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Very Early NBA Forecast: Dallas, OKC, Minnesota Seen to Crowd NBA Western Conference Race Again By Teodoro Medina Reynoso PhilBoxing.com Sat, 26 Oct 2024  I know the new season has barely started but there are indicators that three teams that made the NBA Western Final 4 last season will make it again. Dallas, Minnesota and Oklahoma City were the biggest gainers in the 2023-24 season from being also runs the previous year. Minnesota Timberwolves won the Western Conference championship dislodging no less than the then NBA defending champions Denver Nuggets and eventually eliminating them in the Western post season series semis. Dallas and OKC figured in the other semi-finals with the Mavs barely edging the Thunder and then topping the T-Wolves in the Western Conference Finals to go all the way to the NBA Finals where they lost to Boston. There are two basic ways to build a championship team. One is through landing a couple of fortune-changing franchise players through the free agency or trade, as what Cleveland and Miami did through Lebron James and Dwaynne Wade. Another is through rebuilding from scratch and investing time for seasoning and familiarity resulting to championship quality cohesiveness as what Denver did through a team built around Nikola Jokic. By and large, Dallas, Minnesota and OKC meet the aforementioned criteria making them favorites this early, at least in the estimation of this writer to crowd anew for top honors in the West. Dallas has the inside track as it landed Klay Thompson, the other half of the famous former Warriors Splash Brothers, in the off season completing a highly potential three-headed fire-breathing dragon with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, already one of the most lethal duos in the whole league. Thompson will certainly take a lot of pressure from Luka and Kyrie while contributing to the scoring load as he did in Golden State's earlier championship runs. Another thing going for Dallas is the growing maturity and familiarization among its other key starters and support crew as PJ Williamson, Derrick Lively III, Daniel Galford, Spencer Dinwiddle, Dante Exum etal. The Mavs lost Tim Hardaway to Detroit and Josh Green to Charlotte but their absence would be more than made up by Klay Thompson. The OKC Thunder will be going out for revenge as it rivals the Mavs for pennant honor and the Western Finals championship with an almost intact line-up from last season. Superstars in waiting Shai Gilgeous Alexander and Center Chet Holmsgren are expected to continue putting up all-stars numbers in terms of points and rebounds during the whole season. Holmsgren will also provide rim protection for the team. Help will come from Leu Dorf, Jaden McDaniels and Isiah Joe. Defense is expected to improve with the arrival of Alex Caruso who comes in as replacement for Josh Giddey who is now with Chicago. Support off the bench is expected to come from Aaron Wiggins, Cason Wallace and Ousmane Dieng. Minnesota is coming out of this season with a new look and philosophy. The Timberwolves succeeded in the last regular season with preponderance to height through the twin towers tandem of Rudy Gobert and Karl Anthony Towns playing alongside Anthony Edwards. But it took them just as far as the Western Finals where they lost to Dallas. This season the T-Wolves have traded height for added fire-power and spunk losing Towns to New York and also Kyle Anderson to Golden State for hot shooting Julius Randle and Donte DiVinzenzo who are expected to complement Edwards and Mike Conley. But the accent on height is not entirely lost with Jaden McDaniels at power forward and Naz Reid, Luka Garza even Joe Ingles coming off the bench to make up for the loss of Towns and Anderson. Minnesota's defense will continue to scare the opposition as Gobert vowed to remain as the league's best defensive player. Challenging these three teams are the deposed immediate past champions, the Denver Nuggets who still has the deadly high scoring duo of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray plus the usually dependable pair of Michael Porter, Jr and Aaron Gordon. What contributed to this lower ranking for the Nuggets was its letting go of Kentavious Caldwell Pope, thus breaking the most successful quintet of the past several years. However, the team is keeping its fingers crossed on Christian Braun being able to somehow fill the void left by KCP while the arrival of veteran Russell Westbrook also springs some hope for a better performance this season. But Porter Jr and Gordon need to be more consistent especially down the tournament's stretch. Jokic and Murray should also need to be healthy for most of the 82 games schedule. As I see it, the Conference's dark horses are the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers. The loss of Klay Thompson could prove a blessing in disguise for the Warriors as their three new veteran additions could be what the team needs for a more successful campaign this season. Buddy Hield is a breakout star waiting to happen and it could very well be with Golden State. Kyle Anderson provides more ceiling to the previously vertically-challenged Warriors frontline coming off the bench. Improvement in Anderson's game has been noted since his transfer to Golden State and that can only be good news. DeAnthony Melton is a tested veteran who can fit in any system. Of course, Golden State remains mainly the team of Stephen Curry and Draymond Green and those two have successfully eased in the likes of Jonathan Kuminga, Andrew Wiggins, Kevon Loony and Trayce Jackson Davis, among others. The team can also count on holdovers Moses Moody, Gary Payton II and Brandin Podziemski as recruits Gui Santos and Lundy Waters III showed promise. The Lakers likewise remains as the team built around Lebron James and Anthony Davis. Except for Taurean Prince who is now with Milwaukee, its core is virtually intact with Riu Hachimura, DeAngelo Russell and Austin Reeves providing quality minutes as starters. Coming off the bench are dependable Max Christi, Gabe Vincent, Christian Wood, Jarred Vandervilt and Cam Reddish and promising new recruits Jaxson Hayes and Bronny James, Lebron's son. The biggest knock on the Lakers is their dependence on Davis and James to put up huge numbers to secure victory. But both Lebron especially and Davis are aging and prone to injuries. Phoenix Suns have outsider's chance but they remain basically a team that lives or dies with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. Yusuf Nurkic, Bradley Beal and Grayson Allen are only expected to get better thus enhancing their chance. Los Angeles Clippers shoot itself in the foot for giving up Paul George to free agency for virtually nothing. Alas, this could have been the first season where George could have played with Kawhi Leonard in full or for a longer period had the team kept him. But now left with basically just Leonard who is also prone to injury, the Clippers do not figure to duplicate its last season's finish. Next time, this writer will try to do this early exercise with the Eastern Conference teams. The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.  |
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