Who Is the Team to Beat in the West?

The Lakers' big move of the offseason was their sort-of trade, adding Ron Artest and letting Trevor Ariza go. On reputation alone, that seems like a big upgrade. Meanwhile, the Blazers swung and missed on most of their free-agent targets before finally settling on Andre Miller.

That makes Kobe and company the team to beat in the West, right?

Maybe, maybe not.

The Lakers will be the favorites... but the Wages of Wins blog makes a pretty compelling case that the Blazers have improved while the Lakers took a step backwards this offseason.

Meanwhile... the initial reviews of the Hornets/Bobcats trade that sent Emeka Okafor to New Orleans and Tyson Chandler to Charlotte were generally along the lines of, "wait... what? They're, like, the same guy." But Scott Howard-Cooper of Sports Illustrated has a different take... last year, the Hornets were looking to dump Chandler for pennies on the dollar. Now, they moved him but brought back a legit player -- and a long-term contract commitment. That's a strong indication that the Hornets aim to be competitive in 2010 -- and beyond.