[EricaLubarsky]

There arent many teams that scare me in the West if we played them in a 7-game series. Any team in the league can beat any other on any given night (even the Nets will have a few in the win column by the end of the season), but I am not scared at all of the Suns. They are raining threes at a ridiculous rate while otherwise playing ball at a sub-playoff level. At some point the Suns will stop hitting threes at a 46.2% clip and will become a perfectly mediocre team. They may be averaging 111ppg, but they are allowing opponents to score 107ppg on them so if they face some defensive opposition or just have an offnight shooting, they can easily be toppled.

Spurs are always dangerous and we will need to address some defensive issues when Parker returns. Lakers are the only truly scary team in the West as far as Im concerned though. When they are healthy they are a deadly combo of inside and out. Nugs haven't shown anything this year that scares me and if anything it looks like they took a step back.

I think Portland may be legit. What they dont have is veteran wisdom, but every statistic so far (in the first sixth of the season) has shown them to be a solid defensive team that can win despite having a league-average offense. #1 FG defense, #5 3 point defense, #2 in rebounding differential, #6 in bpg. If they improve their offensive efficiency they may a concern but right now their lack of experience and average offense make me doubt they will make too large a splash in the playoffs even if they are defeinitely headed toward a berth.