The Los Angeles Heat

It's official, the Los Angeles Clippers are heads and shoulders above every other NBA team this offseason in terms of activity. Last night, I read a headline that Jason Williams (aka White Chocolate) will be joining fellow former Miami guard Ricky Davis with the Clips.
What do these moves mean for the Clippers? Quite a bit, in my opinion.

Williams, much maligned for his flashiness, has actually developed into a pretty reliable NBA guard. Despite this supposedly flashiness, White Chocolate has presumably matured over the years. In 28mpg last season, he only averaged 1.36 turnovers -- far below his career average of 2.27 in 31mpg. Choco will be a great backup to Baron Davis, and suddenly the Clippers went from having Dan Dickau & Brevin Knight to having Davis and Williams. HUGE upgrades.

Ricky D is a high risk, high reward type of player. Nobody has ever questioned his talent, but many have questioned his work ethic. Have you forgotten Ricky's infamous attempt at a triple double by purposely missing a shot on the other team's basket so he could grab his tenth rebound? Yikes. On the other hand, this is Baron Davis' team now. He did a marvelous job of helping to keep Stephen Jackson's head on straight in GS, so why can't he do the same for Davis? Jackson is a bigger hothead, in my opinion, and Ricky's game is actually pretty similar to Stephen's. In fact, I'd argue that Stephen Jackson is almost a poor man's version of Ricky Davis. I'm betting on good chemistry between the Davis' this season in LA.

The Clips have set themselves up with a pretty solid roster. It is lined with veterans (Davis, Williams, Camby, Kaman, other Davis), but also has a few young prospects that are very talented (Thornton, Gordon). In my experience, this type of mix has "playoff berth" written all over it. I'm predicting it now: Clippers get the 7th playoff seed in a loaded west.