Handicapping the West race

By Patrick Daugherty

Published March 14, 2008

Guess what? Until Sunday the NBA will still hold its title as the most interesting basketball entity we’ve got right now.

And the best the NBA has to offer at this juncture is the truly unique and mesmerizing Western Conference playoff race. Eight teams with 50 wins, and a ninth potentially being 15 games over .500 and missing the playoffs? Noooo.

But the West’s historic season is true, and especially exciting compared to the about-as-fun-as-getting-water-boarded Eastern Conference “race.”

The who-will-be-in and who-will-be-out part looks more settled now than it did two weeks ago, but the seedings are still about as uncertain as to when the first time Bob Knight will use an ethnic slur on ESPN are.

But since I would like to predict how I think it’s all going to go down, I will pretend that today’s 1-8 are going to be the playoffs’ 1-8.

This would give us a No. 1-seeded Los Angeles Lakers vs. the No. 8-seeded Golden State Warriors. Even casual fans probably know this would not be a typical one vs. eight series. The Lakers are very good. They have had a stunning and quick ascension to the top of the West. But they have also come nowhere near proving they have separated themselves from not only the West’s other top two teams, but also its top six or seven.

But anyway, a Lakers/Warriors series is what we are talking here, and in all honesty — and I am not just saying this to be an arbitrary prick — I think the Warriors would prevail. Aside from an offense that is more energetic than a Southern revival, they have already proven they are more than able to beat a top seed after they dismantled the 67-win Mavs last year. These Warriors are scarily athletic and talented, and the Lakers haven’t even advanced past the first round since 2003-2004. I know people seem to think Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum are going to be some kind of two-headed monster wrecking crew, but the reality is they’ve never played together. With Bynum coming back just before the playoffs begin, there will be no time to acclimate the two to each other. Rushing Bynum back is probably only going to accomplish screwing up the strides the Lakers have taken the past two months.

Two vs. seven would be Houston against Dallas. I know this isn’t an original idea (doubting Yao-less Houston), but the out-for-revenge Dirk and the Mavs appear primed to dismantle the Dikembe Mutombo-led Rockets. This might have finally been the year T-Mac advanced past the first round, but it is just too much to ask at this point, historic winning streak or not.

The three vs. six would be San Antonio against Phoenix. How that will turn out is anyone’s guess, really, but why doubt the champs? Shaquille O’Neal appears to have closed Phoenix’s championship window two years early, while the decidedly un-sexy pickup of Kurt Thomas has only further solidified the world’s most boring dynasty.

Four vs. five, New Orleans against Utah? All Jazz. I know Chris Paul is everyone’s new sliced bread, but Utah has way too many skilled players and Paul is way too unproven as a true leader. Super talented, yes. Super deft under pressure? Watch a tape of Paul’s final college game in the second round of the 2005 NCAA Tournament, when he fouled out and his Wake Forest team was upset. Then you tell me.