They are 25-14. They have beat Golden St 2x, Portland once and they crushed San Antonio.... Glad its simple for you.

Right now they are looking at Portland 1st rd and OKC 2nd both who are tremendous home teams who will have home court advantage.

A little clarification. The horses BECAME front runners once Fires got on board.

We'll see how Portland does later in the season. This is a team who closed out last season on an 0-13 run.

They've also been obliterated twice by the Clippers, pounded by the Westbrook-less Thunder, and beaten twice by Dallas.

In terms of teams they're supposed to beat, they've lost twice to Sacramento, once to Utah, once to Philadelphia, and once to the Lakers. They're 13-11 vs. the West and 9-9 against teams with winning records. They have great potential, but to consider them a team that can win the West right now is over the edge.

Not even close to the same team

They added one starter in Lopez, and Mo Williams off the bench. The other 4 starters were there last year. The Blazers got off to a great start, out playing expectations going 18-6 against the number. Since? 3-10 ATS. Its a long season, and teams who are in the bottom half of FG % defense don't usually last long in the post season.

You said the team who closed out the season at 0-13 last year. Aldridge, Batum and Matthews missed a lot of those games. When you have Claver, Barton and Meyers Leonard starting during that stretch with the bench they had...what do you expect them to finish? They aren't a top team right now but they're certainly way better than the team that finished last season with the 13 game losing streak. Their bench is much improved over last year's disaster. I agree with you, the defense has been horrible...that has to get fixed.

Portland has overachieved to a degree but what happened at the end of last season is not really pertinent now. Regardless Portland is not an easy place to win a game for visiting teams.

They have some issues but again as a 1st round opponent they are not a team that you'd like to see. Plus they might have been doing a lot of tanking last year when it became apparent they werent going anywhere.

Put it this way the East 6 seed is looking at Atlanta 1st round. Without Horford Atl is probably a sub .500 team.

Golden State has somehow shrugged off the PG1985 curse and acquired a nice piece while giving up very little.

Jordan Crawford to GSW, Toney Douglass to Miami and Joel Anthony and draft picks to Boston.

Great trade for GS, good move for Miami as Douglass gives them depth and they save 10 million getting rid of a guy that doesnt play and Boston stockpiles more picks. Seemingly a win, win, win.

If you play fantasy basketball, you are right. But most times I watch them play head to head, Westbrook is the better player. Probably just a coincidence though. I'm sure Paul plays better against Sacramento and the Pelicans.

I must say you guys are quite entertaining and provide some pretty good information and insight.

So Paul is just good against bad teams now? We are talking about Chris Paul right? Not Cliff Paul? Not Sean Paul?

Honestly I prefer Cliff Paul. He's the star of those commercials.

I'm not a mush. All I said before the season was I prefer Houston and Golden St in a wide open West. Its in this thread.

Golden State is a lot closer than Houston now. I really like this trade for them.

I like it too. And its not a panic type thing, it comes right during a pretty great run by them.

They gave up nothing of note and got back a pretty good player in Crawford. I dont know if they will keep Brooks or send him to the D league but he was an interesting guy a few years ago that Avery Johnson just buried and he has never really recovered.

Greg Oden is active tonight. I believe he could make a major impact on this season. Either way you gotta want this guy to stay healthy.