One Man's Take On Each Division
Atlantic: Nets
Central: Pistons
Southeast: Magic
Northwest: Blazers, although I can see Minnesota challenging
Pacific: Phoenix but I feel GS and the Clippers are right there
Southwest: Houston but the Mavs are close
I'll repeat a suggestion I made in the chat a few days ago, and will gladly take on some of the tabulation work to make it happen:
After the rosters are finished and trading has been finalized and we "justify" our teams ---- each GM makes a 1-15 ranking of the
opposite conference's teams (so they have no vested interest....).
I volunteer to tabulate the 30 rankings to get our 2 sets of teams in each conference: 8 teams in the PLAYOFFS (with NBA-style seedings (i.e. 1 team from each division in the top 4 seeds) and 7 teams in the Lottery, in each conference.
for the PLAYOFFS --- we'd post the matchups and have either each team write why they'd win or find 2-3 "judges" write up an anylsis.... and vote on who would win each round (not just "best team" but who matches up and would win the round...All the way through to the finals. Who, knows, with homecourt advantages, etc, there could be an upset along the way, etc.
IDEA, #1a: we could also see if Steve W. would like to post these matchups in his AROUND THE NBA section on CBlog and let everyone on CBlog vote... it would be a fun way to show "the community" what we 30 nuts have been doing for 3-4 weeks

for the LOTTERY --- we'd vote on which teams (maybe top 3?) have the best chance to win/challenge for a title (a) the quickest and (b) in say 3-5 years.... (this is a little less cut and dry).
What do folks think? I think it woudl be an interesting way to "crown" a winner.
PM me if you'd like to help and PM or post if you think it's a good idea.
(now onto those "Wizards"....)