| Seed | Team | W | L | GB |
| 1 | Lakers | 33 | 8 | - |
| 2 | Spurs | 28 | 13 | 5 |
| 3 | Hornets | 26 | 13 | 6 |
| 4 | Nuggets | 28 | 15 | 6 |
| 5 | Rockets | 27 | 16 | 7 |
| 6 | Trailblazers | 25 | 17 | 8.5 |
| 7 | Jazz | 25 | 18 | 9 |
| 8 | Suns | 23 | 17 | 9.5 |
| 9 | Mavericks | 24 | 18 | 9.5 |
Of these 9 teams, 8 are going to make the playoffs while 1 is going to have an early vacation. There is a lot of chatter and discussion about which team is going to get a couple of ping pong balls into the lottery and which ones will have an opportunity to win a championship.
My feeling is that the Mavericks are going to not make the playoffs. There are a lot of people who think that a veteran team like Dallas will find a way to turn it on and make a playoff push and kick the Blazers and their youthiness out. This line of thought forgets that this isn't the same team that lost in the NBA Finals 3 years ago. The only core players that remain are Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, Josh Howard and Jerry Stackhouse and Erick Dampier. Everyone else is new and outside of Jason Kidd don't have playoff experience. Jason Kidd is 35 which is close to 64 in NBA years.
When I was younger, I would look at the sports section and pour over the standings. I would be very concerned if the Bulls were a half game behind the Hawks even if it was mid-January. If I still looked that the standings the same way as I did when I was 10, I might think that the experience and battle-testedness would figure out a way to get into the playoffs. What changed how I look at the standings page is the growth of more powerful statistics than just simple Win/Loss records. Based on the application of these statistics, specifically the calculation of the playoff odds it seems pretty clear that the Mavericks have a very small chance of making the playoffs. Here are some charts of the teams that seem most likely to be in the mix for the final playoff spot in the West. Things don't look promising for Dallas. Maybe trading away Devin Harris wasn't such a good idea after all.
Dallas:
Portland:
Phoenix:
Utah:
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