NBA Questions: Western Conference Edition

This year will be a very exciting year in the NBA. So many fascinating story lines will be taking place everywhere across the league. Is this the year that the Oklahoma City Thunder finally break through and win a championship. Some will say that if Serge Ibaka had not gotten hurt last year, then San Antonio would have never gotten by the Thunder. Will this be the year that the Spurs finally falter? Some will say that it has to happen sometime. For starters, Tim Duncan is like 500 years old. I joke, but it seems the man does not seem to age NBA wise at all. Yet, I will say this, I am not completely sold on Kawai Leonard as the future. Can he do it over an entire season is my question. 

Can the Los Angeles Clippers take the next step? They have fought through the ordeal that was Donald Sterling, but do they have enough to simply get past the second round of the playoffs. What the heck will the Lakers do this season? I am very interested to see what happens with them. I wonder if Kobe Bryant can make one last stand making a push for the playoffs with the team that probably has no business sniffing the playoffs. Yet, then again, he could get hurt again and they could have an even worse season than last year. 

What are we to make of the other good teams in the Western Conference? It is crazy to think of a team like the Houston Rockets as an afterthought with James Harden and Dwight Howard, but it is happening nonetheless. Yet, if the playoffs last year taught you anything, we cannot sleep on the Portland Trailblazers either. Finally , do not forget about Stephon Curry and the Golden State Warriors. He simply puts on a shooting display every single time he plays, so you can never count out a team with one of the greatest shooters of the recent past. 

I think this brings up an interesting question: how the heck did the West get so loaded with really good teams and the East suffers from an absence of such teams? Well, I am not sure what the answer to that is, but I do know that I am going to enjoy watching these Western Conference storylines play out over the next season.