2010 Playoff Picture: Western Conference Predictions and Analysis

1) Los Angeles Lakers 68-14

(low: 64 high: 72)

The Western Conference just seems to keep getting better and better, huh? With the Lakers’ long-time nemesis Spurs having retooled, the Blazers adding even more depth in the same area that happens to be the only spot of concern in the Lakers’ lineup (point guard), and Denver being a year stronger under Chauncey Billups’ potent leadership there’s plenty of cause for concern in Los Angeles, right?

Wrong.

If winning the Western Conference by over 10 games last year wasn’t enough to give the reigning Champions the benefit of the doubt, the acquisition of Ron Artest is. Oh, and there’s always the fact that they’re reigning champions.

Not only do the Lakers play in the least competitive division in the Western Conference, but they open with 17 of their first 21 games at Staples Center where they won just under 88 percent of their games last season.

Has the Western Conference gotten more competitive? Sure, but given the stark gap in between the Lakers and the rest of the Western Conference, there’s no reason to believe they don’t have at least another couple of years being its number one team. After all, it has taken the conference this long just to catch up to where the Lakers were two seasons ago.

People who will question the mental stability of Artest fail to understand the man’s passion and drive to win and the strength of the Lakers’ locker room. Artest knows this is his last real shot at winning a title, and if a locker room with Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher, over-lorded by Phil Jackson, isn’t enough to keep Artest focused, nothing is.

The most legitimate question around this team is this: When the Lakers approach the 70-win mark, do they push for the record or do they pace themselves for the postseason?

2) San Antonio Spurs (62-20)

(low: 58 high: 64)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A team underachieves, sees their championship pattern broken, and suddenly finds themselves looking up at the Western Conference’s elite. Said team attempts to boost themselves back into supremacy over their reigning champion arch-rivals by luring two titleless superstars in the offseason.

San Antonio, did you really have to go channelling the ghosts of the 2003 Lakers?

All jokes aside, San Antonio’s offseason has turned them from paper contenders to a legitimate threat once again. As many are quick to point out, the Spurs’ roster now contains the best supporting cast Timmy, Tony, and Manu have ever had, the problem is that it may be too little, too late.

It's almost tempting to pencil in San Antonio next to Los Angeles in the 2010 Western Conference Finals right now. The question is what happens when they get there? The Spurs have lost seven of their last nine meetings with Los Angeles, and have historically performed poorly against them in the postseason, losing four of the teams' last five postseason series.

For a team that narrowly avoided being swept out of the playoffs first round a year ago, a Western Conference Finals appearance would constitute as a successful season in the eyes of many franchises and fan bases, unfortunately for the Spurs, San Antonio isn’t one of them.

Still, with Manu’s knee as unstable as ever and Tim Duncan’s own sobering admittance “I have slowed down," this team still has more than a few questions marks, and they may find out the answers sooner than they’d hope. There’s no question that this team will make plenty of noise in the regular season, but the problems for this team will come in the postseason when endurance is tested the most, particularly in such a competitive conference.

3) Denver Nuggets (57-25)

Low: 53 High: 58

With the Boston Celtics, Paul Pierce may be the team’s face, but Kevin Garnett is the team’s backbone, and it's not all that much different in Denver. Carmelo will always be the best Nugget statistically, but much of a team’s success comes from intangibles.

Leadership, hustle, clutch plays, and, most importantly, defense are universal factors of championship teams, and before Chauncey Billups arrived, Denver had none of the above.

Now that he’s here, the question is, how far up does the ceiling reach?

Last year, during what was arguably the greatest season in Denver’s franchise history, the Nuggets accomplished monumental things.  They jumped up six spots in the Western Conference’s playoff seeding from the previous year (No. 8 to No. 2), beat the New Orleans Hornets by an unprecedented 58 points on the road, and routed the eventual NBA Champion Lakers in game four of the Western Conference Finals by 19 (120-101).

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