Kevin Pelton projects the Jazz as the #2 seed in the West

[str8line]

Only the Jazz had injury issues. Only other teams can overachieve, the Jazz's sudden departure from their mean is their true selves. No other teams improved, unlike the Jazz who added another combo guard that might not see the floor and... well, I guess nothing else.

Do I understand correctly how that works?

Which other team was it that was missing the Defensive Player of The Year for much of their season again?

Oh, and who was it that started with a rookie and ended up with a dude who averaged 24 PPG in the playoffs?

And which team had one of the best defensive players in the league go out for almost the whole season?

And what team was it again that had their #5 draft pick go out for almost the season just as he began to blossom?

And which team drafted the pit bull combo guard sure to **** up anyone who coach tells him to?

 

[LogGrad98]

I am in the camp that we are going to be better than how we ended the season. Thabo will have some impact, even if it is just a punch off the bench. We have so many ways to improve internally this year. This is really the year of organic growth, way more than any other year the front office has said that. I expect at least 4 players to make a jump in production over last year, or at least match their end of year production: Mitchell, Rubio, Exum, Crowder. I expect others to have an impact that didn't at all last year: Thabo, Grayson. I expect us to make more use of some of our lesser-used role players for a scoring punch: Burks, Neto. And I expect Gobert to be fully focused on repeating as defensive player of the year. We can only get better.

Nobody better even mention injur.....oops I almost did. :/

 

[Knowledgeofmine]

The win distribution in the west will producer lower win totals for the top teams (except GS) I think two or three wins will separate 3-8. I don't know what to think of Houston... no doubt they got worse, but they were really really good. Their point differential was so high last year it may only cost them 4-5 games.

The west is a murderers row this year... not just 1-10, but no teams appear to want to tank. Phoenix is the most likely candidate, but sacramento doesn't even have their own pick... Dallas and Memphis both trying to compete. There will be very few lay down games in the west and more schedule losses because everyone is trying to compete.

first team to 50 wins in West get number 1 seed.jk. For real though the teams are going beat up on each other all year.