Western Conference

In this fans opinion the Western Conference comes down to six teams who have enough to, not only make it to the championship series, but to win it all. Those teams are the Spurs, Suns, Rockets, Utah, Nuggets, and Mavericks. Here's my breakdown on each one.

Denver Nuggets - This team has more than enough pieces "to put it all together". The real question is, are they the correct pieces. Management certainly hopes that this is the year we all get to find out, because paying out all that extra revenue in the "luxury tax" needs to pay off this season, or this team will be disassembled for certain. Carmelo Anthony proved this summer that he is extremely serious about expanding his game, as he played a lot of power forward for Team USA and showed that he can rebound with anyone when called upon. The main question is, will "melo" sacrifice in this same manner for the Nuggets. Also has Iverson finally reached the breaking point on his small body? In playoff against the Spurs, he had a dynamite first game, but then Bruce Bowen shut him down the rest of the series and that was it. The rest of the team, Nene, Camby and Keynon Martin have to prove that they can play in more than 60 games in order for Denver to compete in the West. Look for another 1 and done series and the team to be sold off piece by piece.

Utah Jazz - The surprise team from last season at first benefited from playing in the weak "Mountain" division, but then made it all the way to the Conference championship and by doing so they showed that Jerry Sloan is in fact a great NBA coach to be mentioned along side the Riley's and Jackson's of the league. This is the one and only NBA team that most resembles a college team in the way they play unselfishly. Sloan has found his new "Stockton and Malone" in Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer. During their playoff run last year they proved to be almost as unstoppable as the famous predecessors by first taking out the Houston Rockets I 7 games, then easily dispatching the Golden State Warriors, before hitting the Spurs "Brick wall". Williams after spending the year practicing with and against Jason Kidd and Chauncy Billiups will be poised to have a break-out year and challenging Tony Parker for the best point guard in the west. Their first round match-up will be key again this season and they could either go all the way or loose in the first round.

Dallas Mavericks - Here is a team that still seems to be searching for an identity. They have more than enough horses to gallop through the regular season and put down 60 plus wins just by trotting out their starting 5. However, when the playoffs start, they have a tendency of not trusting each other and turning into one of those teams who give it to one person (Dirk Nowitzki" and then the other 4 players just stand around and watch. Some say this is more of Dirk's doing than anything else; that he didn't trust his teammates against the Warriors and that was why they lost. I think it was more of the fact that they fell into the "we can outrun" this team and then never realized that they could not. This is the trap they fell into last season against the Warriors, plus they could not match-up defensively either. If they had played their own game, I believe they could have beat the Warriors, but Don Nelson got into their head too much and that ended that series.

Phoenix Suns - Here is another team very similar to the Dallas Mavericks, one that loves to go out and run through the regular season and then they have very little left in their tank come playoff time. They also don't like to play defense for more than a few minutes each game and if you are allowed to "rough them up", they have a tendency to fade away. Also Steve Nash will be 34 at the end of the regular season and if they want to have any chance at all in the playoffs, then D'Antoni has got to find a way to run his club while Nash can rest, this may be where Grant Hill can come in. Hill was a surprising addition to the Suns especially since they didn't trade anyone, plus Hill may give the Suns a new offensive option in the half court, as it will no longer be 1 main inside and 4 on the 3-point line. Hill could operate at the free throw line and the Suns could run the ball to him and then let Hill distribute either back to the 3-point line, or inside to a cutting Stoudemire for Slams to the basket. Stoudemire brings another big question to the Suns. Is he capable of raising the level of his game to that of Tim Duncan's; where he is as much a force on the defensive end of the court as he is on the offensive end. I think that may still be a year away and the Suns die in the second round once again.

Houston Rockets - Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming, the most asked question in Houston is will these 2 ever get out of the first round of the playoffs? They failed once again last season and because of that, Jeff Van Gundy is gone, replaced by Rick Adelman. The second hottest topic in H-town was when they were going to get rid of Rafer Alston. Guess what, they didn't and now they have 4 point guards in Alston, Stevie Francis, back for his second tour of duty with Houston, Mike James also returns and they added Oregon rookie Aaron Brooks to the mix. However the most important addition this off-season was in adding Luis Scola, who was this summers MVP in the tournament of America's. Scola will struggle at first as he gets accustomed to the way the NBA game is officiated, but once he does, he will make things so easy on Yao and Tracy that they, if they can stay healthy will be able to do the things all of Houston has been waiting for. Running Adelman's motion offense will be fun for all of us to see after 4 years of "stand around" Van Gundy ball, who coach defense like no one else, but had no concept whatsoever on the offensive side of the ball. I believe that this will be the difference in Houston finally making it out of the first round of the play-offs, but whether they have what it takes to go farther than that I am not sure.

San Antonio Spurs - Part one of my article stated that I could not call the Spurs a dynasty because they had failed to win back-to-back titles. In fact they usually wind up losing in the first round the year after they win the title for one reason or another. This season things may be different. For one all of their main players, Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker did not play in any Olympic or pre-Olympic tournament this go around. Which gave their bodies a chance to rest and recover. There biggest concern may be with players such, as Robert "Big-shot Bob" Horry and Brent Barry are also getting long in the tooth. But the one thing that coach Greg Popovich has shown while coaching the Spurs is that he doesn't sacrifice his team during the season just to win games. He won't over-extend his players just to get wins. As long as the Spurs stay in contention for a top 4 seed, Pop isn't going to worry whether they get the top seed. He knows that their window of opportunity is about to close and I believe that he and Duncan both want to win that back-to-back to cement both of their careers as top coach and player of their era.

So when it is all said and done come mid-June 2008, I believe that will see a back-to-back champion with the Spurs as they will take down the Bulls in 5 games.

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wpeery said:

	I can't say that I disagree with you about the Spurs winning it all. Tony Parker is the most unstoppable guard on the planet in the open floor. I will never forget how poorly Dirk played in that final game against the Warriors. Never before have I seen such a dominant player lay an egg like that one when his team needed him to perform at a very high level. What a choke fest.
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October 30, 2007
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Bugeatersteve said:

	WPerry, I agree, in fact I have an article that I wrote touting the fact that the Maverick's collapse in last seasons play-offs was the biggest NBA flop of all time.
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October 31, 2007
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