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Lakers
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Clippers
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Warriors
3 (tie). TWolves
3 (tie). Suns
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Nuggets
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Grizzlies
Expectations are high all over the West, even for a few teams I don’t even project to crack the top seven. A few teams are going to be terribly disappointed come April, and that could have some serious ramifications for the next offseason.
In the meantime, get your popcorn and appreciate the race we might have. It projects to be close enough for the gods of randomness to have a field day. It’s theoretically possible we have 11 teams tied at 44-37 on the last day of the season.
More probably, factors like injuries, shooting variance and unexpected breakout years tilt the playing field in favor of a few teams and away from some others. Nonetheless, the margins among the top seven in particular project to be razor-thin, portending both a regular-season chase for seeds and home-court advantage that could go to the final day of the season, and another topsy-turvy postseason with little to distinguish “favorites” from underdogs.
I’m not picking a seven-way tie, although I was tempted, because I do see at least some small margin between first and seventh in the regular season. But with only five games separating these teams in my projected standings, the capriciousness of random variance could easily offset any difference
A lot of these older teams with stars (Suns, Lakers, Clippers, Warriors) have guys who have injury concerns, and there's a good chance one or more of those stars end up missing 25 or more games, so I get the concern putting one of them as the 1 seed.
The Grizzlies' star is 100%, no speculation, without a doubt, missing 25 games, yet they're the best team? It's impossible to predict injuries and how they will affect teams, so putting the team who's best player is the only one that is certain to miss a large chunk of the season is wild to me.