The Western Conference

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TBpup said:
The Blazers were on pace for 33 wins before Nurkic showed up. Is he really worth a 20 game improvement? Because that is about what it would take or more to get a Top 4 seed and HCA.
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The Blazers were on pace to get a much easier schedule and finish with 40ish wins with Plumlee.
 
Pretty amazing that 3 Eastern Conference All Stars are coming West (if Melo comes) and no Western All Stars are going East.
 
Rhal said:
That reminds me of the most epic meltdown this forum as ever seen and that was BlazeX(or whatever his name was) when we took Lillard over Austin Rivers.
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Ooh Tell me more
 
KingSpeed said:
Pretty amazing that 3 Eastern Conference All Stars are coming West (if Melo comes) and no Western All Stars are going East.
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No, 3 have already moved. Millsap, George and Butler. Melo would be 4th.

The only one from West who could move East is Hayward. There was outside chance for Jordan moving before Griffin extended. Next year maybe Cousins will consider this.
 
If the Davis/Cousins experiment continues to fail in NO, I wonder if they'd try and trade DeMarcus for something before the trade deadline.
 
Sinobas said:
If the Davis/Cousins experiment continues to fail in NO, I wonder if they'd try and trade DeMarcus for something before the trade deadline.
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If they are convinced that he doesn't resign and don't look like making playoffs, you should be able to get him for a good price as proven with George and the same Cousins last year.

That said, Cousins deal from last year looks good for Kings now. It has netted them Hield, Fox (they'd have likely lost the pick), Jackson and Giles.
 
Why does everyone say we had easy schedule at the end yes we had alot home games. But I believe we play the nuggets and the spurs and Utah 2 and Houston. I believe if we didn't have Nurk we had good chance to lose everyone of those games.
 
Gronk Brady said:
If I'm not mistaken, Blazers were 14-6 with Nurkic last year for a .700 win percentage...

82 x .700 = 57 wins. Why is it so unbelievable?
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It's not unbelievable. It's just that they were SO BAD before he got here and this year the West is a mine field almost every night.

B-Roy said:
1. They had an exceptionally easy schedule after acquiring Nurk.
2. The Western Conference is much tougher this year.
3. It's not really that convincing to extrapolate a 20 game sample size to a whole season. A lot of things, internally and externally happen throughout the course of 82 games.
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Here is that 20-game stretch:

L - Utah (88-111)
W - Orlando (112-103)
L - Toronto (106-112)
L - Detroit (113-120)
W - OKC (114-109)
W - BRK (130-116)
W - Okla City (126-121)
W - PHI (114-108)
L - WAS (124-125)
W - Phoenix (110-101)
L - New Orleans(77-100)
W - San Antonio (110-106)
W - Atlanta (113-97)
W - Miami (115-104)
L - MIL (90-93)
W - NYK (110-95)
W - MIN (112-100)
W - Lakers (97-81)
W - DEN (122-113)
W - HOU (117-110)

Wins against Bad Teams:
Orlando, Brooklyn, Philly, Phoenix, Knick, Timberwolves, Lakers

Middle Tier Wins:
OKC (2x), Atlanta (w/o Millsap), Miami, Denver

Wins against Good Teams:
San Antonio, Houston

Out of the 14 wins, with a team that has Dame/CJ, you should expect to win the 7 games against the scrubs, and 3 of 5 against the Middle Tier where only 2 of those teams (3 games) were Playoff teams....OKC a one-man team and ATL w/o Millsap.

The Spurs and Rockets wins were great wins. So with Nurkic they went 14-6 versus maybe 10-10 during one of the easier stretches of the season and one brilliant stretch of play on the road against SAS, ATL and MIA. If you extrapolate that out, that is a 16 game improvement over 80 games so not unbelievable that IF HEALTHY, Nurkic could mean a 20 game difference. The think is, that was an easier stretch and MIN, DEN, OKC (2x) are all much better this season.

The West is just going to be a meat grinder this season. For Portland to get 53 wins would be very impressive.
 
Okay, I'll play.

Golden State
Houston (added Paul)
San Antonio
OKC (added George)
Portland (Nurkic addition late season)
Denver (added Millsap)
Utah (without Hayward)
Clippers
---
Minnesota (added Butler)
Memphis
New Orleans (Cousins addition late season)

If Hayward signs with Utah, I see them just above OKC.

After GSW, HOU, and SAS, seeds 4 thru 11 could go in any order. I see at least 3 worthy teams in the West not making the playoffs. Wow.
 
LAC/MEM/UTA got substantially worse and will probably be out playoff contention unless other moves are made.

HOU/MIN/OKC/DEN got substantially better.

Everyone else remained the same. Take out UTA/LAC/MEM from the playoffs from last year. Add MIN and DEN. Still a spot left (for the Clips, prolly). I think our playoff seed is pretty secure, but I don't see an avenue for us to actually move up to HCA given the current situation.
 
The West got stacked in just 2 weeks elapsed time!!!

Golden State - far above all others

Spurs - standing pat still a 55+ win team
OKC - (adding PG13 is going to be big for them)
HOU - (CP3.1)

Blazers - I'm figuring 10-15 wins better than last yr)
Nuggets - (Milsap will help stabilize them)
T'Wolves - (Butler, Teague, Gibson)
Grizzlies - Gasol and Conley haven't forgotten how to play)
Pelicans - the Boogie and Davis experiment

Utah, LAC, LAL, PHX, DAL will battle for bottom seeds.
 
Mediocre Man said:
Lack of defense? No front court wing scoring?
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Those problems didn't really exist when Nurk was healthy - as I recall, we were a top 10 defense. Once Collins acclimates,
he can score from all over the court - post, midrange, 3.

#would_love_to_get_a_confirmation
 
Gronk Brady said:
If I'm not mistaken, Blazers were 14-6 with Nurkic last year for a .700 win percentage...

82 x .700 = 57 wins

Why is it so unbelievable?
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The first thing that comes to mind is that was supposedly the softer part of their schedule; they played some pretty bad teams. That said, I think he had a transformative effect on the way the team played and they had a couple of quality wins sprinkled in there too, but I don't think he turns them from .400 team into a .700 team. If he can stay fully healthy and motivated, then his addition might be worth 6 or 7 games, getting over fifty wins is going to require a pretty big improvement in the team's overall defense and Nurkic alone probably isn't enough to get there.
 
SAS not losing anyone?

I mean, I guess technically (so far), but Pau is now 37, Ginobili (if not retired) will be 40. Parker is going to be 35 and coming off his worst shooting season since 2003. I guess that means more time for in-his-prime Patty Cakes, to go with Kawhi and LMA, but I don't see them at 61 wins. They have very few players in their prime, though Kawhi and Patty being 2 of them helps, but Green/LMA/Anthony as consistent starters with Gasol/Ginobili/Parker/Lee?/insert ring-chaser here being really old doesn't give me a ton of pause, while their younguns are pretty young.

Calling them Top 3 is a Gregg Popovich Lifetime Achievement ranking. They may well get there, but it's not because "they haven't lost anyone from a 61-win team".
 
tlongII said:
If we're healthy we're as good as anybody in the West outside of Golden State. I see no reason why we can't compete for the 2 seed.
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That's some straight-up kingspeed right there.

giphy.gif


Never go full kingspeed.
 
TBpup said:
It's not unbelievable. It's just that they were SO BAD before he got here and this year the West is a mine field almost every night.



Here is that 20-game stretch:

L - Utah (88-111)
W - Orlando (112-103)
L - Toronto (106-112)
L - Detroit (113-120)
W - OKC (114-109)
W - BRK (130-116)
W - Okla City (126-121)
W - PHI (114-108)
L - WAS (124-125)
W - Phoenix (110-101)
L - New Orleans(77-100)
W - San Antonio (110-106)
W - Atlanta (113-97)
W - Miami (115-104)
L - MIL (90-93)
W - NYK (110-95)
W - MIN (112-100)
W - Lakers (97-81)
W - DEN (122-113)
W - HOU (117-110)

Wins against Bad Teams:
Orlando, Brooklyn, Philly, Phoenix, Knick, Timberwolves, Lakers

Middle Tier Wins:
OKC (2x), Atlanta (w/o Millsap), Miami, Denver

Wins against Good Teams:
San Antonio, Houston

Out of the 14 wins, with a team that has Dame/CJ, you should expect to win the 7 games against the scrubs, and 3 of 5 against the Middle Tier where only 2 of those teams (3 games) were Playoff teams....OKC a one-man team and ATL w/o Millsap.
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You're REALLY minimizing some solid wins against some good teams - many of them on the road. I'm not sure why. Remember, we were 22-33 before the trade. We were NOT a good team. We couldn't win on the road and couldn't win close games. Nurk changed that.

No way does that 22-33 team beat OKC, ATL, MIA, SAS, etc, on the road prior to the trade. All those teams, and HOU, DEN had much better records than we did at the time of the trade. OKC was 8 games ahead of in the standings when we went into their building and punked them. MIA was 30-11 over the second half of the season and had won 10 in a row at home when we beat them at their place on the second night of a back to back on the last game of a 5-game road trip. That was a quality win against a quality opponent we would not have gotten pre-Nurk. I don't usually mention the refs, but if there was one game all season where the refs cost a team a game, it was that WAS game. That should have been a win for us against another quality opponent. You hope those things even out over the curse of an 82-game schedule, but in that 20 game sample size we got flat out got screwed out of another win.

That's all ancient history. There is no denying the team was better after the trade. The only question that remains is how that carries forward. I'm not predicting 57 wins, or even 53, with the way other teams, especially in our division, have improved, but Nurk addressed so many of our weaknesses, I'm looking forward to seeing how much better we are this season than last. The last two years, we have gotten off to terrible starts and had to scramble just to make the playoffs. This year, I hope we get off to a better start so we won't have to rely on a late season surge just to climb back to .500.

BNM
 
Tier 1
GSW

Tier 2
Rockets - I think this will be a disaster if Carmemelol is traded here, so I hope it happens.
Spurs - as of right now they've fallen back a bit. Aldridge looks to be leaving SA. Parker is coming off of a significant injury he suffered in the playoffs. Manu retirement is up in the air.
Portland - Logic says they have to be more healthy this year.
OKC - Portland almost always comes out on top in the season series vs the zombie sonics.

Tier 3
Wolves - didn't solve their 4th quarter woes with the addition of Butler.
Nuggets - I think I'm overrating this team but I figure I'll drink a little koolaide.
Grizz - if healthy they could be in tier 2, but they've shown no glimpse of health the past 2 seasons.
NO
Clippers
Utah


Tier 4
Suns
Lakers
Kings
 
honkicracker said:
Tier 1
GSW

Tier 2
Rockets - I think this will be a disaster if Carmemelol is traded here, so I hope it happens.
Spurs - as of right now they've fallen back a bit. Aldridge looks to be leaving SA. Parker is coming off of a significant injury he suffered in the playoffs. Manu retirement is up in the air.
Portland - Logic says they have to be more healthy this year.
OKC - Portland almost always comes out on top in the season series vs the zombie sonics.

Tier 3
Wolves - didn't solve their 4th quarter woes with the addition of Butler.
Nuggets - I think I'm overrating this team but I figure I'll drink a little koolaide.
Grizz - if healthy they could be in tier 2, but they've shown no glimpse of health the past 2 seasons.
NO
Clippers
Utah


Tier 4
Suns
Lakers
Kings
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Why does logic dictate they will be healthier this year? Injuries aren't governed by some kind of annual cycle.
 
Imagine what a bloodbath this conference would be if Paul had stayed in LA and Hayward had stayed in Utah, keeping both teams in the 50-win neighborhood.
 
Nikolokolus said:
Why does logic dictate they will be healthier this year? Injuries aren't governed by some kind of annual cycle.
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Considering portland played 15-20 games with a full & healthy roster it has to be impossible for that to happen 2 years in a row.
Maybe logic is the wrong word, luck might be a better word for it.
Portland has to have more luck this year with injuries.
 
I'll play along:

1. Warriors
2. Rockets
3. Spurs
4. Thunder
5. Timberwolves
6. Nuggets (tie-breaker)
7. Trail Blazers
8. Pelicans
 
honkicracker said:
Considering portland played 15-20 games with a full & healthy roster it has to be impossible for that to happen 2 years in a row.
Maybe logic is the wrong word, luck might be a better word for it.
Portland has to have more luck this year with injuries.
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1030b9e23bb5cf6c8ef5da6567e3dbf40c41def5.gif
 
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