The first
half of the NBA season has brought a
lot of excitement for the fans, and all of us are getting ready for a close
finish, in both the standings and the Awards
Race. The season was just made crazier because of the Trade Deadline and a historic amount of monumental moves that made
teams deeper as well as star-studded.
WEST
In the West,
the Nuggets are running away with it
and the closest team is the Memphis
Grizzlies, but as we see with every loss they take, they’re not “fine in
the West.” Going farther down in the West, we see a lot more parity, as the 4
and 12 seeds are separated by just 3.5 games. You know it’s crazy when the Thunder are the 10-seed when they were
40 games back of first place just last season. Then you have teams like the Lakers, who are the 13 seed, but they
just got a lot better after the trade deadline. They traded for Rui Hachimura,
D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and others, to go along with LeBron James
and Anthony Davis who seems to be passed his constantly injured days. I’ll go
as far as to say I really like the Warriors
this season, and it’s definitely possible that they make the playoffs as the
6-seed or above, but with one pre-requisite, Steph Curry has to be on the court consistently, and basically can’t get
injured once he comes back from his injury right now. Obviously, the race near
the top will get a lot tighter, once the Suns
and Mavericks start figuring out to
play with their new teams. I believe the Mavericks have the advantage right
now, as Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic are figuring each other out right now, as
well as the rest of the team. The Suns
are practically playing from behind, as the learning process will only start
once Kevin Durant comes back, and the timetable for his return hasn’t been set
up yet. Finally, the Kings having
the best offense in the NBA right now is wild to me with a pretty top-heavy
team. They’re just going to be confusing everything in the West.
EAST
Even with how
crazy the West is, I think the East
is more competitive. Obviously, the Celtics
and the Bucks are the best teams.
The Celtics are just unstoppable, mostly because of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen
Brown, but also because their supporting cast all produce scoring. I think that
Bucks great play was aided with the emergence of Jrue Holiday being a scorer
when Giannis was out a couple of weeks ago has been crucial to their success.
He’s also been carrying this on in the games when Giannis has been playing,
even out scoring him by dropping a 40 pointer in an OT game a few days ago. The
Cavaliers are one of my favorite
teams to watch this year. Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell highlight one of
the most explosive offenses in the NBA. Except, even after having one of the
best all-around starting 5’s in the NBA, I don’t see them going far in the
playoffs. The Nets and the Knicks are at the 5 and 6 spots in the
standings, and I predict that both of the teams will fall at least somewhat by
the end of the season, for one of them, because they traded their whole team,
and for the other, it’s because they’re the Knicks. I don’t understand why the Hawks are the 8 seed, as throughout the
season, they’ve consistently been playing below where they should be. John
Collins has been underwhelming to the say the least and Trae Young has been
very inconsistent. Although, I do see a world where they step it up. I believe
that the Bulls and the Pacers are two teams that are very
similar. They both have pretty good rosters, but they are playing below where they
should. The Pacers have a lot of young guards that seem as though they rotate
between themselves who will have a good game, and Tyrese Haliburton will always
have 9+ assists. The Bulls have a really, really good starting lineup, but I
believe their problem is Demar Derozan getting injured a lot and they’ve been
playing inconsistently as a whole. Only one of these teams will rise in the
standings, and it’s really hard to differentiate which one.
Final Standings Predictions:
West:
Nuggets
Kings
Suns
Grizzlies
Mavericks
Clippers
Warriors
Timberwolves
Pelicans
Jazz
Thunder
Lakers
Trail Blazers
Spurs
Rockets
East:
Bucks
Celtics
76ers
Cavaliers
Heat
Knicks
Hawks
Nets
Raptors
Bulls
Wizards
Pacers
Magic
Pistons
Hornets
