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NBA season preview Part 6: The best in the West

Kevin Durant pulled off one of the biggest moves in NBA history. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Expert
24th October, 2016
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Once a conference that went six or seven deep in teams with aspirations for the championship, the West is now an exercise in contenders competing for the right to have a nationally televised funeral in Oakland.

The Warriors will have hiccups along the way, and two of the teams previewed today – the Clippers and Jazz – pose them interesting match-up problems of height, length and elite frontcourt talent. But, assuming health, those teams are problems that the Warriors can solve with basic arithmetic – they have four of the 15 or so best players in the league and no other team has more than two.

Click here for the rest of Jay’s season previews.

5. Portland Trail Blazers
Last season: 44-38, fifth in the West
Predicted record: 46-36

There are worse things than locking your ceiling into the realms of ‘slightly above average’ but there are better things too.

The Blazers were the best story in the league last season outside of Oakland, but it was still only a story that peaked at ‘marginally above mediocrity’. Portland had the 13th best net rating in the league, sandwiched in between Miami and Detroit, and made it to the second round of the injury thanks to the basketball gods’ determination to ensure that the Clippers are never allowed nice things. The offence was explosive – Damian Lillard’s ability to launch threes out of the pick and roll gives Portland a life that only Golden State lives better – but the defence was porous.

The core of the team is young, but not as young as you might expect. Lillard, C.J. McCollum, Al-Farouq Aminu, Mason Plumlee and Ed Davis are all 25 or older, and while they all still have room to improve, they’re already in their primes. Allen Crabbe, Maurice Harkless and Meyers Leonard are all a touch younger, but none has real franchise-altering potential. It’s a group that won 44 games next year and could feasibly grow into a low 50s wins team at full maturity. But there’s not a title in this squad, which is a problem because management just locked themselves into it by giving everyone all the dollars.

A low-cost contract for Festus Ezeli was a smart gamble and signing Evan Turner, while a poor allocation of significant resources, gives the team a third playmaker to shoulder the load when Lillard and McCollum sit.

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The Blazers are full of talent but the fit isn’t clean. The skills of the two best players overlap too much and they have close to $US30 million devoted to the centre position yet lack an above average centre. The offence will be dynamite again, though, and they should be firmly in the mix for a seed four through six in the West. They’ll be in that perfectly respectable mix for a while and it’s hard to see how this team falls beneath it. But it’s even harder to see how they’d rise above it.

4. Utah Jazz
Last season: 40-41, plus a loss where Kobe Bryant channelled God, ninth in the West
Predicted record: 50-32

Would you like some length with that?

Some talented teams, like say New York and Chicago, might struggle for an identity this season. That’s a problem Utah won’t have to face.

This team is big, long and feisty. The Jazz are going to make sweet wingspan music all year long.

They’re deep in powerful, imposing athletes – at guard, wing and the big man spots. Anchored by Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors in the frontcourt and perfect addition George Hill at point, Utah are the best bet in the league along with Boston to finish the season as the number one defence. The offence might not be fluid, but in Favors, Gordon Hayward, Rodney Hood and Joe Johnson they have a wealth of reliable scorers. Whatever they get from Dante Exum – looking like a mix of peak Jason Kidd, John Wall and Jesus in preseason – is a bonus.

The injury to Hayward, out for six weeks with a broken finger, will hurt, but this team is as well stocked as any to withstand a loss to a key player, even their most key player.

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Utah Jazz guard Dante Exum

3. San Antonio Spurs
Last season: 67-15, second in the West
Predicted record: 56-26

If you want to say you’re worried about the Spurs, you have to say it with a nervous, grim face, in a hushed tone, so softly that it verges on inaudible. That’s the respect that they’ve earned, but this might be the year to break out the whispers.

LaMarcus Aldridge has never been a clean fit in San Antonio, and while his individual play remains outstanding, his game – posting up, holding the ball for nine seconds and doing a slightly less annoying big-man impression of James Harden – has changed the Spurs’ identity. The beautiful machine that came so close in 2013 and broke through so memorably in 2014 is dead. Tim Duncan and Boris Diaw, passing wizards, are gone, and so is the savvy of Tiago Splitter. Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili are only flickering flames of who they once were.

The team’s personality on offence is now built around the isolation scoring of Aldridge and Kawhi Leonard – a personality that Pau Gasol only reinforces. Those three are so talented, the role players are so complementary, and everything about the Spurs is so goddamn smart, that their offence will be superb again. The defence, too, best in the league last year, will surely be excellent once more, anchored by the Shark/Octopus hybrid Leonard.

But questions arise where they haven’t for a long time. The depth, for so long the team’s greatest strength, and often the greatest strength of any team in the league, is now dependent on the likes of Dewayne Dedmon, David Lee, Jonathon Simmons, Kyle Anderson and a 39-year-old Ginobili. Danny Green couldn’t find his stroke at all last season, and it’s unclear whether Gasol, at least in a starting role, really helps teams win anymore.

A foundation built on the mythical troika of Leonard, Aldridge and Gregg Popovich has a basement in the low 50s for wins, but don’t be surprised if this transition year is more painful for the Spurs than most expect.

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2. Los Angeles Clippers
Last season: 53-29, fourth in the West
Predicted record: 57-25

Say hello to the most boring beautiful team in basketball.

The Clippers, we often forget, are freaking awesome. It is a delight watching Chris Paul pull the strings of an offence like a violinist and to see the sublime marriage of brute force and deft, surreal intelligence and touch of Blake Griffin. DeAndre Jordan, when he’s not at the free throw line killing souls, is a highlight reel pterodactyl. J.J. Redick has one of the sweetest strokes in the league, and Jamal Crawford is just delicious. And yet, the Clippers are stale, the Clippers are boring.

We know what the Clippers are good for. A top four seed and a heart-crushing playoff exit. They’re much too good to miss out on home court in the first round, and they’re not good enough to do anything more than make the Warriors briefly perspire.

But with upheaval, of all different sorts, touching Golden State, San Antonio and Oklahoma City, the Clippers can bank on continuity more than any other team in the West. That, along with a newfound bench competence with the additions of Brandon Bass, Alan Anderson, Marreese Speights and Raymond Felton (don’t laugh) to complement incumbent subs Crawford, Paul Pierce and Austin Rivers (again, don’t laugh, he’s actually not that bad), might be enough to make L.A. the biggest threat to the Warriors.

1. Golden State Warriors
Last year: 73-9, first all-time
Predicted record: 69-13

Of course, the threat the Clippers pose to the Warriors is kind of like the one an angry six-year-old with a shrill voice poses to an army of samurais who have swords and machine guns.

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Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry

Golden State’s fourth best player is Klay Thompson. Klay Thompson might be one of the 12 best players in basketball. Do the math. This is burn in flames and laugh type silliness.

The Warriors are the most talented team in the history of the NBA. Their depth is not an issue. David West, who is good, is their eighth man. Don’t overthink this, they’re going to be fine.

The fit of Kevin Durant is the cleanest fit in the history of superstar movement. Reinforcing the core of the Golden State identity, Durant is a lights out shooter, brilliant passer, and a lengthy defender capable of switching. He’s also Kevin Freaking Durant.

Durant or Stephen Curry could tear their ACL tomorrow and Golden State still might be the best bet to win the title. Consider how ludicrous that reality is. Consider it, then start smiling, crying and laughing.(Click to Tweet)

Warriors over Cavs in five.

Let’s go, basketball.

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