Early Season NBA Power Rankings – Teams 30 through 26

Well, their teams will probably stink, but at least they prevented Chris Paul from becoming a Laker.

June 11, 2011 – the last time sports fans were able to enjoy NBA basketball being played. On that day we watched the Mavericks prevail over the mighty villainous Heat for the greater good of basketball. We watched Dirk reach that “This guy is going to come through and kill them in the fourth quarter. I’ll bet on it.” level and solidify his place in basketball history. We witnessed the greatest athlete of this generation crumble under the pressure and stigma that he had earned. We even watched Chris “I might shoot 1-16 but I am going to let you know about the one shot I made” Bosh cry as if his dog had just died while walking into the locker room after the game 6 loss. (Ok, now I’m in the mood to mock Chris Bosh. Here is another clip.) We watched all of this mindful of the sobering certainty of a long and strenuous lockout and the possibility of canceled games lurking.

December 21, 2011 – The lockout is over and now I get to sit down and write about the NBA for first time since that series in June with a Tell-It-Like-It-Is NBA Early Season Power Rankings.

As a result of the five month lockout and the subsequent ultra-condensed free agency signing period, it was a lot tougher to not only rank these teams amongst each other but to give accurate prognostications for the majority of them. In the last three weeks alone, we have seen a number of teams either considerably improve or regress as a result of everything from a vetoed trade to an integral player having open heart surgery. On top of this, there are a number of teams who either left bad tastes in our mouth after disappointing finishes – think Lakers, Magic, and Spurs– or teams that gave us reason to expect major improvements towards the end of last season – think Grizzlies, Nuggets and Pacers. You could say that the Pacers will take the next step or that this is the year that the Lakers fall off the edge, but who really knows?

Seven out of the top ten teams on my list have major questions – injuries, aging stars, new acquisitions, a trade of their superstar that may or may not happen, implementing their best player back into the rotation after playing their best basketball without him, a post-championship hangover. Most of the teams make the 2011-12 Heat look like a stable, predictable, humdrum basketball team.

One more point before I reveal the rankings: The effect that the “66 games in 120 nights” schedule should be underestimated. It will put teams that go nine and ten deep – Denver, Indiana, Chicago, and Memphis, for example – at a huge advantage as they will be able to get away with lightening the load for their starters without a huge drop off when they are playing their seventh game in nine nights. On the flip side, older teams or teams that lack a lot of depth—namely the Lakers, Celtics, Knicks, and Spurs—are screwed. There are going to be a number of moments during the season when Popovich, Doc, and Mike Brown will have to decide whether to play their aging stars 35+ minutes for the fourth game in six nights, or maybe just play them 25 minutes (or maybe not at all) in order to save their legs– burn out your best players before the playoffs even start or essentially give away games. Regardless of what their coaches decide, you have to think that Garnett, Kobe and Duncan are thinking to some extent right now, “I don’t care about where we finish. Let’s just get into the postseason with everybody healthy and then we’ll go from there.” In short, the NBA (and by NBA, I mean the greedy owners who just want to enhance their revenue with more games) has not only marginalized its regular season by trying to fit in 66 games in 120 nights, it is also expediting the closing stages of its aging stars’ careers.

I did not factor the revised schedule into my rankings because penalizing teams for injuries or excessive fatigue before it occurs is absurd. Just know that my ranking for a team is not based on how I think they will finish in the regular season, but of their chances to win a championship as of today. For instance, (*spoiler alert*) I didn’t put the Celtics ninth because they will finish with the ninth best regular season record but because they are the 9^th best title contender.

Without further ado, the first five teams in my power rankings…

30. Charlotte Bobcats

Michael Jordan won 6 NBA Championships during his illustrious career. But after roughly a year and a half as majority owner, Michael Jordan has the Bobcats further away from winning an NBA championship than any other team in the league.

Looking at this roster, I am finding it hard to figure how this team scores 75 points per game. Their five projected starter’s combined scoring average from last season is 48.

For now, I will give Michael Jordan the benefit of the doubt and believe that the reason he has constructed such an awful compilation of players is that he realizes that the only way he can build the Bobcats into a contender is by bottom outing – becoming awful in order to get high draft picks and rebuild with them. After all, this June’s draft class will be the best since 2003 (Lebron, Wade, Melo), so if there is a year to be awful, it is this year.

So for now Bobcat fans (all 12 of you), just go into basketball hibernation until June, when the Bobcats will receive a franchise guy, like Anthony Davis or Andre Drummond, to build around.

29. Toronto Raptors

We travel north of the border for number 29. Not a whole heck of a lot to say here. They play in Canada. They don’t play defense. They haven’t been relevant since 2000. No star will ever want to play in Toronto. You can’t say I didn’t try to make this post shorter.

28. Cleveland Cavaliers

The bad news for Cavs fans is that they chose the wrong draft to have the first and fourth overall pick. Although I guess time will ultimately tell, for now, the2011 draft class was the worst draft class in the last 10 years. As I wrote about back in June, Kyrie Irving isn’t the franchise savior that guys like Derrick Rose, Blake Griffin, and Kevin Durant were. The good news is that they will stink again this season and will likely get to choose from players like Barnes, Davis, and Drummond to compliment this year’s first rounders, Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson.

If Dan Gilbert had an ounce of basketball knowledge in him, he would look to trade away highly paid veteran players who are useless to his currently hopeless franchise like Andersen Varejao and Antwan Jamison to contenders for their first rounder in return. Then he would be able to package his multiple first round picks and trade them in order to move up and take advantage of this deep draft class.

Fans of these teams have to hope for lottery luck in order to acquire Davis (top), Drummond (middle), or Jones (bottom).

Fans of these teams have to hope for lottery luck in order to acquire Davis (top), Drummond (middle), or Jones (bottom).

Here is the plan:

First trade Andersen Varejo to the Rockets for their 7.3 million dollar trade exception and their first rounder. Then trade Antwan Jamison to the Lakers for their 8.9 million dollar trade exception, Luke Walton’s expiring contract, and their two 2012 first rounders (one of which is Dallas’s).

Then package those three first rounders from other teams– Rockets (in the 12-16 range), Lakers (20-25), and Mavericks’ (23-28), and trade them to obtain a higher pick- let’s say, hypothetically, the 12^th overall pick.

Now the Cavs have the 12th overall pick in addition to their own pick (likely top 5). They can the top five pick to get one of the premier big men (Drummond/Davis/Jones) in the draft, and use the 12^thpick (or something close to that) on an athletic wing, namely Kentucky’s Michel Kidd-Gilchrist, who, according to nbadraft.net’s current mock draft, will be available then.

The end result is a killer young nucleus of Irving, Kidd-Gilchrist, Thompson, and Drummond/Davis/Jones and the 2019 NBA Champions. That is how you build for the future, Dan Gilbert.

27. Sacramento Kings (Jimmer!!!!) Yes, Jimmer Freddette will be suiting up in purple and black (fashion friendly, ladies) this season, but what I want to focus on is Tyreke Evans because he is one of the keys for the Kings, not only now but for future. Even though he is only entering his 3^rdseason, the Kings front office need to decide what they want to do with him – either keep him, build around him, and bank on him becoming really good, or sell him high with a trade right in the near future. Personally, I’d trade him.

The problem with Tyreke Evans isn’t his own talent. If you were to rank every NBA guard based on their ability to break a defender down and get to the rim, he would certainly be somewhere in the top 10, maybe top 5. At his best, Evans can essentially turn the game into a one man layup line. The problem is his ability to make others better.

The best way I can put it is this: Tyreke Evens is that guy you play pickup games with at the YMCA who is by far the best player there but you don’t really want him on your team because as good as he is, he doesn’t make the players around him better. He just isn’t fun to play with. You’ll probably have to stand around and watch him go one-on-one for the majority of the time. It’s not that he is selfish, he just isn’t a born distributor. He has a whole lot of the Gilbert Arenas gene in him and not a lot of the John Stockon gene.

The Kings might be smart to trade Tyreke Evans sooner rather than later.

So if the Kings should preemptively break up with Tyreke Evans, where is the trade coming from? Using ESPN’s Trade Machine, I came up with a trade that I sort of like, and semi-makes sense. Minnesota sends Derrick Williams and Luke Ridenour to Sacramento for Tyreke Evans and JJ Hickson. (Don’t pay attention to the win increase/decrease projection from the trade machine. It’s been on the fritz lately.)

If you’re the Kings you make this trade because a) Derrick Williams is about as good of compensation as you will get for Evans, b) you would still be bad enough this season to have a pick in the 5-10 range in this talent-rich draft, and thus would be able to add a guard to the young nucleus, and c) how do you say no to a one-two low-post combo of DeMarcus Cousins and Derrick Williams for the next 10 years?

(I’ll have more on this hypothetical trade from Minnesota’s perspective in my preview for them.)

Speaking of DeMarcus, he is other King with star potential and key for Sacramento going forward. We know this much:

Sacremento can only hope that DeMarcus figures things out and fulfills his potential.

1. He is 6’11, 275 lb and has legitimate low-post moves.

2. In the NBA, there is a very short list of centers who are 25 years or younger with star potential and DeMacrus is one on that list.

3. He is as inconsistent as a professional basketball player gets. One night he is Rasho Nesterovic (2-11 shooting, 4 rebounds vs. Portland on January 19^th) and almost the very next game he is Moses Malone (27 and 10 vs. the Lakers front line on January 28^th).

5. The Kings will need to handle DeMarcus Cousins with caution and surround him with the right people in order for him to reach his full potential.

6. Jimmer “Stormin’ Mormon” Fredette trying to fit into this locker room of players, none of whom he shares anything in common with, right after spending four years at BY “Have pre-marital sex and you’re out of here” U is the most unintentionally funny thing to happen in the NBA since Brian Cardinal played 20 minutes in a Finals series. Happy basketball season, Sacramento! Enjoy your team while it lasts!

Jimmer to his teammates: “So you’re saying that you don’t have 4 wives?”

26. Washington Wizards

A lot of young players here; some of these young players are good, some not so much. Some of these young players play hard all the time, some do not. Some of these young players have a basketball IQ, some of them shoot contested, off-balance shots with 20 seconds left on the shot clock. Some of these young players don’t have an extensive record of misdemeanor crimes or a parole officer, some of them just might be Andray Blatche.

On a serious note, lets talk about John Wall and his upcoming breakout season. Two years ago it was Kevin Durant, last year it was Derrick Rose and Blake Griffin, and this year is Wall’s year.

Andray Blatche being Andray Blatche.

Here is how its going to go down: Wall is going to play well enough this season to average 12 assists per game but due to his supporting cast will only average 9 to 10. There will be at least three times per game when John Wall sets up Nick Young or Rashard “I’m just here to collect the $45,942,000 over the last two years on my contract” Lewis and they will do exactly what you’d expect from a 23-59 basketball team.

Since I have given hypothetical trades that help turn the ship around for almost all of these miserable franchises so far, I’ll give a couple for the Wizards because I think we can all agree that it would be cool if a) basketball was relevant in DC again and b) John Wall had some talent around him.