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Who will blow up in the West?

HermanG

HermanG

Well-Known Member
There are too many good teams in the West and its going to affect teams records and the standings can get wild at the end of this year with just a couple wins between 6th seed and 11th.

There is also the fact that apparently both 2025 and 2026 drafts look stacked, or so Ive been told.

So between "its a bad time to compete" and "its a good time to tank in 2025-26" we should see some West GM lose faith in their iteration and decide to start over... but who?

Nuggets are off the list obviously. Clippers, Suns, Minny and LAL dont have full control over their own drafts so they arent gonna do it.

However Mavs can save a FRP if they get top 10 picks in 2024 and 2025. Pelicans also owns their own picks and have been hesitant to go all in on the current core.

I see both of those teams possibly blowing it up if they get left behind in the West race. GSW also a suspect because of their age and since they also own their picks... but that is a stretch.
 
HermanG said:
There are too many good teams in the West and its going to affect teams records and the standings can get wild at the end of this year with just a couple wins between 6th seed and 11th.

There is also the fact that apparently both 2025 and 2026 drafts look stacked, or so Ive been told.

So between "its a bad time to compete" and "its a good time to tank in 2025-26" we should see some West GM lose faith in their iteration and decide to start over... but who?

Nuggets are off the list obviously. Clippers, Suns, Minny and LAL dont have full control over their own drafts so they arent gonna do it.

However Mavs can save a FRP if they get top 10 picks in 2024 and 2025. Pelicans also owns their own picks and have been hesitant to go all in on the current core.

I see both of those teams possibly blowing it up if they get left behind in the West race. GSW also a suspect because of their age and since they also own their picks... but that is a stretch.
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New Orleans is the obvious candidate. Dallas has Kyrie so always a chance but I think they will be better than people think.

I think the Rockets could end up either trying to shortcut the rebuild by trading one of smith, green, etc or end up having buyers remorse and trading FVV or Brooks.

I don’t think we’d blow it up but I did have a dark thought the other day that say we got off to a slow start then had a couple injuries and OKC came calling on Lauri… I think we have too many good players and a great coach to be bottom 2-3 in the west but man it could get late early if you fall behind in this conference.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
New Orleans is the obvious candidate. Dallas has Kyrie so always a chance but I think they will be better than people think.

I think the Rockets could end up either trying to shortcut the rebuild by trading one of smith, green, etc or end up having buyers remorse and trading FVV or Brooks.

I don’t think we’d blow it up but I did have a dark thought the other day that say we got off to a slow start then had a couple injuries and OKC came calling on Lauri… I think we have too many good players and a great coach to be bottom 2-3 in the west but man it could get late early if you fall behind in this conference.
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If we look terrible then all bets could be off. I dont believe we will though, too many positive developments... albeit still missing the big ones (Key turns into one hopefully).

Injuries will likely play a huge role this year but the Spurs could be joining this party pretty soon and Portland has potential core pieces to build on as well.

We need some proper sellers on the market.
 
Definitely the mavs. Kyrie has been injury prone his entire career so you can expect him to go down for a decent stretch. If Luka misses any significant time then they could fall like a rock.
 
The Mavs might be a bottom-5 team in the West this year. It's Luka, Kyrie and Grant Williams basically.
The Pels may need to trade Ingram, as they're not expected to re-sign him. So that'll create some turmoil.
The Clippers are really at the end of their contention window, or past it tbh. One more injury to a key player could end that era.
 
Warriors as a Longshot. The tiny old and often injured backcourt will be very volatile.
Mavs have a terrible roster.
Rockets and Spurs will be bad no matter what.
Thunder still has a losing mentality. They might decide to become a seller again or possibly a buyer.
Minnesota still has a dumb roster. Towns need to be traded if they want Rudy to be the best he can be.
Jazz have a ton of starter level talent. Not much in the way of a potential star. If they struggle, they might look at getting huge value from Lauri and resetting the tank.
Portland will be bad but better than last year.
Kings should be good.
Thunder should be good.
Lakers should be good.
Suns should be good.
Nuggets should be good.
Clippers have loads of talent, but they have soft a mentality. If they could trade Paul or Kawhi they should. That combo isn't close to good enough.


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For as much the Pelicans feels like headed towards nowhere at the moment, they also feel like they've got too much talent, to a degree where they could retool taking back 75 cents on the dollar and still making a playoff team that can challenge for homecourt advantage.

I'd say Mavs, Warriors, Lakers and Clippers, those are the ones I see closer to a tanking period. Not for this season (tho who knows the Mavs If they get injuries and natural losing), after this one or the next.

Rockets I still see further away from competing than us, and who knows when. Spurs young core outside of Wemby might be underrated (especially as a complimentary group to Wemby as a franchise player), but should rise along his growth. Blazers got a good young core out of Dame (and Jrue), but seems at least a couple years away from doing any real noise.
 
Lot of team go all in for the next 2 years. Dallas, Phoenix, LA, Minny.. GSW. LAC.... if things turn bad, we may see some team going for a complete rebuild.
For the jazz, it seems for me that we are same as last year. Not good enough to compete for a top seed, but too good for tanking. Won't be surprised if season do not start well, seeing DA trading some players and go full tank this year and mext year. I do hope it does not happen. I hope we perform well and we add 2 good players who will make us a contender.
 
whatthe said:
Suns will win the West.
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My prediction is that the Suns will be the regular season champs in the West but they wont make it to the finals. Their big 3 dont really complement each other like the best star duos/trios of the past, and their depth is non-existent.
 
Saint Cy of JFC said:
You said blow up, like sell everything off for the sake of being bad
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As I said, blow it up before the 2024-25 season to tank for 2025 & 2026 drafts. Doesnt matter if they blow it up midseason or in the next offseason... but teams who might be susceptible to choosing that path if this season goes poorly for them.

Bulls and Raptors look like candidates to do that in the east. In the west there arent equally obvious choices.
 
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