We just got Avery Bradley now too. 38% 3 point shooter - 16 pts per game guy and former all NBA defensive player. Sleep on us NBA, watch what’s gonna happen.
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Nobody is sleeping on the Lakers. The Clippers are just mentioned as favorites. I think everybody agrees the West is going to be between the LA teams.
Don’t rule out Golden State if Klay returns around all star break.
Denver, Utah, Houston and Portland will also offer good nuisance value also, 7 quality teams in the West IMO.
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Those teams are going to do nutting tbh. Whilst I love Jokic I think him not being a great two-way player will put a ceiling for where Denver will go, not sure Mike Conley is that great of a difference maker, Paul is another year older and especially the Clippers can rotate three great defenders on Harden and Portland with Lillard/McCollum are just not that great. Golden State can ‘surprise’ us indeed.
I agree with Aussie here, the LA teams are favorites, but they won’t dominate the west, the others will disturb these two, deciding which one gets first seed.
Golden State with Steph, Klay and Russell don’t feel like contenders. They may make the playoffs with that composition but they’d just get overwhelmed on defence when push came to shove.
Warriors will have to flip Russell before they’re in the conversation with the Lakers and Clippers imo.
In a 7-game playoff series I favour Davis/James and Leonard/George led teams over those other four with or without homecourt.
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There’s no doubt about that mate.
I agree. Even in the Kobe/Shaq days the Lakers were rarely 1 seeds. They would take a lot of nights off during the regular season and save themselves for the playoffs, especially on defense. It’s why teams like Houston win a shit ton of games in the regular season because nobody schemes on a nightly basis, and defense is at a minimum. The young teams will always have an advantage. I could see something like this playing out.
- Denver
- Utah
- GSW
- Lakers
- Clippers
- Houston
- Portland
- Spurs
Harden and Westbrook will not work
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I agree, Harden’s play making ability is now redundant playing with the Ball hog Brodie.
I’d almost look at trading Capela for a big that rebounds and can dunk and maybe try get a little bit more shooting and length/versatility in the wings.
Houston don’t have much room to move anyway so they’d have to do something to make any more changes.
Poor Chris Paul, gonna probably finish his career with no rings. The NBA screwed him when they vetoed that trade sending him to team up with Kobe.
Where do you think he ends up ? Or do you expect he just stays at OKC ?
No way he ends up there. They are trying to rebuild and they don’t want him on the team. I’m guessing Miami. Although there’s always the idea that he takes a pay cut and gets bought out of his contract and joins whatever team he wants. *coughlakerscough 
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OKC really Blowing it up like no tomorrow, you’d say it’s hard to see them winning more than 25 games next season.
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Russ struggles to shoot the three. Both him and Harden are hugely ball-dominant. Just an interesting fit at this stage as I have no idea how the Rockets are going to make this work.
As if Dame’s shot wasn’t legendary enough.
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It’s definitely not a good fit but Morey at this point needs to try something or the Rockets might as well just rebuild themselves. That Paul contract was an albatross tho they did well to get rid of that and replace him with a younger guy, of course they had to give up several picks.
Having said that tho, the Rockets have only really been stopped by GSW, and they shouldn’t factor in this season. So maybe they shoulda ran it back one more time.
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Daryl Morey has always said find the (available) top talent first and figure them playing together out later. People said the same about Paul and Harden at the time.
@BigWeng_4LYFE kind of think the Lakers size would be too much for this Houston team. After the next season nobody is going to trade for Chris Paul anyway.
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I would still take him on the Lakers.