How do you feel we stack up against the west?

[nickhx2]

For starters I want to refer people to this thread: http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewforum.php?f=6&start=25#start_here

basically it's asking people who, out of LAC/MEM/HOU, deserves to be in the top tier with SA/GS/OKC.

To me I think we clearly already are in the top tier with the moves we made this offseason. I think pierce fixes a huge exploit where teams would cross match their SF onto our cp3 since matt barnes couldn't punish their PG. If we had pierce last year i think we take SA in 5 or 6. And obviously we break into the WCF in 4-5 games.

Now lance. To me, lance is gonna be our gamechanger. I know i'm just making an unfounded prediction but i just don't see how he doesn't find himself again with cp3/pierce/doc setting him straight. Pierce will go a loooooooooooooong way with him. With lance, wes johnson, and hopefully an improving austin rivers (who will now not exclusively have to play PG) I don't see our bench as a weakness anymore, which was what did us in all season long. I don't want to say our bench is a strength just yet but it sure looks a hell of a lot better than before. I think we're elite. And we can improve substantially if we sign darrell arthur/trade jamal.

But clearly, reading that thread, not everyone agrees, though to me, putting us on the same tier as houston is a complete joke. What do you guys think?

[QRich3]

Don't get too caught up in what the GB says, on polls like that they usually vote what they want to happen instead of what they think will happen.

In any case, the difference between us and the top 3 teams is depth. We are still very fragile and if we have an injury or two to our starters our performance plummets. So I'm ok with people putting us a tier below. At our peak, we can send any of them home, but I can see how the odds say they have a better shot. OKC completely depends on Durant health btw, anything less than completely recovered and we are a better team than them.

We're not significantly better than last year, unless you're as optimistic about Lance as you are. I personally think that even peak Lance in Indiana was not that good of a player, he filled the boxscore, but he got carried to wins more than contributing a lot to them. That's my opinion and I'll be glad to be proven wrong. Johnson still has to prove that he's worthy of being in the rotation so I don't take him as any sort of improvement. I can perfectly see his curve in this team go similarly to CDR, who had people here last year trying to convince me he was a game changer for us. Pierce is great and will help a lot, but he's a million years old and frequently injured, and can't play defense no more. I honestly think that, regular season wise, Barnes contributed more than what he'll be able to contribute. Come the big games in the playoffs, I absolutely rather have Pierce, and I think he can do great things for us if he's able to stay healthy.

Because of all that, I don't have a problem with people putting Houston on pair with us. They sent us home after all. It was a weird series and one we should have been able to take it 80 times out of 100 we played it, but it was what it was. They had a lot of injuries last year, and still managed to outperform us by a hair, in both regular season and post season. So just outta respect for that, I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt.

The Grizzlies I think are a step below us, no doubt about that.

[McAdoo]

Even with Durant healthy, I'm not sure that OKC can stack up with the Clippers. Particularly if they let Kanter walk. That team is super thin. The Spurs are also a big question mark, they have more firepower but are still old and not sure how a non passing ball stopper like Aldridge (avg less than 2 assists a game) is really going to fit with that team. I would currently put the Warriors as 1 and Spurs and Clippers as 2A and 2B.

[nickhx2]

Don't get too caught up in what the GB says, on polls like that they usually vote what they want to happen instead of what they think will happen.

In any case, the difference between us and the top 3 teams is depth. We are still very fragile and if we have an injury or two to our starters our performance plummets. So I'm ok with people putting us a tier below. At our peak, we can send any of them home, but I can see how the odds say they have a better shot. OKC completely depends on Durant health btw, anything less than completely recovered and we are a better team than them.

We're not significantly better than last year, unless you're as optimistic about Lance as you are. I personally think that even peak Lance in Indiana was not that good of a player, he filled the boxscore, but he got carried to wins more than contributing a lot to them. That's my opinion and I'll be glad to be proven wrong. Johnson still has to prove that he's worthy of being in the rotation so I don't take him as any sort of improvement. I can perfectly see his curve in this team go similarly to CDR, who had people here last year trying to convince me he was a game changer for us. Pierce is great and will help a lot, but he's a million years old and frequently injured, and can't play defense no more. I honestly think that, regular season wise, Barnes contributed more than what he'll be able to contribute. Come the big games in the playoffs, I absolutely rather have Pierce, and I think he can do great things for us if he's able to stay healthy.

Because of all that, I don't have a problem with people putting Houston on pair with us. They sent us home after all. It was a weird series and one we should have been able to take it 80 times out of 100 we played it, but it was what it was. They had a lot of injuries last year, and still managed to outperform us by a hair, in both regular season and post season. So just outta respect for that, I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt.

The Grizzlies I think are a step below us, no doubt about that.

Yeah I'm definitely not tripping over GB discussion. I just think it's an interesting point of conversation.

I can understand your tempered enthusiasm. And while I am indeed optimistic about lance, I think even if his stats might be padded, he doesn't even have to be great for us. He just needs to be neutral to slightly positive for us, because last year all we had were negatives. That alone is an upgrade. Perhaps what I'm more getting at overall is it doesn't feel like our bench is going to throw games the way it did last year, simply breathing the air. I don't expect any of them to be stars, just serviceable. I feel like lance could range from serviceable to sub all-star and all that combined would be pretty nice. I also do think that johnson/rivers can improve some as well. I'm not sure johnson ever truly had a great situation to contribute in an effective role and of course there is rivers but that's been discussed frequently. But ya, neutral to positive should feel like reasonable expectation from our bench.

I have come down on pierce a little bit. He is indeed pretty old. But we just need to put him in a cryogenic chamber until the playoffs and hopefully he'll be able to do just big enough things for us to go deep. I think defensively we'll have some issues for certain and on many nights we'll be playing johnson some heavy minutes, but the intangibles will go a long way.

I can't agree about the houston stuff as I think they're clearly inferior. Maybe it's just me being bitter but oh well. Our new additions don't let that stuff happen ever again, at least with houston.

Anyway. I feel pretty good. The bench feels like it has a safe floor and a nice ceiling. It can get better with arthur and a trade as well. Pierce is a great addition. And while I don't see cp3 doing much but declining slightly, blake and deandre can also get better. I fully expect blake to either turn it up defensively or start working on his 3-pointer throughout the season, which would be a welcome addition. And DJ while I don't expect much improvement, has seemed to have gotten better every year thus far in the league. There's a chance he becomes an elite defensive guy instead of just a good one. While this is all optimistic, our overall range of improvement I at least feel is within reason and to me that seems worth the price of admission.


One final thing. Reading that thread, I kept secretly thinking "why is OKC automatically better than us?" Like, I get that they have durant/westbrook/serge. But they are about to re-sign enes kanter to the max, a guy whose absence let the jazz become a top tier defensive team overnight. I don't think you can win with a guy like that unless he gives you superstar efficiency on offense, and I don't see that. I think billy donovan was a big plus for them but it's as you said, one of those big three gets hurt and they'll be scrambling to make the 8 seed again. All healthy and I don't think they are as good as this clipper team either.

[Woodsanity]

OKC reminds me of the Clippers last season. Extremely top heavy but the role players are mediocre. KD, WB and Ibaka are a crazy good big 3 but so is BG, Paul, DJ. More concerned with GSWs and the Spurs but other teams like the Griz and Rockets are no joke either.

I consider us in the top 4 but the Warriors are the clear favorite and the Spurs and Thunder will be very tough outs as well.

[Woodsanity]

Even with Durant healthy, I'm not sure that OKC can stack up with the Clippers. Particularly if they let Kanter walk. That team is super thin. The Spurs are also a big question mark, they have more firepower but are still old and not sure how a non passing ball stopper like Aldridge (avg less than 2 assists a game) is really going to fit with that team. I would currently put the Warriors as 1 and Spurs and Clippers as 2A and 2B.

Yes something like this with the Thunder just a half step behind and the Rockets/Griz one step behind. I do not think LMA will be as good as people think but maybe its the Spurs maybe they can utilize his abilities differently.

[mkwest]

Playoff seedings have been reformed. This is a year where you really would hope to have a top-2 seed if possible. 3-6 may not make much of a difference.

Some of these teams may not be as successful in the regular season, while others can take a few steps forward. Health and circumstances can certainly be difference makers for any of the 6 teams (GSW, HOU, LAC, MEM, SAS, OKC). GSW has to be given their due for the time being and until proven otherwise. San Antonio is essentially bringing back the same primary pieces with Aldridge and West on board. Tim Duncan's minutes can monitored more than ever. Those are the 2 teams that I would be most concerned with. OKC is lethal as long as Durant and Westbrook are healthy and on their game. If one of them is off, then you have a legit shot.

Houston and Memphis are very good teams. Houston has nice depth and Memphis has made some positive additions this summer. It's going to be another bloodbath in the West. I feel that we can be just as good as any other team, but we've been prone to having higher highs and lower lows. The Clips have to play up to their potential and not have some kind of colossal meltdown at the most crucial moments.

[Ranma]

I thought Golden State was clearly the best team of the 2014-15 season and the Warriors ended up winning the championship, but that was after seeing what they were doing during the regular season, not preseason rankings. It's actually a bit early since we're not even to the preseason and still finishing up the offseason, but I'd like to add my two cents to the conversation.

As of right now, both the Spurs and Warriors make up the top tier in the Western Conference. I have San Antonio ahead of Golden State because of their new acquisitions and my trust in Pop's system. Popovich will rejuvenate both Aldridge and West. It's always hard for champions to repeat, especially with every other team now painting a target on your back and game-planning to stop you. Plus, the Warriors showed some vulnerabilities during the playoffs I'm sure teams will be able to exploit this time around.

The Clippers, Thunder, Rockets, and Grizzlies comprise the 2nd tier. I may be biased, but I have to rank the Clippers atop this group...on paper. However, as last season showed, the Clippers didn't play up to their potential, particularly on defense. The addition of Paul Pierce should address a lot of the issues of having the team be mentally tougher, more disciplined, and playing professionally. Doc is also finally making headway in addressing our roster depth, which was our downfall this past postseason. Given all that, I have to believe that we'll make progress towards actually living up to expectations.

However, the teams in this tier should be fairly close to one another in terms of regular season production. Having said that, I'd have Oklahoma City right after the Clippers due to the star power of Durant and Westbrook, but like nickhx2 said, Kanter is not a defensive presence and is more black hole than anchor, plus, I don't have the same esteem for coach Billy Donovan's pro prospects as I did Kerr's. Houston and Mempis are pretty much a coin toss for me at this point. Sure, the Rockets beat us, but I still don't consider them to be mentally tough; we just happened to suffer an epic seizure at the worst possible moment coupled with our fatigue from the lack of depth from roster mismanagement. A healthy Mike Conley and Tony Allen plus newcomers Matt Barnes and Brandan Wright should be positive additions to bring the Grizzlies back to prominence. The rankings in the 2nd tier can change on any given day given how competitive the West is.

I'd have to think the Suns, Jazz, Pelicans, and maybe Timberwolves will fight it out for the final two playoff spots. Sorry, Mavericks, I don't see you in contention for 2015-16 but maybe Dallas or Portland can sneak in if they get some more key acquisitions.

[mkwest]

I'd have to think the Suns, Jazz, Pelicans, and maybe Timberwolves will fight it out for the final two playoff spots. Sorry, Mavericks, I don't see you in contention for 2015-16 but maybe Dallas or Portland can sneak in if they make some more key acquisitions.

I had New Orleans as the 7th team. I would like to see what they can do if healthier. Davis missed 14 games, EJ...21 games and Holiday missed half the season. On top of that I'm interested in seeing Gentry's effect on the team.

The team that I have penciled in for the 8th spot right now is Utah. Sacramento has talent, but there's so much potential drama there. I would not be surprised to see them make a strong play for the postseason, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it all go to pot either. Strong egos and bad attitudes look like a recipe for disaster.

The question I have with Dallas, is how long are Parsons and Matthews going to be out. Dominique is probably the only player that I can recall to have come back from an Achilles injury and still perform at a high level. I could see him missing at least the rest of 2015. They've been tight-lipped on the nature of Parson's surgery. Supposedly it was an arthroscopic procedure, but there's a lot of speculation that it was microfracture.

He was asked directly whether his knee surgery was of the microfracture variety.

“I don’t think they want me to answer if it was or not,” Parsons said.

That doesn’t sound like the best of news and it got worse when Parsons added that he isn’t sure he’ll be ready to play when training camp opens in about four months.

Eddie Sefko, Dallas Morning News

[QRich3]

I guess I can share a lot of the enthusiasm, but I wanna keep my expectations tempered because of what happened last year. This time a year ago all the talk was how we had one of the top benches in the league, with a key addition in Hawes, the reigning 6th man in Jamal, a great off the ball PG in Farmar and a proper 3&D player in CDR. Few months after that all of those guys were trash and we had the worst bench in the league. Like Ranma said, you never know how things work out until guys are put together in the court. We have a high ceiling if everything were to work out, but things can also not work out as expected, just like last year.

The thing that worries me the most is that we lost Barnes, who played 2200 minutes for us last season, and was always good for about 57 TS% while playing off the ball, barely having any turnover, and some hard nosed defense. I don't know where we're gonna get that specific type of performance, with that good a fit, for all those minutes. Pierce shouldn't be made to play that much, or he'll be either gassed or injured by the time the postseason rolls around, and I doubt Johnson is reliable enough to ask that much of him. And if Lance has got to play a lot of minutes at the 3 it's gonna be a problem for the offense. That's why I was so hardly hoping we could turn Jamal into Wilson Chandler or something of the sort.

In any case, I agree that the impact Aldridge is gonna have on the Spurs has been a bit overstated. He can help with some things of their offense, but I think Splitter was better for their defense than he's gonna be. West might be a crazy good addition to their bench though. I can agree that OKC is not that deep, but even then, we're here arguing how we can get Perry Jones and DJ Augustine off them for Jamal or our unguaranteed contracts, and they're willing to trade them for dead capspace cause they're just a surplus for them. Their defense is gonna suffer a lot with Kanter playing big minutes, though, that's for sure.

The thing about Houston is that they're always able to get the best out of mediocre role players, they somehow were a top 5 defense in first few months of last year when Dwight was injured and they had Tarik Black and Dorsey as their C rotation. Then they got other team's scarps in Smith and Brewer and we all know how that worked out in the playoffs. They're gonna be in the mix for sure, not sure if that's gonna be with a slightly better record than us or slightly worse, but they're gonna be there.

Excited to see how it all plays out

[Quake Griffin]

same way I feel every year.

we can beat anybody.
will we?

[Texas Chuck]

Golden State belongs on a tier of their own still imo.

Behind that you have OKC which looks great on paper, but they have a rookie coach and will be playing line-ups with little to no experience together. But by the end of the year, assuming health, they will have that worked out and should be very dangerous.

Spurs are the Spurs except now with LMA and West. Those are some serious additions and they only allow Pop to save Duncan ever more during the RS. If Parker can hold it together another year and Kawhi takes the expected next step they have to be taken very very seriously.

Those are the only teams I would say are as good or better than the Clippers. Houston and Memphis are both good teams, but they haven't improved much this year other than maybe added health for Howard and a little more depth for Memphis.

Utah and New Orleans are coming but this is too soon for them.

I'd put the Clippers 4th and that's primarily because you guys are less equipped to deal with a major injury than the other top teams. Of course if you can turn Crawford into another key piece that would help. Oh and I think Lance will be markedly better this year in your strong environment. Doc and Paul should both be very good for him.

[thanumba2clippersfan]

We already have a good offense, but defense and out bench will be key. Honestly I can't really say how we'll stack up against the west yet. I know that we should be in the top half of the conference, but our roster isn't a finished product yet. We may really have to wait until the trade deadline of this upcoming season to know what we really have.

[mattd13]

very good points from everyone and as quake states is so correct. the one factor that is huge is injuries to key players. if we do not have anyone miss a lot of games then this team will be in the hunt. the other big question mark is the bench. I have some real heart burn with jamal, Austin, and especially lance. can they be good night in and night out? at this point I have my doubts.

[nickhx2]

Golden State belongs on a tier of their own still imo.

Behind that you have OKC which looks great on paper, but they have a rookie coach and will be playing line-ups with little to no experience together. But by the end of the year, assuming health, they will have that worked out and should be very dangerous.

Spurs are the Spurs except now with LMA and West. Those are some serious additions and they only allow Pop to save Duncan ever more during the RS. If Parker can hold it together another year and Kawhi takes the expected next step they have to be taken very very seriously.

Those are the only teams I would say are as good or better than the Clippers. Houston and Memphis are both good teams, but they haven't improved much this year other than maybe added health for Howard and a little more depth for Memphis.

Utah and New Orleans are coming but this is too soon for them.

I'd put the Clippers 4th and that's primarily because you guys are less equipped to deal with a major injury than the other top teams. Of course if you can turn Crawford into another key piece that would help. Oh and I think Lance will be markedly better this year in your strong environment. Doc and Paul should both be very good for him.

maybe you could elaborate what you mean about the clippers being less equipped to deal with major injury than other teams.

this year when blake went down, jordan played quite well and helped carry us to a pretty good record with some very big wins. the year prior blake did the same thing when cp3 went down.

conversely, when durant went down their team mostly fell apart. while i agree that this team doesn't have a bench you would call a strength, somehow they keep it all together when one of blake or cp3 is down.

[Texas Chuck]

eh, you're probably right. I tend to think of the Clippers as being a fairly thin team, but even if Paul or Blake had to miss a month or so you would still have a top 5-6 player on the court with some really solid players around them (Jordan, Redick, Truth). Probably would be fine in the RS at least.

As far as OKC went last year they lost a lot more than just Durant and so many of their injuries stacked on top of each other. But yeah its shows losing that caliber of player is tough to replace.

Should be another brutal year in the West. Portland and Dallas disappear, but Utah, Phoenix, and New Orleans should all be better. And frankly Dallas and Portland haven't been serious contenders since the Mavs made their surprise run in 2011.


And while its hard for me to root for a team with Jordan on it atm, I would love for the Clippers to make a deep run so all the 2nd round Chris Paul garbage can stop. I'm not particularly a fan of Paul, but good grief that's some ignorant posting. It's like when everyone assumed KG was a loser in Minny only for him to go to Boston and demonstrate what a foolish notion that was. It's like people don't understand just what a brutal conference this has been his entire career. The guy is a brilliant player.

[og15]

Like last year and the year before, I'll say it again. I can't really say much about anything but regular season performance until I see what the defense looks like. Regular season, health permitting should be another 55+ win season. Post-season, can you defend consistently?

If this team can figure out a way to get into the top 5 defensive teams, then the chances jump way high. If not, then I don't know...

[nickhx2]

I think a lot of the concerns and skepticism is fair when it comes to defense. I think also like qrich said, we are going to miss barnes badly. Losing him might hurt more than we realize. And we really aren't going to see how this team plays on defense until the season begins. I think adding a darrell arthur would help out substantially to ease some of these concerns, but until then it's a bit of a guessing game.

How I see it, we are going to need some combination of

stephenson to become dramatically better on D (and overall)
wes johnson to show he can play good D for us
rivers to stay the same or improve some on D
jamal crawford being moved

for us to feel good about the second unit not leaking points. Maybe there really are too many "ifs". One can only hope.

Still, I like our chances better than other teams at this point.

[mj_shoefanatic]

If our reserves can have a pulse this season I believe that we can be amongst the top 3 out West.

[nba2k16]

I see the West like this:

1. Clippers. Yes i said it. I think bringing in Pierce will take us to another level. DJ is back and hungry and improving. Lance is an MIP candidate and 6th man candidate.
2. Spurs. Closest competition. Man that team is stacked
3. Memphis. Hardcore in the paint team again with Gasol returning (surprisingly) and some good role player additions and a healthy Conley
4. Houston. Same team but can Harden repeat? They aint getting past the 2nd round this time tho
5. OKC. Defensive sieve in Kanter so i dont think they do as well as people think. Plus they ALWAYS INJURED and WB always wants heroball (Durant is gone)
6. GSW. Biggest downfall here. They get complacent, are not as deep, and seem like a team that is too caught up in the swagger of winning to play as well again. Big teams will beat them up this year and they got lucky with injuries last year. Steph Curry will not be the league's good boy anymore
7. NOP. Team on the rise lead by the BROW
8. PHX. Added Chandler and a nice DJ vs Chandler 1st round matchup where DJ can give insult to injury

9. Utah. Another up and comer, real close.
11. POR. Not as bad as people think. Still got Lillard and good young talent.
12. DEN. They treadmilling with all these resignings of players. They need to tank but they wont.
13. SAC. Joke ass team but they got DMC and that will take them out of the complete basement.
14. LAL. 1st team all chucking here with Kobe, Swaggy P, and Lou Will. Randle is a bust and Russell aint ready yet
15. DAL. Yeah i think they drop this far. Dirk is done, Wes Matthews is injured and the worst contract in the league and Parsons is overrated. Zaza and the fool won't stand a chance against the great centers in the West. No depth. DWill is over the hill. Cuban really bombed it here.