6. The Mavericks and Jazz will miss the playoffs. Right now, 12 teamsare within striking distance of a top-eight seed in the West. That spells bad news for several playoff hopefuls, even assuming that they play well the rest of the way. Minnesota powered its way through a slew of injuries, but too often lets opponents hang around in otherwise winnable games. Denver is incredibly streaky, and it’s not impossible that a prolonged lull could shove the Nuggets below the playoff cut. Houston and Portland are on the cusp, but could be burned by inexperience and lack of depth, respectively. Golden State is playing great basketball, but I’m reluctant to put complete faith in a defensive system (impressive though it may be) that’s just 30 games old.
Assuming that the Lakers stave off a midseason implosion and continue on their current trajectory, that leaves two other fringe playoff contenders unaccounted for — and ultimately likely to fall into the chasm that separates the top eight from the rest of the pack. The Mavericks and Jazz both have the makings of competent teams, but unfortunately own the least promising résumés of all the West squads on the bubble.
In Dallas’ case, the makeshift roster put together to coast through this season just hasn’t panned out. Though no one expected the Mavs to hold pace without Dirk Nowitzki in the lineup, there was some assumption that they would be able to get more defensive mileage out of the system that’s guided them through the last few seasons. To make matters worse, the lack of a reliable point guard has doomed too many possessions before they’ve even begun. Nowitzki, who returned this week from preseason knee surgery, will help disguise some of those flaws with his offensive contributions, but Dallas is in real jeopardy of missing the postseason for the first time since 2000.
Utah, on the other hand, is playing decently but remains ill-equipped to win out in this war of attrition. The Jazz rank only 24th in points allowed per possession, and the deficit created by their slow rotations leaves just enough of an opening for the rest of the playoff contenders to pass them by. A midseason trade could help rearrange some of Utah’s resources, but even a fair deal isn’t all that likely to save the Jazz from being nudged out of the postseason by a narrow margin.
7. Interest and involvement in the D-League will continue to increase around the NBA. The D-League isn’t yet a true NBA farm system, but every year brings better talent, better league-to-league integration and a new crop of teams interested in owning (or functionally owning, via the hybrid model) their own direct affiliate. Assignments and call-ups are now incredibly routine, and the NBA is filled with D-League alumni. The next big avenue for D-League use is rehabilitation from injury — a possibility created by the new CBA, and one already being taken advantage of by teams such as the Knicks. As NBA general managers and coaches get more comfortable with the affiliate system and the workings of the D-League in general, they’ll only come to find more creative uses for it as an extension of their in-house operations.
8. The Kings and Wizards will have new coaches. Both teams are a mess, and at some point the blame will be coordinated against a single target. Who is at fault for Sacramento’s nonsensical lineup combinations, consistent spacing issues or the very presence of Travis Outlaw in an NBA rotation? Who is to blame for Washington’s heinous offense, makeshift rotation and league-worst record? It’s not Keith Smart or Randy Wittman exclusively, but when things get testy and the records turn miserable, the coach is so often the first to go.
9. New luxury tax penalties will ultimately keep most high-spending teams in check. There may be no power on earth that can prevent mid-level teams from imprudently using up their cap space to sign mediocre players, but the luxury-tax penalties of the new collective bargaining agreement are starting to kick in and limit the league’s biggest spenders. Already we’ve seen the title-winning Mavericks broken up partially because of the tax; the Knicks balk at matching an offer sheet to Jeremy Lin because of their massive salary total; the Bulls allow Omer Asik to walk because of a poison-pill contract offer; and the Thunder trade Harden because of the growing cost of their core. Mistakes always will be made in terms of assigning players a dollar value, but the punitive provisions of the CBA have created a legitimate deterrent for teams accustomed to living above the tax line.
10. The Nuggets will make at least one significant trade. Denver’s phone will be active as the Feb. 21 trade deadline approaches. Virtually every player on the roster would be attractive to some potential trade partner, and those players’ contracts are largely reasonable enough to attract plenty of interest.
A less active general manager might choose to sit tight. But the Nuggets’ Masai Ujiri can’t seem to help himself, and since his arrival in Denver the franchise has been turned over entirely and tweaked incessantly. The fact that the Nuggets are a middle-of-the-pack West team only makes a potential trade more likely, and one can only imagine how a deal might offer some resolution to a cluttered depth chart. Ty Lawson and Kenneth Faried are more or less strapped down, but everything else seems available for trade. It’ll just come down to Ujiri’s tinkering with the offers available until he finds something he likes, with the timing and finances making sense for a Denver team with plenty of options.
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nba/news/20121227/nba-predictions-2013/#ixzz2GfZrzdUj