Hope is a wonderful thing. How much of it should each of the 30 NBA fan bases have that their team might actually win a ring in the foreseeable future?
“Blow it up.”
Pick a fairly knowledgeable NBA fan. Any fan. It doesn’t matter where they’re from. Then ask that fan to pick the most logical path for their team to take if they actually want to contend for a championship – not a playoff birth or a Conference Finals appearance, but a ring – anytime soon.
Odds are you’re going to get the above response.
Blowing it up, of course, is not actually a plan. It is a reactionary response to the monolith currently towering over not only the Bay Area but the entire NBA landscape.
Such is life in the L in 2017. Teams are left to wonder which one of two unpalatable paths is the easiest to stomach: try to win now, and fail admirably – falling with style, if you will – or operate with a finish line in the more distant future, after the juggernaut in Golden State has finally run its course.
Some teams don’t have a decision at all because you don’t just blow up 55-ish win teams in the NBA, regardless of whether the GM secretly thinks it doesn’t have a prayer. As Zach Lowe noted in his excellent post-Finals look at the league, teams like the Rockets, Spurs, Celtics and Heat have no intention of packing it in.
But does such an approach make it more likely that those teams will contend sooner?
Other teams, like the Knicks – who have fully admitted they don’t plan to do much winning next year – will happily ride out the next season or two while their young talent develops.
Most teams are somewhere in between, unable to throw in the towel on competitive basketball for one reason or another. Perhaps their market – Memphis and Indiana, for example – won’t allow it. Maybe they have a superstar on the roster already – Washington falls into this category – who would be unthinkable to trade. Or maybe they’ve dealt away future draft assets – the Clippers and Memphis again – which makes tanking untenable.
This brings us to the first annual NBA Hope index, a ranking of every team’s chances to realistically compete for a championship.
These AREN’T Power Rankings, as there are some damn good teams at the bottom of this list, and some crappy ones near the top. This is purely an ordering of every franchise based on how close they are to actually winning it all. The ones at the bottom face the toughest road off of what the Ringer’s Chris Ryan calls the treadmill of mediocrity.
There was no exact formula used to compose the rankings, because some things can’t be quantified. For example, what is the value of having Danny Ainge or RC Buford running your team versus the negative value of having James Dolan or Vivek Ranadive owning it? Many teams have great assets, but some teams have a history of maximizing the value of the cards they’re dealt while others can lose a hand after they’re given a pair of aces.
The rankings are subjective, but generally I looked at five categories: Present Roster, Future Assets, Coaching, Management, and Other (Jimmy and Vivek, this is where you live). The rankings are in reverse order, so the 30th team has the hardest conceivable path in front of them, with each team after them facing a slightly more realistic path to the ultimate prize.
Group 1: If Only It Were As Simple As Tanking
These teams that wish they could simply hit the reset button, but things aren’t quite that simple for one reason or another.
30. Charlotte Hornets
No one sets up shop in Meh-ville quite like the Charlotte Hornets.
In 2015-16, they were one of the feel-good stories of the year. Kemba Walker made The Leap, Nic Batum justified his huge contract, and a fun roster lead by a well-respected coach pushed Miami to a Game 7 in the first round.
Here’s the thing: that end-result was probably always the ceiling for this team. The floor? We saw it last season. The Hornets were eleventh in the NBA in net rating, ahead of the Bucks, Grizzlies and Thunder, yet they stayed home for the playoffs despite a positive point differential.
They now have an Aging Dwight Howard (his new legal name, according to sources), but this team remains steeped in mediocrity with no clear path out of it. Whenever a contender does come to Charlotte, it will likely be long after the current core is elsewhere.
Path to Glory: Let this version of the team make a playoff run and then auction off Kemba Walker for a pick and/or young player next summer. Tank the 2018-19 and 19-20 seasons, and see if there are any takers for Batum’s contract over that time. Pray that the draft gods finally smile upon the franchise.
29. Orlando Magic
The roster is a hodgepodge of somewhat talented but ill-fitting pieces. They have no clear building blocks for the future, and their recent draft history does nothing to inspire confidence. The best of those picks, Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton, haven’t progressed as anticipated, and they’re both about to be due a raise. They look primed to remain in 35-win hell for the foreseeable future.
Other than that, everything is great. Yes, the team hired John Hammond, the man responsible for drafting the Greek Freak, away from Milwaukee. He’s also the guy who a) traded for Michael Carter-Williams when he could have had The Lakers’ pick, b) signed John Henson to a $40+ million extension, and c) traded away a young Tobias Harris for 28 games of J.J. Redick. His record is spotty at best.
Still, NBA players will always consider signing with a Florida team, which is about the best thing Orlando has going for it. The team also owns all of their future draft picks, so that’s nice.
Path to Glory: Aaron Gordon shows promise while the team around him simultaneously hits rock bottom and they land a top pick in the draft. They ship off Fournier for anything they can get, resign Gordon, tank again in 2018-19, and try to land a big fish in the summer of 2019 when they finally have some cap room.
28. Memphis Grizzlies
I want to stop doing this list already.
Putting the Grizzlies – a team that plays harder more consistently than anyone in the league, and generally represents everything right with the NBA – this low just feels…yucky.
The hard facts remain. Even if Chandler Parsons reverts back to the player he was at his very peak, and Conley and Gasol have career years, the team would struggle to get a top four seed in a conference of death.
It doesn’t get better from there.
They not only have no conceivable path to contention as currently constructed, but they’re capped out and are out a future first that would be pivotal to any rebuild should they decide to change course. Gasol would have value in a trade, but the league is saturated with centers and he’s already 32. Mike Conley is still criminally underrated but his contract would be difficult to move, let alone get young players or draft assets for. Chandler Parsons has the worst contract in basketball outside of the metropolitan area.
Path to Glory: Trade Gasol for what you can get early this season, land a top ten pick this year, tank next season before the protections on the traded first rounder start to lessen, and aim to start competing again when Parsons’ contract runs out in 2020.
27. Brooklyn Nets
They’re sooooo close to being out of hell and at least moving back into purgatory.
Since they’ve rebooted their franchise and focused on player development and smart asset acquisition, Brooklyn has shown signs of turning into a model NBA franchise. They’ve done well to get a real, honest to goodness young asset in D’Angelo Russell, and there are a few more interesting pieces on the roster.
They’ll be bad again this year with no pick to show for it, but if Russell shows some signs, they’ll at least have a building block. It’s not inconceivable that players will start to see Brooklyn as a place they want to be. Their cap won’t clear up until 2020, but they should have two more high-lottery talents on the roster by then.
In the meantime, they’ll keep bringing along the kids and start counting the days until draft night 2019.
Path to Glory: Keep developing youth, emphasize and then resign Russell, and draft a few studs between now and 2020 when they’ll finally be able to make a splash in free agency.
26. Detroit Pistons
It wasn’t like anyone saw this coming.
If you squinted hard enough before last season, you could see a future in which a cohesive Piston team is fighting it out with Boston, Philly, Washington, Toronto and Milwaukee for Eastern supremacy after LeBron’s reign finally ends. Maybe, if everything broke right, they would top out as a poor man’s version of the early 2000’s Nets or Sixers – teams that took advantage of a weak conference to make a Finals or two.
That dream now has a lower percentage of fruition than an Andre Drummond corner three. The team went from having two franchise cornerstones to zero in a matter of months. The big man’s progress has stagnated and Reggie Jackson has been injured and ineffective. There is a chance both bounce back this season, but it’s more likely that at least one will no longer be on the team by February.
Stan Van Gundy is a good coach, but we’ve seen things go south with him at the helm before, and there’s no promise that this gets better before it gets worse. The one bright spot is that they should be able to maneuver into tank mode fairly easily, but it will require moving Drummond while he still has value.
For a coach and president who has desperate playoff aspirations, that doesn’t appear to be in the cards.
Path to Glory: Unload Drummond for the best offer on the table, and see if a team will take on Reggie Jackson without sending back bad salary in return. Go in the tank for the next two seasons and build around whatever you can get in the draft plus the young guys already on the roster.
25. Utah Jazz
This feels worse than Memphis.
The Jazz have done everything right as an organization. EVERYTHING right. They’ve spent wisely, bought low on helpful vets, made a big investment in the cornerstone of their team, and hired a good coach to run a dependable system that gives offenses fits. For their trouble, they’re likely to be stuck in the 42 to 45-win friend zone for the foreseeable future.
One has to wonder. What if they just gave Gordon Hayward the max extension he was looking for three years ago, and never gave him the opportunity to get pissed off, sign someone else’s offer sheet, and then get pissed off again when it got matched? It’s impossible to know whether that’s what drove him to Boston, but it’s as likely an explanation as any.
Now they’re left hoping for something that hasn’t happened since Carlos Boozer signed with Utah over a decade ago: poaching another team’s star free agent at some point in the near future.
Path to Glory: Try to develop Donovan Mitchell into the best two-way shooting guard in the league, help Gobert continue to hone his offensive game, teach Ricky Rubio to shoot, keep nurturing Dante Exum until he finds the “it” that go him drafted fourth overall, and find one big name willing to take a meeting when they have cap room in one of the two summers.
Group 2: Let’s Try Not to Make it Too Obvious
The following teams have every incentive to vote against lottery reform, and then lose as many games as possible next season, and possibly beyond.
24. Sacramento Kings
You can forgive Kings fans for having some pep in their step when last season ended.
The Boogie Cousins cloud is gone, and there finally seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Some young talent has started to emerge, a few savvy vets have joined the party, the team played hard for first-year coach Dave Joerger, and D’Aaron Fox looks the part. Compared to the last fifteen seasons of Kings basketball, all of the above is cause for a parade.
Alas, it’s still the Kings. Now that Scott Perry has departed to New York, it’s tough to trust anyone calling the shots here to behave like a functional, non-crazy town rational actor, let alone make smart basketball decisions. Even before they got the rep they’re starting to shed, this was never a marquee free agent destination. They also lack a single sure thing on the roster.
The best that fans can hope for – other than a change in ownership – is that the team is good enough by the end of 2019 that the unprotected pick they gift-wrapped to Philly doesn’t come back to haunt them for years to come.
Path to Glory: All of the kids – Skal, Fox, Buddy – take a step forward this year while still losing lots of games, Harry Giles reclaims his former #1 recruit form, the team wins the 2018 lottery, and they become a team to truly fear starting around 2020.
23. Chicago Bulls
They’re going to be so, SO bad this year that it’s impossible to put them any lower without knowing for sure that lottery reform will pass.
That’s how these rankings work. When you’re the odds-on favorite to lose the most games in the league and have a guaranteed top-four pick in a five-player draft, things could be worse. When you add in the fact that Chicago sits just below the top tier of free agent destinations and that the team has a clean cap moving forward, it’s easy to see a scenario ripe for a quick turnaround.
But then you consider the people running the show. They traded a Peter Luger porterhouse for a plate of half-eaten pork chops from the Golden Corral in the Jimmy Butler deal. They’ve given away real assets to get continually worse at point guard. Whatever young talent they have left excites no one.
If lottery reform does pass, they drop a handful of spots in these rankings. If it stays as is, even GarPax might not be able to screw up the good fortune they have coming their way.
Path to Glory: Suck, get the first pick in the draft, strike a bargain with a post-injury, shaky looking Zach LaVine, suck again (but with LaVine averaging 25 a night), get another high pick, and then round out the roster with one of the big 2019 free agents.
22. Atlanta Hawks
It’s telling that the pinnacle of modern history for the Atlanta Hawks was getting swept in the Conference Finals by a Cleveland team that everyone correctly assumed was unbeatable in the East. Those 60 wins and top seed seem like a distant memory now. Only the rubble of that core remains.
The franchise, even during its various upticks, has never been considered a threat to win anything since it’s been in Atlanta. That reality has left the fan base more apathetic than not, and has relegated what should be a prime free agent destination into a third-tier landing spot. Even getting a meeting is huge for them.
Coach Bud gives the team hope, but tanking does not seem to be in his nature. Outside of Dennis Schroeder and Taurean Prince, the roster is bare of upside. They are on the hook for $90 million worth of Kent Bazemore and Miles Plumlee. Jamal Crawford might lead them in scoring.
Still, landing the top pick in either of the next few drafts isn’t out of the question, and they’ll likely end up with both Houston’s (top three protected) and Minnesota’s (lottery protected) first rounders this year. A potentially juicy Cleveland pick awaits them down the line.
Path to Glory: Suck while letting Dennis Schroeder figure out what the hell he is at this level, nab a high pick while packaging the 16th and 25th picks in the draft for a late lottery selection, look like a team on the rise in 2018-19, and stretch Bazemore and Plumlee to fit two max salaries onto the roster.
21. Indiana Pacers
Well that got out of hand in a hurry.
There aren’t many ways you can botch the gift of an All-NBA level player like the Pacers just did. If he walks like LeBron or KD, fine, whatever…you tried. If you trade him for 65 cents on the dollar, like prime KG or Shaq, it’s not ideal, but it’s the best of several bad options. If you hold on to the guy for too long and then he falls off a cliff, at least you’re loyal and sell out games.
To let Paul George go and get back a player who isn’t undoubtedly worth his contract is a travesty. If this were a city on a coast, the level of ire would have been deafening. Instead it merely generated some loud grumbles.
A team that just committed this level of organizational malpractice shouldn’t be this high, but Myles Turner is that good. He’s a legitimate building block, and despite their attempts to avoid it, the Pacers could easily find themselves picking at the top of the lottery next summer.
But for God’s sake, strip whoever made the final call on the George trade of any power within the front office. The fan base will already suffer through stretches of Lance playing point; let’s not make it any worse.
Path to Glory: See just how high the ceiling on Myles Turner goes, find out if you can coax the player out of Victor Oladipo that we’ve thus far only seen flashes of, and don’t go doing something silly like chasing the eight seed in a moribund Eastern Conference. Draft high and wait for your cap to clear up in 2 years.
20. New York Knicks
If only the Knicks were a normal organization. If only they could get out of there own way for ten solid minutes. If only they figured out how to parlay the inherent advantage they’ve been blessed with into cogent, sustainable team building, they’d be in the top ten here, easy. If only, if only, if only.
They have a future superstar barely old enough to drink, and two other All-Rookie First Teamers from the past four years. Their young lottery pick looks promising. They play games at the Mecca of Basketball in one of the few glamour destinations in the NBA. Depending on what they get back when they eventually trade their aging star, they could have max cap space next summer.
But alas, they are…the Knicks. James Dolan – bless his soul – thought that hiring arguably the most brilliant basketball mind of the last 30 years would finally do the trick. Apparently running an entire organization is not the ideal first time job for a seventy year old man.
As laughable as last year’s tomfoolery was, Scott Perry’s arrival brings with it the promise of competence and normalcy. Those alone, added to Porzingis, give them a better shot than everyone below them here.
Path to Glory: Have KP lead all traditional bigs in usage rate and unleash the full array of his talents while letting Ntilikina learn on the job, land Luca Doncic as the final piece to the Euro-puzzle, and stretch Joakim Noah when the next big free agent comes calling. Never, ever let James Dolan or Steve Mills near the phone.
19. Dallas Mavericks
Why is that things never seem too bad in Dallas? They’ve been meandering around without a real plan for the last several years, not contending, milking the last few drops of the greatness that is Dirk.
They like to think of themselves as big game hunters, yet they’ve never landed a big fish. They’ve also been too good to tank, taking themselves out of the running for any truly transformational stars.
Until this year. Dennis Smith Jr. has single handedly changed the trajectory of the franchise. He hasn’t played a minute of NBA ball, but let’s not get lost in such trivialities. The kid has the goods.
He also has the best coach in the game showing him the way, and the benefit of landing in an organization that isn’t a bumbling mess like most of the teams ranked below them here.
Still, Smith is only one guy. Their ranking here is more about trusting the brand. They were smart to let Chandler Parsons walk, and their bet on Harrison Barnes was a good one. The theft of Nerlens Noel should have been prosecuted, although things are now officially messy in that corner.
They’ll continue to find scrap-heap guys that put on a Mavs uniform and magically become solid rotation players. It is the Dallas way.
In a league with so much incompetence at the top, the Mavs shouldn’t be any lower than this.
Path to Glory: luck into the top five of the draft and add a running mate for Smith that can grow with him over the next decade, employ Carlisle for as long as he’s still breathing, and continue to avoid the pitfalls that seem to plague just about every other organization in the sport.
Group 3: If Eeeeeeeverythign Broke Right…
The following teams aren’t in a perfect situation, but they each have reasons to be hopeful that with more than a bit of luck, things could better in a hurry.
18. Portland Trail Blazers
Jaime Valdez-USA TODAY SportsArguably the toughest team to rank on this list.
As an eighth seed slated to have a $137 million payroll next year and no foreseeable hope of contending, they could easily be in the bottom five.
But then Jusef Nurkic would be upset. And you don’t want to get the Bosnian Bear angry.
While he hasn’t been the most reliable talent, Nurkic’s arrival unlocked the type of team that the Trail Blazers were supposed to be all year long. Other than Evan Turner, all of their players are movable, and as the Nurkic trade showed, Neil Olshey is still as good as they come. They’re not that far away from being really good.
With Terry Stotts running the show, fans should be excited for this year. They also should be prepared for the team to top out at 50 or so wins and a hard fought second round exit at best. The roster isn’t a contender yet, but it feels like there is a trade to made somewhere down the line.
Path to Glory: Figure out how to get something out of Evan Turner, and then package him with some of the young bigs to acquire a small forward that actually fits with the roster. Hope Nurkic develops into a borderline All Star, and pray that Lillard and McCollum spend seven games in heat check mode when they face the Warriors one of the next few years.
17. New Orleans Pelicans
It has been 20 years since the Spurs drafted Tim Duncan and formed a twin towers combo that went on to win two NBA Championships.
It’s 2017, and things done changed. Kevin Durant, who has spent most of his career as a small forward, played the most productive center minutes during this year’s NBA Finals. Needless to say, there is a significant question about the wisdom of building around two traditional big men.
These aren’t just any bigs though. The Pelicans are now one of maybe four teams to employ multiple top-15 NBA players. The problem is what surrounds them, or more accurately, what doesn’t.
Even if Jrue Holiday stays healthy, this team will struggle to shoot well enough to make it all work. If it doesn’t, there are multiple franchises around the league – including a prominent one in the Northeast with a recent history of making big trades and a GM who has the assets to make it happen – that will come calling for Davis.
Path to Glory: The AD/Boogie combo works better than expected, Holiday plays 78 games, and Rondo plays the season like every game is on TNT. After a semi-deep playoff run, they go all in by resigning Cousins and packaging existing salary with multiple unprotected future firsts for a final piece to the puzzle. Davis becomes the best player in the league in 2018-19 and Bourbon Street hosts a championship parade for the first time in a decade.
16. Los Angeles Clippers
The last time a perennial fifty-win team experienced a summer wrought with this much uncertainty, the Bulls were coming off their second three-peat, ultimately reaching the collective decision not to bring the band back together for another run. The Clippers split the baby.
Blake is back, which will keep fannies in the seats but will make printing playoff tickets much more of a challenge than its been. Like Memphis, LA is out a future first, but the lottery protection is huge so it shouldn’t impact any potential tank plans. Based on this offseason, that doesn’t seem to be where this team is headed anyway.
A Griffin led attack will be fascinating, but the new Clippers core has a definitive ceiling. Plus they’ll be faced with the same damned-if-they-do scenario with DeAndre Jordan that they just experienced this summer.
There is a sliver of hope. If they let Jordan walk, there’s a path to max cap space out there. If they can somehow land a big fish, and Blake is able to stay on the court, things could turn around in a hurry.
Path to Glory: Griffin and Gallinari stay healthy and a Blake-led offense looks coherent. They let DJ walk next summer and land one of Russ, Paul George, or LeBron to round out the core. Enough ring chasing vets come to join a solid core to make the Clippers an actual threat to the Warriors.
15. Miami Heat
Early on in Goodfellas, as Henry Hill is giving us a look back into his early days as a junior wiseguy, he tells the story of how local kids used to carry his mother’s groceries home from the store. Why’d they do it?
“Outa’ respect.”
You can chalk up the Heat’s place on this list to the same reason, although after swinging at the biggest fish on the free agent market the last two off-seasons and whiffing both times, that respect is waning. Miami is sitting with the second largest payroll in the league and currently has more committed money on the books for next season than any team in the NBA.
What do they have to show for it? Nothing that will have them sniffing a deep playoff run. Worse off, they’re out two future firsts and the salaries of James Johnson, Kelly Olynyk, and Tyler Johnson aren’t exactly liquid.
So why are they this high? Two words: Spo & Riles. The Heat are brilliant at finding players off the scrap heap and coaching them up to fit their system. They play hard, they play smart, and they win. Durant and Hayward may not have bit, but make no mistake: South Beach still has allure around the league, and Riley’s bag of rings is never far away.
Path to Glory: Winslow breaks through this year, their recent signees play up to their contracts, and a package is put together for the next disgruntled star. Dragic, Whiteside, and Star X break through a Lebron-less East in 2018-19 and pull off a Finals upset.
14. Toronto Raptors
Going into this summer, the best the Raptors could have hoped for was to bring back Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka on three-year deals that paid them annual salaries of roughly $30 million and $20 million, respectively.
They got their wish. Now they face reality.
No one wants the next three years of Jonas Valanciunas. Kyle Lowry cannot get much better, and they have no appreciable money to spend until 2020. Worst of all, even on their best day, they are no match for whoever comes out of the West the next few seasons.
This assumes they can even make it that far, which would be a stretch for this team as currently constructed, even if LeBron bolts Cleveland next summer.
The good news is that they’re core is solid and knows how to play together. They also have Masai Ujiri at the helm. Those two things alone at least give them an outside shot to make a Finals at some point during the Lowry/DeRozan/Ibaka era.
Path to Glory: A couple of their young guys play well enough that they become a player for the next Paul George, and they mortgage their future for a shot at a ring in either 2018-19 or 2019-20.
13. Washington Wizards
Following their 2-8 start to the 2016-17 season, the Washington Wizards finished out the regular season as the best team in the Eastern Conference. They had a superstar in John Wall who finally put it all together for a full season. Fans were somewhat giddy heading into the playoffs.
Yet as we sit here today, the Washington professional basketball streak of not making it past the second round of the playoffs has extended to nearly forty years.
There is a sense that the front office will not be able to take what is currently a really good team to the next level of greatness, and it isn’t just because the team is capped out for foreseeable future. They are one of those teams that you can count on to make the uninspired move (see: Ian Mahinmi).
Most would say this is too high for them. John Wall would say otherwise. There are half dozen players who we know can be the best player on a championship team, and then there are the half dozen guys fighting to get into that group. Wall is in that bunch, and there’s no indication he’s done getting better.
If he makes one more leap, and Beal and Porter – neither of whom are 25 yet – continue to improve, they’re a player away from really competing for a ring.
Path to Glory: The big three all get better, Oubre looks competent on both ends, and they are able to package him, Markieff Morris, Marcin Gortat and a future first for Boogie Cousins and Omer Asik’s cadaver prior to the trade deadline. The Wiz fall short this season but get a vet on the cheap next summer and become the first team to wear the Eastern crown in the post-LeBron era.
Group 4: Young Teams with Hope
The toughest thing to acquire in the NBA is a legitimate young core around which you can start to set up the rest of your team. The following organizations aren’t ready to win just yet, but they’ve gotten the hard part out of the way (or in one team’s case, reason to believe the summer ahead is going to be very, very fruitful).
12. Phoenix Suns
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY SportsHere’s what I wrote about the Phoenix Suns way back in March:
If even one of Bender/Chriss can develop into a borderline All Star-type player in the next two seasons to join Booker and if Warren keeps progressing, the Phoenix Suns will have something real on their hands… and that’s not even considering what they might get if and when they decide to move on from Eric Bledsoe, or the Miami picks that are coming down the pipeline.
Between that point and now, Devin Booker went off for 70 points, their young forwards continued to generate little excitement, they drafted Josh Jackson, and then flirted with flipping him for Kyrie Irving.
So no, the Suns haven’t finally figured it out. Robert Sarver is still the West Coast version of James Dolan and Ryan McDonough is still the guy who gave away Isaiah Thomas and traded THE Lakers’ pick for Brandon Knight before handing him $60 million.
Still…after the handful of top young cores in the league, Phoenix’s is right there on the next level. Booker isn’t an elite building block in his own right, but he’s a threat to lead the league in scoring one day, which might be good enough. They should have another top five pick on the way, and will have a relatively clean cap in two years when whatever this core is starts to bear fruit. There are a lot worse places to be.
Path to Glory: Booker keeps growing, whoever they get in the 2018 Draft is a franchise-changing star, one of Jackson/Chriss/Bender becomes a borderline All Star, and in 2019 Kyrie Irving decides he’s had enough of twelve degree February mornings.
11. Denver Nuggets
It’s amazing how the outlook of a franchise can change once it gets (or figures out it already has) a star on its hands.
Nikola Jokic was nothing short of a revelation last season. No, he doesn’t really defend, he commits silly fouls, and he has yet to start even a season’s worth of games. But at 22 years old, he already has as diverse an offensive repertoire as any center in the NBA. He is a borderline top ten NBA asset.
Surrounding Jokic are several other young pieces who flashed at different times last year, none more so than rookie Jamal Murray, who seems like an untouchable amidst all the trade speculation that surrounded the team this summer. The only question here surrounds a front office that is generally well regarded but looks a lot worse after giving up a first round draft pick to get rid of Jusuf Nurkic.
They’re also still a piece away, and as good as the Millsap signing was, he doesn’t jive with their long term timeline. Mudiay seems like a bust, and the team is now too good to land a premium pick. As well as they’ve drafted the last few years, they just miss the cut on our top ten teams here.
Path to Glory: Figure out a way for the offense to run through Nurkic and Murray without a traditional point guard, consolidate their assets for one more long term piece, get lucky again in next year’s draft, and hope Millsap’s signing was a sign of things to come for future free agents.
10. Los Angeles Lakers
No, there’s nothing about what they’ve done over the last several seasons that gives them any business being in the top ten of this list. To say they’ve floundered of late is an understatement. They’re going to be bad – maybe very bad – and won’t have a pick to show for it.
Here’s the thing: I’m not going to be the one to doubt the man with the million watt smile who is as revered by current players as anyone in the game. I’m especially not going to doubt him with two max salary spots at his disposal, a good young coach, a couple of legitimately interesting young pieces, and easily the most desirable NBA city on the map.
The LeBron and Paul George whispers will persist all year. If they do indeed join forces, it still doesn’t automatically make LA a top team in the West, but if James and Magic are in the same room throwing recruiting pitches across the table, the smart money is on them closing the deal.
Path to Glory: figure out a way to lose Deng’s salary without hemorrhaging too much in the way of young talent or future assets, find a team to take on Clarkson for nothing, sign James, George, and Boogie at a discount, get creative to retain KCP, and hope a killer starting five is enough to take down a Warriors squad that’s been to four straight Finals.
9. Milwaukee Bucks
There are around two dozen guys in the league at any given time that are capable of putting up an All-NBA type season. Of that group, maybe seven or eight have what it takes to win an MVP if everything breaks right. There are only three or four who possess the ability and demeanor to become the best player in the sport.
Giannis Antetokounmpo’s ceiling is higher than that. “He can play and guard any position” isn’t a buzzy line with him; it’s fact. Last year, he redefined what a modern wing can do in the right system, and he is 22 years old. The Bucks know what they have, and their plan to surround the Freak with as many multidimensional, switchy athletes as possible has yielded above average results thus far.
If Jabari can come back – again – from a devastating knee injury and their other young pieces continue to develop, there’s no reason why the Bucks can’t take up the mantle left by the Cavs if and when LeBron James departs for glitzier pastures.
The biggest problem they face is front office uncertainty brought on by an apparent lack of decision-making continuity within the ownership group. If they can just figure out how to get out of their own way and not sign any more disastrous contracts (John Henson and Matthew Dellavedova will be making almost $20 million combined in 2019/20), they have as good a shot as anyone at Eastern supremacy starting next year. From there, anything can happen.
Path to Glory: Try to work out a discounted extension with Jabari Parker, flip Greg Monroe and future unprotected picks for a real asset in February, and hope that Thon Maker makes good on the salivating potential he showed last season.
8. Philadelphia 76ers
Quick: you have to place a bet on which Eastern Conference franchise is going to make the most NBA Finals appearances over the next decade. You get the following odds: Boston 2/1, Milwaukee 5/1, Philadelphia 6/1, the field 4/1.
You have to take Philly, right? If Joel Embiid stays healthy, Markelle Fultz and Ben Simmons play like league average first overall picks (a spot that produces roughly one HOF’er every three years on average), and they wisely use the enormous cap space they’ll have next summer, that’s easy money. They clearly know how to develop players and how to coach them up to fit their system.
So why are they not higher? For one, “If Joel Embiid Stays Healthy” might be the most overused NBA phrase of the next decade. Second, and not insignificant, is the fact that the Colangelos are running the show here. They did well to trade up to one, but they also got forty cents on the dollar for Nerlins Noel. The front office will need to do much better if the Sixers are going to make real noise moving forward.
Path to Glory: Pray to whatever God you believe in that Embiid doesn’t join the long list of NBA centers with all the talent in the world that could just never stay healthy, do some light tanking to nab one last lottery pick, sign Boogie and KCP next summer while also extending Embiid, and become the most fun young Eastern Conference team since the mid-90’s Magic.
7. Minnesota Timberwolves
It was easy to argue before last season that no team outside of Cleveland and Golden State had as much of a reason to be excited as the Timberwolves. No, they weren’t going to compete, but they looked as well positioned to be the next big thing as any franchise in either conference. Now, after another 50-loss season – their 13th straight out of the playoffs – expectations have to be tempered, if even just slightly.
Andrew Wiggins, about to enter his fourth season, still hasn’t quite figured it all out, but he is still just 22 years old. They cashed in their trade chips for Butler, who is no safe bet to stay (or be the same player) two years from now. Jeff Teague will not live up to his contract.
And then there is the big guy. After Giannis, there is no safer future MVP bet amongst the 25-and-under crowd than Karl-Anthony Towns. Barely old enough to drink, there were times last season when he looked like the best center in the NBA. He is the most untouchable asset in the league.
The safe bet is that Thibs’ defensive schemes will become more ingrained and the team will make a big leap this year. If they do, they’ll be in the next grouping on this list as soon as next season.
Path to Glory: Let all the pieces gel for another year, don’t panic trade Andrew Wiggins if he doesn’t shoot out of the gate, and see if anyone will take Gorgui Dieng’s contract, freeing up more time for Towns at center. Start planning regular Finals appearances starting around 2019-20.
Group 5: The Contenders
This last group of teams are not only good enough to win it all this year or next, but at least have the potential to hold things together for the foreseeable future.
6. Oklahoma City Thunder
Well now…things just got interesting in a hurry, huh? Yea, Melo makes this season even more interesting, but neither he nor George are who dictates OKC’s success.
The question really comes down to whether Russell Westbrook, fresh off his Logan-on-the-green-stuff season, has another level to his game. It’s not as ridiculous as it sounds.
In 1988, Michael Jordan won the MVP. He led the league in minutes, points (35 a game) and steals, shot 53% from the field, and grabbed the unofficial championship belt from Magic as the league’s most dominant player. It would be a few years before he quashed all doubts that he was also the league’s best. There’s no reason to believe Russ won’t follow the same trajectory.
Aside from the top two, the roster has some question marks.
No, Sam Presti will never live down the Harden trade, but it doesn’t change the fact that he is as smart a GM as there is – just look at the Cam Payne, Paul George and Melo trades. If they can somehow convince Westbrook and George to stay, they shoot to the top of this list.
Path to Glory: Find a way to get a second ball on the court for this season.
5. Houston Rockets
If you were paying attention, you could have seen this coming. We all should have. It was almost too obvious that at first we overlooked what seems now like a foregone conclusion.
Mike D’Antoni and James Harden are two men who are very good at a very particular set of skills, and Daryl Morey was smart enough to put the round peg into the round hole. It worked out pretty well.
Now, people question whether an offensive genius can meld together the games of two guards who can both pass and shoot the lights out of the arena, as if we learned nothing from last season.
It’s going to work.
Can they win a title as currently constituted? It’s anyone’s guess. But any team that puts up this many threes can take four out of seven off of anyone, including these Warriors. More importantly, moving forward, you can bet that any team with Dork Elvis at the helm is going to maximize its chances in the years to come.
Path to Glory: Use the regular season as an 82 game experiment to figure out which crunch time lineup works best against the Warriors, and hope for the shooting series of Harden and Paul’s lives come May.
4. Cleveland Cavaliers
Do the Cleveland Cavaliers have a better shot at winning a ring this year than the two teams immediately ahead of them on this list? Absolutely.
Is there a chance they trade the Nets pick and Tristan Thompson for Boogie, LeBron signs a one and one next summer to extend his stay, IT reclaims his health and gets the Kyle Lowry contract, and the Cavs remain Eastern favorites for the rest of the decade? 1000% yes.
Could Thomas’ hip prove to be their unraveling this season, sealing LeBron’s departure and signaling the beginning of a rebuild? It’s at least as likely as all positive scenarios combined.
That’s why they’re here. The likelihood of anyone beating the Warriors this season is almost comical. Sure, injuries happen, but of the two teams, the Cavs are the only one relying on someone who’s already damaged goods before the season tips off.
So much would have to go right for them to win it all this year – another transcendent two month playoff run from LeBron, IT staying healthy and doing Kyrie-level things in June, Kevin Love having his best Cleveland season yet, making the right February trade, and the Warriors experiencing some modicum of bad luck – that putting them any higher would be betting on the future. And the future of this franchise is as uncertain as any in the NBA.
Path to Glory: see above.
3. Boston Celtics
Danny Ainge just spent six months engaged in the most high stakes game of Monopoly in the history of the NBA.
He started with more properties than anyone else on the board and a boatload of cash, but very few reds and yellows, and nary a green, let alone a dark blue.
Now that the dust has settled, it’s clear Ainge got himself a few pieces on the far side of the board. Whether Kyrie is a green or a blue is still up for debate. Regardless, Trader Danny’s still one move away – cough, Anthony Davis, cough – from a monopoly that should end the game.
What Ainge is in the middle of building will ultimately have as drastic an effect on the league as anything a team has done since Miami’s coup in the summer of 2010. A decade ago, he played his cards perfectly and got a championship for his troubles. Given the cards they’re holding at the moment, if the next decade saw the Celtics raise only one additional banner to their crowded rafters, it would have to be considered a disappointment.
Path to Glory: Try not to fall over yourself running to the phone when the Pelicans finally decide to start taking calls on Davis, and resist the urge to cash in the remaining chips for anything less in the meantime.
2. San Antonio Spurs
It is not controversial to say that San Antonio is the most well run organization in all of sports, nor is it a stretch to say that Greg Popovich is the premier coach. Their only competition is the NFL’s Pats, and unlike them, the Spurs have zero black marks on their resume.
There’s also serious doubt as to whether New England will ever be able to win without Brady. San Antonio seems to have answered the Tim Duncan version of that question. Lost in the narrative of Golden State’s triumph last season is the “what if” of Kawhi Leonard’s ankle. Hopefully Zaza got some extra Champaign for his troubles.
Yet, with the summer in the rear view mirror, there hasn’t been this much uncertainty surrounding the roster since before Timmy walked through the door. Manu Ginobili’s days as an x-factor may be over. Pau Gasol is getting paid a lot of money, but his role against the Warriors is anyone’s guess. LaMarcus Aldridge is apparently disgruntled. Tony Parker is old and on the mend.
Outside of Kawhi Leonard, the entire roster is in flux. Such flexibility might be scary for a franchise that thrives on stability and roster continuity. Lucky for Spurs fans, RC Buford’s next major blunder will be his first, Kawhi is – unfathomably – still improving, and Pop is, well…Pop.
Path to Glory: Keep doing what you’ve been doing for the last 2 decades, continue bringing Dejounte Murray along, keep an ear open for any Aldridge trade offers, and get ready to go big game hunting next summer before you have to sign Leonard to a massive extension.
1. Golden State Warriors
Well…duh.
There has been much handwringing over the eventual cost of keeping the team together – that it is too prohibitive, even for a franchise that has been printing money for years. That’s what happens when there are zero on-court weaknesses for anyone to even dream of exploiting.
No, it won’t last forever. But lambasting other franchises for punting the next couple of seasons and instead taking the long view is absurd. It would be a significant upset if anyone else held up the hardware in either of the next two Junes, and if someone else does, its going to be one of the teams in this group.
The Warriors have quite literally changed the playing field, adjusting timelines league-wide, forcing other franchises to go all in or sit out the game altogether.
IT is all the result of a once in a lifetime series of events: signing a future two-time MVP to a ridiculously below-market deal, watching the league’s second best shooter and prototypical modern wing fall to 11th in the draft, plucking a top-ten overall player in the second round, and taking advantage of a cap spike in the same summer the league’s second best player hits the market.
Must Read: NBA: Ranking the top 10 small forwards entering 2017-18
As a result, we could put up a version of this list for the next fifty seasons and never have as secure a number one as we do right now.
Path to Glory: wake up, have some coffee, get dressed, drive to the arena, show up on time, and ball.