2020 Season Power Rankings: December (20-11)
Feb 9, 2020 6:47:51 GMT
Ian Noble, Walt Frazier, and 5 more like this
Post by Jerry West on Feb 9, 2020 6:47:51 GMT
20 – Toronto Raptors Bryan Colangelo (14-16) (-8)
Raptors are in a weird spot. They clearly would be a playoff team in the West, but in the clearly better Eastern conference they are currently struggling and finished the month 2.5 games back from the now rebuilding Miami Heat. Anyway Toronto traded away their 2021 2nd Round pick in order to create a space for new singings Kendrick Nunn, Duncan Robinson and Chris Boucher, which are probably better players then whoever they were possibly drafting in the 2nd round next year.
And for that, Toronto wins the “Pat On The Back” Award of the month. Because no championship team is built without the smart little moves. Congratulations Toronto.
19 – Minnesota Timberwolves Walt Frazier (16-11) (-15)
Minnesota looked at the sports gods in the eyes and told them to ****************. At least that’s what I think it happened with how frequently their team gets injured. I mean, used to, get injured. Because the Wolves sold their soul to Sacramento trading Danilo Gallinari, Wayne Ellington, CJ and Eric Bledsoe to Sacramento for Lonzo Ball, John Wall, NAW and Frankie? Wait are the Wolves trying to build the real-life Houston of going 6’6 and smaller every night?
Anyway, the West is so bad that Minnesota still managed to hang on to the 4th seed until the end of the month, so you might question how good their pick is going to be despite going all in on tanking.
18 – Houston Rockets Tom Izzo (13-15) (-3)
Houston was contending with the Jazz for the trash bin award this month, trading an incredible toxic contract for… An even more toxic contract. Wow ok then.
Not sure how Giannis is going to feel about 36-year-old Chris Paul using 40 million of the team’s cap space but we’ll get there someday. At least the team got better now for whatever it’s worth and might still be on time to make a run at homecourt advantage in the Western Conference.
17 – Cleveland Cavaliers Hanamichi Sakuragi (13-15) (+2)
The forever average Cleveland Cavaliers spent the month of December by being average with a stable 7-7 record.
Good news is Zion is finally playing and he might be big difference maker next to Brook Lopez who seems like a perfect fit next to him. With just 2.5 games back from the 8th seed Cavs might still have time to make a run at the playoffs.
16 – Washington Wizards Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (13-16) (+7)
Joining the “I would be a playoff team in the West” club, we have the Washington Wizards led by Goran Dragic, DeAngelo Russel and Bam Adebayo. Maybe if Isaac was healthy they might still had a shot at the playoffs, but it’s hard to be sure of it with him out for the season. Anyway, who wouldn’t want to have a Russel, Isaac and Bam big 3 for the next 8 years? The Wizards will be a playoff team next year.
15 – Atlanta Hawks Jay Z (13-15) (+2)
For my personal favourite for the 8th seed in the East, and a team that might surprise someone in the playoffs, we have the Atlanta Hawks, who are maybe a month away from seeing their off-season big signing in Nurkic coming back to the team.
Sure, maybe “mediocrity” wasn’t what they had in mind when they made their big trades in the off-season to have a big 3 of Butler, Fox and Markannen complimented by Nurkic and Oubre, but that’s what’s been happening so far, with obviously some injuries along the way. Let’s see how high they can still climb in the standing.
14 – San Antonio Spurs George Gervin (14-16) (+8)
The San Antonio Spurs had their first winning month in a while, led by what know seems to be a top 5 player in D5, Luka Doncic. How was this man not picked first? Yes, I will mention this every single month.
The Spurs are good, but not good enough. Apparently, they are on the market looking to use their expirings to acquire a near All-Star level center for under 16 million? Not sure how’s that going to happen. Anyway, it will be fun to see how many European players will join Doncic in Free Agency, altough I’m not sure if the Spurs are going to get 3 or even 2 All-Star level players that they are aiming for in Free Agency.
13 – Dallas Mavericks Danny Longley (14-16) (+14)
What a quick turnaround from Dallas, jumping to 6th seed in the West passing the Spurs and Houston along the way. Maybe some free agents will start having Dallas at the top of their Texans teams after seeing how well they are performing this year under exciting rookie Ja Morant who’s got some help around him in interesting talents in Davonte Graham, Ivica Zubac and Will Barton.
The rebuild might be over in Dallas, specially without owning neither of their picks this year.
12 – Miami Heat Shaquille O'Neal (17-14) (-9)
Hard to imagine that Miami was 3rd in the Power Rankings just a month ago and might’ve been indicated by critics has the surprise team of the year with their style of play with two true Centers on the court at all time. But now it’s back to reality after going 5-9 this month. I’m sure their owner isn’t happy about paying 162 million next year to be a mediocre team in the East. So I guess it’s time to blow it up.
Get your offers in for Jrue Holiday and possibly Sabonis and look away from the rest of their contracts unless you are a desperate team like Portland that won’t have cap in Free Agency and is willing to go all in this year.
Good news is they will probably come out of this with multiple first round picks, All-Star talent Damontas Sabonis and 40% 3 Point shooter Kevin Huearter to begin building their franchise around, not a bad start.
11 – Portland Trail Blazers Jerry West (16-13) (+7)
Just missing out on this month’s Top 10 we have the team that at some point during the month managed to have the biggest win streak in the league, with 7 consecutive wins, which they followed up by losing 3 games in a row. What a consistent team.
Apparently, the Blazers problems is Minnesota, despite clearly having the better team right now, the Blazers have been less than 2 games behind the Wolves for 2 weeks, but never seem capable of passing them in standing.
This team made a risky move in the off-season, signing Tristan Thompson and trying to play him alongside Jonas Valanciunas which clearly isn’t working with both shooting career lows in terms of percetange. Maybe moving one of them for a player who could play another role in the team is what’s missing for this team to crack the Top 10.