For years, the NBA has been dominated by the West, like rap in the mid ’90s. That appears to be the narrative heading into the 2016-17 season, although the chasm between the two conferences isn’t as pronounced as it may seem.
For starters, the East is home to the NBA Champions for the third time in five years. The consolidation of superstars in the West (Aldridge from Portland to San Antonio, for example) has thinned out the depth of the conference. We can presume Ben Simmons and other 76ers neophytes they received via “the process” will all come back to play at some point, right? Teams like the Knicks, Bulls and Pacers all had aggressive offseasons. And the best basketball player on earth still makes his home in the East.
The West on the whole might not be in control as it seems, however the Golden State Warriors just added one of the top three players in the league to their team, which had just won an NBA record 73 games. So the West ain’t exactly washed just yet either.
With Durant now rocking blue and yellow, can anyone possibly stop this team? Surprisingly, yes! So let’s take a look at the teams (in reverse order) best positioned to take down everybody’s new favorite team to hate.
Memphis Grizzlies
Offseason Moves: Added Chandler Parsons. Lost Matt Barnes, Lance Stephenson and Chris Andersen. Fired head coach Dave Joerger, replaced by Dave Fizdale.
Outlook: As the entire NBA seemed to zig, Memphis zagged. This era of the “Grit & Grind” Grizzlies produced a team that was essentially the basketball equivalent of the 2014 Seattle Seahawks— only they didn’t have the talent Seattle had. Their window has been closing for years and probably all but slammed shut when new coach David Fizdale relegated Zach Randolph to the bench and the front office gave Mike Conley Jr. and ungodly ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-THREE MILLION DOLLAR extension this summer.
That is literally the richest contract in NBA history…for a guy who’s never made an All-Star team.
Scenario Where They Beat The Warriors: To believe the Grizzlies could take out the Warriors in a series is to believe that injuries were the one thing that held them back all these years. Marc Gasol is still battling injuries at the start of this season, just as he did in 2015-16. Maybe they all manage to stay healthy and just abuse the Warriors in the paint. The truth is, this team could’ve given the Dubs a run four or five years ago. These days though, their core of Gasol, Conley, Z-Bo and Tony Allen can’t stay on the floor long enough to fulfill their destiny. Quietly, Z-Bo is 35 and in his entering his 16th season. An even further dropoff of his production wouldn’t be unexpected.
It’s time to move on from this era— Chris Wallace should begin the rebuild before it’s too late to get anything decent for these players (good luck trading Conley).
Portland Trail Blazers
Offseason Moves: Added Evan Turner and Festus Ezeli. Drafted nobody worth mentioning. Lost Gerald Henderson and Chris Kamen.
Outlook: The Blazers made only minor changes to their team, although Evan Turner gives them some versatility on the wing they didn’t have last season. Now Portland can have either Turner, Damian Lillard or C.J. McCollum run their offense. Ezeli’s knee injury is troubling, however.
This team overachieved last season. Frankly, they had no business being in the second round; if not for injuries to Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, the Clippers would’ve made a short five-game series of Portland. While the Blazers’ backcourt is dynamic (and Allen Crabbe is one of the more underrated players in the league), the frontcourt is lacking in talent and depth.
Scenario Where They Beat The Warriors: The Blazers don’t seem to have an answer for Kevin Durant or Draymond Green in the frontcourt. Lillard and McCollum would have to outplay Curry and Thompson thoroughly to have any chance. We’ll see how “for real” the Blazers are this season. If last year wasn’t a fluke, they’ll reach the four seed or bettter. Otherwise, they won’t get so lucky with the opposing team’s health and they’ll be one and done come spring. They may finish with a better record than the Rockets, but won’t be as stiff of competition for the Warriors.
Houston Rockets
Offseason Moves: Added Ryan Anderson, Eric Gordon, Nenê, P.J. Hariston and Tyler Ennis. Drafted nobody worth mentioning. Lost Dwight Howard, Josh Smith, Jason Terry, Michael Beasley, Terrence Jones and Donatas Motiejūnas. Replaced J.B. Bickerstaff with Mike D’Antoni as head coach.
Outlook: Ole Daryl Morey, always making moves. Lots of turnover for a Rockets roster that underachieved greatly last year. Two seasons ago, this team was in the Western Conference Finals, but everything went wrong in 2016. James Harden was out of shape, and worse, was dating a Kardashian (more on this in a later column), Dwight Howard was disgruntled and Kevin McHale clashed with his star players. The slate has now been wiped clean for Harden, above anyone. With Mike D’Antoni’s offense-friendly/defense-optional brand of coaching, and with Dwight no longer in the picture, Harden (now the starting point guard) will be free to do basically whatever the hell he wants with the ball at all times.
Complete autonomy may not be good for Harden, but his numbers will likely spike again. Although, he quietly averaged 29, 6 and 7.5 last season (Is it even possible to see a spike from those numbers?) But his leadership was under so much fire last season, he didn’t even make an All-NBA team.
Things just got tougher for Steph as another “point guard” will be looking to cook Chef Curry.
Scenario Where They Beat The Warriors: With revenge at the top of his mind, James Harden goes into blind rage mode. If the Warriors face the Rockets for the third straight year in the playoffs, it’ll be nothing but fireworks. In other words, zero defense will be played. It’s not inconceivable that Houston could outscore Golden State, but it isn’t likely, especially if Eric Gordon isn’t healthy (which he won’t be). But if he is, Harden would have to orchestrate a series where he out-Curry’s Curry and the Rockets out-Warrior the Warriors. One thing’s for sure: the Rockets will be a straight disaster on defense.
Oklahoma City Thunder
Offseason Moves: Added Victor Oladipo and Ersan Ilyasova. Traded for Domantas Sabonis on draft night. Lost Serge Ibaka, Dion Waiters, Randy Foye and Kevin Durant.
Outlook: It was all good just a week ago.
Oklahoma City’s nightmare scenario actually happened this summer when Kevin Durant walked away for nothing via free agency. He then spent the summer taking numerous indirect shots at his old team, particularly Russell Westbrook. So much can change so quickly— in 2012, an extremely youthful Thunder team had just lost in the NBA Finals. They still had Harden, Ibaka, Durant and time on their side. They were a lock to at least attend multiple Finals, if not win multiple titles.
None of that happened. Four years later, Westbrook stands alone.
Most expect Russ to go ballistic, averaging near a triple-double, winning MVP and carrying the Thunder to a top three seed in the West. However this wouldn’t be the proper angle to take. Two season ago when KD was injured and Russ attempted to move heaven and earth to get the Thunder into the playoffs, Oklahoma City failed to qualify for the postseason, in spite of Westbrook’s sparkling stat lines. The basketball suffered tremendously though, which was equally troubling. I’ve defended Westbrook for years on this website, but that was all under the dual-superstar scenario in which OKC attacked the league. They needed Westbrook to play ultra-assertively before, and for all the selfish talk, he still averaged 10.4 assists per game last season (second in the league)! The truth is though, shoot-first point guards don’t lead their teams to championships. It’s just a basketball fact.
Scenario Where They Beat The Warriors: With Westbrook flying around like a maniac, the Thunder should be worried about their star guard’s health. He’s shown signs that he’s not invincible, and Russ’ “prove everybody wrong” attitude could be the worst thing to happen to this team if he’s not under control (he won’t be). Westbrook needs to be great, but it’ll be up to Steven Adams and Enes Kanter to pound the Warriors in the paint to have a shot against them in the playoffs. The combo of Oladipo and Westbrook together should be fun— perhaps Billy Donovan unleashes his own version of Nolan Richardson’s “40 minutes of Hell” on Steph and Klay, who are known to be careless with the ball.
Sidebar: For the record, the Steven Adams hype train was getting way out of hand last spring. He’s good, but some respected hoop pundits were calling him the best center in the league. With KD out of the picture, we’ll just how good he really is.
While HHSR’s Mark Hicks was a huge fan of Sabonis coming into the draft, he’s not the player Ibaka is right now on either end of the court. With Ibaka, OKC could possibly challenge for the West. But this frontcourt doesn’t seem to have quite enough to challenge the Warriors in the paint consistently…unless Westbrook really is super human and attacks the rim like it called his mama out her name.
San Antonio Spurs
Offseason Moves: Added Pau Gasol and David Lee. Drafted Dejounte Murray. Lost David West, Boris Diaw and Tim Duncan.
Outlook: The Spurs are difficult to read. On one hand Tim Duncan retired, and they replaced his lack of production with the production of Pau Gasol (16.5 ppg, 11 rpg last year). On the other hand…TIM DUNCAN RETIRED!
If any part of you believes in the power of team chemistry, veteran leadership, having a “coach on the floor” or any of that stuff, you must downgrade the Spurs SIGNIFICANTLY this season. Duncan is viewed by some as the greatest teammate since Bill Russell. He was a winner from the moment he set foot in the NBA and is the individual most responsible for turning the Spurs into the NBA’s model franchise, even more so than Gregg Popovich. Not two months after Duncan announced his retirement (a retirement we had back in February), were there rumors popping up that LaMarcus Aldridge was unhappy. Aldridge refuted these rumors last week, but this is the kind of stuff you never heard from the Spurs when Duncan was around.
San Antonio will be among the league’s best teams once again, but with Tony Parker aging rapidly, Manu Ginobili on his last legs and the team’s rock no longer around, with they be the same Spurs we’ve always known?
Scenario Where They Beat The Warriors: This could still happen. Gasol, Aldridge and Kawhi Leonard are smart, experienced and talented enough to hurt Golden State in the paint where it matters most. Leonard then takes either Durant or Klay out of the game, forcing Steph to try to carry the load. If we’ve learned anything from the last two NBA Finals, that’s not his strong suit.
Los Angeles Clippers
Offseason Moves: Added Raymond Felton, Brandon Bass, Marreese Speights. Traded for Diamond Stone on draft night. Lost Jeff Green, Cole Aldrich and Pablo Prigioni.
Outlook: As mentioned, the Clippers should’ve made the second round last season. And given the knee injury that had Stephen Curry sidelined for much of that round, the Clippers could’ve easily been in the Conference Finals if they had remained healthy. I believe they would’ve defeated a hobbled Golden State team, but the Clippers continue to be snake bitten. But suppose Paul and Griffin were 100% last May— how would we view this team differently today?
Paul would’ve gotten the Conference Finals monkey off his back. They would’ve then squared off against an Oklahoma City team Paul has frequently dominated. Durant’s free agency situation would’ve put more pressure on OKC to deliver now that the Warriors were out of the picture. And people wouldn’t be as scared to pick them to come out he West this year. Felton, Bass and Speights were all good additions, but the loss of Jeff Green underscores a larger issue.
Scenario Where They Beat The Warriors: Doc Rivers was never able to solve the small forward conundrum, which will be trouble when forced to deal with Durant on the Warriors. KD should feast on the combination of Paul Pierce (in his final season), Luc Mbah a Moute and Wesley Johnson. For the Clippers to finally break through, they’ll need (you guessed it) Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan to punish the Warriors down low (Do you see a pattern here?) This advantage the Clips had last year has only been enhanced by the departures of Ezeli, Andrew Bogut and Speights’ defection from the Oakland to Los Angeles. The trio of Zaza Pachulia, David West and Anderson Varejao is not nearly young and athletic enough to deal with Blake and DeAndre for 40 minutes a night over seven games. This only underscores the importance of Draymond Green, who the Clippers should make it their business to seek and destroy.
In order for this to happen Blake Griffin must stop peeing down his leg in crunch time of playoff games. Period.
Sidebar: Of course, Steve Kerr could opt to play JaVale McGee heavy playoff minutes, but we’ll let you decide if that’s a shrewd decision.
Realistically, this is probably the last season the Clippers run back the core of Griffin, Paul, Jordan and Rivers. Funny how injury luck impacts such a large part of the NBA playoffs— it crippled the Cavs in 2015; it worsened the Warriors this past June. It also slowed the LA Clippers two seasons ago and devastated them last year. The Clippers are due for a breakthrough. They’ve eliminated their bigot owner for karma’s sake, but perhaps more importantly, 2016 was the year in which we all witnessed one of the following: A) the city of Cleveland break its 52-year championship curse by winning TWO major sports titles four months apart, or B) the city of Cleveland AND the Chicago Cubs break their championship droughts four months apart. Each scenario is as miraculous and unpredictable as the other.
So why not the Clippers in 2017?