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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- You've seen the All-Stars. Now we return you to the NBA's regularly scheduled Magnificent Seven.
|  | | There's no telling where Chris Webber will be next season, but he's got the Kings on their way to the playoffs now. |
Those seven teams out West -- seven! -- are all on pace to win 50 games or more.
Harp all you want on sagging TV ratings, flat attendance figures and low scores. Just don't forget that it's only in the hoops universe where, more than halfway in, we don't have a clear-cut favorite in a conference of dominant teams. No obvious choice to win the title in June, which, last we checked, qualifies as a pretty compelling reason to watch.
Compare that to baseball, for instance. Pitchers and catchers report this week, and all but a few teams are already out of pennant contention. Talk about image problems.
Or join us in an assessment of a league with some intrigue. The second half, and our team-by-team breakdown of the Wild Side, follows:
 Portland: Rasheed Wallace, Rip City's beloved Stare Master, is up to 27
technicals, on pace for a record-setting final tally of 44. Shawn Kemp is
reportedly under 300 L-bees at last, which qualifies as a welcome downturn
on the scales ... but only in comparison to Charles Barkley. Then there's
the scariest number for Blazermaniacs: 2. Two games against the Eastern
Conference are all that remain for the Blazers, who have played fewer games
against Western foes (22) than anyone else in the region. The Lakers, by
contrast, have 17 left against the East. Suddenly, that 2 1/2-game cushion
over the champs isn't looking so substantial -- especially since The Deepest
Team Money Can Buy had to beg Detlef Schrempf out of retirement when Scottie
The Sidekick got hurt.
 Utah: The only pretender in the group is Olden Polynice, who puts the O-P in
C-O-P. Otherwise, they're the same Jazzmen who've been making us look stupid
for at least a half-decade. Jerry Sloan just signed on to coach another
three seasons, Karl Malone and John Stockton will be together for at least
one more and the present, incidentally, doesn't look all that shabby. Common
sense says they won't get past the second round -- and that this conference
still belongs to the Blazers, Spurs or Lakers -- but none of this makes
sense. A slumping Karl Malone, averaging 23.0 points and 8.7 rebounds? A
fading John Stockton, still second second in the league in assists (9.3) and
3-point shooting (.507)? And now they have some help, with Donyell Marshall
firmly in the plans. Ain't dead yet.
 Sacramento: Chris Webber, we all know, is gonzo six months from now. In the
interim, we will discover whether the legacy of his Kings reign will finally
include at least one triumph in a first-round playoff series. It's not a
lock, despite Sacramento's undeniable standing as Overachiever Of The
Season, because CWebb's crew might not even secure home-court advantage for
the first round. Some of us (OK, me) were dead wrong about the uncertainty
over Webber's future and Jason Williams' unpredictability dragging the Kings
into the lottery. But both dramas remain potential distractions, as
evidenced by Sacramento's three straight ugly losses to crater into the
All-Star break. The skid coincided, remember, with an ESPN The Magazine
expose about Webber's not-so-innocent flirting with the Magic, Knicks,
Rockets, Fill-In-The-Blanks. Uh, stay tuned: 12 of the first 19 games after
the break are on the road.
 San Antonio: The Spurs will win the Midwest Division. They will thus have
home-court advantage in the West against all but one team. Call it a hunch,
but it's the Twin Towers/Texas Terrors/Whatever They Ares who have the best
chance to unseat the Lakers as the Finals representative from the Wild Side.
Can't overlook the fact that Avery Johnson, Sean Elliott and Malik Rose have
all missed significant stretches ... and that Tim Duncan only recently
started to look like Tim Duncan. Also can't downplay the reality that David
Robinson hasn't been hurt. The Spurs have posted win streaks of
five and eight games since Gregg Popovich used the dreaded S word -- "soft"
to describe his own players. Pop's only complaint lately was that Spalding
to the groin.
|  | | Could MJ have co-existed with Shaq any better than Kobe? |
 L.A. Lakers: We're guessing that the Lakers probably won't trade O'Neal to
Orlando for Grant Hill, as the Big Preposterous suggested during All-Star
Weekend. We're also guessing that LA won't repeat last season's feat, when
it went 3-0 before the All-Star break ... and 16-0 immediately after it.
Lastly, we warn you to dismiss the Lakers at your own peril. The defending
champions don't defend very well any more, and the Hollywood co-stars
haven't been getting along, but those are fixable problems. A little health
for the ailing Big Two, and just a smidgen of harmony, puts them back in the
title frame. Phil Jackson's bigger concern is the lack of production around
Shaq and Kobe, because that ain't changing in the forseeable future -- save
the re-activation of Derek Fisher.
 Minnesota: Larry Brown is an undeniably fine coach, one of the two best in
the league at the minute, but Flip Saunders has to be the Coach Of The Year
favorite. Kevin Garnett? Worth an MVP vote or two as well, dare we say. Much
as there isn't a soul among us who understands how Glen Taylor and Kevin
McHale could put those illegal Joe Smith contracts in writing -- in
writing!?! -- there is no rational explanation for the Wolves' 11-game win
streak and 52-win pace ... better than last year's 50-win breakthrough, in
fact. Yes, several of the recent victories came against short-handed
opposition, but let's remember who we're talking about. This is Team
Undermanned. No Smith. No Malik Sealy. No Bobby Jackson. No hope of winning
more than a round in the playoffs, but no better story anywhere in the
league.
 Dallas: The Mavericks can deal with the All-Star snubs of Dirk Nowitzki
(both of them) and all those Mark Cuban fines as long as they're not
excluded from the playoffs. Amazingly, they haven't clinched anything
despite ranking as the one of the Magnificent Seven in the West that's on
course for a 50-win season. They have spent much of the first half as close
to ninth in the conference as the division lead, in spite of a sterling road
record (16-10). Don Nelson is coming back Feb. 20, and Steve Nash should
beat Nellie back from a lingering hamstring problem. If those two
influential forces return with a flourish, and the Mavs finally start
winning at Reunion Arena like they do everywhere else, the league's longest
playoff drought (10 seasons) will be halted. Then they trade for Shareef
Abdur-Rahim in the summer and the fun really starts.
 Phoenix: One arrest, maybe. Two even, they could weather in the desert. But three in a matter of weeks? You suspect the last one was the clincher, the one that has the Suns dreaming of clearing out everyone not named Jason Kidd and Shawn Marion. Alas, most of their contracts won't be easy to move, while Valleyites grit their teeth and brace for the next crisis. Barring more trouble with Polynice's pals, next up might be the Suns' first spring without a playoff game since 1988. Their schedule was ridiculous easy early and gets significantly harder from here. The frailty of the teams below, more than the fortitude in their own injury-hit locker room, is the oasis of hope for extending that streak.
 Seattle: Nate McMillan is another fine coach who looks a real prospect in spite of limited recognition. McMillan had the gumption to suspend Gary Payton and, so far -- big words in this case -- Payton hasn't been a problem. Going forward, the Sonics should have gained strength from everything they've endured to this point -- an ownership change (Howard Schultz) and a coaching change (Paul Westphal), while playing more games (52) and more road games (28) than anyone in the league. Of course, on this side of the conference divide, all those trials probably don't mean a whole lot for a team that still has a roster of mismatched parts.
 Denver: Just when teams around the league were wondering whether the Nuggets' mutiny-saves-season approach was the league's new trend, it looks as though they could use another one. Even after the boycotted practice and the 14-3 surge that followed and Antonio McDyess' long-awaited All-Star breakthrough, Denver still has little (brittle?) confidence when it's playing at sea level. Dan Issel's road record of 7-18 is better than only three other West clubs (Clippers, Warriors, Grizzlies). Not a trend you want to see when a playoff berth is needed to save the coach's job, not just a season.
 Houston: You hear it from lots of teams on the Wild Side, but no team says so more than the Rockets: Put us in the East and we're a playoff outfit. Hard to argue, after acknowledging Houston's 14-3 record against the Leastern set, but they're still struggling to crack the top 10 in real life. Considering their struggles at home (11-13) and against those unforgiving West neighbors (11-22), maintaining a .500 mark would be an achievement. It'd be even better if we see the good Hakeem Olajuwon, as opposed to the bad Dream, as witnessed in the last few games before the break. If anyone should go out gracefully, it's the center who moved better than any other. Openly lobbying to leave Houston is better left to the Oilers.
 L.A. Clippers: Normally we'd dismiss them, or just laugh, but that was the last millennium. They have too much good, young talent -- and a Donald T. Sterling-proof labor contract that will keep the future stars from leaving as quickly as usual. It's a strategy other NBA stragglers might have to steal from, the stockpiling of raw youngsters with lots of upside and five-year obligations to the teams that draft them. Like Darius Miles, soon to be recognized as the best player from the Class 2000. Next to Lamar Odom and all the other quality kiddies, Miles has fought off the usual strains of Clipper-itis to help spark a 3-1 response to a long losing skid. They're not in the same postal code as the playoffs, but the Clips are certainly worth watching. The NBA doesn't offer a more exciting bad team.
 Golden State: The NBA doesn't field a more battered team. We'd list all the injuries here, but even the internet has its limits. Mind you, if they ever get healthy -- something the Warriors' surviving fans have been saying since the Run TMC era -- there will be worse front lines in the league than Antawn Jamison, Marc Jackson and Danny Fortson. For now, though, the future holds little besides the unwanted inheritance of the Mavericks' league-worst postseason absence (Golden State's dates to 1994). And considerable deliberation about the future of Captain Mookie. Actually, they've already stripped Mookie Blaylock of the captaincy; now the Warriors must decide whether to trade him to one of the interested playoff contenders for more youngsters.
 Vancouver: The Grizz are gonzo, just like CWebb. All you need to know. All that us Canada lovers can bear to discuss.
Marc Stein, who covers the NBA for The Dallas Morning News, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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