Your opinions are not unreasonable. My personal feeling is that you are ignoring some obvious considerations, such as the fact that Stromile Swift has yet to shed his "potential" label in his 5 years in the league. Could he this year, with Van Gundy? Sure. Suffice it to say that, in my opinion, a lot -- a whole lot -- has to go right this year for Houston to win the West, which is the opinion that started this thread. But one cannot reasonably say that they are not in the mix of 6 or 7 teams that could come out of the conference.

But you are right for sure that we should look at this in terms of a wager. I see that Houston is +700 to win the West on Olympic. I think that's way too low to consider a wager (and you seem to agree with that). I would take Dallas at +1000 if I was looking for a wager with some value in the west.