As mentioned last week, the NBA this season is quickly turning into one of “haves” and “have-nots.” More specifically, it’s looking more like a league with 11 bona fide-looking contenders and then the rest, each with varying degrees of “not good enough” when compared to the clear cream of the NBA’s crop so far.
Here’s how we view things in the latest edition of the NBA Tier List.
[snippet id=4725691]
The separated best (for now)
At the top of the mountain, at the moment, is this trifecta of teams. They are, obviously, still part of the elite 11 squads in the league at the moment, but stand above the rest because of the sustained runs they’re enjoying right now.
The Los Angeles Lakers hold the best record in the league and have won 14 of their last 15 games – the lone loss coming at the hands of the Toronto Raptors. Meanwhile, the Bucks have won 11 of 12 and Denver has racked up nine of their last 10.
These three squads are rolling like no one else right now and, as such, deserve their top billing for the time being.
The jumbled mess of great-looking teams
And then we have the rest of what appears to be the NBA’s best 11.
These eight clubs can and will – and some already have – enjoy time in the top spot on any given week moving forward. Each of these clubs, like the top three, have the necessary mix of two, or even all three, of shot-making, defence and star power to make deep runs in the post-season, something that teams outside of these top two tiers don’t appear to have at the moment.
This, of course, includes the Raptors, who look to be closing in on getting both Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka back, when, presumably, they could kick things into another gear with the apparent found money they’ve discovered in the likes of Terence Davis, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Chris Boucher while the team’s been hurt.
[snippet id=4740307]
Not bad, but outclassed by the league’s elite
This septet of teams are the ones playing right now that are likely to give any team a fair amount of trouble on any given night, but ultimately aren’t in the same class as who appear to be the league’s top contenders.
In this grouping, there’s some equal parts good and bad stories involved. Starting with the good, how about the Washington Wizards? By all extents, the Wizards seem awful, sitting on a 5-9 record and with the league’s second-worst defensive rating (114.6 points allowed per 100 possessions) this team should be considered a disaster, but it isn’t because they boast the second-best offensive rating in the league (113.6 points per 100 possessions) for a just minus-1.0 net rating. So even while they lose, they are still putting up a ton of points and are entertaining, especially with Bradley Beal nearly averaging 30 points per game this season and already having gone for at least 44 three times this season.
And then there’s the bad that is the Phoenix Suns. Sporting only a 3-6 record in their last nine games the Suns have been a far cry from the team they had been through the first seven games of the season when they went 5-2. Most notably, Phoenix’s defence has taken a major slide as in their first seven games they were allowing teams to score just 100.9 points per 100 possessions, but in the nine since, that defensive rating has sky-rocketed to a dismal 111.6.
Hopefully, things start to turn around for the Suns, but the team’s lost four of their last six games with losses to the Sacramento Kings and New Orleans Pelicans during this stretch.
[snippet id=3360195]
Bad, with occasional glimpses of not that bad
None of these teams have been particularly good this season, but they’ve had their moments here and there, and trick you into believing there might more to them than what their respective records indicate.
Take the Chicago Bulls’ win over the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday night, for example. That was a game that saw Zach LaVine go for 49 points, drill 13 triples and hit an improbable, game-winning three with 0.8 seconds left in the game. Fun, fun stuff – and potentially momentum building as rookie Coby White went off for 28.
But as fun as that was, that doesn’t mean it’s going to last. The Bulls simply aren’t good, again, this season and while there will be cool moments, unless those come with some degree of regularity they’ll be stuck near the bottom of the standings all season long.
Bad, with next to no glimpses of not that bad
Even sadder than the tier above also-rans is this grouping of six teams with next to no hope this season.
The one lone bright spot among these are the Memphis Grizzlies and rookie of the year front-runner Ja Morant, whose feats of jaw-dropping athleticism and mature understanding of the pick-and-roll have come just as advertised. That hasn’t equated to much positive things on the floor for Memphis, however, as the team is 5-10 and features the third-worst net rating in the league at minus-8.0. Still, it’s not as if anyone expected the Grizzlies to do anything of note this season.
If you’re looking for true despair, though, then look no further than the Portland Trail Blazers. A team that went from playing in the Western Conference finals just a season ago to finding itself next to the very bottom of the Western Conference along with, ironically, the team they saw in the West Final, Golden State Warriors.
The Blazers got so desperate to try to turn this thing around they even brought in Carmelo Anthony who, in three games played thus far, has looked alright in averaging 13.0 points per game, but, as usual for teams he’s been on in his later years, hasn’t brought much in the way of actual wins to Portland.
At a crossroads already, the Blazers will have some hard decisions and in a hurry to either try to make a big, splashy move to save this season or potentially fold and try again next year.
[snippet id=4763101]
Outright disastrous
Kudos to the New York Knicks for crawling their way out of this particular hell hole. Instead, we welcome the dreadful Atlanta Hawks.
Losers in 10 of their last 12 games and sporting the second-worst net rating in the league (to only the Dubs, of course), the hope is that Trae Young could help turn the Hawks around in a hurry the way Luka Doncic is doing with the Dallas Mavericks has decidedly been snuffed out.
It’s going to be yet another long season in Atlanta.
[relatedlinks]
