Western Conference
The top 9 is incredible = OKC, Dallas, Minny, Denver, Golden State, LA Lakers, LA Clippers, Houston, San Antonio.
It looks like the final play-in spot is going to be a fight between Memphis and Portland. Portland upgraded their team getting Jrue for A Simons. Memphis has some work to do to rebuild their supporting cast / depth particularly on the two wing positions. Portland might beat them to the spot. Especially if Morant has injury issues which he has had in recent years.
Bottom four teams = Sacramento, Phoenix, New Orleans, Utah in that order. Actually Zion might lift NOP over PHX.
The Clippers seem like a team that if they all stay healthy could contend with OKC for the 1st seed, but there is also a real chance, they fall way off the health train and miss the play in. I know Harden has been pretty dang healthy, but he will be 36 when the season starts and he has a ton of wear on his body. Kawhi is a walking injury waiting to happen, especially after a pretty solid health year last year. Zubac has never really been hurt and is in his prime, but he has also seen an immense uptick in minutes the last couple of years. Hopefully his body can take it, but a big guy with way more minutes recently scares a bit from a health standpoint. Derrick Jones and Ben Simmons are the only other regular rotation players not in their 30's. I really don't know what to expect from the Clippers next year.
I wouldn't just count Dallas that high either. Kyrie is out and Davis is always injured. And while Flagg is uber-talented, he is also a rookie and those guys (even top picks) rarely have impactful rookie seasons. Even many of the best high picks (like Durant or even Wemby) don't really alter winning much. If Davis can stay healthy and Flagg is more the exception, then they have a real chance to be great when Irving makes it back, but those are big ifs.
The Warriors are old an as we saw against the Wolves, they are still so reliant on Curry. If he misses significant time or starts to slip, then I think they could be a more 40 win type team.
The Lakers are an interesting team. On any given night Lebron can still be awesome, but the frequency of that is definitely diminishing and Luka isn't exactly a picture of health. They still don't have a good defense or any real talented big men. They should be a clear playoff team, but are they a team that can compete with OKC or even Denver, that is hard to predict.
Houston has to integrate a very old - oft injured player into their team. I think they can do it, but I don't know that they will do it well.
San Antonio is very young and obviously has injury concerns from its 2 best players as both Wemby and Fox missed the end of last year and they were terrible. They obviously are adding another great young talent, but as with Flagg, I'm not sure how much impact Harper is going to have. Now if they trade Harper for someone like Brown, that all changes, but if they hold firm, I don't know how great they will be. Certainly better than last year, but that isn't saying much.
So I agree on paper the west looks amazingly deep, but I have real questions about many of those teams, and it might just look like the OKC show all season long.
