The NBA's Wild Wild West

I can already see the title of a post in June.

How the West was won.

But right now the question is...what team will I be writing about. And to be honest...I have absolutely no idea.

After watching Shaquille O'Neal's debut with the Suns (which the Suns lost to the Lakers) and Jason Kidd's Mavs debut (which the Mavs lost to the Hornets), I'm still just as confused as I was before all the big trades of the last 2 weeks were made.

Lets take a quick look at the Western Conference standings. (I'll spare you the bottom 6 because barring a small miracle none of them will be in the Playoffs come May.)
W/L GB

1. New Orleans 37-15 0

2. LA Lakers 37-17 1.0

3. Phoenix 37-17 1.0

4. Utah 35-19 3.0

5. San Antonio 35-17 2.0

6. Dallas 35-19 3.0

7. Houston 33-20 4.5

8. Denver 33-20 4.5

9. Golden State 33-21 5.0

Thats 9 teams separated by only 5 games with less than 30 games left to go in the season. It's gonna be a wild finish to say the least.

In a race that's so close its inevitably going to come down to the individuals who step up. The problem is that every team in the top 9 has AT LEAST one NBA Star.

My pre-season prediction for the finals was Boston-Denver. Yes, that's right Denver. I thought with Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony together for a full season and Kenyon Martin coming back from injury that they would be the team to beat in the West.

Unfortunately, all the league's general managers must have got wind of my prediction and went out and stole a whole bunch of superstars from the East to try and prove me wrong.

So with that said, even after watching the Lakers beat the Suns tonight in Shaq's debut...I'm gonna flip-flop. Make a new prediction. And i'm hopping on the bandwagon and I'm going with the Suns. Once Shaq gets a couple games to adjust to the Suns (and the Suns get a couple of games to adjust to Shaq) I can see that team gelling at just the right time (as long as the Big Diesel stays healthy). And I don't see many teams in the West that could beat them in a 7 game series-maybe the Lakers, maybe the Spurs, but that's it.

I mean who is dumb enough to bet against this guy anyways-




But as I said before it's anybody's guess who's gonna be the Western Conference champ when the season ends. One things for sure. We're in a exciting rest of the season in the NBA. And I have to admit I'd fallen out of love with the NBA in the past couple years...I found myself watching a lot of college basketball and not much NBA. The NBA lacked it's excitement..that excitement I remember when I was younger and 23 was more than a shoe.

But at least for now...the excitement is back baby!