HOOPOLOGY: Wild Wild West

Starting today everything i write about basketball will fall under the "Hoopology" header. The term was coined late last year when the House of Hoops tipped off over ABC as one of the show's segments, which hoped to cater to the rather non-serious, sometimes funny issues of NBA/basketball. This included TOP TEN LISTS of EVERYTHING NBA... Among other concepts (original or influenced) we were able to come up with rankings of the Top 10 Best and Worst Monikers... Dead-ringers... Best Coaches of All Time... Overpaid and Underpaid Players... and heck, even Top Ten Cheerleaders in the association... Over time, Hoopology also tackled the more serious (and stats-heavy) nature of the business as we were able to feature the league leaders in NBA history, the scoring kings, the rebounding monsters, the dean of dimes among others...

The funny thing is the House of Hoops team has a grand total of two writers! (myself and Mr. Paolo Mariano) This actually is going on since the Sports Desk days. Imagine TWO freaking writers to make a one-hour or 30 minutes daily show for the Desk.. Then this one, albeit it's about basketball, for a 2 and a half hour or 1 hour show. What i am trying to say here is while there are lots and lots of ideas that are going to be conceptualized, it did get tiresome eventually. But since it IS basketball (and sports)... Why are they paying me for this job again?

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With two playing dates to go before the regular season, the Eastern Conference first round match-ups have been set; (1) Boston vs. (8)Atlanta; (2) Detroit vs. (7) Philadelphia; (3) Orlando vs. (6) Toronto and (4) Cleveland vs. (5) Washington...

Prediction: All East top seeds advance

That's why we will be talking about the other conference for today... Indeed it has been a wild, wild race for the west top spots... With the Golden State Warriors loss to the Phoenix Suns earlier today, the final eight is decided. However, teams are still jockeying for position as a win or a loss could mean a first round date with a stronger team. Then again, we are talking about the western conference here... Where every team is nearly as good as the other...

If the West playoffs started today this is how the first round will look like: (1) Los Angeles vs. (8) Denver; (2) New Orleans vs. (7) Dallas; (3) San Antonio vs. (6) Phoenix and (4) Utah vs. (5) Houston...

That's four classics in the first round in just one conference! Which really sums up how dominant the western teams have been the entire season...

Predictions of the first round results will be useless as the match-ups could very well change... That said, here's a forecast how the West will shape up after the final day of the regular season (That is, with just a quick look at the team's respective schedules...)

1. Los Angeles
2. San Antonio
3. New Orleans
4. Utah
5. Houston
6. Phoenix
7. Dallas
8. Denver