Now that I’ve gone through the Eastern Conference, It’s time for the superior West.  Last season, the Western Conference was unbelievably strong, likely the most competitive array of teams one through ten in the history of the league.  This year, the top clubs are somewhat improved, but it’s probably not going to end up with the same clustered playoff picture where a team could go from out of the playoffs to 1st or vice versa in a matter of a just a couple of weeks.  Here are my opinions on the bottom third:

15.  Oklahoma City Thundercats

Okay, so that’s not really the name, but outside of Oklahoma, does anyone really care what they call this less-than-mediocre group?  Personally, I like my suggestion.  Imagine, Oklahoma City inbounding the ball and, as they bring it up the court, the PA announcer gets the crowd fired up with a chant of, “Thunder...Thunder...Thunder...Thundercats, ####!”  And I think that old Thundercats logo would look great on a jersey.  If Toronto can name a team after a cheesy dinosaur movie, then why not an old cartoon?  Their nickname notwithstanding, it’s going to take sight beyond sight to envision a time when this team is actually competitive.  This is the worst team in the league, hands down.  Kevin Durant may one day be a superstar, but not before he gets some actual talent around him.  If, by some freak chance, guys like Robert Swift, Chris Wilcox and Desmond Mason start suddenly playing up to their potential, they might be able to approach 30 wins.  Jeff Green and Russell Westbrook are the only other guys on the roster with any real upside, but it’s going to be at least a couple of years before that happens, if ever.  Oklahoma City might be thrilled to have a permanent NBA team now, but just wait until they have to suffer through the lean years that will result from gutting the roster to expedite the move.  Be careful what you wish for.

14.  Sacramento Kings

How the once almost-mighty have fallen.  I wanted to like Sacramento, I really did, mostly because Kevin Martin reminds me a little of Reggie Miller, but the trade of Ron Artest gave up a solid, all-star type scorer and defender for nothing more than a retread of a shooting guard in Bobby Jackson who was close to washed up before he left the Kings last time.  There is some talent here, but not nearly enough to compete in the West, and for every genuine player like underrated point guard Beno Udrih, there are two or three other guys like Jackson, Shelden Williams and Mikki Moore who would be overstating their value if I called them one-dimensional.  Has there ever been a guy with as much talent who has put up pretty decent numbers throughout his career and been as totally irrelevant as Shareef Abdur Rahim?  Brad Miller has got to be close to collecting Social Security by now, and I can barely recall why I was so high on Quincy Douby when he was drafted.  There’s just too much depth in the West for Sacramento to make any real noise.  Sadly, it seems like an eternity ago that the foursome of Webber, Divac, Stojakovic and Bibby put the Kings on the NBA map.  It may be a while before they find their way back.

13.  Memphis Grizzlies

I am actually somewhat optimistic about the Grizzlies, mainly because I suspect that O.J. Mayo is for real.  Forget Greg Oden, Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley, here is your Rookie Of The Year.  And I was surprisingly impressed by Marc Gasol during the Oylmpics.  If he comes to the NBA as a big, strong, space-eater not afraid to push people around with a couple of pretty decent back-to-the basket moves, the guard-heavy Grizzlies will cease being a pushover.  They might not win a lot of games this season, but they will be that dangerous team that can beat you if you’re not focused.  Probably a lousy road record but a respectable mark at home.  Rudy #### can score, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he and Mayo combine for close to 50 points a night.  But mostly, Memphis is all about questions.  Can Darko Milicic show some of the talent he came into the league with playing next to a genuine big guy like Gasol?  Will one or more of the guard trio of Kyle Lowry, Javaris Crittendon and Mike Conley show something this season?  Could Darrell Arthur possibly be the sleeper of the draft?  Young doesn’t begin to describe this team; the seven guys I just mentioned have a combined 10 years in the league, and three of those were Darko being stuck very deep on Detroit’s bench.  No chance whatsoever of them getting near the playoffs this season, but they are moving in the right direction.

12.  Minnesota Timberwolves

If you’re looking for a sleeper team that comes out of nowhere and has a nice little, completely unexpected stretch, this one is it.  It’s a shame they’re in the West.  If the Timberwolves played in the East, I would have seriously considered having them in the playoffs.  Kevin Garnett is unquestionably a great, all-time kind of player, but the suggestion that Minnesota got ripped off in that trade is flat wrong.  Al Jefferson is going to be a 20-10 guy long after Garnett has retired.  On draft day, I thought O.J. Mayo was going to make a fantastic outside to Jefferson’s inside for Minnesota for the next 10 years, but he was quickly traded.  If Kevin Love is even close to the kind of player some think he will be, landing him and Mike Miller from Memphis will save the Timberwolves from a black mark like Seattle earned when they drafted Scottie Pippen and then traded him for Olden Polynice.  Polynice turned out to be a halfway decent center who played for bunches of teams, but Pippen’s going to the Hall Of Fame with six rings.  A front court pairing of Jefferson and Love, along with Miller (the elder statesman of this team’s key players at the ripe old age of 28) and any of a number of young talent like Ryan Gomes, Craig Smith, Corey Brewer, Rodney Carney, Randy Foye, Rashad McCants and, yes, even Sebastian Telfair gives this team depth and flexibility.  But they are in the West where the learning curve is very steep, indeed.  There is no margin for error for the Timberwolves to get it all together, and being so young, so much can, and probably will, go wrong.  But don’t be surprised if they actually flirt with a playoff spot during the first half of the season.

11.  Denver Nuggets

This is what really separates the West from the East.  A team that would probably make the playoffs easily in the East isn’t even going to be in top 10 in the West.  Trading Marcus Camby definitely hurts, but it’s not like Denver hasn’t had to go long stretches without him on the floor in the past.  And I’ve always thought his defense was very overrated, anyway.  Sure, he blocks a lot of shots, and alters even more, but his straight-up defensive prowess isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  He is to blocking shots what Allen Iverson is to steals.  No one would call A.I. a great defender, but he’s always near the league leaders in steals.  It’s easy to put up great defensive stats when that’s the only thing you’re trying for.  It’s Camby’s rebounding I think they’ll miss most.  If they manage to beat the odds and keep Nene and Kenyon Martin from going down, adding to their own long and storied injury histories, they will still have at least a presence in the paint and, who knows, maybe Renaldo Balkman actually has some defensive chops.  The guy I’m intrigued with is Linus Kleiza.  Watching the Nuggets late in the season and during their short-lived playoff stint, Kleiza’s play was giving me flashbacks of Drazen Petrovic, the former New Jersey Nets star who was tragically killed just as he beginning to emerge as a star.  With Iverson, Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith and Kleiza, Denver will score tons of points.  Defense is their Achilles heel, however.  So what else is new?  The best they can hope for is that a couple of the other playoff-caliber clubs slip a bit, and they can slide into that eighth seed for another four or five game post season stint.

Next Up:  The Mid Majors

A couple weeks ago, I wrote that I believed that the Houston Rockets, if healthy, were a better team than the Los Angeles Lakers. Not surprisingly, I was pretty roundly criticized. Well, it appears that the Rockets have now added Ron Artest to their lineup for Bobby Jackson and a first round pick down the road (plus another throw-in guy I've never heard of). If there was any doubt in my mind before, after this, there is no question to me that Houston is not just the best team in the West, but the best team in the entire league.

Let me say that this is not without risk. Injuries will always play a role on a team with T-Mac and Yao, and Artest has been known to bring down Championship contending clubs (see Indiana). But if things cut the right way for Houston this year, something that is always essential for a team to play for a title regardless of who they are, there will be another banner hanging in the Toyota Center in 2009.

I believe that this move hurts the Lakers on a couple of fronts. One, it makes a contender for their Western Conference crown that much stronger in all the right places to give L.A. problems come playoff time. And two, I really thought that, for the Lakers to truly move to the top of the heap, they had to add someone like Artest and subtract Lamar Odom. Well, that's not going to happen now, and it appears that Lakers' GM Mitch Kupchak may be done with personnel moves. After re-signing Sasha Vujacic the other day, Kupchak was quoted as saying that if they enter next season with the roster they currently have, he'd be thrilled.

While they are clearly a very good team, in my opinion, they've fallen behind Houston and New Orleans in the West already this offseason, and it is debatable whether or not they are actually better than San Antonio, especially if the Spurs add more to their bench. And I personally am not thrilled with the front line of Odom, Paul Gasol and Andrew Bynum.

To begin with, no one really knows what kind of player Bynum will be after the injury. He may indeed come back strong and be the player he appeared to be becoming before the injury, but how well will they mesh? Bynum in the middle will push Gasol to the outside, a place he already spends way too much time. If he ends up floating around the perimeter, taking more jumpers than he already does, he's just about useless. And what about Odom? He does too much of that as well. Will he be as willing to play in the post, or just stay outside while Bynum eats up space? I really don't like this combination of players, even if Bynum is healthy. Either Odom or Gasol has to be moved to get an aggressive perimeter defender who can at least match Odom's offense. With Artest apparently off the market, someone like Tayshawn Prince might fit that role and Pistons GM Joe Dumars has repeatedly said that everyone on his roster is available.

I, for one, don't believe the Lakers, as they are currently constituted, will win the West next year. It's not like they were head-and-shoulders above everyone else last season, anyway. Favorable playoff matchups against Denver and Utah and injuries to San Antonio had as much to do with their ascendance to the Western Title as their play. And they were exposed by Boston in the Finals. Houston, with Shane Battier, Ron Artest and Luis Scola, among others, have the kind of scrappy and/or defensive minded players that gave L.A. fits. If I was Mitch Kupchak, I wouldn't be satisfied because, chances are, they're not going to find another giveaway like Gasol during the season again.

This move also wipes out any possibility that Sacramento will be playing for anything other than Lottery position next year. I thought that they could have gotten a better return for Artest than used-up reserve guard Bobby Jackson. With Denver taking a step backwards, the eighth spot in the West is up for the taking, with the newly constituted Warriors looking like they could be the team to move into that position. Portland seems to be a common favorite to rise into the post-season as well, and The Clippers will be interesting if not good. Teams like Phoenix, Dallas, even Utah may have to watch their backs. So, with the Artest trade, here's how I see the West at the moment.

1. Houston
2. New Orleans
3. L.A. Lakers
4. San Antonio
5. Dallas
6. Utah
7. Golden State
8. Phoenix
9. Portland
10. Denver
11. LA Clippers