Monday, October 27, 2014

2014 NBA Power Rankings


The NBA season is finally here, and I can’t wait to have something to distract me from a slow, agonizing defeat every week in the stupid world of fantasy football.  I hate Rotoworld.  A world where every Tuesday, it is predicted that Andre Johnson will score 90 yards and a TD, and every Sunday Andre Johnson goes for 50 yards and no TD’s, for like 2 years straight.  So, I’m getting my mind right for an exciting NBA season and thinking about which teams may or may not have a shot at beating the Ohio Cavaliers of Cleveland Lebrons.  While ESPN is sifting through the peanuts in Lebron’s turds, trying to rank each individual NBA player, I’m gonna take a few minutes to rank the teams this year in order of worst to best.   Teams are lumped into groups and ranked on criteria of basically nothing other than my opinion.  So here it goes:

Teams that have literally no good players:  The 76ers, Orlando Magic, Detroit Pistons, and The Sacramento Queens.  Sorry, Boogie.  I know you feel great about making Team USA this summer, but even Rudy Gay made the cut.  Quit fouling out, crying, “gettin’ T’d up for no reason”, jacking up midrange jumpers, trotting back on D, and doing basically everything you do that isn’t dominating the paint.

Teams who never draft black guys:  The Utah Jazz.  Someday, the Jazz will draft a black guy, but he’d be more of a cornball brother than Russel Wilson.  For now, they’re banking on Gordon Hawyard and a 17 year old Australian kid to buck 60 years of trending demographic in the NBA.  Looking back on it, they did draft Karl Malone in 1985.  Then again, Karl Malone is an avid fisherman and hunter, owns an Arby’s and a Monster Truck, and made campaign donations to re-elect George W Bush. 

Teams that are covered in the stench of contract issues:  The Pacers.  They sucked before Paul George (shuddering) broke his leg in half.  Now they’re just a sad sack of wishing they could trade Roy Hibbert.

Teams with decent talent, but they love to tank:   Timberwolves, Bucks, Hawks.  Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins might prove me wrong here, but I doubt it.  Wiggins is McLovin skinny.  Dude needs to hit the weight room.  Jabari is like Paul Pierce 2.0, but Milwaukee has terrible Karma after hiring Jason Kidd. Get ready for some bush-league crap to go down all year long like fake timeouts and “locker room issues”. 

Teams with a flawed star player surrounded by crap:  The Lakers, The Celtics, the Knicks and the Nets.  These team should be tanking, but won’t because they’ve got one guy on their roster who is too good to drown.   I do want to give special shots out to the Lakers for assembling the worst team in the NBA that doesn’t realize how bad it is.  Every Lakers game this year should have a side bet of which will happen more:  Uncontested layups, or the Lakers celebrating routine plays.   The sad part about this group is the Lakers aren’t even in the worst situation of any team here:  THE NETS LOST MONEY LAST YEAR!!!  You have to either be stupid, or a billionaire Russian oil tycoon living life like Jordan Belfort, to lose money on an NBA franchise in Brooklyn.    

 Teams that, I might cop ‘ya jersey, but that about it:  The Blazers (Lillard), Hornets (Stevenson), Nuggets (Faried), Bobcats (Jordan), Suns (Bledsoe), Pelicans (Davis),  Raptors (Lowry), and Wizards (Wall).  Dope players, dope jerseys, deserved hype, but they won’t get past the 1st round if they make the playoffs at all.  Also, I know the Bobcats don’t exist anymore, but figured that’s a good reason to buy a throwback.  Also, Drake is ruining my image of me owning a Raptors jersey. 

Teams that employ Dwight Howard, and are therefore impossible to like:  The Rockets.  Soon to also be known as the team that employs James Harden, and therefore gives up a lot of free layups.

Teams who won’t contend unless their best player loses 15 pounds:  Memphis, The Heat, and the Clippers.  Yea, I said it.  Chris Paul needs to slim down.  His crafty D and buttery jumper aren’t going to keep him on the top of the PG totem pole for long.  Not with lighting fast players like Kyrie and Westbrook coming down the barrel.   D Wade’s extra poundage really showed through in last year’s playoffs, and is the #1 reason Lebron is in Cleveland.  The best Memphis Grizzly player is whichever of the Gasol/Randolph duo is not winded down the stretch. 

Crazy good Western Conference teams who don’t have an MVP type player:  The Mavs, The Warriors.  Dirk just ain’t MVP Dirk anymore.  The Warriors, if they aren’t already, should be ridiculed for their decision not to trade Klay Thompson for Kevin Love.  Nobody has ever won an NBA championship with 2 undersized big men who can’t stay healthy.  Curry can go into heat-check mode at any time, but his ankles are broken just thinking about guarding Kyrie, Tony Parker, CP3, D. Rose, et al.

Teams that can make the Eastern Conference Playoffs worth watching:  Forget beating the Cavs, I just want to see Derek Rose show up healthy to the playoffs.  At the very least it provides a better Easter conference finals matchup than any godawful showdown between the Heat and the Pacers the past 2 years.  Did I mention the Pacers suck?

The winner plays the Cavs in the finals:  The Thunder or The Spurs.  OKC has a small window here:  They’re like the Magic back in the 90’s with Shaq.  If they don’t win it all, Durant is gone, gone, gone, and he’s winning 2-3 titles with a big market franchise before he retires.  My money says he finds a home in Boston, and Westbrook goes to the Lake Show.  The Spurs are probably in their last run of the “Greg Popovich made the Spurs likeable” era.  My heart years for the champs to repeat, but this time around I don’t think they’re got enough gusto for:

The new and improved Superteam assembled by Lebron:  FHHHAAARRRTTTT SOUUNNDDSSSSSS


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