Quote from: Maidak on Today at 06:04:44 PM

Quote from: inthelongrun on Today at 04:15:14 PM

Which teams are still not in the top 8 of their conference that you expect to be there? In the East, we have the Chicago Bulls and the Miami Heat while Brooklyn Nets and Philadelphia 76ers made it already. Or is the Chicago Bulls line-up not worthy of a playoff spot?

The west is too crowded with good teams. Probably only 3 to 4 teams do not have the potential of landing in the top 8. Sad to see the Utah Jazz and Portland Trail Blazers are losing most of their games now. There are still 70+ games for each team though, plenty of time but they better start showing and making necessary adjustments now.

In the west, I would have liked to see the Lakers and the trailblazers to be in the top eight positions. But at the same time, it is also true that they have not played well. And the performance that they have shown, it is honestly not expected to see them in the top eight. I did want them to be up there, but I cannot say that they deserve to be up there.

I think the situation in the east is well summarised by you. Chicago Bulls, and Miami Heat both were expected to be in the top eight in my opinion. I want to say that the Chicago Bulls lineup are not widely to play in the playoffs. But at the same time, they also did not play like they are worth it, to be honest.

Without Lonzo Ball, I do not think that the Chicago Bulls have any expectations to reach the Eastern Conference Finals. It is not that the other players are not good but the competition in the East just got bumped up. Prime Tatum and Brown in Celtics, Prime Giannis in Bucks. Then there's Harden and Embiid for 76ers and the trio in Brooklyn Net. The Bulls can still reach the playoffs but without Ball, they cannot move past the first round.

Quote from: carlisle1 on Today at 07:12:53 PM

Blazers and Jazz are now feeling the pressure of the real competition, especially on the west side. They needed the right adjustment
to keep their campaign to move forward to the playoff.

Or they just need their main man back. For the Trail Blazers, they need Damian Lillard to get back and be fully healthy.

For the Jazz, they need Mike Conley. They are starless and losing Mike Conley because of injury really hurt their offense and defense. They are still performing really well though, just not enough to beat a really good team. Unlike before, they still have a chance to beat star-laden team.

Quote from: dwyane36 on Today at 07:44:46 PM

Quote from: yazher on Today at 02:05:54 PM

They have won their last 2 games but it's not enough to get up to rank 10 in the western conference because their rivals there are already won double digits way ahead of them. For now, they are getting serious and might improve their rank in the upcoming weeks before the end of this year and might gonna get different positive outcomes after that because they are starting to play effectively these past few days. LBJ even surpassed Magic Johnson in all-time Assists and he could still play and stretch that record furthermore to be able to give the upcoming NBA stars to even come close to it.

It is worth noting that some teams perform about the same at the moment as there is only 2 wins difference between the teams in 10th place and 13th place in the Western Conference standings. So if Davis and LeBron stay healthy as long as possible, the Lakers will still have a good chance to reach the playoffs, even despite their poor performance at the beginning of the season.

That is a big IF though. For Davis and Lebron, it is not if they will get injured. It is when. They are very injury prone that every time, Davis or Lebron have a hard fall to the floor, fans are praying they get up and are not injured. 71 games still left in the season, that is still a lot of games. My hope is that they don't get long-lasting injuries that will sideline them for months. If one of them gets sidelined for a long time, prime AD is getting wasted. They need to max his playing time without risking him getting injured to maximize his value on his prime years.