Ahead of Wednesday's start to the 2015/16 NBA season, Kevin Jeffers (Eastern Conference) and Jonathan Raymond (Western Conference) will preview each team in the league. Here, a look at the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings in the Pacific Division.
Golden State Warriors
What's good: Hey, remember that team that won the most games, including play-offs, since the 1996/97 Bulls last year? This is that team.
While it’s hard to pinpoint what they might do different, or what path might exist to being better, they don’t exactly need to be any better. Their continuity and the scope of their title run last year means that, after standing pat this summer, they still probably have the best odds-on chance of winning the championship.
Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson will have delirious nights, Draymond Green will do the grittiest work in the NBA and drop a three now and then, Andrew Bogut will defend and pass and Andre Iguodala will super-sub when they need to lock down a bit more defensively. Harrison Barnes might even have an extra level in him.
What's bad: It's fair to say they were reasonable to snooze through the summer, but that also means they haven't exactly left the league in their dust.
While Cleveland and Oklahoma City healed and Houston, LA and San Antonio all improved, the Warriors didn’t show much urgency to accomplish much of anything with the break.
They drafted Kevon Looney, who might be a nice talent but will also spend almost the entire season in the D-League probably. Their backup guard situation, with 32-year-old Leandro Barbosa and 30-year-old Shaun Livingston, could get dicey in a hurry. Jason Thompson is a nice player but not as good as David Lee, and if you think they can just shrug him off no problem, go back and watch Games 4 and 5 of last season’s Finals.
Injuries, of course, would be critical – they were just about the healthiest team in the NBA last year. Can you rely on that being the case again?
Best-case scenario: Curry and Thompson and Green do their thing and the Warriors make it back-to-back championships.
Worst-case scenario: Their guard rotation falters, Bogut gets hurt and they struggle to maintain defensive cohesion, and everything winds up looking just a bit slower and just a bit rougher than last year in a disappointing late play-offs exit.
Los Angeles Clippers
What's good: They kept DeAndre Jordan in town, a crucial component to their having any defensive presence inside. They added Paul Pierce, Lance Stephenson and Josh Smith, three beautifully insane high-risk, high-reward pieces of this lovely and ludicrous puzzle Doc Rivers has put together.
Last year their problem was depth, and it showed when secondary contributions dried up as they crashed out of the play-offs in dramatic fashion to the Rockets. Now they have that, and leading the team is one of the best, maybe the single best, guard-forward partnerships in basketball with Chris Paul and Blake Griffin.
This team’s upside is through the roof.
What's bad: That roof could collapse on them before their upside even reaches it.
Stephenson in particular has been brought in to bring a much needed two-way playmaking element to the bench, but he’s also got a history of being scatterbrained, and the demanding culture Paul instills – and Pierce will help solidify – chews scatterbains and spits them out. Smith is equally in danger of devolving into more sabotage than support.
Jordan came across as a kind of sensitive soul in his free agent flirtation with Dallas, with the Clippers pretty much having to beg him back. It’s fair to wonder if he fits so well into the uncompromising Rivers-Pierce-Paul system.
Paul is 30 now and this is his fifth year with Griffin. All previous four have ended early in roughly similar fashion – if they don’t get it done, there will be deep soul-searching going on within this organisation in about nine months’ time.
Best-case scenario: The additions buy in and their extra depth gives them solidity they've rarely had in this current era, with a possessed Paul driving them to a title.
Worst-case scenario: Smith and Stephenson prove duds, and the same old problems – not quite exact enough, not quite composed enough, not quite good enough – lead to the start of the soul-searching.
Los Angeles Lakers
What's good: Don't look now, but the Lakers, who have devolved into a kind of running joke the last few seasons, have some really interesting young talent.
D’Angelo Russell, the second pick in the draft, has a creative and exciting offensive game. Jordan Clarkson showed admirable daring and flashed inspired playmaking last year – there’s real talent in the would-be Philippines national teamer.
Julius Randle has a chance now to get on the court and show he’s a do-everything force down low.
Roy Hibbert brings immediate defensive respectability to this team, and they won’t lack for scoring with Lou Williams and Nick Young coming off the bench.
Kobe is still playing basketball. He really is doing it!
What's bad: Kobe Bryant is still playing basketball. It's arguable he should probably not be doing that.
Look, Kobe is a legend, but it has to be said – he has every chance of being a bad, dragging influence on a team that isn’t prepared to win now. Even if he recaptures some of his old glory, it won’t be enough to make these Lakers play-off contenders, and his attitude toward development, like as a function for basketball players becoming better at basketball, has historically been indifferent at its most generous. Usually outright hostile.
Clarkson and Russell and Randle have the potential to be a very productive trio on a real contending team. Kevin Durant and other true difference-makers will be free agents in the next couple years and at least be notionally interested in Los Angeles (who isn’t?) – the Lakers would simply be better off if they could move forward from the Kobe era.
Also, this team is still probably going to be a mess defensively and Byron Scott looks like he could be overmatched for such a deep rebuilding project.
Best-case scenario: Clarkson and Russell and Randle look like future stars, Kobe gracefully eases into the sunset and the Lakers have some fun nights with plenty of green shoots sprouting up.
Worst-case scenario: Kobe can't stand the natural mistakes that come with growth for the team's young hopes, they generally play uncompetitive basketball and everything just becomes toxic as they fight to avoid (or maybe embrace) the worst record in the league.
Phoenix Suns
What's good: This is a surprisingly deep, comprehensive roster.
Eric Bledsoe and Brandon Knight are more complimentary – the former loving to bulldoze inside and the latter more comfortable living along the perimeter – than last year’s three-headed point guard hydra that included Bledsoe with Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas. First round pick Devin Booker has Klay Thompson size and maybe the shot to go with it.
Free agent acquisition Tyson Chandler is one of the best workers offensively inside in the game, and remains an effective deterrent inside. His backup, 22-year-old, 7ft 1in Alex Len, is a pretty solid defender by the metrics with an offensive game developing into something approaching workable.
Filling out the frontcourt, Markieff Morris and PJ Tucker are plus players, and it looks at times like TJ Warren will develop enough to join them.
There’s enough quality top-to-bottom on this team that you can almost squint and see them contending for the eighth seed, a bit unexpectedly like they have the past two seasons.
What's bad: It's a bit hard to envision any of this quality being especially difference-making.
The second-half Suns were much better when Bledsoe and Knight shared the court last year – but still got outscored by about a point per 100 possessions, far worse than they were performing with the point guard hyrda.
Bledsoe is a very good two-way player, but his three-point shot isn’t good and he’s not a natural creator for others, which makes him kind of a misfit in the modern NBA. He would be perfect next to a two-guard like James Harden – not another point guard masquerading as a wing with as many deficiencies as Knight.
Morris defends okay, and he’ll look better next to Chandler inside, but he’s never really developed the range to make him the kind of stretch-forward this offence could use.
The Suns should defend pretty well, but offensively they’ll probably be static too often. The best you could say about them is they have the look of a team that could punch up – but the self-evident thing about punching up is that you’re throwing from below.
Best-case scenario: They mesh well together under Jeff Hornacek, a quality coach, cobble together a good defensive unit, and hammer things inside enough offensively through Chandler and Bledsoe to maintain the level they've generally had the past couple seasons, only this time with it resulting in the eighth play-off seed.
Worst-case scenario: They struggle to score and win something like 35 games, settling into the back of the lottery again.
Sacramento Kings
What's good: DeMarcus Cousins is a force unto himself. Top-five pick Willie Cauley-Stein might be a young Tyson Chandler to pair with him down low. George Karl is a legendary coach who, in theory, should be able to figure out something with this team.
And believe it or not, but Ben McLemore went from hopeless to maybe kind of decent last year.
What's bad: Where do we start?
Hey, maybe there’s an alternate universe somewhere in which all these weird pieces on the Kings fit together into something functional and good. Cousins and Cauley-Stein become an old-school powerhouse pairing inside. Rudy Gay and McLemore form a stable wing starting duo. Rajon Rondo learns how to make plays and care again. Karl puts it all together in some mad-genius way.
They’ve got depth at centre, having signed Kosta Koufos. Darren Collison can be a quality bench leader. Marco Belinelli is the kind of three-point specialist you find on just about every mature team. There are decent things here. It’s just hard to envision this being the universe where they make sense together.
Karl is not especially known for his people skills, and his relationship with Cousins and Rondo is already in question. Rondo used to be one of the league’s most dynamic players – a passing acrobat and defensive nightmare – who’s five years removed now from being a game-changing star. Cousins is a should-be-in-his-prime unstoppable superstar every night – with a penchant for checking out when things aren’t quite so well, as they figure to do frequently in Sacramento.
It’s possible there’s a contender of some sort to be fashioned out of this collection. It’s far more likely the whole thing is an irredeemable mess.
Best-case scenario: Karl mad-geniuses this outfit into something enhancing the best of their qualities and they make a surprisingly deep run at the eighth play-off spot.
Worst-case scenario: It implodes spectacularly, and the Kings finish with near the worst record in the NBA.