As has been the case for decades now, it’d be mistake to declare that the Western Conference will be a cakewalk for anyone this year. While the top of the East is stacked with a couple of formidable title contenders, even making the playoffs out West is a feat. This season, barring something unforeseen, as many as six teams could conceivably win the West: The Los Angeles Lakers, LA Clippers, Utah Jazz, Denver Nuggets, Golden State Warriors and, of course, the reigning Western champion Phoenix Suns.
While the Suns undoubtedly had an easier path to the NBA Finals than they can expect this time around, the early predictions that this team will plummet back down to earth have been overstated. In fact, this conference is as wide open as last year, and there are quite a few reasons Phoenix could easily be back in the Finals in 2022.
5. Jazz and Warriors are unreliable
The Utah Jazz have been to the playoffs the last five years, and all five times, they failed to get past the conference semifinals. That’s not intended to be a slight; it is damn hard to make it to the conference finals out West, as Chris Paul could tell you firsthand. But for whatever reason, no matter how dangerous they look during the regular season, the Jazz have continually fallen short in the postseason.
Donovan Mitchell is a superstar, but aside from him, how much better can this team get, realistically? Him and Mike Conley being banged up obviously played a role in the Jazz’s second-round demise against the Clippers, but this team isn’t getting any younger. Mitchell still has room to grow at age 25, and 24-year-old Eric Paschall is a nice addition, but Rudy Gobert and Jordan Clarkson are already 29, Bojan Bogdanovic is 32, Joe Ingles is 33 and Rudy Gay is 35. When Utah led the league in win percentage, point differential and a dozen other statistical categories last year…it felt like their best shot. They still came up short.
As for the Warriors, everyone knows how potent a lineup with a healthy Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green can be. But will the Dubs actually get that luxury again? Golden State has been snakebitten since the 2019 NBA Finals, and Thompson is coming off two devastating leg injuries that have historically ended plenty of players’ careers. Klay’s shooting should mitigate some of that, but with Draymond and the Splash Brothers being 31 and up, injury concerns are a natural part of the equation now. Andrew Wiggins is no all-powerful security blanket the way Kevin Durant was, so if any member of the Big 3 goes down, the Warriors will have to worry more about making the Western Conference playoffs than winning them.
4. Nuggets won’t have much time to work Jamal Murray back in
From the time of Aaron Gordon’s first game in the Mile High City onward, only one team in the entire NBA had a better record than the Denver Nuggets (the Suns). The good vibes only lasted for two weeks before Jamal Murray’s ACL tear brought their title hopes crashing down. The Nuggets ended the regular season strong, but their postseason aspirations ended as soon as Murray’s knee buckled.
Make no mistake about it: The Nuggets are still a good team. They have the league’s reigning MVP in Nikola Jokic, Gordon was a terrific two-way addition to their frontcourt, Michael Porter Jr. is an offensive star in the making and Jeff Green was a solid offseason pickup.
But you can’t replace Murray’s scoring and shooting with the likes of Monte Morris, Austin Rivers and Facundo Campazzo and expect to be a legitimate threat in the West. It was the problem the Nuggets faced last year when they ran into the bandsaw that was the Phoenix Suns, and it’s the same problem they’ll struggle with all season until Murray is not only back on the court but actually looking like his full self.
When that will happen is anyone’s guess at this point, but the playoffs begin in mid-April. Murray got surgery on his torn ACL on April 21, and the timeline for recovery on that kind of injury is typically a year, maybe somewhere in the 9-10 month range in a potential best-case scenario. Will the Nuggets be able to work him back into the rotation that quickly and compete with teams that have built up continuity all season long? It’s not impossible, but it feels like a long shot at best, especially since no one knows what Murray will even look like when he makes his long-awaited return.
3. Ditto with Kawhi Leonard for the Clippers
The LA Clippers are dealing with a similar situation with their best player in Kawhi Leonard, who underwent surgery to repair a partially torn ACL on July 14. Recent reports indicate there’s a chance Leonard misses the entire 2021-22 campaign rehabbing his knee injury. That would be consistent with how cautious he’s always been regarding his body, especially when it comes to returning from major injuries.
If that’s the case, the Clippers will top off as a good but not great playoff team in the West. They took the Suns to six games without Leonard, and Paul George in particular seems to love carving up Phoenix’s defense, but Devin Booker deterrent Patrick Beverley is gone, Eric Bledsoe is a famously underwhelming presence in the playoffs, and, simply put, the Suns are the better overall team in that matchup.
The Clippers with Kawhi are legitimate title contenders. Without him, or with him unable to return until it’s bascially playoff time, LA’s ceiling only extends so high.
2. The LAARP Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers will be most people’s favorites to come out of the West, and that would’ve been the case before the Russell Westbrook trade over the summer. Plenty of pundits still chalk up Phoenix’s first-round “upset” of the Lakers to LeBron James and Anthony Davis being hurt (never mind that Chris Paul played most of that series with one arm). So, theoretically, the math is simple for them: Fully healthy King + fully healthy Brow + Westbrook’s arrival = Lakers are the favorites to win the West again in 2022.
The 2020 NBA champs could very well stay healthy, win the conference and earn yet another championship banner. But it’ll be a much more treacherous path than anyone’s letting on, because there is literally zero guarantee that one of the oldest teams in the NBA stays healthy long enough to make it happen.
LeBron has avoided major injuries for most of his career by taking superb care of his body. He’s also turning 37 in December and has missed significant time due to injury in two of the last three seasons. Nagging injuries have always been part of the calculus with AD. Westbrook turns 33 in November and has dealt with his fair share of injury woes too. A quick scan up and down the roster shows Carmelo Anthony (37), Trevor Ariza (36), Rajon Rondo (35), Dwight Howard (35), DeAndre Jordan (33), Wayne Ellington (33) and Kent Bazemore (32) joining LeBron and Westbrook in the 32-and-up club.
The Lakers will be a very good team that dominates opponents inside and has tons of playoff experience to draw upon. They also don’t have much shooting, they may be at a severe athleticism disadvantage in a playoff series against a team like the Phoenix Suns, and all of this is assuming their bodies don’t break down first.
1. The Phoenix Suns might get better through internal growth
Until this point, every reason has mostly just poked holes in the cases of the other contenders out West. But the biggest reason the Suns could easily make it back to the Finals? They’re a damn good team, and they may be even better next season thanks to internal growth.
Chris Paul’s arrival was the catalyst behind Phoenix’s unexpected leap into the contender category, but giving him sole credit for the Suns’ success would ignore the significant development of youngsters like Deandre Ayton, Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson and even Devin Booker with the way he remained so dangerous despite embracing a lesser role.
Phoenix will need a 36-year-old CP3 to stay healthy to contend, which seems like a scary proposition for a guy with such an extensive injury history. But Paul has only missed four regular-season games total over the last two years, so if he can keep things humming along through another deep playoff run, the young guns may be able to shoulder more of the load this time around.
Despite being an established superstar, Booker is only 24 years old and still has room to grow. Ayton was an absolute beast in the postseason and is only 23. Bridges made major leaps last year and is only 25. Ditto for Cam Johnson, who was another huge surprise in the playoffs. Throw in 24-year-old Landry Shamet and 27-year-old Cam Payne, and suddenly Phoenix’s upside looks immense.
There’s no guarantee all of these guys will expand their games in truly meaningful ways over the course of one shortened offseason. But even if the Suns only see 5-10 percent improvement from each of their youngsters, that’s a pretty frightening concept for the rest of the league after this inexperienced group stormed its way to the Finals. With a postseason run under their belt, far more continuity than when last season began and almost all of the necessary pieces back, the Phoenix Suns’ natural growth may be enough to turn last year’s plucky contenders into outright favorites to win it the West.
