Revisiting this thread, I would have today looking like
Tier 1
Clippers
Warriors
Suns
Tier 2
Nuggets
Wolves
Grizzlies
Pelicans
Mavericks
Tier 3
Blazers
Kings
Lakers
Jazz
Tier 4
Spurs
Rockets
Thunder
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Revisiting this thread, I would have today looking like
Tier 1
Clippers
Warriors
Suns
Tier 2
Nuggets
Wolves
Grizzlies
Pelicans
Mavericks
Tier 3
Blazers
Kings
Lakers
Jazz
Tier 4
Spurs
Rockets
Thunder
@mcnamara247
Generally similar, though I would argue that while I think the Wolves are interesting and I can't discount Luka, I don't actually know that they're good teams. Assuming health from everyone involved, I take the Pels roster over either of those two any day, and might be inclined to therefore drop the Wolves to Tier 3 and push the Pelicans closer to the top of Tier 2.
Basketball.
They won way more games than anybody last year and they aren’t going to just Ayton, regardless. Either he is back or they get something good (or great) for him. Remember, this is regular season, not postseason. They just showed they can win a ton of regular season games. They have to be Tier 1 by default
I put the teams in the tiers at random. They are not ranked inside the tiers
And I agree with roster on paper. But those teams have shown they can win a lot of regular season games. Pels haven’t shown that. I can’t just put them a whole tier above teams that finished 10-15 games ahead of them in the standings simply because of how they look on paper
I would agree that the Pels ceiling is higher than Dallas, but I can’t say the median outcome is a tier higher
Only change I'd make is that I would add another tier because I think there's a split between the below 2 and 3 until the teams prove otherwise (in no particular order):
Tier 1
Clippers
Warriors
Suns
Tier 2
Nuggets
Grizzlies
Mavericks
Tier 3
Pelicans
Wolves
Blazers
Lakers
Tier 4
Jazz
Kings
Tier 5
Spurs
Rockets
Thunder
It's so clear that health/availability is going to determine seeding in the West. Tell me the number of games played by the top 3 players on each team, and I'll rank the West in that order, or pretty close to it.
How does the Gobert trade to Minny affect these rankings. Does it move the needle for Minny? It probably clearly moves the Jazz out of the playoff discussion. My interest lies in how it might affect the Lakers pick because before the trade I’d have the jazz above the Lakers. Now they are most likely going to finish behind them.
Could make the Wolves worse or better, hard to say.
Argument for them being worse: slightly awkward fit between KAT and Gobert, they jettisoned all of their wings for Gobert so they're going to get massacred on the perimeter which impacts how much Gobert can actually improve a defense - see how much Gobert's defense can be mitigated in the playoffs when people focus more on exploiting perimeter weakness.
Arguments for them being better: Gobert is simply a better individual player than anyone they shipped out and will be instantly the second best player on their team, and they still have Anthony Edwards who could well make a bit of a leap this year, and star power carries in the NBA. Their high end talent is just higher than it's been in the past.
Then you should probably ask them about their criteria for being a tier 2 vs tier 3 team
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