re: NBA Western Conference Future

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I’d say Denver, Minnesota, and Dallas are the three best teams going forward.

OKC has a shite ton of capital, but they really need to find a 5 or another big to pair next to Chet. He’s not a big, and you saw it in the first series against the pelicans and especially against the Mavs where Gafford and Lively are much better defensively than Valanciunas. OKC would get eaten alive against Denver or Minnesota with their size.

I’d say as of right now, all healthy:

Denver
Dallas
Minnesota
OKC

Then you’ve got New Orleans, Memphis, Phoenix

Window closed: Warriors, Lakers, Clippers

Playoff contenders: Sacramento, Houston

Non-threats: Portland, Utah, San Antonio - the spurs still don’t have a legit number 2 or 3 on their roster. Vassell is solid, but that’s about it.

Curious to see with the luxury tax penalties, if the conference actually begin to balance out. There’s no reason for the east to be at the talent deficit that currently exists.

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I think SAS will be good they have Wemby and once they fill in spots around him it won’t take long.

OKC has draft and trade-able player capital to improve their roster, but don’t expect the owners to go hog wild on spending either. If they were to add PG and bring Giddy off bench that would be a team. But they usually look at long haul not short term.

Big market teams with very rich owners overspend to win their titles and then once it catches up they are bad a few years as they reset cap and get below. Then they start buying players again and make another run after their lux tax expires. Don’t expect them to be bad for long.

As for OKC, they beat Denver 3-1 in games this year. Only loss was game 3 early season when they were playing 13 players to see what they had.

Also, things never stay the same. The mid tier teams will make moves. Some moves will bump them up and some will bomb out.

The Mavs do have Luka but they have little capital to make many moves. Their mid season moves were great but not sure how they can make many more. If they beat OKC I don’t see them making it past either one of other two teams.

Denver is good but might be at or just past peak. As other teams get better its hard to stay at top. Money catches up. Stars age out or get nagging injuries.

The biggest flaw in NBA is their cap and tax structure. It hurts smaller market teams who can’t afford the lux tax whereas bigger market teams have owners willing to buy rings. I have no idea why they don’t go to the NFL model which is best in any sports. It just proves they want big market teams to win. And smaller market teams become feeder teams as their drafted players become good and small market teams can’t keep up with the over cap and tax costs.

This is why OKC is in a bind. They have so many good players and so many draft picks. But as those young players come up on contracts they can’t pay them all. Its like Presti did too good a job. Can’t use all the picks either not enough room on roster, along with cap. So in that case he could go all in now while some players are on lesser salary. Once money catches up they’ll be harder pressed to do things. But I don’t expect them to make any rash moves off season. Their ownership group wants to sustain success, meaning they’ll have some deep runs but likely won’t ever get over the hump. So they will plod along without making big costing moves. Look at their mid season moves they helped facilitate Mavs moves yet never upgraded roster. That tells you where the owners are and Presti has to please them