What great timing. After seven years in the Memphis front office, I’m starting my new venture with The Athletic just as the West stands at a potentially historic tipping point.

To understand why, let’s rewind to Jan. 18, 2015. Check out the standings that day.

You’ll find my Grizzlies at a sizzling 29-11, on a 59-win pace in a loaded Western Conference… in a league where it’s normally easier to pick up wins late in the year due to the, um, “load management” from non-contending teams.

Here’s the thing ⁠— we were only in third place in the West, and barely out of sixth. Portland stood just ahead of us at 30-11. Dallas and Houston were breathing down our necks at 28-13, the Lob City Clippers were “just” sixth at 27-14, and the defending champion Spurs were chilling at 26-16, loading up for the late-season run everyone knew was coming. (Postscript: They went 21-4 in their final 25 games.) And of course, our hot start in Memphis was a mere footnote because the Golden State Warriors were off to the races at 32-6.

That’s seven contenders playing at a mid-50 win pace or better in one conference. Amazingly, there would have been an eighth, except Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant broke his foot and played only 27 games. It was the most competitive, wide-open conference race we’ve had this century; only 2008 rivals it.

Of course, we all know what happened next: Golden State would go on to dominate the West, while the rest of us slipped back. Portland faded from the race after Wes Matthews tore his Achilles tendon. Dallas limped in with 50 wins after a disastrous midseason trade for Rajon Rondo. The Clippers won 56 but blew a 3-1 playoff lead against Houston and never really recovered, while Durant would leave OKC a year later and cement the Warriors dynasty. As for my Griz, we won 55 games and gave the Warriors their toughest playoff battle, but it was our last great team. One year later, age and injuries relegated us to 42 wins.

What makes this such a thrilling time is that the West is headed for another 2015 moment. It hasn’t been this uncertain in the half-decade since, with Golden State the annual favorite and Houston the only team capable of making the Warriors sweat. Further back, we had a similar power shift in that 2008 season, when six West teams won between 54 and 57 games. Much like Golden State’s dynasty emerged in 2015, it was the Lakers’ second era that rose up in 2008 to win three straight conference titles.

Who will rise up this time? Injuries and free agency have made the Warriors mortal, while insurgents are everywhere: The Clippers, Jazz, Lakers, Nuggets and Rockets all claim a realistic chance of stealing their crown. That’s six legit contenders in one conference, with a couple other teams politely knocking at the door (I see you, Portland). And it’s all happening in the context of an ongoing arms race among these same teams, one that dwarfs the mostly secondary moves we contenders made in 2015.

So it’s an interesting time to jump back to the media side. But times have changed too, and not just because the West is competitive again. Most notably, analytics has blown up since my last go-round. My most famous invention, PER, is old enough to drink now, and some new evaluative methods have come along to help shed more light. So while I’ll still deliver some of the familiar analytics, I’ll also introduce some other, more recent tools.

Obviously, my perspective has shifted too. In addition to a lifetime supply of Tony Allen stories, I now have an insider’s perspective of working on trades, drafts and free agency, which I’ll use to explain not just what happened but also why, and most importantly, what to expect next.

One could say my journey is coming full circle – my interest in team-level decisions is what led me to create all these “advanced stats” in the first place. (Side note: that something like Rebound Rate is called “advanced” tells you how deep in the Stone Age basketball stats were in the ’90s.) I did it not because I care about numbers, but because I care about the questions they can answer: Should Player X get Player Y’s minutes? Where should a team focus its efforts to improve? What contracts make sense for what players? Those and their infinite cousins were the motivation for creating PER, and eventually a lot of other supporting analytics.

Now I get to tie all that together here at The Athletic, combining my background in analytics with my seven years of experience in the front office. So I hope you’ll join me for what should be an entertaining journey this year on the cusp of the NBA’s next era.

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(Photo by Randy Belice/NBAE via Getty Images)