NBA preview: Northwest Division

Teams listed in projected order of finish.

1. Seattle Sonics
Last year, then-coach Nate McMillan turned an undersized but athletic team into a European-style scoring show, putting emphasis on shooting and the finesse aspects of the game. It was good enough to get them to the second round of the playoffs. This year, Ray Allen and Vladimir Radmanovich return after a summer as free agents, so there will likely not be a major drop-off in scoring. But questions still linger as to how this team can find a way to beat teams with dominant low-post presences like Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett.
Shooting is a lost art in the NBA. But it still can't trump a dominant low-post player. And that is probably the barrier that will keep the Sonics from getting a whiff of the NBA Finals.

2. Minnesota Timberwolves
As long as Kevin Garnett is suiting up in the Twin Cities, the Wolves will be a threat in the West. Last year, however, illustrates just how GM Kevin McHale has failed to put an adequate supporting cast around Garnett.
Latrell Sprewell whined about not getting a new deal. Sam Cassell got older. Wally Szczerbiak got injured.
McHale can count former Clipper Marko Jaric as his big free-agent coup this summer. While Jaric has solid abilities across the board, he is far from the Kobe the Wolves need to compliment Garnett's Shaq.
If only McHale could go back in time and hypnotize Stephon Marbury into wanting to stay in Minnesota.

3. Denver Nuggets
The Nuggets could be the Pacers of the West, if they didn't have a few lunkheads in key places on their roster.
The Nuggets have a battle-tested coach in George Karl, and have a cache of good role players. The trouble is, the guys who are supposed to carry this team are overrated, overspoken and injury-prone (Kenyon Martin), have limited games (Andre Miller) or get caught mugging in videos that threaten to kill anyone caught snitching on drug deals (Carmelo Anthony).
Somehow the Nuggets toe the line between Pacer teamwork and Blazer thug-circus and get to the playoffs every year. But the lack of roster leadership repeatedly limits how deep into May this team can play.

4. Portland Trail Blazers
I took a cheap shot at the Blazers a couple of lines above. Five years ago, this was goon central. Now, the Blazers have succeeded in putting a team on the floor that contains players who can at least stay out of the police blotter. Trouble is, they missed the playoffs.
The Blazers are rebuilding around the likes of Zach Randolph and Sebastian Telfair, who are both good players but have significant limits to their games. In the stacked West, this team of 40-odd wins is a fringe playoff team at best.

5. Utah Jazz
A year ago, the pundits proclaimed the Jazz rebuilt from the post-Stockton/Malone era. They went out, signed Mehmet Okur from the champion Pistons, then stole Carlos Boozer right out from under the Cavs' noses.
They were viewed as a pair of slick, heady moves by Jazz management. A year later, the Jazz are coming off their worst season in more than a quarter-century, and the moves were exposed as the money pits they are.
Okur is a finesse center who really lacks the coordination to be a great finesse center. In other words, he's not Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Boozer developed a consistent mid-range jumper in Cleveland, and he stuffed the stat sheet to nearly 20 points and nine boards a game until a leg injury ended his season last year. But his athletic shortcomings were exploited in his first season in Utah.
Boozer lacks the arm range and leaping ability to hang with the West's best front court players, especially on defense.
This team's best player is still Andrei Kirilenko, and if the Jazz get an MVP-type season out of him, they are a playoff contender. If he gets hurt like last year, we have already seen that Okur and Boozer can't pick up the slack.

Up next: the Southwest Division