West Rankings 2010-11

[Pinwheel1]

Forget about the Portland Homer argument. I am glad he picked us 8. Hell he can pick us 10th. But OKC is not #2. Dallas and Denver are too low, the Jazz and Phoenix are too high. (as is the writer)

 

[Rhal]

OKC won't fall. They did what I think is called...a better move? Took...some kid...Durant? And...built....a great team around him. But you guys won't ever admit that. The Thunder will be a top 5 team in the NBA. They have all the talent, it's about to go down. Portland however I think well make the playoffs, but facing LA or OKC....gonna be tough.

So after a season of insane injuries were not going to improve and in fact we'll take 7th or 8th place, while the thunder who had no injuries are going to improve to 2nd in the west and we'll have to play either LA or OKC? Bring it on i'm not scared of either of those teams if were healthy. The lakers have length in Bynum/paul/odom. Oh thats nice we only have Camby/Pryz/Oden/LMA to counter that. OKC only scares me if Durant gets to shoot 80 free throws.

 

[chris_in_pdx]

I totally disagree with those rankings, but personally I kinda like it. I always prefer being underrated to overrated.

Truth. Portland has always performed the best when no one believes in them, having an "Us against the world" attitude.

 

[Pinwheel1]

OKC won't fall. They did what I think is called...a better move? Took...some kid...Durant? And...built....a great team around him. But you guys won't ever admit that. The Thunder will be a top 5 team in the NBA. They have all the talent, it's about to go down. Portland however I think well make the playoffs, but facing LA or OKC....gonna be tough.

I am sure this thread will be bumped in March. We will see if the thunder is the second best team in the west. Dallas looks awfully good to me.

 

[Wheels]

dammit I'm a homer and have blinders on again!

 

[Wheels]

Blazers will win a Title before the Thunder do... who wants to bet me?

 

[oldmangrouch]

Blazers will win a Title before the Thunder do... who wants to bet me?

Word of advice: don't make that bet with anyone over 40...they won't be around to collect/pay off!

 

[Rodolfo]

4th or 5th place for us next season.

 

[e_blazer]

There are about 10 teams in the West that have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs next year. It seems to me that, as was the case this year, the teams that make it and the order they finish in will be determined more by player health than by July roster strength.

 

[Drttimmy]

I gotta admit, there's some truth there. Though if all goes according to normal, the Thunder will be out of the spotlight in a year or two after failing to improve or getting an injury or two.

I think there's some truth to this. They're going to remain outside the elite unless they find a second superstar. They should probably go after Paul I think. Durant/Paul would be a dynamite duo and they might have the best package to throw at N.O. with the cap room they have, picks, and Westbrook to offer. It could be a defining decision for Presti. He--similar to KP two years ago--is the current golden boy. Acquiring cap space, nice young prospects, and a bevy of draft picks. But he has yet to turn those assets into a superstar talent. His reputation will suffer if they plateau--like with Pritchard.

 

[Drttimmy]

I really don't see how the Suns, Mavs, or Spurs are ahead of us. I swear those teams get by based solely on name recognition. How good could the Suns possibly be without Amare next season? Is Hedon't gonna carry the scoring load? The Spurs are one year closer to Tim Duncan retiring, as are the Mavs with Nowitzki getting further from his prime as well. Oh well, if we somehow get CP3, we will be vaulted to the #2 spot. Just watch.

Agreed. Pretty thoughtless article I think. We played pretty ugly ball early last season and won games simply from sheer overwhelming talent-due largely to Oden/Pryzbilla controlling the paint. If we stay healthy, we wont even have to play well to win 50 games again. Houston is going to be good as well. Well coached and healthy. I think the top 4 will be LA, OKC, Portland and Houston simply because those are the 4 most talented/best system teams. Everyone else is next tier. It's all about staying healthy though.

 

[e_blazer]

I think there's some truth to this. They're going to remain outside the elite unless they find a second superstar. They should probably go after Paul I think. Durant/Paul would be a dynamite duo and they might have the best package to throw at N.O. with the cap room they have, picks, and Westbrook to offer. It could be a defining decision for Presti. He--similar to KP two years ago--is the current golden boy. Acquiring cap space, nice young prospects, and a bevy of draft picks. But he has yet to turn those assets into a superstar talent. His reputation will suffer if they plateau--like with Pritchard.

The Thunder are only $5.7 mil under the cap at this point. They don't have enough cap room or high dollar contracts to make a deal for Paul plus one of NOH's ugly other contracts that would be necessary to entice the Hornets to trade him.

 

[jlprk]

Agreed. Pretty thoughtless article I think.

But it got hits, which was the goal. To anyone here who runs a blog: Have weekly rankings and plant the URL on message boards. The difficulty is to get readers to leave the posts on your own board.

The more thoughtless the rankings are, the more responses.

 

[Entity]

But it got hits, which was the goal. To anyone here who runs a blog: Have weekly rankings and plant the URL on message boards. The difficulty is to get readers to leave the posts on your own board.

The more thoughtless the rankings are, the more responses.

Haha! Well mine must not be thoughtless because they don't get many responses, and I actually post them directly on this site.

 

[rocketeer]

Most egregious team ahead of us with SA second. Of course SA got BETTER with Tiago Splitter, Suns are gonna set next year and Houston will beat them out of the 8th seed if Yao is healthy.

8 seed? the lakers, blazers, and rockets are the best 3 teams in the west with how the rosters currently stand.

 

[jlprk]

Link? I'll give you a hit. You want a Hawaiian Punch? (You're probably too young to remember those TV ads during the cartoons.)

 

[espn_hall_of_famer]

http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2010/07/20/the-lake-show-rolls-on-out-west/

The writer is a bit off specially about us.

That's a pretty big failure without much analysis.

Remember a couple of key items. The Thunder flew under the radar last season as a "non-playoff team" as teams looked at them, and had literally the "perfect season" with their main three players all playing injury free 82-games season. That won't happen again, and teams won't take them lightly. Durant will finally get the recognition as a star by fellow teams and there is no way he score 30ppg again by sneaking up on everyone. So the 8th seed Thunder will have a snowball's chance in you-know-where of repeating the luck they had last season without adding CP3 or something other than the scraps they added. They may move up with Utah and Phoenix's downfall, but not up in to the top 4.

I don't think Utah will be able to recover from losing half of their talent in time to be more than maybe the 8th or 9th fighting for that final playoff spot. And Phoenix with Amare gone and Nash a year older isn't going to get home court again. I do like the move of Houston moving back into the playoffs with Yao, but likely just to replace a fallen Utah team.

Golden State could be in the mix too if they have a "perfect season" like the Thunder had last season for a change, which they didn't. Portland will be fighting for that #3 seed with Denver, and it depends on health for Portland. Obviously CP3 changes that to a #1 seed, but we'll wait until that happens to reset the West.

 

[jlprk]

To me Phoenix is the biggest roll of the dice. They could go high or low. Steve Nash can turn a lot of players from adequate to great, but can he do it with Hedo, who needs to handle the ball. Nash is best with catch and shoot guys.

 

[rocketeer]

Did he pick the Blazers to make the play-offs? Since that is all the Blazers have actually accomplished, that is all the credit they have earned. When they actually make it to the second round, then they can complain that they deserve to be considered a top 4 team in the West.

that line of thinking is incredibly dumb. that would mean the heat can't be considered a top 4 team in the east before this season because they didn't make the 2nd round last year. teams aren't constrained to only repeat their past performances. it is almost a certainty that the blazers will be more healthy in the upcoming season than they were last season and that alone makes them definitely a top 4 team in the west as far as preseason rankings are concerned.

 

[rocketeer]

OKC won't fall. They did what I think is called...a better move? Took...some kid...Durant? And...built....a great team around him. But you guys won't ever admit that. The Thunder will be a top 5 team in the NBA. They have all the talent, it's about to go down. Portland however I think well make the playoffs, but facing LA or OKC....gonna be tough.

the thunder may eventually become a top 5 team in the nba. that's not going to be this season though(barring huge moves). the thunder have done well for themselves this offseason with aldrich being a perfect addition inside to give defense and rebounding and them adding extra perimeter depth but it's not realistic at all to expect them to vault to the top of the league. they just haven't added the talent or be expected to make the internal improvement in one year to do so.