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So maybe nobody predicted the Nets would be THIS bad… or that Detroit would have the chemistry of a team consisting of Ricky Davis, Darius Miles, Corey Maggette, Yi, and Starbury (just thought it’d be fun to throw Yi into the mix)… but it’s hard to say that the league’s bottom 11 are really a shock to anyone. We’d be a whole lot more surprised if the Knicks and TWolves weren’t on that list. Looking it over though: NJ,DC,MIN,IND,PHI,GSW,SAC,DET,MIL,NY,TOR… you are left with a question: Did Memphis and Charlotte fold as franchises?

Memphis' Secret or Mail Order Brides at a Theme Party?

The answer blows my mind too: They are still around (even if when you watch them on TV you feel like you are watching the losers bracket in the Maui Invitational with only the players’ moms watching)… and they are even dabbling in the realm of “good”. I swear I’m not making this stuff up.

Lets get back into the rankings.

Tier 5: On the right track… but lets be honest here…

19. New Orleans – Right before CP3s injury, it sort of felt like the Okafor-West-CP3 nucleus was getting it together and this team had potential to be a decent playoff team. At the beginning of the year and for a while after the Byron Scott firing, Okafor looked awful and West looked real washed up, but the team got chemistry back for a while. Without Paul though, this team is screwed… there’s really nothing else to say. Even if Russell Westbrook continues to be pretty good, the Paul-West combination is really what makes this team special. When West (grad of the legendary Hargrave Military Academy) was on the floor without Paul, the team was pretty terrible this year ( their worst 5 man lineups included such according to 82games.com). Without Paul, this team has nobody special… West is a 4th option on a championship team… and I’m not sure anybody else is in the starting 5 on one… barely even the bench. Marcus Thornton has randomly been okay… but he’s averaging 0.9 assists per game in the backcourt… and Darius Songaila – why is he still around? people need the Russian dude who has never had a season with an above average PER in a decade? I don’t get it. Most important though: What if Paul is a fragile dude? What if he’s always going to be banged up and just not be able to reach his potential? At least the Saints are in the Superbowl…

18. La Clippers – So they are on a losing streak, lost their #1 overall pick for the entire season,  play in the same building as the best team in the league, have a terrible organization in almost every way… but a Clippers team that looked like Davis-Gordon-Lebron-Griffin-Kaman would immediately be a title contender. I know it just seems impossible that Lebron would ever be a Clipper, but it is a perfect team for him to play with… really the best “basketball option”.

Loved Kaman in the Hills Have Eyes movies...

The team they currently field: Davis-Gordon-Rasual Butler-Camby-Kaman isn’t too bad itself (77% win percentage as a unit according to 82games.com). Sure Rasual Butler is one of those dudes who just starts because the team is so thin at the position, but Eric Gordon seems to be maturing, Baron Davis isn’t totally mailing it in, Kaman looks solid again, and Craig Smith is a good bench guy. Until the clips stop having dudes like Sebastian Telfair and Ricky Davis though… they’ll never be taken seriously… a star player  to go along with a lot of good players would help too.

17. Chicago – After a really beat start to the year, this team looks like it may be okay. They got lucky too because everybody in the East was awful for the first third of the season… so bad that being a .500 team would have gotten you the 4 seed. and a .400 team would get the 6 seed. Derrick Rose was apparently playing on a hurt ankle and kind of sucked as you’d expect, but he’s been as good as last year of late.

Wes Anderson isn't releasing a movie this month, so I'm gonna do a lot of cell phone ads...

It hurts to admit it because he’s so much fun to make fun of, but Joe Noah is having a real solid year. Suddenly, he is a 12-12 guy who is really active on the floor… just like he was in college. Luol Deng looks the best he’s been in a couple years… and Ben Gordon really was never a dependable player. Luke Wilson may even be an okay coach… who knows. Still, not much on the bench. John Salmons has gone from being flukey good to a bad contract. Brad Miller is an out of shape old white dude; Kirk Hinrich is having a down year; Tyrus Thomas is out… They are hard to read, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they shock somebody in the first round… Orlando?

16. Miami – Empirical data as well as well as interview testimony with many “ballers” has led to one indisputable conclusion, NBA dudes love playing in Miami. The fans, unfortunately, do not reciprocate the enthusiasm for the team. Nobody is ever at these games. The Heat are basically the exact opposite of the Jazz/Browns’ “happy to be involved with the team” dynamics between the players and fans. This year’s Heat team is what announcers politely refer to as “a veteran team” while thinking “these guys kinda suck”… they feel a lot like how the Wizards usually are. Dwayne Wade has been sick… but doesn’t it sort of feel as though he is destined to play in hometown Chicago (who could use a SG…The Chicago Bosh-Noah-Deng-Wade-Rose core could be a dynasty if they can pull off those trades somehow). Otherwise, Beasley has been okay… but he can’t defend. Jermaine O’Neal has been surprisingly competent, posting his first 17+ PER (15 is average for the record) year since 07. Still, this team has so many washup/draft bust guys you think there is a bigger chance you are in drug rehab or reading the CSKA Moscow basketball roster. Rafer Alston (awful this year)… Daequan Cook (terrible)… Mario Chalmers (never going to be very good)… Q-Rich (how has been in the league so long?)…

Maybe we'll throw Ashanti on the track too...

Carlos Arroyo (bad since 04)… Joel Anthony (are you kidding me? Joel Anthony is still in the league?)… and of course Heat stalwart Udonis Haslem… No way D-Wade can win with this team… but those 2010 free agents will probably be excited about the Heat (music videos with Ja Rule on yachts involved potentially)… even if the fans still won’t be.

15. Memphis – I looked at this roster and thought: Man, this is a pretty ghetto team. I then realized that they have 3 guys from UCONN (Rudy Gay + 2 total busts)… and that’s probably why I thought that. You really can’t plan on teams like this. They draft Thabeet who clearly sucks… missing out on a bunch of really talented dudes; the sign Allen Iverson because they have no fans, and this way they could at least be high profile even if they sucked…. and then… Iverson leaves… totally changing the team dynamic; Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph both have huge years… hiding the bad draft picks; Rudy Gay goes from being “promising”, to “overrated”, to “overrated but actually pretty good” again in the third year. The team is exciting. It seems like every night that we are getting Zach Randolph 25 and 18 highlights. I went and looked up the ex-Jailblazer legend’s stats and was surprised: he’s always been kind of good… he’s just now on an overachieving team and removed from his past to an extent. We shouldn’t act like this came out of nowhere. While on the out of nowhere topic: when your name is “Mark Gasol” and you are 7′1… why is everybody not trying to draft/sign you? It seems so obvious that he would be good… and yet it did come out of nowhere. In the backcourt, OJ Mayo suddenly a support player… something that his game and personality seems inherently poorly suited for… I guess I see OJ as being the best player on a bad team who might develop… kind of like Joe Johnson on the Hawks… not in a situation like this. Conley may be as big of a bust as Thabeet… and until they find a legit PG, they will still look like “The Grizz” that we are used to a lot of the time…. but despite the two blown drafts, they could be an out-of-nowhere dangerous playoff team (they really do rebound… for what that is worth). They also could be in a different city at any moment… why not another one in Miami?

Want to take a short time out to honor Taylor Swift. The “Love Story” video may even be better than “You belong with me”. The production quality perfectly splits the difference between Renaissance theme Skinamax porn and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. The people aren’t using cell-phones and in Halloween costumes, but is her flashback going on at some sort of expensive Catholic School? Is that the point?

Issue 2: The AI and McGrady Allstar Thing – So TMAC ended up not being involved because there was so much coverage about him getting votes that casual fans realized that he was entirely undeserving… and AI starting is sort of a nice way to honor the guy’s career even if most people know he’s not good anymore… but I just don’t get why Ray Allen or anybody would go out of their way to stir up controversy about deserving All Star appearances. Doesn’t everybody know that the All-Star Game is a joke anyway… and that there is no good way to really pick a team… and fans voting certainly is not an informed way to do so… but that none of that matters because it is about entertainment, and nobody watches the game seriously anyway.

Probably Will Be At The All-Star Game

It’s all just about the celebrity aspect of NBA culture: the parties, the celebrities hanging out with the players, the halftime show cameos (Usher, Alicia Keys, and Shakira already involved), Shaq’s stunts, and seeing highlights of the Dunk Contest and all the random other shit on Sportscenter or Youtube. That is the All-Star game… and I think that that’s fine. It’s a lot of fun… why would we want it to be serious? NBA guys feeling snubbed about All-Star voting is just a reflection of how selfish and in need of attention a lot of these dudes are. If the fans want AI, then they should get him… “We’re not talking about a game… we talking about practice… It’s funny to me too”.

Tier 4: Overachievers… but not making it out of Round 1.

14. Oklahoma City – Portland got a 7′0 naked 50 year old who can’t walk… Seattle got a perennial top 8 in the league guy… and then moved to OKC. I know it’s a lot of hippies (and hipsters), but how much must people in the Pacific Northwest have it in for the Thunder? That draft really traumatized an entire region of the country.

Gone from Seattle too...

I don’t think anybody expected OKC to be this competitive… and Durant needs a lot of credit, but he still has a lot to learn. For a guy who scores as much as he does, you’d wish he would have more than 3 assists per game. Just like Kobe and Lebron learned to dominate different facets of a basketball game, I expect KD to do the same in the coming years… but being “early Lebron” or “early Kobe” is a damn good thing. James Harden has been okay for a rookie, but he does look like a low-upside guy… and Thabo Sefolosha is a token not-that-good NBA 2.  Russell Westbrook (hopefully not wearing #0 because he always idolized Gil Arenas), on the other hand, looks like a legit NBA point guard… the type who could start for a title winning team down the road. The frontcourt has a issues though. A lot of people pin Jeff Green as a Danny Granger/Ron Artest/Marion type player who does a lot of different things on the court… but I just have never seen him look as good as those guys. Nenad Krstic didn’t turn out to be good; Collison is an okay guy off the bench but not much more; and Serge Ibaka is promising but years away from being dominant. It’s just hard to believe that a young team like this with so little other than it’s young star can be winning with defense and rebounding in a conference full of talented veteran squads, but that’s exactly what’s happening. Nobody wants to have to play OKC in the 6-3 matchup if the Thunder keep this up.

13. Charlotte – Even if it’s famous as a factory for NBA and NFL freak athlete types, 5′9 69 year old Larry Brown may be the most impressive alum of Hargrave Military Academy in sports. The Knicks job was clearly impossible… because this guy has found a way to turn Charlotte into the best defensive team in the league? Where is the talent? This is an unreal coaching job… Lance Harbor in the 2nd half of the district title game level coaching.

Always sort of been hot...

Gerald Wallace has gone from being an average guy looking okay on a terrible team to being an all-star. Nazr Mohammad’s PER is so laughably high (21) that I refreshed the stat-page to make sure it wasn’t a mistake (has he ever been good?). Stephen Jackson has had great energy; Ray Felton has gone from being pretty beat to replacing Jamal Crawford as the “most average point guard in the NBA” for conversations like “how good would Dallas be if they replaced Kidd with an average point guard… like Ray Felton or something”. Boris Diaw looks better too. This team is getting contributions from everyone (except Tyson Chandler… but who cares?). Is this a bad matchup for Boston or Orlando in round one? Not if you look at the roster… but it’s not the craziest idea out there… not “The Blindside” winning Best Picture crazy.

12. Houston – If you had told Houston GM Daryl Morey before the season that his team was going to be a “rich man’s Charlotte”, he probably wouldn’t have been psyched about the whole thing.

Chase Budinger dressed up as Brian Scalabrine...

Houston is a pretty freakish statistical anomale. They are a bad shooting, rebounding,  and assisting team. They are poor offensively and average on defense. In fact, Houston’s only positive attribute is that they limit turnovers… but somehow, they are a winning team. Usually, saying a team “plays hard” is a euphemism for “kinda blows”… but this team plays so hard that they are actually a good team as a result. Houston seems to catch its opponents on off nights… or have one average guy get hot and exploit it to the max… or frustrate their opponents with the defense and pesky play… and just sort of pull games out. Aaron Brooks is not a great point guard, but he takes over games on occasion. Guys like Ariza, Scola, and Landry seem similarly capable… even Chase Buddinger contributes… and how white is that dude? With the TMAC contract and Yao coming back, this team has a lot of different ways it could improve. Bosh goes home? Turn a couple of the veterans/overachievers into a solid backcourt scorer? A lot going on in Houston.

11. Portland – The Trailblazers may have more talented players than any other team in the league, but with so many guys and a lineup that changes so often, it is sort of hard to pin Portland down to a specific identity. That may be a good thing at times – you can’t be figured out… but that also means that you don’t have a way of playing that you know you can use to dominate opponents. The Oden injury hurt the team a lot, but the Pryzbilla injury may have even been more important (his stats were always better). ‘Dre Miller has had a surprisingly solid year… and a surprisingly solid career. I think Baron Davis gets a lot more credit than Millery… but they are probably actually about the same career-wise. Steve Blake (my favorite “how did that dude turn out to be okay in the NBA” guy) is having a kind of beat year, but the team is holding up well without a center and even having Juwan Howard back involved, but what do they ultimately do with Webster/Batum/Fernandez/Bayless/Outlaw… only one of whom can start when Roy is healthy?

Notice anything?

Portland should flip those guys into a star… and potentially plan as though Greg Oden will never develop. The Blazers aren’t about to get free agents, but they have so much to offer in a trade… Chris Paul?

10. Utah – The statistical mirror image of the Rockets, Utah is the best assisting team in the league and near the top in shooting and rebounding. Likewise, their only flaw is that they turn the ball over a lot. Jerry Sloan, as always, has gotten the most out of his team. These guys play almost like it’s college… spreading the ball around the offensive zone. When Deron Williams and Boozer are healthy and Kirilenko is playing at his best, this team is a threat to make a deep playoff run, and that seems to be the case right now. Still, Paul Milsap isn’t the same guy he was last year, and Mehmet Okur is basically a beat-ass Big Z at this point…  The backup centers aren’t really there either. The hole at the 5 is nowhere near as gaping as that at the 2 though… Ronnie Brewer just doesn’t seem very good… I have no clue where Wesley Matthews came from… and they traded Eric Maynor when they looked like they were going to suck – which may have been a bad call. Utah’s ace in the hole though: The Knicks’ lottery pick.

“I hear you. It’s funny to me too”

Real,

Nick