NBA Power Rankings & Other Mystifying Angles
It’s time to be wrong again. The extremely privileged few who were privy to this before Goatcycle existed as a platform shall be excited for the fourth year of our official Power Rankings. The rest, jump back on the train. As per tradition, we’ve fabricated a bunch of arbitrary groups to separate the league in tiers. No immunity to criticism and no seriousness will be afforded.
Notes that make this an easier read:
*Volatility: You will notice that the range defining floor and ceiling may be very different for certain teams. For instance, no. 22 can have a lower ceiling than no. 29; this simply implies certain groups are wildly more volatile than others. The outward pick for how they will end up is better mirrored in their position on this board. Volatility (V) is measured in a scale from 1-5, 1 being extremely boring and predictable, and 5 being Stallone’s stoic and flawless depiction of mentorship in Creed.
**Player to watch is neither inevitably the team’s top gun, nor the most exciting young player. It is the dude with potential to erase and foster success, cause a team-wide combustion, or even shatter all clueless long-term expectations for any given team.
*** Personal hype:. How high or low am I on a particular team, compared to expectations? This doesn’t involve the aforementioned best or worst case scenarios, but my outward pick for how decent they will be relevant to objective consensus. For instance, if I think that a team everyone considers good will be very decent, my personal hype will be medium rather than high or redman high. Range in this category is Cesspit low— Low — Medium— High— Redman high.
****Audacious Pred: Just a ludicrous or at least spicy prediction for each team.
PS: At the very end of the article you will see predictions on the final RS standings, and TLDR predictions on the season’s awards.
Tier 1 (30-26) – THE TANKATHLETES (AKA SEWAGE DISPOSAL TANK)
The tankathlon is never exceptionally fun, but easily constitutes a fascinating group in that it soon may comprise future faces of the league. After a shit draft year where delineating this tier was somehow more difficult than most of the other ones, we’re back to having a solid number of teams bracing for the sewers in an effort to enter the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes.
We present to you: the league’s septic system.
30. Brooklyn Nets
Kudos to New York’s ‘other’ for snatching an additional haul for Bridges. About a decade after being the GMs’ favourite laughingstock upon setting fire to their future for 45 year old versions of Garnett, D-Will and Pierce, they’ve completely flipped the script on their draft situation. Miserable as they look now, chances are that one of the Knicks’ or Suns’ projects will eventually be a grandiose failure a few years down the road, whereby they could add high prospects between ’27-’29. That’s on top of the expectation they’ll already step up through their own draft capital in virtue of being terrible for the next two years.
And terrible they’ll be. The sole thing worse than their guard rotation- Schröder, Cam Thomas and Killian Hayes, Shake Milton- is…their forward rotation. Surely some young guy will come around and rescue the tragtastic quartet of Ben Simmons, Cam Johnson, DFS and Bojan. Until then? One must rely on the occasional Cam Thomas 50 point game, Ben Simmons’ hitting half court shots for tiktok, and Nic Claxton exploring his dribble game in a season that he’s likely to be the only guy who could have fun and learn something about himself in the process.
Picture this. Schroder’s gelling with Claxton on the pick n’ roll, Simmons is quick, and cares, and is a basketball player again. Cam and Bojan strike an unlikely friendship, completing each other’s flaws and figuring out…. Ok, tank for Coop.
Floor: Worst team in the league.
Ceiling: 3rd worst team in the league? There’s some other abysmal squads coming up, and the worst 4 teams all get the same #1 pick odds, so sure.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 15 wins ↑23 wins. V: 1 (There seem to be a few people that don’t yet comprehend how bad Brooklyn will be. )
Player to Watch: Zero mention was made of them yet, but Zhaire Williams or Noah Clowney could at least show something that is not entirely predictable around these schmucks.
Personal hype: Medium
Audacious pred: Nic Claxton and Ben Simmons take the piss and finish a game going 8 / 10 from trifecta range combined.
29. Washington Wizards
It took courage not to pick them last. If not for the roster they’re sporting, then as punishment in keeping Kyle Kuzma for a fourth straight year. Surely it must go down as one of the premier fruitless relationships between team and player in 21st century NBA. Because what’s better than a guy winning a chip at the tender age of 24, then spending the rest of his prime playing for a tanking team with precisely zero prospects of making the playoffs between now and 2030?
How did Brogdon end up here? After heartlessly trading Isaiah Thomas for Kyrie, and only getting a ring after kicking Marcus Smart away out of spite, Boston’s novel contribution to ruining guys’ careers and emotions continues with Malcolm X. His memorable stint in Portland, where he miraculously spent the year and didn’t get traded, is about to be followed up by another year playing for a useless team where he miraculously doesn’t get traded. His only chance is Jonas Valanciunas (he’s here too?!?!) getting shipped away to the Lakers, and Brogdon being added to that transaction as cherry on the cake.
Alex Sarr has all the characteristics of the predestined bust, and then some. He has the build of an Adonis, though, and time will show if, paired with work ethic, he’s serious about a Giannis-like metamorphosis. Bilal Coulibaly should be slightly more intriguing and 7% less raw after getting some reps last year.
I made it to the last paragraph not saying a word about Jordan Poole. In fact will not be saying a word about Jordan Poole.
Floor: Worst record in the NBA. Worst defense in NBA’s history by both advanced and conventional metrics, benefitting from increased pace throughout the last decade.
Ceiling: 3rd worst record in the NBA? At least people don’t have delusions about them being relatively decent, as in the case of Brooklyn.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 14 wins ↑ 22 wins V:1 (death, corruption and propaganda, taxes and the Wiz being trash this year)
Player to Watch: There’s no answer other than Alex Sarr, and, not that France needs any more all-star prospects, but we’re with him in his quest to prove absolutely everyone wrong in being the quintessential bust.
Personal hype: Medium
Audacious pred: Malcolm Brogdon somehow avoids injury throughout the first half of the season, GETS TRADED(!), and then proceeds to get injured after playing three games with the contending team that acquired him.
28. Utah Jazz
“The darling of insiders; the new era fast-thinking, lights-out shooting, genius-coach led cinderella that unearthed Markkanen’s potential, and was a few wins away from making one of the craziest playoff contention runs of all time. How can they possibly be back on the tankers’ watch?”
The above was last year’s evaluation, and we’re not about to freak out and assess them differently this time around. For the second straight year, they had to sabotage themselves in fear of accidentally making the playoffs a la OKC resting Shai. So what keeps them from blossoming into the next Thunder, rather sticking it out in the tankers’ group after another semi-successful campaign?
They’ll still be fun and win some games they have no business winning. But despite Ainge’s reassurance of building something sustainable without skipping steps, there’s a clear lack of direction here. Poor John Collins is somehow back, forever doomed to play in teams who are committed to other PF and C projects more than to figuring out what his real position is. Kessler sprung up as the new Gobert project, only to get benched next year in favour of raw, albeit intriguing prospects. Will Markkanen be back to playing SF again so they can fit all these bigs in the rotation? Other teams will finally shut up and won’t come knocking as he’s ineligible for a trade this year.
Their guard rotation was collectively shipped out, meaning Keyonte George has officially been handed the keys. They seem to be hot about the three-man game of George, Lauri and Hendricks, rendering Kessler a fascinating trade candidate for a bunch of contenders needing a high upside version of Poor Man’s Ben Wallace.
Floor: Worst team in the Wild West, but definitely not worse than the Nets.
Ceiling: Another meaningless strive for the Play-in, up until they recognize they just can’t be bad without sitting their 4 best players with phantom injuries. Never underestimate the potential of tankers who’ll stab you in the back in this league.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 19 wins ↑ 34 wins V: 3 (Just doing due dilligence as we were technically wrong about them for two straight years)
Player to Watch: Taylor Hendricks could just end up with one of those ‘come out of nowhere’ 18 and 10 seasons, reshaping the way we think about him and the Jazz. That is partly predicated on him dunking on everyone and hitting threes from the logo.
Personal hype: Low
Audacious pred: Jordan Clarkson breaks Klay’s 3-point record after dropping 15 triples on his way to a 60pt game.
27. Detroit Pistons
We’ve finally reached the stage where Cade’s reputation no longer reflects that of the second coming of Lebron, but inches closer to top 5 bust status. Neither evaluation was/is fair in the first place, so hopefully he can start anew, tabula rasa style. The Ivey experiment seems to have failed; barring a rejuvenation after Monty’s byebye, these two just don’t suit together as a functional backcourt. Their predicament is that Ivey is certainly better than he currently shows, and there is zero way they can get anywhere near his actual value when/if they decide to pull the plug and trade him. This probably implies they’ll spam the Cade-Ivey thing to its absolute extreme, results and fit be damned.
Same goes for Beef Stew and Jalen Duren. Stew can occasionally get hot from three, but he’s too freaking slow for modern PFs. Honestly they should just start Ausar and Fontecchio on the forward slots and ride the Stew and Harris train from the bench. Just surround Duren with shooters and ball handlers, throw lobs up, or even throw bricks that he’ll rescue.
Tobias 6th man of the year would be a welcome fresh shift for his career, if only they did themselves a favour and not start him. Beasley and Hardaway Jr. are the other bench bombers, and there’s a case to be made about this team being fun to watch on the right night, when they come back from 25 to beat the Heat, extend Miami’s losing streak and basically force a Jimmy Butler trade. Why is Tobias back again? They just had to pay someone money, you say. He’s a nice guy, so one really shouldn’t devote more than a couple of lines accentuating his shortcomings or the dissapointment he caused to the entire Philly fanbase.
Floor: Somehow being worse than either the Nets or the Wizards.
Ceiling: A glorious run to the play-in that only serves to damage their draft odds in a good year.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 21 wins ↑ 38 wins V: 3 (there’s something here, the way they started last season left some promising crumbs of futile hope)
Player to Watch: Cade used to be the guy to monitor, supposedly till the sun falls from the sky for this team. But you should instead put your money on Ausar Thompson, whose gaudy statlines and weird come-out-of-nowhere defense could propel them to the next tier.
Personal hype: Medium
Audacious pred: Jalen Duren posts a couple of 25pts, 25reb gems.
26. Portland Trail Blazers
Now this is a legit team that could accidentally be good. It might not even hurt them to be good for a little while, because that would help Jerami Grant’s trade value. Arguably, the faster they trade him, the worse their return, but I’m not sure if you can risk him coming back to Earth in February or again sustaining an injury. Sharpe is a dynamo, Simons is a gunner and all bets are off on Scoot not proving to be a bust. I personally enjoyed Dalano Banton going nuts during fantasy playoffs last year, and there is simply too much intrigue for this team to be hanging out in the cellar of the power rankings much longer.
Instead of bringing some clarity regarding their preference on the Ayton- Robert Williams duo, they hilariously went ahead and picked another high upside center in Donovan Clingan. For the second straight year, it’s insane that a team which- back in the day, everyone underrated precisely because they couldn’t get a good center- now has two awesome backup bigs that some contenders would drool on.
If nothing else, they have leverage and way more dealing power than your standard tankathlete. They could easily facilitate massive change in the league landscape, much like they did last year by gifting Jrue to the Celtics. Neither Ayton nor RobWill should be let go for cheap, yet if I’m the Grizzlies I wanna explore all trade possibilities I can for one of those two.
Floor: Worst record in the West. Maybe ending up as the Pistons/Wizards of the wild conference. As they proved last year, they will not hesitate to sit guys and tank up. That said, they are also allowed to let their pups find the most competitive side of themselves, eventually running berserk towards building a project that this city and fanbase quite frankly deserve.
Ceiling: It would be bomba to see them flood the baskets out of the gates, but there’s pretty much no world where they can even strive for the play-in; missing out on next year’s draft for some extra competition might not be the best idea.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 19 wins ↑ 35 wins V: 3 (They’ll be bad, but only in record. There is another League Pass rankings ladder where they rank top 5)
Player to Watch: Shaedon Sharpe for the second straight time, together with the possibility that he has 3 of the top 10 dunks of the year. There’s too much of a logjam for the bigs, and the Scoot renaissance feels a few years away from being a year away.
Personal hype: High
Audacious Pred: Sharpe and Scoot pull such unbelievable dunks throughout the first semester that they both get invited to the Dunk Contest, then tie up in the final to share the dunk champ trophy in a heartwarming moment.
Tier 2 (25-21) – THE WILDCARD SHOULDA COULDA WOULDA TANKERS (aka teams that are perhaps better than they think they are, and once they discover it maybe it gets to their head)
Will Atlanta winning the no.1 pick cause a leaguewide disinterest in the practice of deliberate tanking? This used to be a tier of teams who do their best to pretend they won’t tank, but when the opportunity presents itself for a bottom 4 spot half the team will get long COVID. In another year of unprecedented parity, these groups are a bit too excited and cocky to tank outright, and so might avoid it altogether just to prove to themselves they are closer to contention than everyone else deems them. Take a chill pill.
25. Chicago Bulls
Did the Bulls suddenly become more likeable, despite their only move being trading their…most likeable guy? Between the Coby White baptism, Josh Giddey being handed the baguette of a team, and some reserved hope for Buzelis being the best player out of this draft, there’s a flicker of hope in Windy City. They should and hopefully will continue their attempts to get rid of Vuc and Lavine, unless the latter decides to have a career year that flips the script and keeps the players’ timelines on their heels.
Unfortunately this is the year I officially cash out of my Patrick Williams hype; yes, I got in with 100$ and will take the remaining 15$ and place it elsewhere…Or not. Hold on, there’s no other playable PF on this team, unless Torrey Craig steals his thunder. They’re fully committing to Patrick Williams. Run him to the ground. Let’s just hope he doesn’t end up with the worst points per game output per 36 in the league.
Lonzo is back!! This Coby White-Josh Giddey gig could be delightful, as easily as it could be an awkward shitshow. In the former scenario, Lavine looks like the overpaid odd man out, in the latter, he just stops competing as the Aussie and Coby gangbully him out of the team.
Floor: Maybe they were treading just enough water because of Derozan; his departure slaps them with a reality check, failing to get even remotely close to the play-in. Or well, pretending to fail, just so they can get their hands on Cooper Flagg tickets.
Ceiling: An extremely unprecedented run to the 7-seed which deprives them of Cooper Flagg chances.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 25 ↑ 43 wins V: 4 (they have a lower floor but possibly a higher ceiling than the Hornets)
Player to Watch: Between Coby White showing us if last year was an appetizer to a wonderful ascent, Ayo recapturing his 2022 magic, or Matas telling us whether he’s severely overrated or underrated, things are not as bleak as in other years. Let’s go with Coby White‘s awesome afro game.
Personal hype: Medium
Audacious Pred: Giddey spits 20 triple dubs.
24. Charlotte Hornets
Most people seem to list the Hornets as a tank certainty. Their no.1 pick being used on Salaun further points to that direction. You should beg to differ too. It’s easy and simultaneously difficult to forget how impressive the Lamelo-Bridges two-man game looked just a couple of years ago, before the latter was exposed as an abusive prick. Dismissing or ridiculing him is easy, yet there’s been way higher-profile cases which got tucked down the dirty carpet of time.
They traded all three guys we anticipated they’d trade last year (Rozier, Hayward & PJ), clearing out the lane for Brandon Miller. By the way, let’s pour one out for all the souls who were indignant at the Hornets’ decision to get him over Scoot. Provided Brandon Miller plays SG, their forward line is almost laughably thin. In what constitutes a big Aussie bet, Josh Green will likely be a 30min a game starter (!), and Grant Williams the only reliable SF/PF coming from the bench, that is, if he rediscovers his groove after an abhorrent year. Mark Williams will hopefully be healthy at C, or Grant Will shall have to play there too.
Hey, what if Lamelo and Bridges rediscover their old romance, Brandon Miller flourishes as their no.1 scorer, and Josh Green along with Mark Williams give the trio a defensive identity and boost? Micic, Tre Mann, Grant and Richards are an interesting bench mob with a combination of IQ, untapped skill, gutsiness and swagger.
The East has 8 pretty good teams, and then there is chaos. If two of those eight get injury misfortunes, that opens up the gates for surprise interlopers such as the Hornets.
Floor: Third worst record in the East.
Ceiling: Again, there is some tantalizing ceiling. It’s unfortunate that their coolest player is an idiot who set his future on fire, and their most promising player is fathered by Lavar Ball. But this team could easily challenge for the play-in, if not higher, provided things hit right.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 21 wins ↑ 41 wins V: 4 (Similar to the Bulls more or less?)
Player to Watch: Lamelo’s discreet creep up to re-relevance is due. Miller and Bridges will get some eyes off him and folks are slowly forgetting about his upside, which should serve his level of pressure to perform right.
Personal hype: High
Audacious pred: Things do hit right and they get the 7-seed in the East.
23. Toronto Raptors
Somehow, the no.23 this year is potentially much closer to no.30, than to no.20. There’s simply such a huge perceived gap between the wildcard tankers and the next group. Raptors are another team on this tier that is a bit of an enigma. They’ve also more or less admitted this year is about the rebuild, aka the silent tank. But as we’ve seen over and over, there’s times when you can’t help but be good.
Gradey Dick is apparently going to be a starter, and that should certainly help their losing games case. But who’s gonna stop a bench of Olynyk, Agbaji, Bruce Brown and Davion Mitchell from competing? Or Scottie Barnes ordering his coach not to bench him? They’ve embraced a Team Canada movement, with about 4 players in their rotation coming from the Maple Leaf.
The only things I hit in last year’s evaluation of the Raptors was Barnes becoming a stud, and the audacious pred about everything else being bullshit and Toronto sucking altogether. Let’s be a little more reserved this time around.
Floor: There’s close to zero chance of them hitting anywhere near a bottom 4 record, so nothing wrong with playing well for 60 games, then losing 17 in a row to claim the 12th seed in the East.
Ceiling: Sorry to do this again, but this is another team that could end up with the 7th seed provided injuries and weirdness along the conference.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 28 wins ↑ 44 wins V: 4 (there’s too much talent between Quickley, Barnes and Barrett for them to be a certain tankjob)
Player to Watch: We more or less know Barnes’ arrow is only pointing up, but Quickley ending up as a legit 20ppg, 5rpg, 5apg per game guy is intriguing.
Personal hype: High
Audacious Pred: Thanks to a Bruce Brown gem season, they end up shocking the world by sporting the best bench unit in the league by advanced and conventional metrics.
22. San Antonio Spurs
Blindingly bright future for the Alamo. Castle still looks rawer than you’d expect from an NCAA champ, but there’s some serious Shai vibes in his patience, hesies and general mannerism. Let’s just hope the Spurs don’t pull a Clippers’ fart here and trade him before he turns into an MVP candidate, because he and Wemby could conceivably fill the new Parker-Duncan shoes. Keldon Johnson is sadly awkward by now, barring a crazy renaissance, and Vassell might have to terminally break out or end up equally unnecessary to this project. Sochan and his one handed lefty free throws are still a delight.
Last year was probably the first time in 18 years when Chris Paul didn’t manage to make a team better. Probably a case of the Warriors’ infrastructure and system being bigger than any individual. The Point God has traditionally been a ‘larger than team culture’ figure, installing his IQ and habits at a collective level and kickstarting talented teammates’ winning careers. David West, Blake Griffin, SGA, and Devin Booker all should be lighting candles in his name. Even James Harden would have another finals appearance, and honestly a ring, if CP didn’t get injured at the most inopportune time. He’s essentially sacrificing his last chance at a ring to mentor a guy that could end up being a GOAT candidate 20 years from now. The sheer volume of documentaries and other content that CP3 will be a prime candidate for in his 50s just because of that one year probably justifies it.
All in all, the CP3, Vassell, Castle, Sochan, Wemby boast an immense amount of possibilities, from sky-high ceilings to injury-ravaged failures. Catch this team on the right night, and, tipsy in parties, you could find yourself talking about contention in 2026.
Floor: A bottom-3 record in the West, maybe even worse than Utah.
Ceiling: Obviously depends on how much they actually go for it. Outside looking in connect with the play-in, but this is not because of their fantastic outlook, but rather how damn deep this conference is.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 25 wins ↑ 43 wins V: 3 (Closer to a 4, but injury misfortune for CP3 is more certain than unlucky at this point)
Player to Watch: Not sure if there is a diminishing returns situation withWemby, but the mere possibility of a 25-12-5-2-4 season is whack.
Personal hype: Medium (I imagine there’s people that see them crashing the playoff scene, and there’s people that have them down as tankers; I’m somewhere in the boring middle)
Audacious Pred: Gonna cheat here and do a future one; Steph Castle is a future multitime ALL-NBA guy.
21. Houston Rockets
Last year, they found themselves in the unenviable position of having a mediocre team that couldn’t afford to be bad because their pick would end up elsewhere. This year, they are in the unenviable position of having to find out what all their talent is made of, and find it fast, because they’ll all be hella expensive sooner than later. That said, it would be great to tank and smell their chances at Cooper. So long as they don’t give Dillon Brooks more than 20 mins a game, they can’t go too bad this year.
Udoka instilled some winning mentality to the pups. Jabari Smith showed he possesses a Mikal Bridges sort of skillset, if not more. If Sengun is not the definition of Poor Man’s Jokic, then nobody else can claim that title. Are we sure perennial media darling Jalen Green is any good of a project beyond the ferocious dunks? They hope there is an indispensable keeper between Reed Shephard, Whitmore, Eason and the other Thompson twin. It’s just dubitable you’ll manage to get a full or even half picture of all these guys and expect a peaceful and fruitful co-existence with a plausible 10-man rotation.
Shall they trade copious of them for a disgruntled win-now stud? Should they rid themselves of Vanvleet plus some young ones for an all-star? There must exist a way for them to consolidate upside and push forward. It is said that having too much talent may be a problem; the real problem is when you feel forced to sell low on someone you know deep inside is a stud, then them having a career for the ages. That’s conceivably why they’re still hanging to Jalen Green and why they could sit this one out patiently and make up their mind come July.
Floor: Bottom-3 in the West after trading Vanvleet and some pups for an injured all star, reaching for the sky and buying a ticket for Cooper.
Ceiling: Play-in?
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 28 wins ↑ 41 wins. V: 2 (Can they really win more games than last year in a much improved conference?)
Player to Watch: Strangely I’m a little bit intrigued with everyone, but very intrigued by nobody. Let’s go with Tari Eason for the second straight year, after injuries cut a hot start short.
Personal hype: Low (only because they’re being hyped up to a laughable degree)
Audacious Pred: Ime Udoka does…. another colleague’s wife.
Tier 3 (20-16) THE JOHN PLEASE COUNT US OUT McCLANES
This tier stinks of upside, as well as of disillusionment potential. The teams here are in a state of no expectations and high expectation all at once. In contrast with the previous tier, they are actually worse than they think they are, but going all-in sooner than later is their only option because they’re too good for obscurity.
20. Los Angeles Clippers
The depression also known as the Clippers could have a tier all on its own. But it’s become so commonplace and cliche to hate on them, that Goatcycle may as well try and play devil’s advocate on behalf of the greatest ‘what if’ in recent memory. Just kidding, they’re a mess.
How different would Kawhi’s legacy be if he never won that Raptors chip? If Durant wasn’t injured for the finals, if the Bucks didn’t choke away game 3 running away to a 3-0 lead, or if that corner shot against the 76ers in Game 7 rimmed out? Are we cutting Leonard enormous slack just because he’s quiet, shy and by all indications a good bloke? Here’s a summary of his potential bestowal to the next crop and leaguewide post-playing rep, if that championship didn’t end up his way: 1) Giving up on Pop after they made him king because his posse instructed him to. 2) Ditching the Raptors one year after they traded their no.2 favorite guy in team history so he can be closer to home. 3) Hijacking the Clips’ future by extorting them to trade a future MVP for a deteriorating version of Paul George. 4) Electing not to play in high stakes playoffs games despite potentially being healthy enough to. 5) Suddenly manages to play 65+ games in a regular season where attendance is vital for money-based incentives, then says ciao for the playoffs. Hey we love Kawhi, but just doing due dilligence.
This writer is one of the firmest believers of normal distribution out there. When a team gets injury-lucky one or two years in a row, that is bound to shift the next time around. Same goes for terminally unfortunate teams; some time, some day, it will all go the right way. Problem with the Clippers? There is zero indication that Kawhi can play more than 7 straight important games without getting banged up. This realization is no longer a postulate, but a sad irrevocable truth. Sorry to their billionaire owner and new ostensibly awesome arena, but there is no way out of the hole they dug for themselves.
They don’t have any incentive to tank, meaning they’ll be significantly altering their team via trades with questionable win-now moves. It’s probably the year they cash out on whatever is left of Terrance Mann’s value. You can tell how desperate they are by the hilarious combination of Kevin Porter Jr. and Bones Hyland on their guard bench mob. Batum is here again, probably looking for Lala Land real estate to retire. Bamba and Dunn are hoping for a last chance redemption. Not out of the scope of possibility that Lue can turn this sum into something of a 7 seed, nonetheless I’d pay to find an excited Clippers fan out there.
Floor: Missing the play-in by way of Kawhi’s unavailability.
Ceiling: Somehow making the playoffs and then getting swept in the first round.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 28 wins ↑ 47 wins V: 5 (our first 5! Just because I said all the above doesn’t mean they have no chance of being slightly awesome for a significant part of the season).
Player to Watch: Their outlook is so depressing that I’ll go with Derrick Jones, trying to prove that last year’s Dallas run was no small sample size fluke.
Personal hype: Cesspit Low (for the second straight year, to be honest)
Audacious Pred: Kawhi takes a buyout to retire. Just kidding, we really wish the dude the best; watching him go at 100% was a damn delight.
19. Atlanta Hawks
That Conference Finals trip is quickly turning into distant memory. In fact we are almost disrespectful to some teams above for having them see the Hawks’ back, provided the latter appear to be embracing a half-measures rebuild. They had a much weaker conference to deal with last year and failed to even crack the playoffs, albeit with the excuse of untimely injuries to most of their best players. It’s perfectly plausible that the 25th ranked Hornets will be better than them.
As predicted last year, the Murray and Trae experiment failed miserably. There was a whole lot of gullibility into the idea that Trae would turn into Steph and pull an off-ball assassin metamorphosis. Still, did Murray get dumped on for nothing after showing signs of pre-Atlanta Dejounte during Trae’s injury? Couple of picks and Dyson feels like a fleece, but there’s more to it. Namely, Jalen Johnson will be the undisputed no.2 and a pretty excellent breakout candidate, if last year wasn’t a proper breakout already.
Is Risascher or Deandre Hunter gonna be thrown in the minutes fire? The former is too raw whereas the latter has always been a year away. There isn’t much depth to begin with, so we could see the Hawks ride long stretches with all of Risascher, Johnson and Hunter together, a very interesting mix of limbs, athleticism and two-way upside that is difficult to evaluate. Bogie and Okongwu are still here too. There’s definitely worse projects than the Hawks in this league.
Floor: Another year of either Trae or Jalen getting injured could derail this thing extremely fast and send them to a bottom 3 record in the East.
Ceiling: Play-in after an insane Jalen Johnson season.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 24 wins ↑ 43 wins V: 4 (another highly volative squad whose lack of depth implies wild contingence on injury luck)
Player to Watch: Jalen Johnson and again Jalen Johnson.
Personal hype: Medium
Audacious pred: Jalen Johnson finishes the season averaging a 22-8-4-2.
18. Sacramento Kings
Talking about distant memories. Light the Beam! Thaaaat 3rd seed. They hit their floor last year despite relative health fortunes for the second straight campaign. The ascendant giant was brought back to Earth. Keon Ellis was the only positive story out of the players they wanted to see step up (ok Keegan was decent too), and Fox was middling based on what he proved he can be the year before. Much like the Hawks, this is a fragile project whose hopes are predicated on health, with a shallow bench that’s going to be annihilated for most of the season. Maybe the Kungz just wanted to increase Monk’s chances at a 6th man of the year case. Maybe they tried to improve, but nothing could be had.
The Sabonis ball-grip above the foul line, turning 180, gauging, and finally dropping a backwards underhand behind the back pass-while screening to one of their flamethrowing guards is one of the most beautiful overdone plays you’ll ever watch. As aforementioned, the shooting feels regressed however. They’ll most likely bring both Huerter and Monk from the bench, staying true to their run-n-gun philosophy. Keegan’s evolution, or lack thereof, is what will make as well as break this team.
Derozan will provide some stability to the occasional 5-on-5 chaos. He and Sabonis should establish some nice screening collaborations. It just feels like there will be too much midrange infatuation on this team. Looking at the squads they’ll have to fight with for the playoffs, things can’t help but look bleak.
Floor: Missing the play-in as the 11th seed in a depressingly deep conference.
Ceiling: 6th seed? This team is tailor-made for the regular season and their durability could help them get there.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 35 wins ↑ 44 wins V: 2 (In my book, they are one of the least volatile average teams out there. They’ll be fun to watch in home games as per usual)
Player to Watch: Feels like we know who Fox and who Sabonis are. Keegan is the X-factor here.
Personal hype: Medium
Audacious Pred: Fox and Sabonis both average 38+ minutes a game as their replacements prove abysmal.
17. Orlando Magic
Alright, Banchero is not a bust. And not a Tyreke Evans or MCW relative bust either. I’ve apologized, we got that out of the way, let us move on with life. Could KCP’s shooting unlock another version of them that does not mightily struggle offensively when someone turns on the defensive chops?
Despite their awesome upside, you get the feeling they already know what they have. It’s the edges they have to work on, making meaningful strides in small things and improving each player’s deficiencies. If Suggs can shoot more reliably and often, if Banchero can take some of the hero-ball nonsense out of his game, if Wagner can freaking start making threes again, if Wendell stays healthy, if if if..
This is a rousing, and simultaneously wholly unexciting team to talk about. Much like the teams above and below them in these rankings, their depth is questionable barring sudden transformations. Despite a rather unprecedented excitement around their project, I reckon the coolest thing about them is their spark and spirit; it might help explain analysts’ overreaction to the Magic.
Floor: The anticipated leap just doesn’t pop. Wagner doesn’t manage to recapture his trifecta respectability and they limp to the play-in as an 8 seed.
Ceiling: It jels. Isaac is back for real, their guard rotation is stuck in stone, Paolo and Wagner improve their 3point accuracy. They run through the East to the 4th seed, getting homecourt advantage over better teams, then lose in 7 in another hard-fought first round.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 38 ↑ 48 wins. V: 3 (could be above-average, but also could just be the start of something great)
Player to Watch: Wagner because it feels like this team’s future contention will hinge on whether he’s an All-NBA guy or not, the answer to which is far from immaculate.
Personal hype: Low
Audacious Pred: Can we still predict a Paolo Banchero regression?
16. Indiana Pacers
Are the Pacers just the ’21 Hawks? Take advantage of massive opportunity, injury luck and a decapitated conference to make a run at the Conference Finals..only to disappear the next few years? For Haliburton’s sake, us average folk better hope not. Good coach, solid guys in every position, upside in the youth movement, above average 3-point shooting team, top 4 point guard in the league. They should be fine, and frankly, a Conference Finalist should take offense at grabbing the 16th place in these rankings. “The injury ravaged joke they beat on their way to make the final four is a facade”. True, yet they pretty much almost won every single game against Boston. It’s not their fault the butter finger Celtics turned into a clutch team out of nowhere against them.
One further positive hint was their ability to alter the team identity almost mid-season. The addition of Siakam and Nesmith’s ascent suddenly made them a defensive pest at the wings, where they were previously deemed a 7 seconds or less fascimile. They are no longer thin at the (back in the day at least) most important position of the league. And yet. Despite the latter two’s excellent play, their skillsets overlap. Toppin still has to prove he can play more than 15 minutes reliably. Mathurin, the natural heir to Lance Stephenson, stagnated and stayed behind in the rotation.
This is a very cool team on paper. There were some worrying stretches of mediocre basketball against the Bucks in that first round, and it can’t seem to escape Goatcycle’s narrow head.
Floor: They look like a regular season juggernaut, but untimely injuries could send them to the play-in via a 7 or 8 seed.
Ceiling: Home court in the first round via the 3rd seed. Hard-fought loss in a Conference Semis rematch against the Knicks.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 40 wins ↑ 50 wins. V: 2 (A surprisingly low volatility score despite their incredible overperformance last year)
Player to Watch: I thought Nembhard was a misplaced PG and doubted his fit with Hali, but the Celtics series begged to differ. Is he what they thought Mathurin was?
Personal hype: Low (Hate to say this because Hali is an absolute delight)
Audacious pred: Mathurin gets his vibes back and dunks on Lebron twice in the same game.
Tier 4– The No-Idea-What you’re made of Upside Gang (15-13):
Leave your sleeping pills in the drawer and get on the wagon. Greasy, gutsy, unpredictable (meaning the experiment could also go super south); the least vegan of the tiers. They could somehow jump two tiers and make the Finals, or implode and disappear from the scene. Undoubtedly one of the saddest phases in a team’s fluctuation cycle is when you’ve passed the era of being everyone’s underrated and ascending darling, and instead transition to one of the overrated false confidence prophets with faux hopes to challenge for the title. It’s all or nothing for these bunches, at least in their current iterations.
15. Miami Heat
They got people exactly where they want them; the Heat are once again underappreciated underdogs. Were it not for Butler’s age, they’d probably be legit contenders. Herro will hopefully find a way to not break something, and Rozier should be closer to his old self after some months of acclimatizing to his new heat-cultural surroundings. The Jovic-Jaquez duo holds ultra-promise. Bam will protect all these buddies from getting too exposed.
NBA aficionados think they got more up their sleeve. Jovic-Jaquez and picks for the last piece in the contending puzzle. Others have bought the Jimmy vs. management beef, wishing to see Butler in one last uniform. What they probably neglect is Buckets won’t find a truly more competent team that suits his particular ambitions and style. I’d rather see them ride this one out. On paper, this squad is much better than the two that already made the Finals, albeit with an older Butler. Yet the talent is here, there’s more than significant upside for their pups, and at least one last run at it feels warranted.
All it takes is a couple of high-profile people saying that Miami lost their edge. That’s what they may have been missing lately, how everyone was afraid to count them out. They need doubt to fuel them, and hopefully they’ll get enough of that in a suddenly deep East.
Floor: Bam and Butler miss a bunch of games and this time they fail to make the playoffs as Strus is no longer here to save their play-in ass.
Ceiling: There is some bullshit voodoo in Jimmy’s coffee, and they mess with us once again all the way to the Finals, where they underwhelm for the third time.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 38 wins ↑ 50 wins V: 5 (ain’t stupid enough to count out the Zombies).
Player to Watch: Tyler looked well on his way to a near 25 point season, and should be their top scorer this time around. But Jaquez could be the difference between play-in and a Conference Finals fate.
Personal hype: High
Audacious Pred: Butler hits a couple of buzzer beaters in the first few months of the season, sending kisses to Pat Riley in the stands.
14. Cleveland Cavaliers
The team that felt like a surefire regular season darling somehow managed to lose that designation despite adding depth. Last year would have been a worse disappointment if they didn’t luck into Orlando in the first round. Kenny Atkinson on the bench is a huge upgrade, and all due respect, a more than necessary one. The relative commitment from Mitchell’s side is encouraging, with signs pointing that their starting 5 are looking forward to taking the leap together. Continuity and trust in their 2-big as well as in their guard duo process, although unconventional, is promising.
Having Strus around was meant to alleviate some of the pressure on Mobley to do stuff on the perimeter. And partly it did, even though nobody is exactly thrilled with Evan’s last two seasons. Their offense will certainly be more diverse this time around, utilizing rather than hindering Garland’s playmaking chops, accentuating Allen’s advantages and challenging Mobley to discover or amplify skills everyone knows are waiting to spring out.
Mobley may have all the lights on him after people labelled him the new era KG, but perhaps the most important element in them hitting their ceiling is Garland rediscovering his groove. Coexistence with Mitchell was never meant to be dreamy, but if someone can get the best out of both, then Atkinson might just be the guy.
Floor: Something like 44 regular season wins and disgruntled noises from Mitchell as Atkinson diminishes his touches in favour of Darius.
Ceiling: A top 3 seed in the East. Beating one of the big dogs (lucking into the Sixers) and making it to the Conference Finals.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 44 wins ↑ 55 wins V: 3 (Having four teams expected to be significantly higher than them in the Eastern topdog order should bode well for them lurking as an outside-contender)
Player to Watch: Despite the above, Mobley again and again; there is still some tiny hope of him blossoming into Poor Man’s Timmy Duncan.
Personal hype: Medium
Audacious Pred: They somehow snatch best record in the league.
13. Memphis Grizzlies
Are the Morant jokes dissipating or what? Perhaps there will be no demand for the highly anticipated ‘How to turn yourself from awesome young rocket to most ridiculed team in the world in 2 years’ novel. Between Morant’s revenge tour, triple J’s failures with Team USA, and Smart watching his old friends win a chip without him, one could easily argue there is no thirstier, angrier group in the NBA. Bane is a two-way 25ppg dude, in case you’re forgetting.
Last year may have been a blessing in disguise. All their bench players got crucial reps as starters for pretty much an entire season, and they could certainly spend the season crushing most second units. Zach Edey and Triple J form a nightmare defensive duo forcing everyone outta the paint. But how do guards go around Smart and Bane to get to the paint in the first place?
The Grizz enter the season as the biggest conundrum in basketball. It unfortunately comes down to the question of availability. Plainly put, it’s very improbable JJJ and Morant stay healthy for an entire playoff run, which eventually ends up being exactly what spells their doom.
Floor: Could they miss the playoffs? Morant has enough dough to keep the guns coming. A healthy version of this team has the 6th seed as an absolute floor, though.
Ceiling: The West is crazy, yet at the same time rather beatable. The old vibes Grizz could make it to the Finals, rendering the choice not to list them as a contender only by dint of health fortunes pretty questionable.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 39 wins ↑ 55 wins V: 4 (A surprisingly long list of variables could determine how this goes, but in the end it’s about trusting Morant and triple J to stay on the court).
Player to Watch: Morant might be a smart fringe MVP bet, and it’ll be fun to see him dunk on 7 footers again. But Smart’s assimilation, and his double-edged sword of either establishing a persona in the city, or serving as the straw that broke the camel’s back, is even more so.
Personal hype: High. No low. Fuck me, let’s go with medium.
Audacious Pred: Grizz and OKC fight for the 1-seed out west till the last few games of the regular.
Tier 5 – The Imposto-Surrogates (12-11) (aka We think we are contenders, but unfortunately we are not)
This tier used to be heavily populated. It feels borderline sacrilegious to relegate Lebron and Steph to this group, but there’s just no conceivable way the old-man versions of themselves can stay healthy and lucky enough for a last run with their teams as currently constituted. A Conference Finals run for either would be awesome, but also just extremely improbable.
12. Los Angeles Lakers
Look, JJ Redick is worth your appreciation. He’s probably a more astute basketball mind than Ham, even though I secretly admired the latter. If you wanna be frank, when did Lebron’s coaches even matter? The Lakers, much like the Cavs and the Heat in the past,have an in-game coach, and that’s the 40 year old guy himself. Did anyone consider Spoelstra the genius he is accepted to be today back in the Big-3 era? There was someone else to take the credits. Sorry for the long intro; the point is Lebron’s teams play how Lebron dictates, and not how their coach will dictate. The fact that they’re friends helps, indeed, but that’s the extent of it.
As long as Jack Nicholson and James are still around, this hateworthy oligarchic Californian Dream will be in fashion, and admit it, quite fun to watch homes games of. Bronny, for the few times when he suits up instead of G-leagueing it out, will only add to the allure. Who would bet on AD to have a second straight healthy campaign? Is Hachimura more than a 20mins a game guy? Are any of their rotation guys on the up, rather than deteriorating? There is simply no youth upside, so any sort of notion of them being much improved is essentially contingent on Reaves becoming a no-brainer AllStar.
They reached their ceiling these last two years. If the best they can pile up after an uncharacteristically healthy season from both their stars is a play-in earned 7th spot, then what precisely renders them a contender in a year where their foes are improved?
Floor: Father Time and AD hospital visits kick them out of the play-in picture altogether, snatching the 11th seed and potentially sending Lebron out of LA to chase one last ring in 2026.
Ceiling: Is there even a trade that gets them near contention? They outta picks. Does Reaves get you a disgruntled stud? Maybe the stars align right and we have a Lakers-Celtics Lebron iteration Finals. Meh.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 33 wins ↑ 49 wins V: 3 (They have zero margin for error, but you can’t exactly count them out).
Player to Watch: Once again, this shall be the redneck from Arkansas. The undrafted gem of the South, the Mississippi skater.
Personal hype: Medium
Audacious Pred: Bronny records 4 steals and 5 blocks in a game where he somehow manages to stay on the court for 22 minutes.
11. Golden State Warriors
GS could be up for a revanche season. Cynics will note they’re better off without Klay, replacing him with cheaper, younger guys that can emulate his value. It’s not too far from the truth either, but so is the cultural loss. The Splash Brothers are dead: long live the Splash Brothers. On paper they could be better than a number of so-pronounced contenders; the miles they’ve piled up, however, will be telling a different story. By the time the playoffs knock on our door, Steph will be 37. Age may be an arbitrary number; after all, what is the difference between 35 and 37.. Nevertheless, until we see a 37 year old win a chip as the undisputed best player on a team, the claim stands.
People probably forget, but they had Divincenzo only a couple of years ago. Retrospect is a… witch, because how awesome would it be if they still had Donte and his newfound swag around now? Yet Melton and Buddy are awesome acquisitions on paper, replacing the shooting deficit and then some. Jackson-Davis is only getting better, and potentially so is Kuminga. Kyle Anderson’s Slow-Mo ways are here too, possibly kicking Moody out of the rotation. This is a surprisingly deep team, which could suggest a few win-now moves are not completely out of the question. There are very few guys on the wrong side of 30 that would say no to the chance of hunting one last ring with Steph freaking Curry.
Compared to the Lakers, the Warriors’ situation is far from dire. There are a lot of things that could hit right and render them contenders again. Kuminga turning into a stud, Wiggins rediscovering his old talents, Podziemski and Jackson-Davis becoming real cogs. Gary the Second Glove Payton is back too. All that said, just because they have a larger margin for error than they did the past few years, doesn’t necessarily mean they can go all the way unless nearly every single important parameter hits bulls eye.
Floor: They likely miss the playoffs again if Curry misses more than 25 games .
Ceiling: They reach the finals for a 2022 rematch, but this time the Celts prevail.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 38 ↑ 52 wins V: 4 (Curry’s health, Wiggins’ mojo, young guys’ development, there’s tons of alleys this can go down).
Player to Watch: Just watch Chef Curry with the pot for those mesmerizing runs when you still can.
Personal hype: High (and yet not listing them as a contender, I’m a lunatic)
Audacious Pred: Curry becomes the oldest guy ever to win MVP? Nah, let’s go with Kuminga averaging 23 and 8.
Tier 6 – THE Con-Ten-ders (aka just when you thought the league was at its most competitive, 24-25’ comes around with a bat)
When was the last time a third of the league, if not half the league, had realistic aspirations for the title? Don’t bother googling it, the answer is never. After a year where we correctly predicted the champ and geniusly anticipated the Mavericks were a contender rather than a play-in interloper, we’re back with a vengeance. Of course, we also thought Minnesota was on the way down, and that the Suns were legit. Let’s make the same mistakes again.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The past 5 NBA seasons have all seen a team make the NBA finals as an absolute underdog (Mavs, Heat, Celtics, Suns, Heat), while hoisting worse PRESEASON odds to lift the trophy than at least 10 other teams)
10. New Orleans Pelicans
They’ve officially usurped this spot. Up until the last moment, the Grizzlies were in this first contender entry, whereas the Pels hung out in their good ol’ immense upside tier where the scares outweighed the potential. Then the Grizzlies were kicked out, and the Warriors jumped up here. On final overview, the Warriors got jumped too. So is Dejounte Murray such a huge deal that they’ve all of a sudden turned into a juggernaut? Is getting rid of the always reliable Valanciunas going to be more beneficial than deleterious? Well, kind of.
Their chaotic and occasionally unstoppable random offense, either via overpowering size and limbs or uncharacteristically hot shooting, should be replaced by a more controlled chaos. Between Herb, Trey, Murray and Alvarado, they’ll be able to spit out line-ups that would make Piston era Larry Brown salivate. The Zion at center thing is finally happening, seemingly full-time unless Daniel Theis is designated as a 20 minutes a game stud (sorry Danny). It’s possible that the bruises will eventually force them to re-acquire a center though. That’s one more team that’ll be on the phone with the Blazers about Ayton/RobWill. If Herb and Murphy prove to be as unstoppable a two-way duo as dreamt, why not consider an Ingram for Ayton +depth trade? I still somehow believe in the Zion-Ingram coexistence, but there’s other ways to consolidate this roster without allowing the project to be compromised by the usual injuries to the usual suspects.
The Trey Murphy injury to start the season hurts, but they’ll survive. Murray, Mccollum, Ingram and Zion involve a perfect combination of passing, shooting, midrange mastery and drive-trigger happy muscles. Look, if the Grizzlies or Warriors end up winning the championship, this last moment flip will sting. But for the third consecutive year and quizaaas the last time, we choose to believe in the Pels.
Floor: Untimely injuries as always, Murray’s usage crumbles in his new surroundings and they’re once again a play-in team.
Ceiling: They win the mid-season tournament, then go on to make the Finals, losing to Boston in 6.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 37 wins ↑ 50 wins V: 5 (despite a relatively small floor-ceiling range this team is a perennial 5. There’s few other squads for which a failure to make the playoffs and the capacity to make the conference finals is equally conceivable)
Player to Watch: Trey Murphy is injured to start the season for the second straight year, and I’m tempted to have Jordan Hawkins here given the initial opportunity. But he’ll fade eventually, so go with Zion the faux MVP candidate, because hope dies last.
Personal hype: Redman High
Audacious pred: Everything kind of jels together the right way and they make one of the most unprecedented runs to the Finals.
9. Minnesota Timberwolves
Ant is insurance against grand failure; that is, if the Randle acquisition proves untenably bad. This squad was already not making anyone fall in love with them on account of their ball movement or incredible shooting displays. Sometimes being good doesn’t necessary mean playing attractive ball, and that’s what 2025 Minnesota will be. Gutsy, Antsy, and rough. This team’s durability gives them an extremely high floor, even though most people can’t quite imagine them winning it all with this new KATless version. We didn’t see that coming last year, either, and they got one chokejob round away from being pretty close.
Naz Reid and Donte can double-handedly keep their bench units afloat, and Robbie Dillingham offers untapped, albeit difficult to hit, potential. Together with Nickeil and Ingles, they can afford as well as salvage a Conley Father Time situation. The general lack of scorers might point to an Edwards MVP campaign, and maybe that could be a noble goal in itself for the pup at this stage of his evolution.
Floor: Some injury misfortunes send them to the play-in and an eventual 7th seed. First round loss.
Ceiling: Conference Finals again, where they likely lose. But all bets are off with Ant.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 40 wins ↑ 51 wins V: 2 (The West is so good that a first round loss and a Finals appearance don’t necessarily imply that one team was significantly better than the other).
Player to Watch: Ant goin’ for MVP honors.
Personal hype: Low
Audacious Pred: Donte and Brunson’s dad end up having legit beef.
8. Dallas Mavericks
It feels absolutely nuts that I had them as no. 6 last year when they barely made most fans’ top 15, and instead of taking a victory lap, they’re being relegated to no.8. That’s the problem with everyone around you getting better and deeper I s’pose. Jason Kidd’s Mexican soap opera turned into a highly acclaimed HBO drama overnight.
Genuinely, everyone’s (silly NBA insiders) hate for this team last year had more to do with a disdain towards Kidd and Kyrie, than with a reasonable argument for why they should be bad. They have finally constructed the formula for a regular season smasher, with shooters, strong undersized 4s, excellent role bigs and a superstar with tons of motivation to chase MVP. For some weird reason, the Dinwiddie and Naji Marshall acquisitions feel like tiny steals on the margins.
Klay will get a shitton of open shots, perhaps similar to the numbers he did during the Steph-KD pairing. Of course, that also encompasses the risk of him getting cold and people souring on him quickly. Nonetheless, the Mavs do have perhaps the coolest ball crowd in the league, and I doubt one will be in a rush to label Thompson washed. All things considered, this should be a fruitful partnership.
Floor: If Doncic misses 25+ games? Lower bracket of the play-in spots.
Ceiling: There’s nothing to suggest last year’s run can’t be repeated. There’s also nothing to suggest that it won’t take Doncic another four years before he reaches the Finals again, much like Lebron after ’07.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 39 wins ↑ 53 wins V: 4 (As much as we love him, Kyrie’s teams come with an obligatory warning in volatility state. But more importantly, a Doncic injury could absolutely derail the team’s project as everything is built around his skillset).
Player to Watch: Dereck Lively. That bloke is delightful.
Personal hype: Medium (they were redman high last year, let me take that victory lap)
Audacious Pred: They meet the Warriors in the first round of the playoffs igniting an incredibly fun trash-talk sequence between old friends Klay and Draymond Green. Mavs in 7.
7. Philadelphia 76ers
To get this straight, the only reason why they’re above the Mavs is that they play in the East. Dallas will have to go through OKC, Denver, Minny, Phoenix, and a bunch of other less heralded stud teams. Philly will only miss the 2nd round of the playoffs again if they choke, or if Embiid is out again. They’ll need to add some depth, that being their biggest weakness for the moment. Losing the oft-unavailable Melton and to a lesser extent Batum is a bigger deal than you’d think. That said, KJ Martin represents a high upside energy boosting bencher. Lowry will draw some offensive fouls and techs, Yabusele feels hyped after a dreamy Olympic run, and Eric Gordon is EG. Maybe they’ll have just enough to survive, and splitting Maxey and PG’s rest stints might help both get increased touches in a suddenly crowded starting 5.
Caleb Martin was an awesome acquisition who will hopefully teach them some Heat culture tricks. ‘Member when he shocked the world acting as the 3rd best player on a team that made the Finals? Talking about 3rds, we should be a little worried about Maxey’s interest in playing 3rd banana on a team that he showed he can be the leader of (when need be) last April. It would be best for all sides if PG accepted a Robin to the Robin role and emphasised his defensive chops.
Floor: Basing your contention prognosis on the health status of Embiid and PG is like basing your world peace hopes on the Democrats winning the election.
Ceiling: Overrated teams that finally catch a break after years of failing tend to do so after people refuse to accept them as contenders. League parity and lower expectations due to the Celtics and Knicks being admittedly better might just be their potion towards a Finals run.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 40 wins ↑ 54 wins V: 4 (Daryl Morey is yet to make a Finals, and the bad luck charm of Sam Hinkie still haunts them).
Player to Watch: Everybody’s talking about Embiid having the most pressure of any NBA superstar, but we may be forgetting that Paul George‘s Hall of Fame status could hinge on him actually making the Finals at some point.
Personal hype: Low and high at the same time. Let’s go with medium.
Audacious Pred: Embiid finally stops trying to win MVPs, takes it easy for the regular and has an astonishingly healthy run in the playoffs, which unfortunately ends after a hard fought Conference Finals 7-Gamer.
6. Milwaukee Bucks
The Bucks have all of a sudden turned into every analyst’s favourite team to roast. “They’re washed, they’re injury prone, they can’t defend, their coach is hopeless”. Let us look into this a little deeper. With the exception of ’22 where he suffered a season ending injury, ’23 where the Blazers sat him to tank, and ’20 where games were subtracted out of the season for COVID, Lillard has played 67+ games every year. Before last year’s untimely injury against the Pacers, he never really missed playoff games due to injury. His best campaign is only something like 18 months removed from today. Middleton’s case is a little more worrying, but before the last two horrible seasons, he had five straight of being a relative IronMan. He was furthermore a stud in last year’s first round. Giannis has been followed by a playoff bug, but never suited up in less than 61 games throughout his career.
Here’s a quote from last year’s evaluation: “All that said, this is an old team that will suffer some untimely injuries and may have to ride on the side of mediocrity if they are unluckier than expected, at least until the playoffs come around”. The Bucks are bound to get luckier this time around. Surely, it is a problem that they can’t take the RS as a joke considering all the young teams coming for them, and they wouldn’t wanna slip into the play-in for lack of suiting their players up in most games. Finding the right spots to rest them will be huge.
You have to kind of…like their depth? Delon Wright offers defensive upside, Trent, Prince and Pat can keep defenses honest and Bobby is always Bobby. Other than Giannis, they have no below average shooters in that rotation.
Floor: 6th seed and a terrible first round matchup against the hungry Knicks.
Ceiling: They have an immensely low margin for error, but you’d be an idiot to preemptively count Giannis and Dame Time out. Let’s go for that second ring.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 44 ↑ 54 wins V: 3 (You know they will have games where they look awesome, and you probably know that they will have very very problematic games where they lose by 36). Let’s just hope they don’t lose to the Heat in the 1st round again.
Player to Watch: Yeah, well..
Personal hype: High
Audacious Pred: Lillard silences the haters coming up with a hell of a 28ppg, 4 threes a game, 2nd team all-NBA season.
5. Denver Nuggets
One year removed from a chip, Denver seemed to have lost their ability to find diamonds in the rough. The copycat Lakers strategy of trying to replace vital cogs with cheaper and younger alternatives had the same result as it did with the Lakers. This time around? They doubled up on their mistake of letting Bruce and Jeff walk out by waving goodbye to KCP. Nugs brass are going all in on Strawther and Chris Brown (Braun, alright), and hoping that Jokic can rejuvenate Westbrook’s chops. Dario Saric is everybody’s favorite underrated move since 2008, yet he’s never really moved the needle come playoff time for any of the teams he played for. It does help that he sports a poor man Jokic style, so in the sense that they wanna play a similar style for 48 mins he fits the bill perfectly.
Last year we got a red flag assertion from their owners and GMs when they proclaimed they were ‘taking the long-term dynastic approach, hoping to win 3 or 4 chips total… but repeating will be tough‘. They ended up hitting their floor, which was a 2nd round exit. Their performance against the Lakers was equally forgettable, though people seemed to ignore it thanks to Los Angeles’ five straight 4th quarter meltdowns. Jamal Murray was the main culprit, and people do maybe forget how incredible he was in their successful playoff run in ’23. If he gets anywhere near that year’s performance, they have a chance. What we saw in the Olympics should be every Nugget fan’s torment.
Clearly, they’ll need to figure out some sort of aces up their sleeve come February, because unless Jamal turns into a killer again this team just doesn’t look deep enough to take the West down. MPJ ought to put his foot back on the gas, lean on who he really is and be more blunt. Hopefully he’ll be given the freedom to.
Floor: 4th seed and a first round exit after another Murray flameout.
Ceiling: Another chip, where we all cheer for Russell Westbrook and watch amazed as all his haters and detractors claim to be fans again.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 47 wins ↑ 55 wins V: 3 (Jamal single-handedly represents this number)
Player to Watch: Braun didn’t exactly regress but he also didn’t really improve last year. In a world where Jamal can’t find his old rhythm, Chrissie needs to turn into a better version of KCP.
Personal hype: Medium
Audacious Pred: Jokic becomes the third guy after Lebron and Bill Russell to win four MVPs in five years.. Lol, that’s not audacious. Let’s go spicy and say MPJ leads the league in total three point makes out of nowhere.
4. Oklahoma City Thunder
After a few years of delaying the inevitable, they finally allowed themselves to be good. People are raving about their offseason acquisitions of Caruso and Hartenstein, but the greedy in you should also wonder if they can do better with that plethora of picks still waiting to be dealt. Namely, the half-full version here looks a little different: They gave up a multidimensional guy that could do everything but shoot reliably and hound opponents, and they got back someone who cannot do anything much except be excellent at those two things Giddey was average at. Hartenstein will allow them to play Chet at PF and avoid 3 bruises per game; are they sure they wanna play Holmgreen at 4 though?
Either way, they’re a regular season juggernaut smasher that probably locks the 2nd seed as a floor. The biggest trap they could fall in, as per usual, is thinking they’re good enough and not making any further moves before the playoffs come around. Their durability is one of the most noted strengths, but folks seem to forget Caruso is not exactly the premier injury-averse player in the league, missing a significant chunk of the season in more than half his past campaigns.
The romance of growing talent together and only finding savvy moves on the edges is nice. Noone can argue with their Big-3 potential or their propensity for doing the draft right. But in 2024 something’s gotta give. Much as was evident in their loss against Dallas last year, they need at least a couple of reliable non-rookies coming from the bench. It’s freaking ok to sacrifice one or two of your 36 future picks to add some experience. They seem hesitant to mess with their ‘youngest team ever to go this far’ average by adding a few 30 year olds. But if they continue to be stubborn and trust the process just because last year was an awesome story, Shai himself will have become 30 with no chips to show for.
Jewels can only be hidden for so long. Isaiah Joe and Cason Wallace are sweet, but they may not cut it. Please do yourselves a favour and add some depth.
Floor: As aforementioned, a loss in the first round and a run to the Finals could be separated by one choke or one step-up game away in this conference.
Ceiling: They can go all the way; not sure if that would happen as currently constructed. One serious 32 year old ex-all star away from being jumped to no.1 on this list.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 47 wins ↑ 58 wins V: 2 (you know they’re inevitably good and all of Shai, Jalen and Chet could be All-stars, but they’re not gonna be the 2014 Spurs or anything)
Player to Watch: Shai was the MVP pick in last year’s post, and we’ll back him again, albeit in a year where way more folks see it coming.
Personal hype: Medium
Audacious Pred: Chet gives Wemby a run for his money in the supposedly dead DPOY conversation.
3. New York Knicks
I’m terrified for Mikal Bridges. To say that his astonishing accomplishment of having missed precisely ZERO NBA games over the course of his career is in jeopardy, well, is an understatement. There is no precedent to suggest Thibs won’t avoid running these guys to the ground. If watching Anunoby play on half a leg last year in Game 7 of the Conference Semis was any indication, he and his coaching stuff’s obstinance never to learn anything about human anatomy will hold strong.
They’re done drooling over the Embiids and Giannises of the world. The only guy left from that inspiring surprise run three years ago, a run which by the way restored Knicks fans’ hope in this mess of a project, is Mitchell Robinson! Not too shabby though. Turning that team into Brunson, Bridges, Hart, Anunoby and KAT is close to a miracle. Considering Porzingis’ continuous injury woes, with all due respect to Boston, the Knickerbockers might just have the best starting-5 that actually strings together more than 15 games.
This is not just a team compiling talent while compromising fit. The Brunson KAT pick-n-rolls leave defenses no choice, and they’ve surrounded their top two, let’s say defensively handicapped, scorers with three of the top 10 perimeter defenders in the league. Their top-6 rotation dudes can all shoot, some of them lights-out; they also have already had enough experience playing secondary roles in all their respective teams, meaning there won’t be any sudden bad blood resulting from confusing and varying levels of responsibility. Maybe Mitchell Robinson even manages to stay healthy, in a fruitful 17 power minutes a game role.
Divincenzo was great and will be missed, but let’s not pretend he wasn’t a waiver guy up until Thibs started playing him 56 mins a game and revived his career. Sacrilege be damned, this is probably the most talented Knicks team ever assembled. Apologies to 60s and 70s iterations, but there was not even a 3-point line back then. Towns should be more than elated to have been traded to a team whose current potential outweights that of the Wolves.
I really wanted to put them in the no.1 slot. They can pull it off. I just don’t trust Thibs to do the right thing regarding playing time anymore.
Floor: Hard to see them going anywhere lower than the 3rd seed and a second round hard fought exit after Thibs gets two of his starters injured due to fatigue.
Ceiling: Oh, they can win it all. Provided health and a Thibs ear whisperer, or someone giving Thibs ether and doing rotations on his behalf, it’s perfectly plausible.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 49 wins ↑ 59 wins V: 2 (There are almost no comprehensible ways in which this team is not a bonafide contender).
Player to Watch: I’ll be watching the Thibs vs. Bridges thing with great anticipation. Can Mikal stay Ironman while his coach plays him 43 minutes a game for the entire season?
Personal hype: High
Audacious Pred: Mikal Bridges himself begs Thibs to take him out of games in the 2nd and 4th quarters, terrified that his record is in peril. In the end he prevails.
2. Phoenix Suns
I’ve done it again. What a halfwit fool..The Goatcycle moron just can’t get over the fact Phoenix only made the ’21 Finals because of Paul and Bridges. Booker himself won’t be able to carry them anywhere near that in the deepest West ever. Durant is gonna be 37 this year..Beal is by and far the most overpaid guy in the league. Why oh why would anyone believe in them after that dispiriting sweep? Durant did all but ask Edwards for an autograph.
The thing is their owner is committed to the point of no return, so even an uneven 12-14 start wouldn’t force his hand to break it up and replenish his draft picks box. I’m calling the Blazers and befriending their brass… yesterday. Utah as well. An Ayton return, a RobWill health gamble, a John Collins or Walker Kessler trade- any of this could elevate these scrubs to new heights. Of course they have no picks left until 2046, meaning their trade partner would probs have to a) swallow the Bradley Beal pill, which, they would do for what reason exactly? or b)just be willing to help a Western power take down the annoying leprechauns from Boston.
Snagging Tyus Jones for nothing was possibly the best move the franchise has pulled off since CP3. He’s exactly the type of no-nonsense, let the stars cook and I’ll do my dishing kind of PG that could help them change course. Are we all fools for trusting in Tyus to install some order to this chaos? For anticipating Budenholzer will pick up where he left off and lead them to a 55win+ regular season? Okogie, Grayson, Royce and Plumlee are quietly more than a competent bunch that could permit Durant not to have to play 40 mins a game again. Bol Bol is still here too!
Their main problem last year was not the end result, but how indifferent and dispirited they looked. This could be a sign of a team on the brinks of combustion, but it could also make for an epic revenge themed comeback. Being the imbecile that I am, I’ve picked the latter and will be regretting so by November.
Floor: We saw it last year.
Ceiling: You’ve probably understood where this is going.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 43 ↑ 54 wins V: 4 (They could snatch the 1st seed, or they could trade KD)
Player to Watch: As you may have noticed from this ranking I love Book, but comically enough this whole dialectic rests on Bradley Damn Beal’s shoulders.
Personal hype: Redman High
Audacious Pred: Book takes over the first banana role once and for all, and somehow KD accepts and respects it. He then goes on to average 33 a game in the finals against New York, trash-talking his ex-teammate and friend Mikal who finally misses an NBA game at the most inopportune moment.
1.Boston Celtics
Sorry to follow every single human being here and be boring. I genuinely tried my best not to. If I had to take Boston vs. the field, I’m taking the field and sleeping like a baby with that decision. They won’t be able to step over the corpses of ravaged teams for the 2nd straight year. They’re occasionally super awesome, but this team remains far from perfect. All that said, trying to figure out which one of these 15 freaking contenders will step up and challenge them is a few echelons higher than fools’ gold. Putting any squad over them in the standings, with the exception of New York, could end up discrediting everything else written in this unnecessarily long post.
Other than their propensity to choke away leads and give inferior opponents room to breathe (admittedly Holiday’s addition helped push some demons aside for the time being), the other weakness they’re faced with is a relatively shallow bench. Porzingis will play in half their games again, and that’s the good scenario. They’re counting on Pritchard and Lonnie Walker being serviceable, Hauser avoiding cold streaks, and Horford to have asked for the number of Lebron’s physiotherapist.
True, that’s why the trade deadline exists, but who in this league will want to help Boston get better? It’s possible that we see teams avoid distributing buy-outs to guys only so that the Celtics can’t snatch them from the waiver wire. Brad Stevens better have made some good GM friends, because starting as the undisputed favorite can quickly make everyone turn sour on making deals with you.
There are a few interesting questions regarding their superstar. Could Tatum really have forgotten how to shoot? Did time in the gym hurt his mechanics? Did getting benched for the likes of Durant and Lebron in the Olympics fuck up his ego? Did Steve Kerr do it on purpose to kill his momentum? Is Jaylen Brown gonna be their alpha from here on? Did the Netflix documentary damage his soul?
Floor: Untimely injuries send them to the…2nd seed? The Heat or Knicks beat them in the Conference semis in an upset that is not exactly of epic proportions.
Ceiling: They become the first team to repeat since Curry and KD’s warriors.
Floor-Ceiling Range: ↓ 52 ↑ 67 wins V: 2 (Was last year a fluke or can they now finish series before the last 5 minutes of Game 7?)
Player to Watch: Boringggg. Tatum and whether he really can have a regressing season.
Personal hype: Medium
Audacious Pred: All their playoff matchups deliver us absolute 6 or 7 game classics, in sequence against their favorite Miami Zombies, the Holiday revenge against the Bucks, then the GOAT series against the Knicks (where they somehow lose).
Awards:
Boring, easy pick THAT I WILL NOT BET to win it all: Celtics (vs OKC in finals)
First dark horse pick to win it all: Suns (vs. Knicks in finals)
Super Upset pick to win it all: Pelicans (vs. NY in finals) *but also do bet on the Grizz
MVP: 1) Shai Gilgeous Alexander 2) Anthony Edwards 3) Ja Morant 4) Luka Doncic 5)Nikola Jokic
6th Man of the Year: 1) Malik Monk 2)Naz Reid 3)Donte Divincenzo
Most Improved Picks: 1)Josh Giddey 2)Jalen Johnson 3) Keegan Murray/Andrew Nembhard
Projected Regular Season Standings
| WEST | EAST |
| 1. Oklahoma City Thunder (56-26) | 1. Boston Celtics (59-23) |
| 2. Phoenix Suns (52-30) | 2. New York Knicks (57-25) |
| 3. Denver Nuggets (50-32) | 3. Cleveland Cavaliers (51-31) |
| 4. Memphis Grizzlies (49-33) | 4. Philadelphia 76ers (50-32) |
| 5. Dallas Mavericks (49-33) | 5. Milwaukee Bucks (48-34) |
| 6.Minnesota Timberwolves (48-34) | 6. Miami Heat (47-35) |
| 7. New Orleans Pelicans (46-36) | 7. Indiana Pacers (46-36) |
| 8. Golden State Warriors(45-37) | 8. Orlando Magic (42-40) |
| 9. Los Angeles Lakers (43-39) | 9. Charlotte Hornets (39-43) |
| 10. Sacramento Kings (42-40) | 10. Atlanta Hawks (38-44) |