Of course the Western Conference is 10 times better than the Eastern Conference, but today we focus on the 8th seed.

There are on 4.5 games that seperate the first seed and the eight seed. Currently it is the Golden State Warriors that are in 8th place in the West but you can assure that they will be in 7th soon with the Rockets in that spot. There is no way T-Mac can do it all alone for that team. The West is way to strong and without Yao Ming the Rockets are not going to pull it off. They will fall out of the playoff race soon and will watch the playoffs at home. Watching the Hornets beat the Jazz made me wonder if the Jazz can beat the better teams in the West. But if the Jazz were the home team i think the outcome would have been different. The Jazz sit in 4th place right now and by the end of the year they will be the 4th-6th seed in the West. Then who will be the 7th and 8th seed? The Lakers will be more in line of a top 3 seed along with San Antonio and either Dallas or New Orleans. The Suns just lost their chance as a top 3 team by bringing Shaq in. Cmon people, yea Shaq can be funny off the court and talk all he wants but he even knows it. He doesn't have it anymore and he should not be with the Suns. The suns will be in line for a 4th or 5th seed and may not have home court advantage. Dallas will be with Pheonix and Utah fighting for the 4th-6th seed. So with the Lakers, Spurs, Hornets, Mavericks, Jazz, and Suns the top 6 teams in the West. That brings us to our question of which two teams will be fighting for the 7th and 8th seed in the West.

Houston will not be in that conversation without Yao Ming. Golden State, Denver and Portland will be the three teams trying to make the 7th and 8th seed. With these 3 teams fighting for two spots obviously one of them will miss the playoffs and I dont think Golden State will be one of them. The Warriors are just to good to miss the playoffs and they will be the 7th seed in the West. The Warriors will score the points but will they play defense? They just shoot and shoot but if they can outscore their oponents they will be fine. Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson are the leaders on this team and with the way Jackson is playing this team has a great shot at making the playoffs.

Now that leaves us with the 8th seed. The Denver Nuggets and the Portland Trailblazers are the last two teams. I think Denver is a better team but can they co-exist? They could score points but they need to play more defense If you have Allen Iverson, Carmello Anthony and Marcus Camby you really should be a team to make the playoffs because that is a pretty good trio. The Portland Trailblazers have an explosive player in Brandon Roy and his teammate Lemarcus Aldridge is a very good player to. I dont think they will make the playoffs this year because i think the Nuggets are to good but next year with a healthy Greg Oden this team will deffinetly have a greater chance in making the playoffs.