It’s opening day in the NBA, and today we preview the Western Conference! To be brutally honest, only a handful of teams in the West (sorry, Utah and Minnesota) wouldn’t have a shot at making the playoffs if they were in the weaker East. While it’s hard to bet against the Spurs returning to the finals, the competition this year should be even stronger.  MOTTO: Don’t think about Derrick Rose. Don’t think about Derrick Rose  Even with Kevin Durant missing an early chunk of the season with a foot fracture, the Thunder are clearly the best team in their division. Nobody really knows what the Thunder will look like without the reigning MVP, but this should be a solid team in his absence and a championship caliber team if he’s completely right when he returns.  Still, it’s going to be interesting to see how they operate with Russell Westbrook as their key player, since not having Durant around could accentuate his strengths (his scoring, his creativity) and his weaknesses (his turnovers, his decision-making). It could also reveal if Serge Ibaka has any more room to grow offensively and possibly prove to Oklahoma City that they made the right decision in trading James Harden.  Here’s the subject that nobody wants to think about: what if Kevin Durant’s latest injury significantly affects his game, or if he gets injured even more seriously? The lingering image of Derrick Rose collapsing during the first postseason game he played the year after winning the MVP award has to be on Thunder fans’ minds.  The Thunder have some reason to worry. They know they have a short window to make a return trip to the finals, because Durant is signed only through the 2015-16 season. With re-signing not a given, they can’t afford to have a lost season. Not now.  MOTTO: Almost as exciting as the Sleater-Kinney reunion  It was the most exciting moment of the 2014 playoffs: Damian Lillard’s three-pointer, at the buzzer, shockingly ended the Houston Rockets’ season. The Trail Blazers had survived the first round of the playoffs for the first time in 14 years.  Nobody remembers what happened after Lillard’s shot, which is probably for the best. The Spurs eliminated them in five games in the second round of the playoffs, possibly because the Trail Blazers weren’t ready, but more likely because last year’s Spurs gave nobody a chance.  While Lillard has the clutch reputation, it’s slightly less showy LaMarcus Aldridge who is their best player. Plus, Robin Lopez has improved from “Brook Lopez’s brother” to “that guy who looks like Sideshow Bob” to “one of the best defensive centers in the conference”. Portland is finally poised to escape the black hole it found itself in when Greg Oden and Brandon Roy’s bodies betrayed them.  These Blazers are a dark horse team to make the conference finals. Even if they fall short, they should be a must-watch team for as long as they stay alive. If Lillard has the ball in his hands at the end of a one-score game, they will always have a chance.  MOTTO: Well, that run of contention was run while it lasted  It feels like the Denver Nuggets’ potential conference run ended when Danilo Gallinari injured his ACL just before the 2013 playoffs, an injury that kept him out of the entire 2013-14 season. The Nuggets fell back while nearly everybody else in the conference took a step forward.  Their hopes to avoid missing the playoffs once more now lie in young power forward Kenneth Faried, who impressed with Team USA in the World Cup this summer. The Manimal has been on the verge of a national breakout since being drafted in 2011, and this feels like his time.  Even if they don’t contend, this Nuggets team has characters on it, including Faried and his flowing braided hair. While the returning JaVale McGee and the nomadic Nate Robinson may not always, or even consistently, make great on-court decisions, they are fun to watch (sometimes in a distinctively train-wreck sort of way).  In fact, this Nuggets season will be a success if only because it gave us this video:  MOTTO: Please just, for the love of god, please just score, Ricky. Even just a little  Consider this a spoiler alert if you’re just catching up on offseason moves, but Kevin Love was traded during the offseason. It wasn’t quite the tragedy that Minnesota fans had been expecting, the Timberwolves were going to have to deal Love eventually, and the team actually got some valuable players back: two number one picks in Andrew Wiggins and, living proof that not all top draft picks are alike, Anthony Bennett.  The Love trade means that the Timberwolves are forced to go through a total rebuild despite not having a single postseason appearance in a decade. That’s difficult to do even if one tries. So, it’s likely the longest current playoff drought in NBA will extend to11 years after this season.  Point guard Ricky Rubio, one of the most unworldly passers this league has ever seen, theoretically should rise up in Love’s absence, but that’s unlikely considering he’s failed to develop as a scorer, averaging 9.5 points per game last season. It doesn’t matter this year. The Timberwolves are going nowhere, and it might not matter for Minnesota in the long run, they have yet to offer Rubio an extension. It would just be a waste of a fantastic talent if Rubio can’t stick around as a NBA-caliber starter because he can’t make any shots.  What is there to say about the Utah Jazz?  Oh, OK, hold up. Sorry about this: apparently I can’t jump ahead yet. I’ve been told that it’s literally my job to come up with something to say about the Utah Jazz.  The Jazz were the worst team in the Western Conference, last season and they could make it two years straight. Gordon Hayward is their No1 scoring option, which is sad; Derrick Favors might have the most upside on the team; Australia’s Dante Exum was their first round draft pick; and Steve Novak is the most familiar name on the roster.  In other words, if everything breaks right for this team, they have a chance to be mediocre and boring rather than terrible and boring.  MOTTO: Employees are not allowed to even eat apple sauce  For once, we are not being sarcastic when we say “our long national nightmare” is over. It took way longer than it should have, but Donald Sterling is no longer the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. That’s a good thing for all involved, and a great day for America.  Instead, the new owner is Steve Ballmer, and although the former Microsoft CEO has made the curious decision to eventually ban all of his employees from using Apple products, he’ll be an improvement simply by not being Donald Sterling. If the Clippers lose every single game, it will still be the greatest period to be a Clippers fan ever.  And that’s not going to happen because this Clippers team is really, really good: perhaps the best team in a brutal conference. Chris Paul is the league’s best point guard. Blake Griffin is well on his way from shaking off outdated criticism that he’s a one-dimensional player. Doc Rivers is one of the best coaches in the game. Jamal Crawford is the reigning sixth man of the year. JJ Redick is a lights out three-point shooter. DeAndre Jordan is a premiere defensive center.  The only way this season could get any better for the Clippers is if the Lakers are as bad as they seem to be.  Steph Curry is the best shooter in the league, able to hit a three-pointer from anywhere on the court. The Warriors believe in Klay Thompson’s ability to compliment Curry so much that they refused to offer him to the Minnesota Timberwolves in a trade for Kevin Love. David Lee is declining and limited defensively, but still a good player to have as a No3.  New head coach Steve Kerr must feel like he won the lottery with all of these offensive weapons, the game seems simpler when you have the Splash Brothers to go every night, but there’s a lot of pressure on him as well. Golden State’s reputation has gone from all-offense, no-defense underdogs to postseason underachievers in the span of about two years. Before nothing was expected from them, now everything is.  The key will be if Andrew Bogut and Andre Iguodala stay healthy, or at least are healthy and effective at the right time. Golden State expect them to miss plenty of games in the regular season. The Warriors really, truly need them for the playoffs. If they have to solely rely on Curry and Thompson shooting their way to wins, it’s going to be difficult for them to beat the best of the West come the postseason.  MOTTO: Stop believing in us – you’ll jinx us  Last year everyone predicted that they would be among the worst teams in the west, if not the absolute worst. Instead they missed the eighth seed by a game. The 2013-14 Suns were a perfect example of a team being more than the sum of its parts. The opposite of the Houston Rockets.  Their lineup reads like a casting call for a “wacky group of misfits” action movie ensemble. They have the reluctantly returning leader in Eric Bledsoe! They have both of the Dragic Brothers: Goran and Zoran! One of the Plumlee brothers (Miles)! Cupcake-extinguishing windmill dunker Gerald Green! Sacramento Kings escapee Isaiah Thomas (no relation to Isiah Thomas)!  A fun group, really: the shame is it’s doubtful that they will be fighting for that last playoff spot this year. Lightning like that doesn’t strike twice and it becomes even harder to pull off the unexpected under the weight of actual expectations. It won’t be long, however, until they’re a legitimate playoff contender again, not at this pace.  MOTTO: Can DeMarcus Cousins mature? Let’s find out!  This is the season when Sacramento stops riding the high of realizing that they still have a basketball team and starts worrying about whether or not said basketball team is any good. That might come down to whether or not franchise player DeMarcus Cousins can mature. The center showed some promise in the World Cup, but he still racked up technical fouls in the preseason.  Maybe they could try trading Rudy Gay? I mean, it’s not that he’s been bad with the Kings, and he’s probably been more productive in Sacramento than anywhere else, it’s just that teams do better after trading him. They already took a step down by replacing outgoing point guard Isaiah Thomas with Darren Collison, so maybe they don’t want to take the additional risk.  Wait, what risk would that be? The Kings will find themselves near the bottom of the standings this season no matter what they do. Go crazy Kings management, go crazy!  MOTTO: Kobe: he’s like basketball’s Jeter, right?  The Lakers are going to be bad,schadenfreude-evoking bad. The pre-season has been an absolute disaster. Their offense has been hampered by their new coach who has apparently been chiding his players for taking three-pointers. Steve Nash is out for the season, and probably done playing basketball, and he probably would have been relegated to being Jeremy Lin’s backup were he still around. Pau Gasol is in Chicago, hoping for a second wind.  If the Lakers are going anywhere, it’s going to be on the back of Kobe, who played exactly six games in the 2013-14 season. He’s suffered two major injuries in a row, is another year older and the subject of a lot of negative press claiming he’s the Lakers’ problem. There’s a current thought that the team might consider deliberately tanking in order to prevent their top draft pick from going to the Phoenix Suns.  Honestly, their best bet to stay relevant this season might be to go the way of the New York Yankees, who sold a go-nowhere season to their fans as Derek Jeter’s retirement tour. If things go south, which seems likely, expect them to advertise Lakers games as potential “last chance to see Kobe Bryant.”  MOTTO: The San Antonio Spurs are a very successful basketball franchise*  At some point they’re going to falter. Tim Duncan will be too old and will retire. Manu Ginobili will be too old and will retire. Gregg Popovich will decide he doesn’t want to live in a NBA universe without Tim Duncan and will retire. Tony Parker won’t be playing at a MVP level. One day the random international players and low first-round draft picks the Spurs won’t be enough.  That won’t be this season. While the Spurs may not play as well as they did last postseason, when they defeated the Miami Heat in the NBA finals by playing close to flawless basketball, they will be one of the NBA’s premier teams until Old Father Time catches up to them.  And who knows? Once that happens, when Kawhi Leonard steps up and takes the reigns from Tim Duncan, they will probably have already signed their next star, and could very well be at the top of the Western Conference once again. Death, taxes, and the Spurs going deep into the NBA playoffs. (Even if my guy Patty Mills will be out until January with a shoulder injury.)  * Motto picked by Tim Duncan  MOTTO: All hail the coming of the brow  Barring a career-altering injury, which let’s not even think about, there is nothing stopping Anthony Davis from being the NBA’s next superstar. The Pelicans are going to have to hope that Davis makes the leap this season if they want to fight their way through the more established teams in the west.  It’s going to happen. The Pelicans will make the postseason in 2015, unless Davis loses significant playing time with injury. That’s a risky proclamation to make, but Davis is going to make the leap to borderline MVP candidate at some point, why not now?  Don’t believe the hype? Look what Davis did with those Plastic Man arms over the summer with Team USA:  He’s got a good team around him too, although not a great one. Jrue Holiday should be healthy, Omer Asik is here to help with the defense and Eric Gordon can score. As long as Davis stays upright, and they can keep Austin Rivers on the bench as much as possible, there’s no reason the Pelicans can’t make the 7th or 8th seed this year.  The Dallas Mavericks picked up the Houston’s Chandler Parsons in the offseason, partly as a “screw you” to the Rockets. It wasn’t just for spite though: the small forward also should help boost the lineup around Hall of Fame big man Dirk Nowitski.  Also they got back Tyson Chandler in a trade with the Knicks, although with the drawback that they had to take Raymond Felton in return. Maybe head coach Rick Carlisle could make something out of Felton though, having somehow turned Monta Ellis into a legitimate number two scoring option last year.  One has to hand it to Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. While other teams have been dedicated to the cycle of rebuilding, he’s decided to avoid depending on the draft and instead has had his team make moves to surround Nowitzki with NBA-ready players. Most teams want to avoid constantly fighting for lower playoff seeds, but the Mavericks seem to think it doesn’t matter where they are in the standings. If they make the postseason, they have a fading but hungry superstar, some proven talent and a coach that could put it all together.  Does anyone think they can win this year? No. But did anybody think that in 2011?  The Mavericks and Rockets don’t like each other, and this could make for a great season of basketball in Texas. The Rockets needed a third person to join up with James Harden and Dwight Howard to make their own big three, and they were hoping it would be Chris Bosh. Instead, Bosh took big money to stay with the Miami Heat. Carmelo Anthony, their other target, immediately re-signed with New York.  In the process, the Rockets let Chandler Parsons go. They ended up with Trevor Ariza from the Washington Wizards, which roughly makes them a big two and one-eighth rather than a big three. James Harden didn’t seem worried, however, fanning the flames of a brewing Rockets-Mavericks rivalry with the following:  Dwight (Howard) and I are the cornerstones of the Rockets. The rest of the guys are role players or pieces that complete our team. We’ve lost some pieces and added some pieces. I think we’ll be fine next season.  Parsons was none to happy with this.  It’s a minor offseason storyline, but it leads to a larger concern here. Free agents may find themselves wondering if they even want to be part of a team with a selfish offensive player who can’t even be bothered to pretend to play defense (Harden) and an immature unlikeable center already on the decline (Howard).  While talent usually triumphs over chemistry in sports, winning begets winning and all that, bad chemistry can certainly prevent teams from acquiring said talent. The Rockets desperately need another piece if they want to get past the second round, or even make it there in the first place. Good luck finding it, Houston.  The Memphis Grizzlies should be in the playoffs next year: they have Marc Gasol, the somehow still overlooked Mike Conley and the plodding-yet-effective Zach Randolph. They recruited a still-dangerous Vince Carter to come off the bench. Quincy Pondexter, one of their key offensive weapons in their trip to the conference finals two seasons ago, will return from a stress fracture that kept him out most of last season.  There’s a good chance that of the eight western teams that made the playoffs this year, the Grizzlies are the most likely to miss them. Which is not fair to Memphis, or whoever ends up being the ninth seed in the west. It’s a shame, and another reason why the NBA will continue to be unfair as long as the East and West are this imbalanced.  Western Conference finals: San Antonio Spurs over Los Angeles Clippers  NBA finals: Cleveland Cavaliers over San Antonio Spurs
Hunter Felt: With Donald Sterling out and the best point guard in the league, the Clippers should be a genuine force – and they’ll certainly enjoy the Lakers being so bad