Tracymcgoaty wrote:cupcakesnake wrote:Tracymcgoaty wrote:West is wide open. Every team is kind of mid to be honest.
And OKC are still unproven.
I don't think any of these teams are mid. I think every team plays good enough defense to make each other look mid.
I dont think Wolves are anywhere close to being legit contenders. Warriors with Curry might actually get past the west.
OKC is the only team i can see being above the rest of the west in the coming years.
Well, I never trust my Timberpups, but statistically they profiled as a solid contender this year in terms of being top 10 on both sides of the ball (8th ranked offense, 6th ranked defense) and a +5 SRS. People said the Lakers would beat them, and talked about the Lakers coming out of the West, but now that the Wolves embarassed them, we've adjusted after the fact to say the Lakers were bad. Lakers were a hard team to project due to a limited sample of games after the trade.
Warriors are similar to the Lakers in that they changed their team dramatically. Warriors statistically resembled a contender after the Butler trade, though they did play a weak schedule. Now they're dealing with the Curry injury and it would be a minor miracle if they can find enough offense to beat the much larger Wolves over the next couple games.
Historically and statistically, the Thunder, Celtics, and Cavs profile as very strong contenders. The Wolves profile as a solid, unspectacular contender (so did the Clippers!). The Nuggets and Knicks profile as weak contenders.