NBA: Reassessing the West’s playoff picture at the end of 2021

Reassessing the Western Conference’s playoff picture as we inch closer to the midway point of the 2021-22 NBA season. 

At least for now, the NBA’s Western Conference playoff picture isn’t as clean as the Eastern Conference. There isn’t a clear-cut set of tiers of teams. Not yet. What the West has made clear is that there is one top tier.

The Golden State Warriors, Phoenix Suns, and Utah Jazz have clearly separated themselves as the top class of the Western Conference and any team that is looking to make a  deep run in the playoffs will likely have to go through them.

After that is where it gets interesting. There’s no clear second tier in the conference yet and it’s pretty much seven or eight teams fighting for the final five spots in the postseason – and potentially two additional places in a playoff play-in tournament.

The Memphis Grizzlies and Denver Nuggets appear to be locked into the 4-5 seed as they have been quite strong even despite missing key players throughout the course of this season. The LA Clippers, Dallas Mavericks, Minnesota Timberwolves, Los Angeles Lakers, and Portland Trail Blazers are all jumbled together hoping to gain any type of positive rhythm in an effort to move up the West standings.

But even for the notorious Lakers, there’s no guarantee that they’re going to be able to right the ship and secure a playoff spot over the second half of the season. It’s been that type of unpredictable season in the NBA. And it wouldn’t be wise to expect anything differently over the second half of the season.

The NBA’s Western Conference road to the postseason is generally a difficult one, but the parity that exists after the top three teams could make this year’s playoff push that much more intriguing.