Mavericks:
The Mavericks are currently 13-8 and the 3rd seed in the West. They are one of the best offenses in the league and have been playing surprisingly well. Their rookie center Dereck Lively II has been good and is shaping up to be a big piece for them. They’ll be tough to knock out thanks the Luka, but I do think that they need another defensive piece to be strong contenders.
Rockets:
The Rockets are 10-9 and the 8th seed in the West. They’ve really locked in on the defensive side of the ball and have been winning games because of it. I think they’ll be a play-in team, but they really need to improve on the offensive side of the ball. Thankfully they have a lot of young pisces so there’s time for them to improve.
Grizzlies:
The Grizzlies are 6-15 and the 13th seed in the West. They’re holding up defensively, but offensively they’re one of the worst teams in the league and have really been missing their star player Ja Morant. If he returns, and plays as well as he has, they can possibly get some good stretches in order to push for a play-in spot.
Pelicans:
The Pelicans are 12-11 and the 10th seed in the West. To me they’ve been pretty disappointing this season, and a lot of that falls on Zion. He isn’t in great shape, and thus he isn’t living up to his full potential. The team has really great depth that is being wasted by the inconsistency and lack of effort of their stars.
Spurs:
The Spurs are 3-18 and the 15th seed in the West. Wembanyama has been good to start off his career, but a lot of questionable coaching decisions are being made. I haven’t watched any Spurs games recently, but when I did I saw that Victor would be ignored a lot by his teammates. He could be wide open under the rim, and they’d avoid passing to him. The Spurs have been running Jeremy Sochan as a point forward, but I’m not sure why they insist on doing so. They have a competent point guard in Tre Jones, so I guess the Spurs had given up on their season before it even started.