I continue to march through my overall preview of the NBA by previewing the Northwest Division, which is home to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Utah Jazz, Minnesota Timberwolves, Denver Nuggets, and Portland Trail Blazers. I will address each team in order of where I see them finishing within the division.
Oklahoma City Thunder:
The Thunder are my pick to win the Northwest Division because they have the two best players in the division in Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. Even with Westbrook being out for the first 4-6 weeks as he heals from his recent knee operation, the Thunder are still clearly the best team in this division. Where the Thunder need to more focus there attention is on the rest of the conference that is outside of the Northwest Division. The Clippers, Warriors, Spurs, and Rockets are the four teams that the Thunder should be primarily concerned with along with the gritty Grizzlies. Where the Westbrook injury comes into play for the Thunder is their seeding. Sure, they will still run away with their division, but will they still be able to get home court advantage throughout the playoffs with Westbrook out the first 4-6 weeks? That remains to be seen and also is highly in question.
More problematic though is the fact that James Harden is gone and his replacement Kevin Martin is now on the Timberwolves. The Thunder have regressed since their trip to the NBA Finals, rather than improving, and that has to be really alarming for the Thunder and their fans. Even if they were entering the season fully healthy, they'd still be entering the season weaker than they did these past two seasons as a result of the absence of Harden and Martin. The bottom line for the Thunder is that they need to show that the James Harden trade was the right trade to make and that they are going to be better long-term as a result. The way that they can show this (outside of winning the NBA Finals) is if Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant continue to play well together as a dynamic one-two punch along with Serge Ibaka becoming a consistent double-double player. If those things happen, then the Thunder will look like they are on the right track. However, if things between Westbrook and Durant aren't so good, and if Ibaka stagnates rather than take that next step, then the Thunder will have a hell of a lot to worry about as they enter the 2014-15 season.
Denver Nuggets:
Even with the loss of Andre Iguodala, I still expect the Nuggets to finish second in the Northwest Division and make the playoffs. There are still a lot of talented players in Denver that will certainly make the Nuggets a tough opponent, especially at home. Look for the additions of Nate Robinson and Randy Foye to give their already solid backcourt of Andre Miller and Ty Lawson a real boost and also look for young power forward Kenneth Faried to continue to develop into one of the better power forwards in the NBA.
The only real concern for the Nuggets is their lack of having a star, but that same issue was there last season, and that didn't stop them from posting a franchise best 57 wins. Their new head coach Brian Shaw will certainly make sure that they play well as a team and continue to play unselfish basketball, which is something that they did extremely well under George Karl. The team will have some new faces, but the end result should roughly be the same as last season.
Minnesota Timberwolves:
The Minnesota Timberwolves' biggest issue last season was staying healthy and stable. With head coach Rick Adelman dealing with his ailing wife and just about every important player on the team getting hurt in one way or the other, last season ended as a dissapointment rather than as a success. However, this season Adelman is not expected to be spending that much time (if any) away from the team, and more importantly, Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio are healthy. The loss of swingman Chase Budinger for an indefinite amount of time could certainly be an ominous sign from the basketball gods, but it doesn't necessarily have to be so.
The bottom line for the Timberwolves is health. If they can stay healthy, they will be in the mix for a playoff spot since on paper their team looks pretty solid with Ricky Rubio at point guard, Kevin Martin at shooting guard, and power forward Kevin Love anchoring the post along with center Nikola Pekovic. The pieces are there in Minnesota to make a nice run at making the playoffs, but will they hold is the question.
The Portland Trail Blazers are one of the more promising young teams in the NBA with power forward LaMarcus Aldridge playing alongside second year point guard Damian Lillard (last season's rookie of the year). In addtion to those two, they have shooting guard Wes Matthews, point guard Mo Williams (acquired in free agency from the Jazz), and small forward Nicolas Batum, who they nearly lost in free agency to the Timberwolves. The team is still young and relatively inexperienced, but the pieces they have fit really nicely together.
The key thing to watch for this team is the emergence of Damian Lillard and whether or not he'll take that next step towards being a superstar point guard. Having a former all-star/veteran point guard in Mo Williams ought to tremendously help Lillard take that next step, which means that the Trail Blazers will be an improved team as the rest of their young players continue to grow. As far as the season itself in terms of wins and losses, I see the Trail Blazers finishing slightly above .500, but not in the playoffs. Their division is pretty tough, and the conference itself is even tougher. If these guys were out in the Eastern Conference, we'd be talking about them like we do the Washington Wizards, which is as a possible playoff team. But since they aren't in the Eastern Conference, and instead are in the much better Western Conference, I don't see them coming close to making the playoffs, which may seem disappointing to the Trail Blazers, but it in no ways means that the team itself isn't getting better. The fact of the matter is that the Trail Blazers are getting better and they know who they want to build their franchise around. Plenty of teams would love to trade places with the Trail Blazers and have the present situation they have of trying to develop one of the best young point guards and power forwards in the game.
Sometimes you gotta get worse before you can get better, and that's what the Utah Jazz have done. Rather than having a team that might make the playoffs with Mo Williams, Paul Millsap, and Al Jefferson as its leaders, the Jazz have instead decided to get rid of all those guys and instead give the keys of the car to their young core of Derrick Favors, Enes Kanter, Gordon Hayward, Alec Burks, and rookie Trey Burke. What the Jazz hope is that Favors and Kanter are future all-star big men, Hayward and Burks are future all-star swingmen, and Trey Burke is the next great young point guard in the NBA.
They are of course making those players the starters at the expense of a playoff berth this season, and likely for the next couple of seasons. The Jazz want to win a championship, not be a mid-pack team, which is admirable. However, it isn't guaranteed that they will eventually turn into a contender just because they hope so. They're going to have to see improvement in all five of those young players this season in order to feel good about the move that they have made.
If you are a Jazz fan, what you want to look for is improvement and player development. Ty Corbin knows that as head coach he's getting paid to develop quality talent as much as he is getting paid to win basketball games. The Jazz are going to be awful in the win-loss column this season, which means that the only victories that the Jazz can take are moral ones such as Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter getting double-doubles, etc. If their young core improves a lot over the course of the season, then the Jazz will have had a good season regardless of what their record is. However, if their young core doesn't improve much, then there will be more cause for concern since the whole plan is that this young core will get better as a result of more time freed up by the absence of Mo Williams, Paul Millsap, and Al Jefferson.
---Ben Parker: follow me on twitter @nba_lord
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