Dallas: always a good regular season team, may have taken a mental beat down in last year's playoff, but for a already soft team will there be any less mentality? or maybe the ultimate humiliation has changed their mindset? anyways, without the playoff presure, the mavericks will just run the floor like wildfire, still a big favor to win the western No. 1 seed, and even the league's. San Antonio: the champion of this decade, with no major change on last year's championship roster, they will try again to defense their title. Although the Spurs are never that good in the regular season, but as a vetern team, they knows which seed they need to be in order to win in playoff, and they usually get what they want. Houston: imagine if GS didn't beat Dallas last year, the winner of Uath/Houston will face Dallas and San Antonio in both western simi and final, this is the worst senario, for Houston to win big, they must avoid this stuation. In order to do that, they must claim at least the 3rd seed, and in order to do that, they need at least top one of those 2 texas powerhouses. Will it be Dallas? or will it be San Antonio? or will Rockets take it all and set new order of NBA? Keep in mind, Dallas has several longest winning strikes last season to win the league's No.1 seeding, Houston hasn't won a strike more than 5 games in a decade. New Orleans: they were literally lost their whole starting lineup + their best 6th man at some point of last seaon, but still managed to be in playoff run IN THE WEST! More to it, this is a team always bring trouble to Houston Rockets, Houston lost 6 of their 8 matches in last 2 years against Honests(Rockets always have problems with teams that has a good point guard, maybe except... New Jersey), this year, New Orleans will face Houston 4 more times, with a health lineup and stable home-court. Memphis: they had a terrible season last year, but they had lost Gasol and ... we all know they were tanking, right? This year, they have a health Gasol and his spanish bubby Navarro, with improving Mike Miller and Rudy Gay, this team doesn't look so bad(although Jerry West's departure may cause some damage). Thanks to the fading of L.A. brothers, Memphis could be well in playoff run. Final notes: if Houston is not just looking to pass first round, every bit of regular season matters. And interesting to see if all 5 teams from southwest could get in playoff.
And yet the records, not the seeds, still determine home court. Regardless, if the top 3 teams in any division end up being the top 3 records in the conference... the NBA will change its rules AGAIN (just like they did when the Mavs and Spurs were essentially 1 and 2, but only one of them could be seeded in the top 3).,=
well, if you are the 3rd best team in a division, the best seeding you can get is the 5th seed, no matter what record you have. in this case as a 5th seeding team, you will face the 4th(toughest of all first round), prob 1st in second run(and prob toughest in playoff), and the winner of all from other side of playoff. its a really tough stuation, no matter wut homecourt advantage you got, personally i dont think a team can suvival this kind playoff, and they prob will run out of gas at western finals, to avoid this , Rockets must be at least top 2 of its own division first.
Southwest Division is the toughest Division in the NBA, no questions. Mavs, SAS and Rox are the best teams in this Division but NO or Memphis have a potential to enter playoffs...
I think this trend will end this year. Some of the assistant coaches in N.O. used to coach up in Toronto, and they knew Jeff's system inside and out from his days with the Knicks. N.O. owned us for the last 2 years, but he kept running the same sets against them. Needless to say the defended us very well. Now that we have coach A, we have a clean slate, and they will have to adjust to us. We will still have to find someone who can guard CP3 though..... He torches Rafer every time
I really hope the Rox, Spurs and Mavs finish with the best records in the West just to screw up the system.
It happened already. Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago finished with the best records in the East this past season, and they're all in the same division.
I certainly agree. The NBA doesn't schedule teams like our other three major professional sports do, such as put a heavy emphasis on divisional play with the scheduling. In the NBA, if teams had to play a lot more games against division rivals than against all the other teams in the league, then division rivalries would be much more heated and intense than they are now. For instance, if the Spurs had to play all four of the other Southwest Division rivals at least six times per season while playing the other conference opponents no more than three times per season, I wonder if they would have been much less apt to make that Scola trade with the Rockets.
i think this yr will be our year. 1st yr - tmac and yao were experimenting and yao was not this good yet 2nd yr - just too many injuries 3rd yr - tmac and yao underperformed in the playoffs TOGETHER (which won't happen again) and our main acquisitions were basically a non-factor 4th yr - tmac has an offseason; yao now knows what it is like to have the pressure of a superstar; we have enough depth to withstand any injuries or someone being a non-factor; and we finally have a coach who has some offensive creativity to negate any long offensive droughts this will be the yr we do something big, i don't know how big. but i have a great feeling
my point exactly, Bulls was the 3rd best team in their division last year, although they have much better record than Raptors and Heats, they were forced to seed as 5th. they were lucky to have a old enough heats team at 4th, but still got owned in 2nd round, because there will be always(except dallas) a No.1 team waiting there. I personally feel there is no way you can win a championship as a 5th seeding team in west.
how does Milicic fit in in Memphis will be the big question If he is . . .adequate Milici, Gasol and Mike Miller is not an *ss horrible front line, I guess They could do well in the East Rocket River
I just checked something out, from 1984(before 1984, 1st and 2nd seeding team dont need play first round) to 2007, there is no team that seeding as 4th or 5th ever going to final , except 1, which is the dallas team of 2006, because they swipe out the memphis at first round, but they didnt win championship neither and there is a huge chance houston will be seed as 5th this year due to the overpowered division talking about making history?
i don't know what your talkin about. jvg never coached for toronto, he coached for new york. and i no you didn't mistype, cause i just checked. in my opinion, it was just chris paul torching us. he outquicked rafer and even lucas.
In two years, we'll be the number one seed. Dirk and Co. will be forever living in the past after the '06 debacle and SA doesn't even try to win the regular season, just be in a secure position for the playoffs. This is my guess: 2007-2008 1 Phoenix 2 Dallas 3 Houston 2008-2009 1 Houston 2 SA 3 Phoenix San Antonio will have the target on its back this year, and history says they're not good enough to repeat. So I'm thinking they are favorites two years from now, but next year is up for grabs.
