It took a while, but here are my West picks...A little abbreviated, I am a very important and busy person after all.
1. Lakers-This is the easiest pick in the League. Barring a major injury to Kobe or Pau they will have the best record in the West.
2. San Antonio-I think this is truly the last hoorah for them, plus Tony Parker is playing for a contract so you know he's going to be good.
3. Dallas-They are just built for the regular season.
4. Thunder-The West is going to be loaded from 1-8 in the playoffs and I think the Thunder win 50+ games and win the division, but picking them any higher is tough to do when they are so thin up front.
5. Utah-DWill, Sloan, Al Jefferson, they will be too good to fall to far in the rankings.
6. Portland-If Oden can play 55 games they will be even higher, since we know he can't this feels about right. I like to make my West picks based on feel and not any actual statistical evidence.
7. Houston-With or without Yao this team is good enough to make the first round, assuming they don't trade Kevin Martin for nothing.
8. Phoenix-They could miss the playoffs, but the NBA will be a worse place once Steve Nash is finally done. So I'm picking them to eke it out.
Teams that missed: Memphis-I think they take a step back, Gay has nothing to play for and everyone else is already pissed.
New Orleans-As great as Chris Paul is, there just isn't enough talent.
Denver-I think 'Melo gets traded East and this team gets taken apart.
Minnesota-A lot of fun pieces, Beasely, Love, Wes Johnson, but they are not a real good fit with each other. Fun to watch, but they won't win too many games.
Golden State-Until they make a choice between Curry and Ellis this team isn't sniffing the playoffs.
Sacramento-From top to bottom, this team isn't close to having enough talent to make the playoffs. Talent wise they are easily in the bottom five of the League.
Clippers-If they could stay healthy they would have a shot, but since it's the Clippers they won't stay healthy. Plus there's that whole VDN thing!
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Watching Rose in the first game I am still concerned with problems from last year. I know its just one game but here's my take. He is getting even better at what he's good at - finishing at the rim. So he will be better than last year but how much better? When the Thunder locked down in the fourth and basically said "screw this, anyone but Rose" then Rose became uneffective. This is because he still hasn't figured out how to find the open man after he draws the entire defense. I worry about his passing skills. Furthermore, I can only hope that his defense improves under the new coach but that first game showed no sign of it as Westbrook was almost as dominant as Rose.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't all Rose's fault. I thought the play calls in the fourth were absurd. They ran plays over and over for Korver for godsake?!!! Deng was playing great - why not get him involved in the fourth? And I still think the Bulls (while Booz is out) will have to go small with Deng at the four late in games because its too much pressure on Rose. Its too easy for the defense when there is Gibson, Noah and say Korver (who you only have to guard as a shooter). That only leaves Rose and Deng for the D to worry about....
All that being said, I felt the Bulls played really well. If it weren't for two phantom calls on Korver (both on Westbrook) then maybe we could've seen a good finish. Only in the NBA can the refs screw up a good game late in the fourth and make it a borefest.