ESPN West Standings

[MaryvalesFinest]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/stor ... tStandings

8 Phoenix Suns 42 40 .512 46 36 .561
The Suns were a lottery team last season, but a good one, winning 46 despite a coaching change and an eye injury to Amare Stoudemire. Now Shaq's gone, and the speed game is back, led by Steve Nash. If Amare returns to full health, the Suns will light it up again. But will that be enough for more than 8th best in the West?

I guess this is a realistic pick, except I see the Suns winning more than 42 games, possibly between 46-50.

[DirtyDez]

I see us being a 7 seed, still worried about Amare taking a blow to the head and playing timid... At least we'll get 2 home playoff games

[justinb80]

ESPN's win-loss predictions have seemed very strange to me. They're predicting a lot of good teams will win very close to .500 or less than .500. Both conferences still seem a little too top-heavy to me to see that happening. I, too, predict the Suns will win closer to 50.

[lilfishi22]

I like the picks for the West, all seem to be exactly where they should be.

Our roster is solid except for the C position, on paper it's still a playoff team, but it's too optimistic to expect anything higher than a 5th or 6th and getting past 1st round.

Edit: I expect us to get at least 45 W's. With all the turmoil last season, we still scrapped in 46 and with this season being more top-heavy in the West than last season, that's a few more W's we could pick up from the lower seeds/teams fighting for a playoff spot.

[Nando88]

come on now... we're better than a "2 games over .500"

[Miklo]

Wow, for the East they are predicting almost every team to go .500.

For the West its sort of opposite; I think those middle-of-the-pack Western teams will be closer together (less of a gap between, say the 7th and 9th spots). I am shocked to see them predicting we will win LESS games than last year...I can't imagine pretty much any combination of things that would cause as much turmoil as Porter, Diaw/Raja trade, Amar'e's eye, JRich's missed assignment on XMas.

Knock on wood..now that I say that, I pretty much jinxed it.

[SideSwipe]

I think they have POR, DEN, and UTA too high. I think DAL is too low. I think DEN will slide even though their core is mostly together. People were not prepared for what Billups brought to the game, but that will change next year. POR is still an enigma looking for clear leadership from Roy, and UTA has to deal with the Boozer issue and inevitable injuries which always seem to blight them. I think PHX has a real chance of ending ahead of POR, NO, Utah for a possible #5 finish. Getting ahead of LAL, SA, DAL causing real problems for us.

[TXSun]

7th seed sounsd about right.

[hunterxaz]

Suns will win around 50 this season, somewhere around 5th seed.

[nashrambler13]

why do win projections always go down? almost every player team that had a good record has a lower win projection.

[Qwigglez]

They think the league will be more balanced out.
Personally I think they should add an extra team in each division. Spread out the talent a little bit more.

[lilfishi22]

come on now... we're better than a "2 games over .500"

+1

We may not have a championship caliber team, but we are better than 2 games above .500.