Messed up early season ranking threats to Spurs

[Rummpd]

Messed up early year in the NBA - championship threats to SDear Lakers Fan:

1a. Spurs themselves, barring major injury (i.e. Tim Duncan) and Pop realing in them into much Spurs will win again this year. At some point this year, Barry, Manu , TD Parker all are going to get hot offensively and Spurs will roll off 10-15 wins and get the #1 seed in West. Then as Parker, TD and the others have something to prove = it will be a very dominant run through the playoffs.

1b. Tough call is it the West with the gunning Mavs, Kings (who are surging) or a new Threat like Seattle.
I still believe it is the West = Pups who are in the midst of dissension and sorting out a lineup this year, but are still strong offensively and defensively.

2. Pistons - showed heart last night, deep and solid team that if it learns to score a little better could repeat.

3. Pacers - don't laugh - I believe they will make the playoffs as they are playing hard and then will have a statement to make. Hoping for a Pacers, Pistons final as they will beat each other up leaving the victor to be vanquished by the Spurs.

4. Back to West or to the East. I believe the Heat are a year away at least and that too much of the offense is going away from Shaq to Wade (who although great is injury prone). I for one am wary of a team like the hot Suns/Seattle or the hard to read Mavs (Dampier looked like a ghost, Dirk is great but Nash missing??). However, I am going to go with the Kings - they still have a very solid core of Miller, Bibby, Jackson, Webber, and Stoj and on any given night or series could seemingly raise their game (ala shooting) and beat anyone.

5. Heat - Shaq and his bloooming wingman have been impressive but I see a frustrated Shaq growing tired of the ball not coming to him and teams doubling him all year.

6. Utah - Sloan is just a great coach and they have talent in droves if it matures.

No one else.

MadDoc

[Rummpd]

Should Seattle or Suns be considered true threats?

MadDoc

[timvp]

Spurs vs Suns in the playoffs would be scary.

[Rummpd]

Agreed, but thanks for no 5 game series.

MadDoc

[Manu20]

Does anybody think that the sonics are a contender?

IMO the sonics are going to fade as the season goes on. A moment ago on espn fastbreak Mark Jackson was ask if he believe that the sonics were a contender and he said NO about 10 times .

[toosmallshoes]

Seattle is scarey. They rebound with a lot of toughness and they can shoot lights out. At this point in the season, that's the only team from the west that actually scares me as a spurs contender. but if the threes start to dry up and if injuries persist they'll flop quickly.