by Brandon Ellis

Created on: October 16, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

For all the talk of free agency, turnover in the NBA use to be as frequent as an uninteresting sound byte by Charles Barkley.

Then something strange happened, and the league went nuts. KG traded. Ray Allen traded. Pau Gasol traded. Mike Bibby trade. Shaquille Oneal traded. Jason Kidd traded.

All of a sudden you had a new league with tons of new contenders. Finally the 2007-2008 season brought us some fresh blood and some compelling teams that could peak the interest of more than just basketball junkies.

It's a great time to be an NBA fan.

And I have to tell you I think this coming season is going to be great.

Western Conference...

I see at least 5 teams in the west who have a legitimate chance of winning the west.

First the Lakers, who now with a healthy Bynum boast one of the tallest and most athletic front lines in recent years, while still suiting up the games greatest closer in Kobe Bryant every night.

This is a team that no matter how you scrutinize their poor finals performance has to be one of the early favorites if not the favorite to win the title this year.

You still have to give respect to the Spurs, when playing with a healthy Tim Duncan, Ginaobli and Parker they're fantastic. Sure their bench has age significantly and doesn't offer the same punch it once did-but you can't count out any team coached by Greg Popavich. He is a great but under rated coach, and believed or not his team may be a dark-horse this year.

Next you have the young and talented New Orleans Hornets, maybe they took off a year early last year, but I think this year could be the year where they really can be considered a title contender. Chris Paul has another year under his belt, already the world's best Point Guard at his age you can expect him to only improve.

Meanwhile David West has quietly become an all-star power forward and may have the best medium range set shot of any big man this side of Tim Duncan. Coming out of college scouts worried he was too undersized to play power forward, and perhaps even a little too slow, but what was everyone else's loss has become New Orleans goldmine.

Add in perimeter scoring from Peja, Rasual Butler, Morris Peterson, James Posey and Julian Wright. Not to mention Tyson Chandler doing the dirty work down low and you may have a championship formula.

The only weakness of this team is the perimeter scoring besides Paul, the key to New Orleans becoming a great team really depends on the development of 2nd year forward Julian Wright, who down the stretch

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