may never pass first round, at same time, earth may blow up too. I think it is too early judge the order of west (the summer is not even over), but to those Richard Justices out there too, Why judge Artest now while he still got 82 games to show?
