The titans of the Eastern Conference – the Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics, and Philadelphia 76ers, occupy its top three seeds. Nobody would be surprised if any of those teams emerge as the representative for the NBA Finals. It's more complicated in the West, with its biggest names and championship owners in LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Durant all playing for sleeping giants that find themselves on the lower rungs within the standings than they're historically used to.

That makes for a rather spicy Western Conference race to come with potential blood in the water amongst the relatively inexperienced top seeds, according to ESPN's Brian Windhorst in a recent on Get Up.

“[Kevin] Durant, LeBron [James], [Steph] Curry and the rest of those Warriors — they smell something. They smell weakness in the Western Conference. … It is a weak conference,” said Brian Windhorst.

The Nuggets, Grizzlies, and Kings represent the West's top seeds, respectively. Each of them has top-end players with relatively deep supporting casts. None of them boast the experience held down by some of the other teams like the Warriors, Suns, and Lakers. Those are the only three teams to come out of the West over the last eight years.

“If we get to May and [Nikola] Jokic and the Nuggets and Ja [Morant] and the Grizzlies are standing there in the Conference Finals, they can give the middle finger to all those teams that feel that way. Right now, those teams [Suns, Lakers, Warriors] smell weakness. Durant's coming back, LeBron's coming back. LeBron's coming back on a bad foot because he smells weakness.”

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