The new year (and decade) is just days away, and with it comes resolutions.
There are a lot to choose from for yourself, but here at the NBA Tier List we’re only really interested in one: “Winning the 2020 NBA title.”
Therefore, for this week’s edition of the tier list, we’re placing teams in order of the likelihood of accomplishing this lofty goal.
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It must happen otherwise this season is a disappointment
Sure, the Milwaukee Bucks didn’t look their best on Christmas Day, but given the national spotlight on the game, despite it still being just the regular season, funny things happen.
Make no mistake though, the Bucks are far and away the best team in basketball, and it isn’t really all that close. Milwaukee owns a 2.5 game lead over the Los Angeles Lakers for the best record, boasts the NBA’s second-best offensive rating as well as the best defensive and overall net rating.
Additionally, Giannis Antetokounmpo is somehow playing even better than he did in his MVP season in 2018-19 and is running away with the award for a second straight year.
As hard as it is to actually live up to, it’s championship or bust for the Bucks.
Very possible to the point where it might be expected by their fan bases
And then we have this batch of four great-looking teams.
There are very realistic scenarios that you can paint in your head that end up with any of these four teams winning it all in 2020. All blessed with the right combination of defensive acumen and offensive star power to get them through the springtime wars, hope for each of these teams’ fan bases should be sky high for the new year.
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It’s possible, but feasibility-wise, you may want to couch expectations
Rounding out the list of teams with a shot are these seven.
The possibility is there for any of these teams to get hot in the post-season and ride that straight to a championship as they all have enough talent to do so, but the problem is, looking at them in the present, each of these teams are either too inconsistent or too banged up right now to make them realistic contenders.
For example, the Los Angeles Clippers look to be every bit as good as their cross-town rival Lakers and, as Christmas Day proved, even better at times. But because of Kawhi Leonard’s load management and just outright inconsistent play they’ve shown so far – even when Leonard plays – it’s hard to know which Clippers are going to show up on a nightly basis.
Meanwhile, the Toronto Raptors are in the camp of “too banged up” for us to know what they might be come the playoffs. The Raptors are a scrappy group that does manage to keep finding ways to win despite the plethora of injuries they’ve suffered this season, but how long can they keep this up?
There’s no definitive timeline on the likes of Pascal Siakam, Marc Gasol and Norman Powell, three key pieces of their team. If all three return healthy and look just as good as ever in the post-season, the Raptors will be in good shape. But if that ideal scenario doesn’t pan out, there’s no real knowing just what the Raptors could be.
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Never tell these teams the odds
Each of these teams are either in one of the bottom two playoff spots of their respective conferences, or are in the hunt for one of them.
From a team-building perspective, this middle spot that these nine clubs find themselves in is exactly where they don’t want to be as the odds of finding a difference-maker in the late lottery or later is far lower, but don’t tell that to them.
They’re going to scratch, claw and fight for everything the rest of this season and live with the results. Such is life in the muddled middle.
It’s absolutely not happening, and that’s fine
And unlike those nine teams above, who have a glimmer of hope, no matter what the record indicates for these teams, a title simply isn’t happening, and you know what? That’s OK.
Like in accomplishing a personal resolution, sometimes maybe just the act of trying to accomplish it is reward enough.
Look at the Golden State Warriors, for example, they got decimated by injury this season, but still appeared to go out there and give it their best college try. And now, as a result, they may be rewarded with a top-three pick in the draft.
And even the New York Knicks, as putrid an organization as they are, appeared to try to win, but because of management’s ineptitude, simply can’t. That’s no fault of the players and coaching staff, though.
Sometimes, it’s OK to come up short on your goals, as long as there appeared to be some effort there.
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Vince Carter is ending his career having played for these two disasters last
Finally, we’re going off-topic from this week’s theme here for this bottom tier because, goodness gracious, is this a crappy way for one of the decade’s most consistent players, Vince Carter, to finish his career. Playing for the sad-sack Sacramento Kings and Atlanta Hawks.
Atlanta, Carter’s current team, has lost 10 straight with no signs it’ll ever get it together, and the Kings, the team Carter last played for before joining the Hawks, has tail spun to seven straight defeats and are embroiled now in controversy.
Carter’s legacy won’t be defined by these two awful teams he’s played for, but it still isn’t the way he likely wanted to go out, either.
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