Western Conference Schedule Predictions

[ahlthe3rd]

The breakdown of the schedule says each team will play teams from the other conference in the following manner:

-play 6 teams home only

-play 6 teams away only

-play 3 teams home and away

I wanted to see who you guys project we will see/who you want to see at the Highlight Factory and which teams we will get twice.

Hopefully they bring the Lakers to town, if for no other reason to get a guaranteed sellout. I'm having a hard time figuring out who they would give us two games against though. We don't really have any natural rivals in the West (a la Celtics/Lakers) that we'd HAVE to play twice. Thoughts?

[lethalweapon3]

Hope one of the home&aways is NOH. Maybe DEN since they were 5th in the West? And then one Pacific Division squad, maybe GSW since they were 3rd? Beyond that, no idea.

~lw3

[TheNorthCydeRises]

The way I would do it, is to designate one team from each division in the West as the team we'd play twice.

I would do this just like the NFL does, to schedule the final 2 games that aren't pre-determined. IN the NFL, you play one entire division from the opposite conference and one entire division from the same conference. That's 8 games. You then play your 6 division games. That's 14 total.

The remaining two games are determined by where you finished in the division in the previous year. And you'd play the team that finished in the same position that you did in another division. Those two games will be conference games.

So let's look at the Falcons schedule

6 games vs NFC South ( division foes )

4 games vs NFC North

4 games vs AFC South

So since the Falcons finished 1st in the NFC South last year, their remaining 2 games will have to be against last year's 1st place team in the NFC East and NFC West. Those teams were Philly and Seattle.

So using that model . . . and seeing that the Hawks finished 3rd in the Southeast Division last year . . . we'd play the 3rd place finishing teams in the 3 Western Conference divisions.

Northwest: PORTLAND

Pacific: GOLDEN ST

Southwest: NEW ORLEANS

Those are my guesses. And that's the easiest way to do it.

That doesn't help the Hawks any, from a box office standpoint.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

If they do it like the NFL, the bottom dwelling teams will have a chance to win a few more games, but it would hurt them at the box office. This would be the entire list of teams that would play each other twice

CELTICS/HEAT/BULLS - OKC, LAL, SAS

KNICKS/PACERS/MAGIC - DEN, PHO, DAL

SIXERS/BUCKS/HAWKS - POR, GST, NO

NETS/PISTONS/BOBCATS - UTA, LAC, MEM

RAPTORS/CAVS/WIZARDS - MIN, SAC, HOU

[MaceCase]

You can almost guarantee Memphis simply due to proximity for a home and away. Maybe the "avoiding Minnesota in the thick of winter" luck runs out too now.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

And the answer is . . . . . .

PHOENIX

PORTLAND

LA CLIPPERS ( next to last game of the season . . which isn't good for the box office )