Black Friday Power Rankings: Part 2

Part 1: Teams 30-18 - remember these rankings are not intended to be scientific, nor a representation of where I think the teams will end up, more just a representation of how they are playing now combined with how they are building for the future if they are going nowhere this year.

We Can Rebuild Them

Not good yet, but there are pieces and perhaps a roadmap in place:

17. Indiana - Granger, Hibbert and Collison really is a nice core of complimentary young players. They are only on the hook for roughly $35 million in salary next season. They have $25 million or so in expiring contracts this year. And they are actually playing pretty decent basketball this season, though you wouldn't know it by the deserted island that is Conseco Fieldhouse on gamenights. All that said, good luck getting anyone who matters to come to Indianapolis.

16. New York - A few days ago, I probably put these guys in the "I didn't sign up for this shit" category, but they seem to have found a nice little rhythm, with Galinari in particular being far more aggressive since the rumors of him being traded for Melo faded a bit. Despite the huge, gaping, cavernous, enormous, echoing, visible-from-space hole in the middle of this team, a team with this much talent not making the playoffs as the 7/8 seed in the East would reflect very poorly on Amare, or on D'antoni or both.

15. Golden State - They've had a rough time of it since David Lee discovered that Wilson Chandler's mouth is a germ-ridden as that of a grizzly bear. But given the quality perimeter scoring and reasonable contributions of Biedrins, with Lee's interior scoring and rebounding back in the fold, I fully expect them to claim their rightful place as the 10th seed in the West who inspires columns wondering why do we have to have conference-based playoffs.

Welcome to the Real World

These five have all sent messages to their fans to enjoy the good times, but get real, this isn't going to end well

14. Phoenix - You are still tons of fun to watch, but the guys who have probably been your best two players are a combined 75 years old. With no real young talent being developed, no interior presence and not enough firepower to simply outgun teams a la the 05-08 versions of the Nash Express, shouldn't you be at least be exploring moving Steve at this point?

13. Portland - Of your 4 most importantly players 2 are about 196 years old and the others have about .5 healthy knees between them. Still you guys play hard, have a really good coach and have more than enough talent to be a tough opponent for anyone on a night you can actually make some jump shots. Really, though, you know you just don't have enough to really compete in the playoffs.

12. Denver -

11. Atlanta - You have a big time bright spot in that Al Horford is balling his ass off. But Joe Johnson is starting to show all the hard miles you put on his tread during the Mike Woodson "Stand And Watch Joe Do It" offensive years. Josh Smith thinks he's a 3 point shooter again. Larry Drew might actually be a downgrade from Woody. In short, LOL Hawks.

10. Mavericks - Deshawn Stevenson. Caron "Tough JuiceThief" Butler, Brendan "Dampier 2.0" Haywood. Ghost of Shawm Marion. These are all key guys for you. Barring a huge trade, Roddy Beaubois riding into town like a french Wyatt Earp or Dirk going all Hockey Goalie on the playoffs, 2nd round and out is the best you can really expect at this point.

Stay On Target

These teams are in the conversation, but all of them are most likely either a move, or a player unexpectedly emerging from nowhere away from being true contenders.

9. Utah - With their string of huge comeback victories, the Jazz have showed they have balls. But they just don't have the horses, even once Okur comes back. They just desperately need some wing scoring. The problem, their main asset to acquire such a scorer, Andrei Kirilenko and his expiring contract is probably too much to give up terms of production for the SG/SF they'd likely receive in exchange. Maybe Gordon Hayward grows into the role, but for now they are stuck with Raja Bell and CJ Miles. Yech.

8. Bulls - Considering they've played the entire season without Boozer, they have to feel they are right where they want to be. That is assuming Boozer doesn't break up the solid defensive rhythm they seem to have established and that Taj Gibson, who's emerged as a quality NBA big early in the season, doesn't go into a funk.

7. Thunder - Like the Better Knicks, desperately need some size and rebounding. But with Durant and especially Westbrook, they still have a puncher's chance against anyone. They may have moves to make, but they've consistently stated and showed that they aren't going to do anything "rash". They really could have used a contribution from Cole Aldrich, but he's down in the Dl-league down, so he's clearly not ready.

6. Hornets - Have already made several moves, though results have not gone their way after the acquisition of Jarret Jack. They could probably use one more shooter, or for Marcus Thornton to step into the phone booth and emerge as the BucketsMan of the second half of last year. But really, as always, it's all about Chris Paul.

Omar Comin!

The real contenders.

5. Heat - This is the lowest I could in good conscience put them. Enough ink has been spilled about them already. Who knows what happens when/if etc etc etc.

4. Magic - Not at all a believer because Vince Carter is a wuss, Rashard Lewis is decomposing, HGH shooting fts etc etc etc. But they win games and blow out bad teams in the regular season. The one question I will ask is if they are starting shooters at the 1-3 spots, might they be better served by going bigger at the 4 with Bass or even Gortat?

3. Celtics - KG looks not "all the way back", but certainly much more mobile than last year. Shaq has been giving them great minutes and is a good fit, style-wise. The classic deep, talented veteran team built to beat the crap out of people in the playoffs like a body punching boxer.

2. Spurs - Boring boring Spurs. Death, taxes, and San Antonio Spurs basketball.

MEGATRON!

1. LA Lakers - As I said on Monday:

With all due respect to Chris Paul, Pau Gasol is the 1/8th Season MVP in my book. Shannon Brown is either still playing out of his mind or has just gotten lots lots better. Blake and Barnes combine with Shamwow to give them an extremely effective bench, and both Ebanks and Caracter have shown signs of being promising prospects. In short, I hate them.

I can't emphasize the last point enough.

Black Friday Power Rankings: Part 1

Watching last night's Blake GriffinClippers-Kings game, I was struck by one thing over all else: the Kings are currently the worst team in the league. And then I realized I needed to rank the teams 30-1 just to get a sense of where everyone stands. I don't particularly care about records at this point, more who is playing the best and, for bad teams, who is at least showing signs of a better future. So without further ado, my Roughly 1/6th season power rankings in two parts, 30-18 here and 17-1 in a bit.

Abandon All Hope

"Ship be sinkin'" - Michael Ray Richardson.

30 - Sacramento: Yes, they have more wins than the Clips and Sixers, but that doesn't accurately reflect the overwhelming sense of helplessness, hopeless and pure suck permeating their entire team. The bright spot this season, if you can call it that, is the surprisingly non-shitty play of Luther Head. That's basically it. I say fire the coach, who's doing no one on the team any favors by yo-yo'ing minutes, not settling on any sort of meaningful rotation and doing all he can to ensure Tyreke Evans regressed and Demarcus Cousins is put in situations to demonstrate all the worst aspects of his game and personality. On the verge of being a completely wasted season, 15 game in.

29 - Detroit: Can't even tank competently. This is a team that if it ran perfectly could sneak into the playoffs as an 8-seed before losing in four straight to Miami/Orlando/Boston in a series in which they'd be lucky to keep the total point differential under 3 figures. "Running perfectly" includes not having a coach who is either clueless or getting extremely mixed signals from the front office or both.

At this point, it's patently obvious that the Pistons are going absolutely nowhere with this "core" so they need to either try and sell off the "veteran pieces" for whatever it can get, or simply bury them and let the young guys learn through there mistakes. What they should NOT do is play Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun prince just enough so they are key pieces yet put up extremely underwhelming bulk numbers so as to depress their trade values well into the negative while limiting the opportunity of Monroe and Daye to progress by trotting out Jason Maxiell and Chris Wilcox, all while the coach does his best to piss off the one youngish piece (Stuckey) who might actually fetch a nice return so that he goes into a funk including taking multiple games off. So basically, exactly what they are doing. All while managing to win just enough games to minimize their chances in the Harrison Barnes sweepstakes.

28 - Philadelphia: Doug Collins has missed games due to symptoms of vertigo, and I can't think of a more perfect metaphor for the 76ers season. Previously indestructible Andre Iguodala has been in and out; Evan Turner at first confounded the depressed expectations for him by demonstrating a surprisingly mature floor game off the bench, before finding ways to disappear and/or choke games away as a starter. Elton Brand has gone from rejuvenated to thuggish. Lou Williams has either been a dynamic scorer off the bench or a poor man's Monta Ellis (09-10 edition). Somehow have managed to accumulate 2 of the 5 worst losses of the young season in more or less the same manner away to the same opponent in the Wizards. At the very least the team appears to be getting along and competing minimally hard on a nightly basis, which is far more than I can say for the first two squads.

27. Houston - Hope pinned on Yao's health. Whoops. Also, suffered a little bit of runbad (a Yao injury doesn't really count as runbad at this point) with injuries keeping Martin, Brooks and Lowry out for stretches. The injury to Brooks was particularly a killer since not only did they lose him and Yao in quick succession, but the timing of his injury meant they couldn't clear the roster spot occupied by Ish Smith to sign Erick Dampier, who probably would have helped hold down the fort for Yao. He would certainly have weighed it down...

WE CAN BUILD ON THIS

None of these teams are good, but all have some degree of hope for the future.

26. Washington - Avoid the "complete trainwreck" category basically by virtue of John Wall being legit, Javael McGee looking like he has a chance, and Gilbert Arenas looking like he might have just enough left in the tank to convince some contender needing backcourt scoring (looking at you, Orlando, or even Utah just for sheer comedy's sake) to take a huge gamble on him. They still have my man Andray Blatche playing a prominent role though:

25. New Jersey - The hope hear is Derrick Favors. Full stop. Lopez is putting up some of the emptiest big numbers in the league

24. Minnesota - I mean with Ricky Rubio, suddenly a starting lineup of Rubio/Wes Johnson/Beasley/Love/Darko doesn't seem that bad, and would certainly be a strong playoff contender in the East. That said, Darko can't be for real NOW can he?

23. Toronto - Genuinely the toughest team for me to rank, because I'd like to see them do well for personal reasons. But they also are playing with a lot of passion and heart, especially at home. Reggie Evans and Amir Johnson are complementing Bargnani's aversion to touching the ball immediately after it has contacted the rim. Calderon seems to mesh much better with the young wings in Derozan and Weems, the latter of whom has been pretty impressive of late. If Derozan can develop just that little bit of consistency, they can give teams some mathcup problems with all their good perimeter scoring options. They aren't and won't be "good" but they'll give the fans their money's worth.

22. L.A. Clippers - The injuries to Kaman and Fat Diddy Davis might turn out to be a blessing. Probably not in terms of record, but in terms of forcing Eric Gordon and Blake Griffin to become the leaders of the team while allowing Aminu and Eric Bledsoe to get reps in an environment with very little pressure. We all know Blake has been great:

but Gordon has been almost more impressive by the fact that despite shooting wretchedly from 3 (14 of 67 on the year despite being a career 38% shooter from deep for his career) he's still playing at a near all-star level and has cataloged his own impressive list of highlights on the year.

Fuck All Y'all

21. Cleveland - Everyone knows what they lost, but they seem to have embraced life as the scrappy losers who occasionally come good and simply refused to be the doormats that most expected them to be. Have had a few very impressive wins already including the Celtics and the game vs. Milwaukee where you would expect a less professional and motivated team to have rolled over and died instead of coming all the way back from 20+ down to win on a buzzer beater. Big negative (aside from lack of top end talent) is Byron Scott's apparent desire to crush JJ Hickson's career. We've seen this movie before from Scott and his refusal to give young players any rope (Bass, Brandon. Thornton, Marcus.)

I didn't sign up for this shit

Pre-season high hopes already more or less dashed in depressingly familiar ways.

20. Charlotte - FREE TYRUS THOMAS. I am not a great admirer of Ray Felton's game, but he was at least serviceable. No matter what his gaudy assist:turnover stats might be, I don't feel the same way at all about DJ Augustin, and I would venture to guess that Gerald Wallace would agree. Here's guessing that when and if he thinks about it, Larry Brown is silently cursing MJ for putting the kibosh on this past summers Boris Diaw/Jose Calderon swap which would have A) given the team some real, non-terrible set up play; B) have Freed the aforementioned Tyrus Thomas; C) have allowed them to play Derrick Brown even more. As it is all their best players are 2-3-4 tweener types and simply can't be on the floor together that much. Additionally, Stephen Jackson seems to be especially...testy this year.

19. Memphis - Good thing they locked Conley up. Oh wait. I have a sinking sensation that they are going to end up using the constraints of that contract as an excuse to sell OJ Mayo (admittedly in a pretty horrid funk of late) for .35 cents on the dollar and then justify the deal by saying "hey, it wasn't as bad as the Gasol Trade!"

18. Milwaukee - Any time Bogut misses for them is just devastating, but the subtler loss has been Carlos Delfino, who hasn't played in weeks since basically playing through getting knocked the fuck out in a game a few weeks back. This team just can't score (last in ORtg) and Delfino provides a little scoring punch without the huge defensive liability that is Corey Maggette (though given the Bucks are first in DRtg at the moment, maybe sacrificing a little bit of D for some scoring wouldn't be the worst thing.) Jennings hasn't progressed quite enough yet, and Skiles, per his wont has relied too much on stiffs like Luc Richard Mbab a Moute and Jon Brockman at the expense of getting quality time for Larry Sanders, who could well turn into a difference maker down the line.