Early picks for the NBA’s next Western Conference champ

The Western Caveats

If you are a team coming out of the Western Conference in the NBA, you have fought your way through a tough and long regular season to do so. Two of the best teams with the greatest odds to reach the Finals in the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers are also a couple of the teams that made the most changes to their rosters in attempts at either getting back there or realizing an organizational first. The Portland Trail Blazers and Phoenix Suns were also busy in the off-season trying to improve their odds to reach the promised land.

Currently at second in the West and the NBA, and working with a different set of rules that sees chemistry and continuity working together to create the smooth sound from which the Utah Jazz play by; they have largely run it back from last season hoping year two of Mike Conley, Jordan Clarkson and Bojan Bogdanovic takes them a little further in the playoffs. It’s not surprising that they have been one of the NBA’s early successes and the team’s rallying around their star, Donovan Mitchell after an awkward challenge from Shaquille O’Neal shows they are a team first and foremost with a lot of interchangeable parts and shooting from a variety of players.

The Denver Nuggets sit at fourth in the conference and have been coming on after a slow start to the season. Nikola Jokic is an early favorite for the MVP race and continues to impress with his dominance as he leads the team in points, rebounds, assists and steals. They are much in the same spot as the Utah Jazz by running it back and hoping Michael Porter Jr. takes that next step which he has although he’s been fighting through injury so far this season.  JaMychal Green has been a nice pick-up for them as a stretch 4, but the breakout of Jerami Grant has to hurt a little as they lost their best two-way player who has taken a giant leap this season. It may have been tempered a bit if he had remained with MPJ’s continued emergence, but still, if he could have continued this play with the Denver Nuggets, they could have been one of the definitive favorites.

Another talked about team in the NBA who made some lauded moves to get better defensively was the Dallas Mavericks. The results have been mixed so far as Luka Doncic continues to find the target on his back getting bigger and bigger while suffering through some shooting woes from behind the arc. Dallas has also been hit with injury and COVID protocols so is really too early to tell for them more than some others. Steph Curry finds life with the Golden State Warriors much as Doncic is finding it with the Mavs but he doesn’t really go through shooting slumps. He is having to work extremely hard to keep the Warriors in games and is playing 34 minutes a night, his most in the last five seasons.

With much basketball to be played and unforeseen circumstances around every corner, the favorites for the conference and NBA championships is always in doubt, but these four teams from the West look to have the talent and potential to do so. We can only let another month play out before sorting through all the results and issues that could play out and shake up the next installment of First Week Finals.