how would the west look if each team didnt have their star player?

[NugzFan]

how would you rank these teams without their best player for the entire season:

lakers without lebron
clippers without kawhi
rockets without harden
nuggets without jokic
thunder without cp3
jazz without mitchell
mavs without luka
portland without lillard

assume everyone else is 100% healthy all season.

[tpols]

Lakers would be mediocre.
Clippers would 7-8 seed still good.
Rockets would suck.
Nuggets would suck.
Thunder would suck.
Jazz would still be decent.
Mavs would be nothing.
Portland would be lotto.


That's my take.

[NBAGOAT]

clippers without kawhi obvious choice for 1.

gap

jazz without mitchell. pretty solid and have some lineup options with clarkson or ingles at sg.

gap

rockets without harden. i'm iffy on this but westbrook and shooters can theoretically be decent. i'm being optimistic and also assuming eric gordon plays decently with a bigger role, if not they're not good.

lakers without lebron. not good but the lakers would still be pretty good defensively and that can net 35+ wins.

nuggets without jokic. he just drives their offense. plumlee is a good passer and they still can trot out decent lineups so I'm open to putting them over the lakers. think ad and that defense is enough to give lakers the edge however

thunder without cp3. I just think cp3s helped shai and dennis a bit. also they have no depth so a loss hurts them more than other teams. they dont have one decent option at sf, dorts got potential but he's not there yet.

mavs without luka. pretty bad without luka since they're built around him even more so than the lakers around lebron or nuggets around jokic. Have a lot of shooters who cant run an offense.

blazers without dame hopeless with simons playing pg. assuming hood is healthy helps a little but they have no efficient firepower at all. awful on defense even with hood instead of melo

[Xiao Yao You]

Jazz without Mitchell would be like the Jazz without Hayward. Without Gobert they are one of the worst teams in the league

[NBAGOAT]

Jazz without Mitchell would be like the Jazz without Hayward. Without Gobert they are one of the worst teams in the league

they're pretty good but would you have them over the clippers?

[Xiao Yao You]

they're pretty good but would you have them over the clippers?

Clippers were good without their stars. Jazz have been an awful team without Gobert.

[NBAGOAT]

Clippers were good without their stars. Jazz have been an awful team without Gobert.

Ah I see what you’re arguing now, that gobert is their best player. Yea don’t know how I missed that, Goberts definitely their best player and Utah is pretty low without him. Likely not worse than blazers and mavs, maybe thunder

[GimmeThat]

they would go small, and robots of Derek Fisher would roam the league