Dunk Base

Ok, let’s get this straight. I’m not happy about going a full month between columns, either. And I’m not happy about having both columns be Power Polls. I’m well aware that they’re easy to write and creatively cheap because they have a predetermined format that I can follow even if I were in a coma. But I’m going to do it anyway because I haven’t had much time to think of creative ideas lately. So I’m going to write my 2nd Power Poll of the season without any columns in between the first Power Poll and this one. Sue me (but not really. I’m broke). I’m also going to skip through a lot of the less “exciting” teams so that I can spend more time on the top teams. Again, sue me (but in a metaphorical sense).

The Isiah Thomas Division

30. Cleveland Cavaliers

After losing Friday night, they fall to 8-31 on the season, losers of their last 12, and they’re 1-20 since losing to Miami on November 2nd. The worst part is that it’s unclear whether or not anyone on the team cares.

29. Sacramento Kings

Tyreke Evans now, compared to last season, is scoring less, scoring less efficiently, shooting worse, rebounding less, getting to the line less, and turning the ball over more. The list of under-22 Rookie of The Year winners that regressed in Season 2 isn’t long (in fact, I can’t think of one other than Michael Jordan, and that’s because he broke his foot. This is either the worst thing possible for Tyreke Evans’ career or the best.

28. Washington Wizards

Let’s just say that I’m getting endless enjoyment out of watching a team go 10-8 at home and 0-19 on the road.

On the other hand, what have we done to deserve three of the last four #1 overall picks develop knee problems within 7 months of getting drafted? I’d like to know.

The Mike Dunleavy Division

27. Minnesota Timberwolves

Free Kevin Love.

26. New Jersey Nets

For the third year in a row, I made the road trip from Boston to New Jersey with my dad to catch a Nets game. We do this for three reasons:

1. We get to pay $25 for seats that would cost $250 in Boston.
2. On the drive down we always see the post-mortem of at least three crashes that look like they came from a Michael Bay movie.
3. Who else wouldn’t want to drive eight hours round-trip to see one of the worst teams in the league?

My one big observation from this year: Brook Lopez is just a terrible fit with this team. The Nets are all athletes and energy guys, and Lopez is just a big, awkward, goofy dude that slows them down and really just gets in the way a lot. New Jersey would be better off playing up-tempo, but they can’t do that with Lopez. He belongs on a team like Charlotte or Detroit that wants to play a slow pace.

25. Detroit Pistons

Alright, so we can all agree that Joe Dumars definitely isn’t one of the best GMs in the league anymore, right?

24. Charlotte Bobcats

Larry Brown’s resignation would have qualified as the least surprising sports story of 2010, but Brett Favre turning out to be a prima donna and a total d-bag trumped him.

23. Toronto Raptors

Sooo…. Umm… That Jose Calderon is playing okay? I don’t know. I can’t compel myself to watch Toronto for more than, like, two quarters a month. I don’t have much to say.

Semi-Scrappy

22. Philadelphia 76ers

Evan Turner’s averages through 37 games: 7.3 points, 4.2 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 40% shooting, and C- defense in 24 minutes per game. Meanwhile, Landry Fields was taken 39th and he’s the 5th man and a 30-minute player for a resurgent Knicks team. I give up.

21. Los Angeles Clippers

Blake Griffin, is having, without a doubt, the most impressive rookie season since Tim Duncan. 25 straight double-doubles (and counting), the most breathtaking open-court player not named LeBron or Wade, the most efficient power forward in the league not named Dirk, Love, or Gasol, and the most amazing in-game dunker since Vince Carter in his prime. He’s like Shawn Kemp without the bad attitude and propensity to sire children. He’s a guaranteed 24-12 for the next 10 years, unless the Clipper curse somehow intervenes.

20. Golden State Warriors

In the last two seasons, Andris Biedrins is a combined 9 for 45 on free throws.

I really have nothing else to add.

Less Interesting Than TRON: Legacy

19. Phoenix Suns

So the Suns make a trade that completely overhauls their roster and turns them into an infinitely more conventional team that can’t push tempo and bomb threes, and they’re 4-8 since the trade. Shocking.

18. Indiana Pacers

They continue to be a surprisingly good defensive team (8th in defensive efficiency), despite the fact that they don’t really have a single great 1-on-1 defender.

Their downfall will eventually be their abysmal offense. They don’t have a single player in their regular rotation that over 48% from the floor, and while they attempt the fourth-most threes in the league (22.7 per game), their percentage on those shots is the lowest of any team in the top 10 in attempts. Once the playoffs role around (if they even make the playoffs), their inability to score consistently will be even more on display.

Wanna-Be’s

17. Milwaukee Bucks

They’ve played the hardest schedule in the league so far this season (and by a fair margin, mind you), but they’ve been able to remain in the playoff picture. Their schedule gets considerably easier (almost a third of their remaining schedule is against Cleveland, Toronto, Washington, and Detroit), and once Brandon Jennings returns from his foot/ankle injury, they should finish the season comfortably in the playoffs.

16. Memphis Grizzlies
15. Houston Rockets

One of these two teams could really benefit from the proposed Carmelo mega-trade. Denver wouldn’t be able to remain competitive, and as a result, slip out of the playoff picture. Houston seems to be the most likely one to make a push, especially now that Aaron Brooks is healthy.

14. Denver Nuggets

My favorite Carmelo Trade-related comment from the last few week? From Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com (via Twitter): “So I'm to believe Melo just wants to play with Rip & Chauncey and he'll sign? Then why don't Nuggets just trade for Rip & call it a day?”

But of course, we all know that Carmelo wants to be traded to either New York or New Jersey. And considering Denver isn’t interested in anything that the Knicks have to offer, New Jersey is the only logical in-season destination. Which begs the question:

Would you rather play in Denver with Chauncey Billups, Nene, Al Harrington, J.R. Smith, Arron Afflalo, and Ty Lawson on a team coached by George Karl and is currently 22-16 and has a 4.5 game lead over the 9th-place team in the conference, or would you rather play in New Jersey with Chauncey Billups, Brook Lopez, Rip Hamilton, Kris Humphries, Travis Outlaw, and Sasha Vujacic on a team coached by Avery Johnson and is currently 10-29 and is currently six games out of the playoffs? This is the part that confuses me to no end. Carmelo really wants to play in the New York area that badly that he’s willing to force a trade from a legitimate Western Conference contender when healthy and motivated to one of the five worst teams in the league in an obscenely top-heavy conference? It’s times like these that I wonder where his priorities are.

Playoff Fodder

13. New Orleans Hornets
12. Portland Trail Blazers

I am not a praying man, but I’m considering becoming one in the hopes that Chris Paul doesn’t become the next Brandon Roy. It remains unbelievable how Chris Paul is able to remain so efficient despite the fact that his mobility is so limited. There are some nights where he just doesn’t have anything in his knees, but he’s able to somehow remain effective just on guile and always being in the right place.

However, despite Paul’s resurgence, the Hornets are just 13-15 since their 11-1 start. I think the enduring lesson from the 2011 Hornets season is that when you have a $15 Million expiring contract in a climate where teams are more than willing to give away good players for nothing but cap relief, you should probably get more than a marginal upgrade of your 3rd guard.

But maybe that’s just me.

The Least of The East

11. New York Knicks
10. Atlanta Hawks

After a really strong start, New York has dropped back down to Earth, and after a relatively slow start, Atlanta is surging. I would say that New York has a higher ceiling, simply because their best guy (Amar’e) is better than Atlanta’s best guy (probably Al Horford at this point) and when they’re clicking and making shots, it’s really tough to defend them (as San Antonio found out last week). Atlanta is just too conventional of a team, and their playoff runs the last two seasons don’t exactly inspire much confidence. Chances are they’ll come close to blowing a series against an inferior team in Round 1, and then get swept in Round 2, losing all four games by double digits.

The Rest of The West

9. Utah Jazz
8. Kevin Durant’s Team

These two teams just seemed cursed to me. Based on the climate of the Western Conference, neither of these teams are capable of beating LA or San Antonio simply because they match up so poorly against both of them. They don’t have the size, they can’t control the boards, and they can’t clamp down on defense and really shut a team down for longer than a few minutes at a time (or in the case of Utah, ever). Durant’s Team has more of a future because they’re younger and have their key players locked up for a while, but for now they just seem like entertaining also-rans in the Western playoffs.

Chad Mayonnaise

7. Dallas Mavericks
6. Boston Celtics

They’re hurt. I know these are both dopey rankings. Let’s just move on.

Flawed

5. Chicago Bulls

On the scale of “easiest gambling moments of my life,” picking Derrick Rose to average over 6.5 assists this season is probably the highest. This generation of point guards always seem to make a noticeable jump from Year 2 to Year 3. Check these out:

Chris Paul:
Year 2: 17.3 PPG, 8.9 APG, 4.4 RPG, 43.7/35.0/81.8%, 22.0 PER (Player Efficiency Rating)
Year 3: 21.1 PPG, 11.6 APG, 4.0 RPG, 48.8/36.9/85.1%, 28.3 PER

Deron Williams:
Year 2: 16.2 PPG, 9.3 APG, 3.3 RPG, 45.6/32.2/76.7%, 17.1 PER
Year 3: 18.8 PPG, 10.5 APG, 3.0 RPG, 50.7/39.5/80.3%, 20.8 PER

Rajon Rondo:
Year 2: 10.6 PPG, 5.1 APG, 4.2 RPG, 49.2/26.3/61.1%, 15.6 PER
Year 3: 11.9 PPG, 8.2 APG, 5.2 RPG, 50.5/31.3/64.2%, 18.8 PER

Derrick Rose:
Year 2: 20.8 PPG, 6.0 APG, 3.8 RPG, 48.9/26.7/76.6%, 18.6 PER
Year 3: 24.3 PPG, 8.0 APG, 4.6 RPG, 45.5/37.9/80.4%, 22.7 PER

You’ll see similar jumps for Aaron Brooks, Russell Westbrook, even Steve Nash (if you look at his numbers from Year 2 to Year 3 in relation to when he became a full-time starter).

As a result, Chicago is playing like a top-5 team in the league, and Rose is a bona-fide MVP candidate. Easy money.

4. Los Angeles Lakers

The Lakers have been a bit confusing so far this season. They opened strong (although that might also have to do with the cupcake schedule they played early in the season), then they faltered big time, developing a lot of bad habits defensively and turning the ball over a lot, but now they’ve won seven straight, including a win on the road in Phoenix (who tied an NBA record for 3’s made in a game earlier in the season in a Phoenix win), two home wins over New Orleans and New York, and a near-historic 55-point blowout of the Cavs.

For my money, I still say that LA is coasting on their talent too much and have too many issues with over-confidence that crop up at the worst possible times. It’s one thing to have off nights, simply because it’s pretty hard to get “up” for all 82 games. It’s another to have this problem on a consistent basis, especially when your best player is supposedly one of the All-Time Greats and one of the most competitive dudes in the history of the league. Now, I realize that the Lakers have experienced problems like this in each of the last two seasons and still managed to win back-to-back titles, but the difference is that this year, the competition is a lot closer than it’s been in previous years, and the Lakers’ squabbles have been much more pronounced. LA burst onto the scene as a contender in 2008, and for four years now, teams have been trying to figure out how to match up with them. Well, sooner or later, teams are going to figure it out, and they’re starting to. You need a team with size that can limit Gasol and Bynum and control the defensive glass, but you also need a team with impeccable floor spacing that can take advantage of LA’s often sloppy defensive rotations. This year, teams like Dallas and San Antonio fit that bill. Miami is close, but we haven’t seen them in the playoffs yet, and we all know that Boston can match up with them just fine.

Personally, I’ve never subscribed to the theory that a team can just “turn it on” in the playoffs, with the exception of teams that struggle through the regular season because of injuries (like Boston last year). Contenders can’t loaf through the regular season and develop bad habits and then expect to roll over people once the postseason starts. You need to build towards a peak in April, and right now the Lakers aren’t doing that. That’s why I have them fourth. We’ll know more about their ceiling as a team in a few weeks – they’ve got a stretch coming up that features Durant’s Team, @ Dallas (Dirk is a hopeful to have returned by then), @ Denver (although Denver’s quititude with the Carmelo situation could trump Denver’s history of playing really well against LA), Utah, and then Boston on the 30th. That’s five gut-check games in a span of 14 days. This is the point in the season that teams need to start turning it on. If the Lakers do, they’ll jump up in these rankings. If they don’t, they won’t.

The Contenders

3. Orlando Magic

I’m normally against teams shaking up their rosters with six-player panic trades 25 games into the season, but it looks like this one is working out for Orlando. As I’ve written, their 2010 crunch-time offense failed because they couldn’t go to Howard because of his free throw shooting, Vince Carter would turn into Wince Carter in the 4th Quarter, and Jameer Nelson just wasn’t good enough. Now they can run through Hedo, Arenas, or Jameer, whoever has the hot hand, they’ll have Howard on the floor, and then they can go for explosiveness with Jason Richardson, a better shooter with J.J. Redick, or toughness with Brandon Bass. Orlando is officially a swiss-army knife team. They can play big, they can play small, they can play fast, they can play slow. They’ll always be sound defensively because Howard will just clean up everyone else’s mistakes, and most of the time they’ll get good shots because Turkoglu fits so well into their offense. I still think they’re susceptible to elite defensive teams that can guard Howard one-on-one without much trouble (read: Boston) or slightly less so to an elite offensive team that can attack the rim and get Howard in foul trouble (read: Miami), but if the seedings break the right way, Orlando is poised for another deep playoff run.

2. San Antonio Spurs

It’s a bit confusing that the team with the best record in the league nearly halfway through the season doesn’t have a single player that would crack the top-5 of the MVP voting were it to be held today. Right now, Dirk, Amar’e, Rose, LeBron, and Kobe would be 1-5 in some order (but I really only threw Kobe in there because he’s Kobe Bryant and he’d get votes whether he deserved them or not – right now he doesn’t). Ginobili and Parker have both slowed down after impressive starts, and Duncan, statistically, is having by far the worst season of his career. The reason they’re 34-6 is because they go 10-deep with impact players and they have one of the most efficient offenses I’ve ever seen. It seems that at all times they have at least two guys that are knockdown shooters from range (Ginobili, Jefferson, George Hill, Gary Neal, or Matt Bonner), they always have a guy that can attack off the dribble (Ginobili, Parker, or Hill), and they always have a guy that can control the glass (Duncan, DeJuan Blair, or Antonio McDyess). Defensively, they’ve slipped a bit, but they can still crank it up when they need to.

Interestingly enough, if they want to maintain this success in the playoffs, the guy that is going to allow them to do that is George Hill. He’s the guy that will end up guarding the Chris Pauls, Deron Williams’, Kobe Bryants, and Russell Westbrooks of the Western Conference come May and June. He might be the best one-on-one defender in the league at this point. When San Antonio played the Lakers back on December 28th, Hill shackled Kobe and held him to 8-27 shooting. If he can consistently come up with games like that in the playoffs, San Antonio will win the West.

The Favorite

1. Miami Heat

I’m not going to overreact over Miami’s loss to the Clippers on Wednesday. If you look at long winning streaks (and by that I mean 8-9+ games), you’ll find that a disproportionate amount of them are snapped by average to below-average teams. Miami was overdue for a crappy game, and they had it on Wednesday. And despite how bad they played in the first quarter (allowed 44 points on over 70% shooting), they were still able to cut the lead to two points in the fourth quarter before falling apart again. I’m also not going to overreact to their loss to Denver on Thursday. In the last few seasons, teams playing on the 2nd night of back-to-backs on the road in Denver are a combined 9-49. I’m dubious that they would have won the game even if LeBron had played. And considering he didn’t, you might as well just defenestrate the whole game.

To paraphrase Bill Simmons, titles aren’t won in May and June as much as they are on the road against bad teams in January and February. When a team starts winning ugly road games that they have no business winning, that’s when you can start taking them seriously as a title contender. This is one of the reasons why I have Miami and San Antonio above Los Angeles (aside from the fact that they’ve simply played better this season). I can give you a laundry list of games where either Miami or San Antonio looked slow, sloppy, and/or lazy in the first half, got punched in the mouth by an inferior team trying to make a statement, and then responding by shifting into overdrive, reclaiming the lead, and holding onto it. I can’t give you that same list with the Lakers (although they are getting there – just look at their last two wins against Golden State and New Jersey).

The reason why I have Miami #1 is because they have the highest ceiling of any team in the league. Their best game is better than anyone else’s best game, and frankly, it might be better by a good 20 points. No lead is safe against Miami. Just ask Portland, who led 89-82 with 2:11 to play before getting outscored by 14 points over the next seven minutes (including overtime). They’re capable of going on an 8-0 run in 90 seconds.

The problem is that the likelihood of Miami playing their best game on any given night in the playoffs is probably lower than the likelihood of San Antonio, Boston, or Los Angeles playing their best game. However, the season is only half over, and at the end of the day, Miami is the only team that still has something to prove. They’re getting better at feeding off the negative energy of opposing teams and opposing fans. For lack of a better word, they’ve got “it.” Maybe they don’t have “it” completely, but from what I can tell, right now, their “it” is better than anyone else’s “it.”