In the East, my vote would be Brooklyn or Atlanta.
Brooklyn is deep at just about every position. Mikal Bridges is a very good scorer. Cam Johnson a very talented 2-way player. Dinwiddie a solid 2-guard. Claxton is one of the more impressive young centers in the league. A lot rides on Simmons and if he can be 75 percent of what he once was. At the very least, he looks to be in shape entering the season. Brooklyn looks to have a plethora of two-way players. The question is if Bridges can be the main scorer on a contending title team.
Atlanta has Trae Young, who is now flying under the radar as one of the best scoring guards in the NBA, and many solid defensive pieces surrounding him in Murray, Hunter, Capela. If Trae can get a hot in a playoff series, you never know.
In the West, I think it’s Minnesota. On paper, they are loaded with talent. Ant, KAT, McDaniels, Gobert, Reid, Conley and Anderson might be as good of a first 7 you will find in the league today. Of course, the main question is — can Chris Finch make Towns and Gobert work offensively? We saw how tough Minnesota can be in the Denver series last year. With most everyone on their roster now having multiple years of playoff experience in addition to having continuity among their depth chart and coaching staff, they are my sneaky pick to make the West finals this year.
Who is your sneaky pick in each conference to make a deep playoff run? Or do you believe there’s no logical selection?
I think Brooklyn is more likely to be the 12th seed than make a run in the playoffs. Mikal and Claxton are nice but they still only went 12-15 after the KD trade last year and that includes some games against tanking teams they beat up on.
Atlanta and Minnesota I can at least see an argument for.
Dinwiddie manning the pg as well.
Agreed with you on that. I just don’t see a world where Brooklyn wins more than 38-40 games. They have some real talent in bridges/claxton/johnson/dinwiddie, but there’s still ~8 mid tier teams vying for that play-in/playoff spot.
That spacing of Simmons and Claxton 😩
Simmons doesn’t play so the spacing isn’t an issue
And free throws.... Defense potential on the nets looks good at least.