We’ve now previewed every team in the league with the exception of the Pacific Division. Check out our Western Conference playoff teams, our West Champion and HHSR’s 2014-15 NBA champion at the end of this column.
So without further ado, let’s dive into the Pacific!
Phoenix Suns
The Suns rose from the ashes like a Phoenix last year (sorry) and won 48 games in a year where everybody — HHSR included — expected them to go in full tank mode. It was the most victories they’ve had since the 2009-10 season when they went to the Western Conference Finals. Goran Dragić would win the NBA’s Most Improved Player award and Jeff Hornacek was runner-up for Coach of the Year. Phoenix showed a lot of promise, but still missed the playoffs in the gauntlet that is the West. So how do they plan to take the next step this season?
Still one of the cheapest most frugal teams in the league, the Suns are currently 28th in payroll. While they let Channing Frye walk in free agency (some analysts have said this will significantly hurt Phoenix in the long run), the Suns did open up the wallet to retain the services of Eric Bledsoe, an HHSR favorite who can thank Rich Paul (and by extension LeBron James) for that lucrative offer. Amazingly, the Suns gave E Bled a five-year $70M extension after the explosive point guard rejected a $48M offer two months prior. Seems like Phoenix was bidding against themselves a bit, especially since they already had brought Isiah Thomas from Sacramento in the fold.
Whatever the reasons behind it, the Suns now have quite the three-headed monster in the backcourt between Thomas, Bledsoe and Dragić. In fact, this is probably the best trio of guards on any team in the league. Pair those three with Gerald Green — whose game has finally caught up with his dunking ability — and the Suns are absolutely lethal on the perimeter.
But what about in the middle?
The Suns are hoping to get something out of second-year center Alex Len— he gave them nathin last year. Also, Phoenix will be leaning heavily on the Morris twins, Markieff & Marcus (one of them is decent, the other is pretty good— I forget which one is which). Like Bledsoe, the Morris brothers both received contract extensions this summer, which was pretty funny. You’re not obligated to keep them both, Phoenix. Miles Plumlee will start at center, solidifying a fairly small and inexperienced frontcourt. In short, this team will get smashed by teams with size.
Are the Suns for real, or did they just catch lightning in a bottle last year? It’ll be hard to tell, as once again they’ll be a borderline playoff team in ’15.
Los Angeles Lakers
One time for the L.A. Lakers, y’all…
Pour out a little liquor for their relevance. Pour out a little liquor for Kobe being a slam dunk top 10 player in the league. Pour out a liquor just for the hell of it.
It’s evident that the Lakers are in the midst of their worst sustained stretch of basketball in 40 years. This franchise hasn’t missed the playoffs in consecutive season since 1974-75 and 1975-76. And outside of that, it’s never happened! It speaks to the unbelievable run of sustained excellence by the NBA’s glamor franchise, but this is bad…really bad.
Not even a month into last season, the Lakers gave Kobe Bryant a controversial two-year extension worth $48.5 million. Kobe was injured at the time, returned for six games, and then got injured again (who saw that coming?). Kobe is back again, and while there’s a little tread on the tires (Kobe WILL average a minimum of 23 points per game, and he doesn’t care how many 9-27 nights he’ll have to endure to get there), justifying Kobe as the highest paid player in the league this year and next year is a tall task.
If they weren’t giving enough money to over-the-hill guards, Steve Nash will earn make $9.7M this year, and he’s already done for the season, which should close the curtain on a Hall of Fame career. They also traded for Linsanity and signed Carlos Boozer for the sole purpose of stunting the growth of Julius Randle. Wesley Johnson, Nick Young, Jordan Hill…THESE ARE YOUR L.A. LAKERS!
Kobe supporters will point to the 2005-06 season as his magnum opus. Though the Lakers barely made the playoffs and got bounced in round one, Bryant dragged basically a D-League team to that point by averaging over 35 ppg. If Kobe, at a very old 35 years of age, can get this team to the playoffs in this conference, it would actually top 2005-06. But there is ZERO chance of that happening, especially since the Phoenix Suns will get the Lakers lottery pick via the Nash trade if the pick is not inside the top five.
Everything that could go wrong for this team has gone wrong ever since David Stern blocked the Chris Paul trade. Now free agents don’t even want to come play for the Lakers. But remember…
“Any free agent that would be afraid to play with Kobe Bryant is probably a loser, and I’m glad they wouldn’t come to the team.” – Jeanie Buss
Sacramento Kings
The NBA’s perennial doormat, the Kings have amazingly had a lottery pick in each of the past eight drafts! Seven of those picks were in the top 10! They also traded for a guy who was the second pick in the 2011 draft last year! So why is this team so terrible year after year?
A lot of it had to do with A) crappy ownership and B) never-ending rumors about the team moving. But the Kings struck arena deal to keep them in Sac-Town and they have a new owner, Vivek Ranadivé. In addition to all that, the Kings have for years had a bunch of individual talent that at no point ever resembled a basketball team. The 2014-15 edition isn’t much different.
Rudy Gay is looking to followup a decent 2013-14 campaign with a better one this year. Gay is in the last year of his contract however, so it’s unclear whether or not he’ll be playing sound team basketball or strictly going for his own since he knows this is not a playoff team.
Sidebar: This sort of behavior has afflicted the Kings for years.
Sacramento also lost Isaiah Thomas (who averaged 20 ppg last year) to division rival Phoenix and replaced him with career backup Darren Collison. Needless to say this is a significant downgrade at a position that is currently the deepest in the NBA. The Kings will also need to figure out who will get the majority of minutes on the wing between their last two lottery picks, Ben McLemore and sharpshooter Nik Stauskas. Whoever loses this position battle could soon become trade bait.
The saving grace for the Kings is center DeMarcus Cousins. He’s probably the most talented center in the league today, but he also might be legitimately bipolar (not even joking, he might be). This team’s only hope at avoiding the lottery again is Cousins miraculously keeping his head on straight and turning into a Moses Malone clone, carrying this team to the playoffs with his on-the-court play and his locker room leadership. But we tend to lean on history around here, right?
See you at the lottery next May, Sacramento!
Golden State Warriors
People laughed when Mark Jackson said The Splash Bros. — Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson — were the best shooting backcourt of all-time. But then people started looking at the numbers, then their age, and then they extrapolated that production over their careers and….yeah, they really might be!
Let’s make one thing clear: Steph Curry is so good, he has the ability to be a transcendent superstar in this league. He’s one of the five to seven guys in the league right now who could single-handedly swing a playoff series just off his greatness alone. The best part about Curry’s game last year wasn’t the 24 points per night, or the .424 three-point shooting or the 8.5 assists per contest (fifth in the league). It was that he appeared in 78 games for the second consecutive year, plus all of GSW’s playoff games.
Curry and Thompson are flanked by the usual suspects up front: Andre Iguodala, David Lee and Andrew Bogut in the starting line up, with Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green and Shaun Livingston (solid addition) coming off the bench. Continuity will be key for this group, especially considering there was a significant change at the top.
Mark Jackson was canned last spring — against Curry’s wishes — and he was replaced by yet another unproven former point guard with no coaching experience, Steve Kerr. Coaching was a natural progression for Kerr considering he’s already been a broadcaster and a general manager since retiring in 2003. It seems like Kerr should be good at this. During his 15 years as a player, Kerr played with Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippin, Dennis Rodman, Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. And he played for Lute Olson, Lenny Wilkins, Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich. Not too shabby, right?
Sidebar: Did you know Steve Kerr was born in Beirut? Ladies and gents, your HHSR little known fact of the day!
Given all of the behind the scenes conflicts involving Jackson and his assistant coaches in 2014, this certainly looks like a case of addition by subtraction. Kerr will be forced to do something with Harrison Barnes, who seemed to regress after Iguodala joined the Warriors. Injuries have always been an weakness with this team (Curry, Bogut, Lee etc.), but if healthy, they have all the potential of a top four playoff team. And if Curry can really catch fire, it’s curtains for everybody. That said, it still feels like this team might be a player away, but the playoffs are a mere formality for Golden State.
Los Angeles Clippers
My Clippers, my clippers!
Sidebar: YG should do player the intros for them.
HHSR was in on the Clippers well before the masses— basically since the day Chris Paul arrived. We picked the Clippers to make the Finals two years ago and last year we acknowledged Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan would take that team as far as they could go. Never wavering from our Spurs pick to win the West, we did have the Clippers making the conference finals last year, and said it would be an indictment on CP3 (to a degree) if this team didn’t go any further.
Little did we know exactly what was in store…
Okay, that was a train wreck. As an avid Chris Paul supporter and having picked the Clippers to upset the Thunder in this series, this ending to Game 5 (series was tied at two) made my stomach turn.
Yes the refs were garbage and the Clips did get hosed (a couple of times). And yes the shadow of the Donald Sterling incident was still hovering over this team during this series. But Paul, widely respected as one of the most intelligent and clutch athletes in the sport, was so horrendous in the last minute of that game, it made it difficult not to lose a little respect for him. After all, the Clippers folded in Game 6 and lost the series 4-2, and after nine seasons, CP3 still hasn’t even made the Conference Finals.
Griffin has elevated his play to a near-MVP level. Jordan has elevated his play to that of a borderline all-star. Jamal Crawford can win Sixth Man of the Year in any season. Doc Rivers is in his second year and still has that championship pedigree (no HHH). The Clips also added Spencer Hawes, a 7′ center who can legitimately shoot three’s, which was a solid move as Hawes will make a killing off Paul pick & pops.
This team can score in bunches and can usually get stops when they need to. But is something missing?
Can Griffin get past the fact that people STILL think he’s soft and they will not stop trying him until he literally fades somebody on the court? Can DeAndre get over his late game free throw woes? Or his any-part-of-the-game free throw woes for that matter? Can Paul get past the demons that unquestionably still haunt him from Game 5 vs OKC last year? And will this guy freak out so many people that nobody will even want to attend Clipper games?
This is the Clippers new owner.
Sidebar: Not everybody is impressed with the new guy.
The answer to all these questions had better be “yes” if this team really wants to contend for a title.
Sidebar: The Clippers really were better than the Thunder last season and should’ve won that series. But poor officiating and racist voicemails aside, that was on Paul.
The Clippers will fend off Golden State to win the division once again, but it will be a spirited rivalry all season, and hopefully for years to come.
Western Conference Playoff Teams: Los Angeles Clippers, San Antonio Spurs, Golden State Warriors, Portland Trail Blazers, Dallas Mavericks, Memphis Grizzlies, Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets
Yes, these are the same eight teams form last year. Is this likely to happen? Of course not. But no other team seems ready to take that next step. Phoenix was close, but their bigs are nothing to write home about. The Pelicans also received consideration, but too many things needed to go right for them to make it. And frankly, none of these teams seem good enough to knock off the top eight, although the Rockets better watch out, especially if Howard or Harden get hurt.
Western Conference Champion: Dallas Mavericks
Old teams win in the NBA. When most people think of “old”, they think of the Spurs. But as mentioned in our Southwest Division preview, the Spurs have yet to win back-to-back titles during the Duncan/Popovich era. Again, we tend to err on the side of history around here. History says (for whatever reason) the Spurs don’t win the title in consecutive years, and if you think about it, they basically just did by losing by the slimmest of margins two Junes ago and then winning it all in 2014. How are they going make it all the way back a third straight year when they’ve never actually won consecutive titles?
The Spurs are the best team in the league as of today, but something will get them before it’s all said and done: old age, fatigue, or perhaps simply a lack of motivation.
So if there’s another team capable of putting it all together, it’s the Dallas Mavericks. First, they’re definitely old. Dirk, Chandler, Nelson, Barea, Harris and Jefferson are all in their 30s AND have all played in the NBA Finals. Monta Ellis and Chandler Parsons give this team enough scoring pop from guys currently in their prime. Chandler was the heart of the 2011 championship team on the defensive end, and now he’s back. Rick Carlisle has proven he’s as good as any coach in the game, while Dirk is still one of the elite closers the NBA has to offer.
If that weren’t enough, this team pushed the Spurs to seven games in round one just this past May and were the only team that posed a significant threat to the eventual champions. The Spurs and Clippers will be in the mix, but Dallas comes out the West, giving them three conference titles in the Dirk/Cuban era.
NBA Champion: Cleveland Cavaliers
Remember this? “We tend to err on the side of history around here.”
Of course you do, that was like three paragraphs ago. Well, the city of Cleveland hasn’t won a major professional sports championship in 50 years! So history says, they’ll probably never win one. But there’s so much pride pumping through the city after LeBron’s return; given the championship stripes James earned in Miami, it’s hard not to imagine him getting it done with this group, which is at least as talented as any team he had on South Beach.
The Cavs have key players who are without big game experience, but they, like Dallas, have several vets who have climbed the mountain before. If Ray Allen decides to join the party, it will only serve to aid this cause. James and Love might be two of the five best players in the world today— throw in Kyrie Irving, and we might be talking about three of the top 15 players. Few teams in the league, if any, are built to overcome this kind of talent. Critics will quickly note that the Cavs wouldn’t survive in the West. Lucky for them, they only have to beat one team from that conference. A far greater concern should be whether or not LBJ puts too much pressure on himself.
Sidebar: And for those who believe David Blatt is a suspect head coach, who was Erik Spoelstra before LeBron and Bosh joined Wade in Miami?
The thing is, when the best player in the world is this motivated, it’s hard to say no. What a story it would be for the LeBron to come full circle, return to Cleveland and defeat the very team he was once ridiculed for failing against his first year in Miami.
The Cavaliers (begrudgingly) are the pick. If LeBron James can break this 50 year curse, he will have TRULY liven up to all the hype bestowed upon him when he was still a high schooler running the streets of Northeast Ohio nearly a decade and a half ago.