They just grow up so fast, don’t they?
Entering the 2006-07 season, the Utah Jazz seemed “a year away” but advanced to the Western Conference semifinals.
Entering 2007-08, the New Orleans Hornets also seemed “a year away” and finished second in the conference — then took a second-round playoff series with the San Antonio Spurs to seven games.
Entering 2008-09, dare we say the Portland Trail Blazers are “a year away”?
“I’ll jump on that bus,” Nuggets coach George Karl said.
But if this trend continues, it would shake up the West — and mean that some team from last year’s postseason will be watching this year’s postseason.
The Trail Blazers, coached by former Karl player Nate McMillan, are a young bunch that finished 41-41 last season (10th in the Western Conference) but had a 13-game winning streak.
Blazers guard Brandon Roy made the all-star team, one season after he was rookie of the year. LaMarcus Aldridge had little support in the low post but averaged 17.8 points and 7.6 rebounds. Travis Outlaw seems like he’s been in the NBA since the Clinton administration, but the 6-foot-9 forward, entering his sixth season, is only a budding 24.
Not a bad nucleus.
Then consider that the Blazers have two potential rookies of the year. Rudy Fernandez is a dynamic Spanish guard and one of the best performers in the Beijing Olympics — he hit five 3-pointers in the gold-medal game against Team USA. Greg Oden, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 draft, is back from injury, fashionably late and ready to join Aldridge in the low post.
But for the Blazers to shake up the system, they will have to play better than .500.
“It’s one thing to make a jump from 30 to 41 (wins), but it’s a huge jump to go from 41 to 50,” said TNT analyst Doug Collins, a former NBA player and coach. “And that’s what Portland is looking at now.”
One might recall the Nuggets had 50 wins last season and snatched the West’s eighth and final playoff spot.
And asked about the toughness of the Western Conference this season, Karl said: “I think the word would be ‘impossible.’ I’ll be anxious to see how many of the teams in the Western Conference, at one time in the season, will be the best team in the NBA. You could have five, maybe seven. Some people say that Boston is the best team, but we, by far, have the next seven or eight best teams.”
Yes, it’s pretty tough. Utah and New Orleans are among the giants of the conference — along with the Los Angeles Lakers, who went to the NBA Finals with Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol, and now have Andrew Bynum, a double-double guy who was injured most of last season.
Then there’s Houston, which has yet to make a playoff run with Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady. But with the addition of Ron Ar-test, the Rockets are now an overwhelmingly talented defensive team.
“There are a lot of ‘ifs’ with Houston as well,” said TNT analyst and former NBA star Reggie Miller, who picked Houston to win the wild West. “Can Tracy and Yao stay healthy for most of the season? Which Ron Artest is going to show up, the Ron Artest when he was first traded to Indiana when he said, ‘All I care about is winning, I don’t care what it takes’? That is very much what he’s saying in Houston.”
Some say the Mavericks, Spurs and Suns are slipping, with 30-something stars, but each is built like a playoff team. In other words, it’s tough to see any of them not making the playoffs.
“You can’t take games off,” said Nuggets guard Anthony Carter, “because each night, the Western Conference is going to be tough, and just that one game might be the game that you need to make the playoffs.”
