2014 NBA Season Predictions: Denver Nuggets To Make The Playoffs? After Turmoil And Injuries Young Team To Bounce Back Behind Faried And Gallinari!

The 2014 NBA Season Predictions most exciting aspect is the final three playoff slots in the Western Conference. The Denver Nuggets hope to figure in that fray, and they will use their rejuvenated players Danilo Gallinari and Kenneth Faried.

Faried is currently lighting it up with Team USA in the FIBA World Cup, even emerging as the team's best player so far. He was supposed to be an energy guy off the bench when Kevin Durant rests. He had to take that spot full time and he has delivered.

They expect his resurgence to overflow into the NBA season as he will be the key to the Nuggets playoff run. But with a stacked Western Conference, the Nuggets need to dig deeper to gain ground.

Basketball Insiders predicts a bigger role for the returning Danilo Gallinari. The Italian player just recovered from knee surgery and Basketball Insiders got the inside track:

Gallinari: "I feel great. I am ready to return seven months after my last knee surgery. I had a few contact practices in Milan. Now I have to re-gain confidence and be ready. I will need to be patient because after more than a year without basketball you have to work also on the mental aspect. But I want to be a better player than before the injury."

Gallinari would be a perfect complement to Faried's athleticism and point guard Ty Lawson's speed. The two are physical specimens. Can Gallinari keep up with them?

"I think that I am much better because you have the chance to focus on other things on the basketball court and maybe when you are playing you don't do that much, but I think that that part has always been in my nature, always been in my repertoire, so I've been feeling pretty good with that. But you have the chance to improve in some part of the game, not just the game, but some part of the body that you didn't work before. I had the chance to know the knees, both knees a little bit better, to work on the muscles that I didn't even know that I had those muscles before, so you have the chance to know your body better."

The Denver Nuggets have a very good chance to become the sleeper team of the West. What do you think? Will they make the playoffs?