NBA: Who could drop out of the Western Conference playoffs

The power in the NBA lies in the Western Conference. It’s been the deeper, better conference pretty consistently for as long as I can remember.

Sean Highkin tweeted this out the other day and I thought it would be fun exercise to dig a little deeper into:

I’m not at any sort of definitive point with predictions, but it’s fun to start to think about if you want to take a non-playoff team in the west and put them into the postseason who do you take out?

As of now I have the San Antonio Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Clippers as 100-percent, no question locks. Even with a significant injury to one star player on these teams they could figure it out and finish in the top eight.

The next three are also near locks in my opinion. I don’t see anyway outside of some crazy implosion the Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets or Memphis Grizzlies miss the playoffs. Golden State is the most iffy of this bunch because of the possibility Steph Curry’s ankle issues re-appear, but if he stays healthy for at least 70 games they will be fine. Houston has two transformative players in Dwight Howard and James Harden and Memphis won 50 games last season with Marc Gasol missing 23 games.

I’m in the minority where I believe the Rockets actually got better this offseason. I’ve touched on this before so I won’t dive into it again. The Grizzlies added some much-needed wing shooting and shot creation with the shrewd signing of veteran Vince Carter, who has transformed into an excellent role player at this late phase of his career. Mike Conley, Zach Randolph and Tony Allen are all still around to complement Gasol. Memphis could be closer to jumping up a tier than falling back.

That leaves us with the Portland Trail Blazers and Dallas Mavericks as the two leftovers. If I were to pick the New Orleans Pelicans led by Anthony Davis or the Phoenix Suns (if Eric Bledsoe re-signs) to enter the top eight, it would be one of these two I’d select as the fallback option.

The Blazers started off the 2013 season with a scorching 25-7 record through the month of December based around an elite offense. From January to March, Portland went 23-20, before closing the regular season 7-1 in April. If the Blazers, whose two big additions this offseason were Steve Blake and Chris Kaman, don’t have a stretch of otherworldly offensive play you could see them fall  to the 46-50 win range.

The Mavericks were more bold during the summer months. Dallas decided to put Tyson Chandler and Dirk Nowitzki back together, the twosome that helped lead them to the 2011 NBA Title. Let me make this clear, I don’t believe Nowitzki is going to fall off a cliff, but he is 36 years old. The Dallas offense is still highly reliant on him for success and they lost two quality role players trading Jose Calderon to the New York Knicks and not re-signing Shawn Marion.

Chandler Parsons was added to the mix and at point guard they will be rolling with a serviceable group featuring Devin Harris, Jameer Nelson and Ray Felton. If Dirk has a little bit of a dip — plus Chandler’s play last year was more about his body breaking down than his hatred for head coach Mike Woodson — this scenario leads to a point where the Mavs would be hard pressed to get back to the postseason.

If you want to move a team like the Pelicans or Suns into the playoffs there is no easy answer to who you will leave out. If I were to pick one at this current time I lean towards the Blazers not being able replicate what pushed them to 54 wins last season.