The State of the Western Conference

I was reading today about Ron Artest's response to Josh Howard's antics, and I couldn't help but think to myself, "This season is going to be AWESOME." It seemed like a relatively quiet offseason, but the changes that did take place have potential to fester/spread/grow into some seriously intriguing storylines. Let's make a quick list of storylines to follow:

• Ron Artest's crazyometer in Houston (which, I think, will top out somewhere between "Gargamel" and "Hannibal Lector")
• Denver's apparent quest to have the worst defence in the NBA. It's like a reversion right back to 1990/91
  
• Josh Howard's finding new ways off the court to negate every in-game improvement
  
• Hamed Haddadi's NBA debut (intriguing player and politics! I can't wait.)
• Minnesota striving for that single-digit win mark
• Can Chris Paul get any better than he was in the 2008 playoffs?
• Greg Oden's rookie season (he's already the 8th best centre in the NBA and he hasn't played a game yet. Impressive!)
• The bittersweet time spent wondering how much the Suns really have left
• Rick Carlisle quest to keep the Mavs going (and to keep their fans sane)
• The return of Andrew Bynum
• Golden State's inevitable "let's-try-playing-five-shooting-guards" experiment. Plus, their only point guard is Marcus Williams. I can't wait to see what Don Nelson does with this.

I'm sure there's more. That's off the top of my head and just for the Western conference; I'd venture the east will be even more fun, even if it is less mentally unstable. The only teams in the west that aren't pulsing with absurd and exciting stories are Utah and Sacramento, but I'll watch them regardless because I'm rooting for Kyle Korver and Andrei Kirilenko to fight about whose hair is prettier and Brad Miller reminds me of the janitor on Scrubs.

It's going to be a fantastic season out west -- you can just see it on David Stern's face:



More soon, including The State of the Eastern Conference, the start of conference-by-conference previews, and a few surprises even I didn't expect.


be well.
-nh