Everything You Need To Know To Get Ready For The NBA Season: Northwest Division
Bart Young. Getty Images.You can catch up on our previous division previews below
Today we keep rolling, this time heading back out to the West with another division that should be competitive as hell. Last season the Northwest division sent four teams to the playoffs which were the most of any Western Conference division, and while this offseason brought some change there's no reason to think it won't be more of the same from what we saw last year. This division is loaded with talent and even includes some teams that fancy themselves contenders. Let's dive in.
Denver Nuggets
2019-20 record: 46-27
Key Offseason Additions: RJ Hampton (rookie), JaMychal Green
Key Offseason Departures: Jerami Grant, Mason Plumlee, Torrey Craig
Playoff Performance: Lost in 5 in the Western Conference Finals
After the run the Nuggets had in the bubble, will this upcoming season finally be the year the Nuggets are given their proper amount of respect as a contender in the West? You get the sense that despite being a top 3 seed in each of the last two seasons, the Nuggets are never really taken seriously. That confuses me for a couple of reasons. For starters, they have arguably the best center in the entire NBA in Nikola Jokic. It feels wrong to even call him a center, he's more a point center, but there's no denying he is an absolute force that has shown up huge in each of the last two playoff runs. Then there's Jamal Murray, a player who was always good, but went supernova in the bubble. If that version of Murray is here to stay, the Nuggets are going to be really really good. They had a top 5 offense last season and that should only be better this year with the development of their young players like MPJ and Monte Morris.
It's important to remember they didn't have one of their more important players for the entire bubble run in Will Barton. They probably don't get past the Lakers even with Barton, but that series was a lot closer than people may remember. Two of their five losses were by 6 points or less. You can't blame them for running out of gas after coming back from 3-1 in back to back series. But there's certainly reasons to be excited as a Nuggets fan. For starters, the team is ready to commit more of a role to MPJ, a player that showed real offensive flashes last year. His defense is a total disaster, but he did shoot 57/43% against the Lakers and also showed real flashes against the Clippers. For a team that was already a top 5 offense, getting more of a consistent contribution from MPJ should only make them more dynamic on that end.
While scoring is great, for the Nuggets to get over the hump they need to be a whole lot better defensively. You'll see that be a trend in this division. They were league average in terms of team defense (16th), and this was with one of their best on ball defenders in Gary Harris playing over 50 games. What I can't wait to see is how Bol Bol impacts things. He was another bubble sensation and he had a 6% BLK% in his 7 appearances. I'm ready to see what he can bring to that second unit taking up the Plumlee minutes. On the offensive side, it'll be a lot of the same stuff. The Nuggets are one of the best Post Up teams in the entire league, finishing in the 93rd percentile on post up plays. When you have Jokic, that makes sense. What I'm interested in seeing is if they trend more to how they played in the bubble, which was way more isolation. The Nuggets finished in the 80th percentile in the bubble and ran iso about 6.6% of the time, averaging 1.07 ppp. Of any team that played at least 10 games in the playoffs, the Nuggets were the best at it. During the regular season, they only ran iso around 4.9% and finished in the 48th percentile. Pretty big difference if you ask me.
While the Nuggets might not be in the same tier as someone like the Lakers, I can't see how they aren't leading the next tier out West. They've proven that they are legit whether or not people want to accept it. Maybe it's the market, I'm not really sure. But after what they just did in the bubble and the young talent on this roster, there's no reason to think the Nuggets won't once again be in the conversation for a WCF appearance.
Oklahoma City Thunder
2019-20 record: 44-28
Key Offseason Additions: Al Horford, George Hill, Trevor Ariza, Justin Jackson, Ty Jerome, Aleksej Pokusevki (rookie)
Key Offseason Departures: Chris Paul, Steven Adams, Danilo Gallinari, Nerlens Noel, Dennis Schroder
Playoff Performance: Lost in 7 in the first round
Welcome to one of the biggest rebuilds in the entire league this season. Last season I'm not sure too many people thought the Thunder would be all that good, and then out of nowhere, they were a 5 seed. They nearly won 50 games! Chris Paul was way better than most thought, SGA continued to blossom into an absolute stud, and they had one of the better surprising seasons of any team in the league.
That lasted one season before Sam Presti decided to smash that rebuild button, trade off all his good pieces and take back terrible contracts/picks to further continue his rebuild. Something tells me this team will not be a 5 seed, in fact I would argue that if they are it would be a bit of a disaster. If you're going to blow it up, you have to lose big. It wouldn't shock me if Presti continues to unload assets at the deadline to any contender that has a need. The man wants picks and flexibility moving forward.
Obviously, you should still watch the Thunder because of SGA and I know I'll be tuning in to see my man Lu Dort continue to terrorize people on the defensive end. The man can't shoot for dick but he's basically the only player who has shown the ability to limit someone like James Harden. Part of me kind of feels bad for Al Horford but not really, and now the focus of the team is going to shift from getting wins and contending to the development of their young players. Wins could not be any less important for the Thunder and that's OK. You may as well get a good look at someone like Justin Jackson and Darius Miller to see if there's anything there, I'm intrigued by the potential of Hamidou Diallo getting an expanded role as well as Darius Bazley, but we can be realistic. This is a high lottery team. They are going to lose A LOT. The West is too stacked and talent wise the Thunder just don't stack up anymore.
Utah Jazz
2019-20 record: 44-28
Key Offseason Additions: Derrick Favors, Udoka Azubuike (rookie), Shaq Harrison
Key Offseason Departures: Tony Bradley, Emmanuel Mudiay, Jeff Green, Dante Exum
Playoff Performance: Lost in 7 in the first round
Is it fair to say it's time for the Jazz to either shit or get off the pot? Maybe last season was supposed to be that year and they lost a heartbreaking Game 7, but the facts are they just extended Mitchell, chances are Gobert is also going to be extended, but this team has not made a Conference Finals since 2006. Last two years have been first round losses, and the two years before that they had second round losses. They are sort of stuck in the middle. Maybe not good enough to get over the hump into the Final 4, but way too good to tank. What they could have going for them entering this season is some teams right above them might be sliding down. The Jazz were a 6 seed with OKC and HOU finishing ahead of them. They'll probably slide, but the issue will be teams like GS/POR/DAL will be rising.
Unlike a few of these teams, defensively the Jazz have no issues….in theory. Did you know they only had the 13th best defense last year? That feels sort of low right? In fact, for a team that had offensive issues at times their offense actually ranked higher at 9th. They enter this season with their second leading scorer returning in Bojan Bogdanovic so in theory, they should be even better than what we saw in the bubble. If they can get back to having a top 5 defense, why couldn't this be a top 4 seed? The biggest thing for them will be their consistency. There were nights this team when healthy struggled to break 100. Other nights they dropped 135 with ease.
The reason to be excited as a Jazz fan is the fact that Donovan Mitchell is turning into a legit monster, Jordan Clarkson was great for them off the bench after coming over from CLE, and maybe Mike Conley will return to the Mike Conley of old and not be mostly dogshit like he was for most of his appearances last year. There is real talent on this roster and they have a great coach. The Jazz just need to show they can hand with teams that are actually good. They were just 11-19 against teams .500 or better last year, and given the conference they play in that most certainly won't cut it. No team that finished in the top 4 last year in the West was that bad against good teams.
What won't change is their style of play. Get ready for a bunch of Mitchell isolation, which actually isn't so bad. The Jazz finished in the 96th percentile last year. Jordan Clarkson most definitely isn't passing the ball when he's on the floor. You could argue though that with Bodanovic out in the bubble, they were missing that spot up/off screens shooter. With him back I imagine we'll see them get back to running those sets.
The Jazz might not have the most pressure of any team out West that considers themselves to be a "contender", but it's time for them to actually show real progress or nobody is going to take them seriously moving forward.
Portland Trail Blazers
2019-20 record: 35-39
Key Offseason Additions: Robert Covington, Harry Giles, Derrick Jones Jr, Enes Kanter
Key Offseason Departures: Trevor Ariza, Mario Hezonja, Hassan Whiteside
Playoff Performance: Lost in 5 in the first round
The Blazers sort of get a pass for last season. They didn't have one of their best players in Jusurf Nurkic, Rodney Hood missed a bunch of time coming back from his torn achilles, Zach Collins got hurt, so the team we saw for most of the year wasn't the same Blazers team that made the WCF the season before. Well now everyone's back, they had a pretty decent offseason adding in some good established veterans, and there's reasons to think this team won't be playing in the play in game this season. They could easily get back to being a top 5 seed mostly because their franchise cornerstone backcourt might be the best in the entire league.
One of their biggest needs last season was wing depth, and when you are relying so heavily on Melo, you can imagine how that works out. Adding Covington is a big get for this roster. He's a legit 3 and D wing who should in theory help the Blazers in their biggest area of need. Defense.
To say the Blazers were bad defensively would be a massive understatement. They were horrific, coming in at 27th in the entire league. They could not stop a nosebleed and it ultimately was their undoing. Sure it's awesome when Dame scores 60, but if the team isn't able to get stops then none of it matters. The reason they compete is because their offense is great, it ranked 3rd last season so it's not like they don't have the firepower to compete. If this team could just find a way to be league average on the defensive end, they'll be right back to being legit contenders. Just don't be pathetic and you won't have an issue. Guys like Kanter aren't going to help you there, but at least this roster has other guys to step up and develop.
In terms of guys who might take a leap, I'm very interested to see Anfernee Simons this year. He showed real flashes and is still so young that it's not crazy to think he's a whole lot better. Same thing with Nassir Little and Gary Trent Jr. If you look at guys who played well in the bubble, Trent Jr took a leap for sure. Of course they will only go as far as Dame/CJ are able to carry them, but there are reasons to think that the development of their young pieces combined with the solid veteran signings this offseason has the Blazers in the top 4-5 conversation.
Now if they still aren't able to defend at a respectable level, you're looking at a 8-9 seed. That's just the reality of the situation.
Minnesota Timberwolves
2019-20 record: 19-45
Key Offseason Additions: Anthony Edwards (rookie), Ricky Rubio, Jaden McDaniels (rookie), Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Ed Davis
Key Offseason Departures: Gorgui Dieng, Shabazz Napier,
Playoff Performance: Missed the playoffs
Listen I get it. Chances are you do not care about the Wolves. I wouldn't blame you, they've been a dumpster fire for some time now. Ever since Jimmy Butler left it was right back to being in the basement. Having said that, there's reason to at least pay attention this year. KAT is still a monster, we get a full year of DLo, and Anthony Edwards is coming in as the #1 pick. This team is loaded with high lottery talent that is still super young like Josh Okogie and Jarrett Culver, so while they may not win a ton of games there's still talent that's worth checking out. Malik Beasley was pretty good once he got in town from the Nuggets and they just paid him, so it's not like they are left with no players with upside.
In terms of what they need to improve on…how about everything? Both ends of the floor need help. The Wolves had the 24th ranked offense, 20th ranked defense, and had a -4.0 net rating. Sort of explains the whole 19 wins thing. If you need reasons to be optimistic, in the 12 games once DLo got traded the Wolves offense improved to 15th….but their defense tanked to 27th. Is it crazy to think that with Edwards now in the mix that this gets close to a top 10 offense? At least that would be entertaining for MIN fans even if they end up losing because they can't get a stop to save their lives.
In terms of goals, if I were the Wolves I would set my sights on getting into that play in game. The more season they have winning under 20 games, the more restless KAT is going to get. They don't have to worry about him yet given the fact he has like 4 years left on his deal, but the clock is ticking. They need to show him they can get back to contending for a playoff spot. Maybe that's me being too optimistic, but that should be the goal. Just get into the play in and see what happens. At some point all these high picks have to come through right? Right?
Probably not, but hey at least Rubio is back.
If I had to guess, I don't think we'll see this team send four teams to the playoffs again. My guess is DEN/UTA/POR will get in, but it also wouldn't shock me if they only sent two. This is a division filled with team teams that are all sort of lumped together in terms of their standings in the West, which will certainly make for competitive division games. You could convince me that DEN/UTA/POR could all make the conference finals and I wouldn't think you're crazy. Not too many divisions can say that.