The Definitive 2017 Midseason NBA League Pass Rankings
Come for the hoops, stay for the hoops
We have officially passed the midpoint of the NBA season and the Cavs and Warriors can’t play again until mid-June, but there’s still a lot of other NBA to watch in the meantime.
A lot has changed since the season began three months ago, so it seemed time to update the official League Pass Rankings for the second half of the season.
16 Wins a Ring’s Brandon Anderson and serge Leshchuk were on the case…
Hard Pass
30. Dallas
29. Brooklyn
28. Miami
27. Phoenix
Brandon: These teams just depress me. Was it really only a decade ago that Miami and Dallas met in the Finals? These teams are not only bad — they’re irrelevant.
If someone held a gun to your head and forced you to watch a game between two of these four teams, what do you think your last thought would be before taking the bullet?
serge: “I just wish I got to see Rick Carlisle coach this Cleveland team…”
I’ll occasionally tune into a good ol’ Dallas game just to see if Carlisle has any magic left. People forget he took a team held together by bits of string MacGyver-style to the NBA championship. Watching Dallas is masochism since you get a two-for-one spectacle on the downfall of two of the greats, Carlisle and Dirk. Sometimes I fantasize if Rick actually had a good team and Cuban actually signed people but then I just end up on the floor crying.
I’m surprised you have the Suns so low (I mean so do I, but I’m the outlier in most lists). Mostly because it has almost all of the NBA writer bingo buzzwords: underrated talent who’s finally healthy (Bledsoe), surprise draft steal (Booker), and position-less big men we talk about like some sort of animorphs (Bender and Chriss).
BA: I was surprised too, especially since I spend the second half of the season watching young teams develop, saving the better ones for the playoffs. Still, the Suns just don’t fit to me. Chandler and Dudley need to play for teams that matter, and Dragan and Chriss seem a couple years away from relevance.
Do you realize Eric Bledsoe has already made his second most starts ever? That season-ending injury is looming.
I had both Dallas and Miami among my preseason playoff picks. Oops. Which of these four teams do you think contends for the playoffs the soonest, if Trump hasn’t burned down the NBA by then?
SL: Man, that’s a loaded question. I used to say Phoenix but then they paid Tyson Chandler an amount that can only be mathematically qualified as a “truckload” to be old, forgetting that they have young guys in line for development. I still think it’s them mostly because no one wants to go to Dallas except for Harrison Barnes, and I actually don’t think he had a choice. I’m not sure if there was ransom involved but he somehow got that deal.
The Nets are basically manufacturing sadness at this point and they own zero of their picks. Saying that Billy King got fleeced is actually insulting to all the people who got fleeced. Miami is just a result of Pat Riley’s continuous deals with the devil and the devil finally coming back to cash in on the deal.
Uhh, Is There Any Football On?
26. Indiana
25. Orlando
24. Detroit
23. Charlotte
22. Denver
BA: It’s really not fair for Denver to fall into this tier. They’re the only Western team to fall into this group from 17 to 26. The West is just so much more interesting. Poor Denver would probably have a shot at the 5- or 6-seed if they could play in the East. Nikola Jokic is a stud in the making and has the passing gene, and the Nugs have a lot of other fun young players too.
They were in your bottom five — why the hate?
SL: I just don’t find Denver intriguing. I get that they have a bunch of really young guys and the whole by-committee thing adds unpredictability on the scale of which handsome Italian model goes for 20 tonight.
On a personal stance, there just isn’t enough Nurkic. I mean, I get it, Jokic is technically a better player, but I sometimes want to watch the NBA edition of Viking Conquests: Abridged Version. And when I have a favorite player not getting enough love on a team, I tune out.
I like Detroit for Stan Van Gundy, that’s literally it. I think he’s a phenomenal sideline entertainment guy and he pulls like 3.3 vocal chords per game just berating literally everyone from the ball boy to his first cousin.
Detroit has a very good commentator team that I can actually stand to listen to, and I have a running Boban counter in my room that I’ve not yet managed to incorporate into some sort of celebratory tradition, but I’m working on it.
Indiana is literally so boring I can’t think of a thing for them.
BA: I think that’s actually the Indiana state motto. I spent most of the last year consulting in a cornfield in Indiana and I never even bothered to drive an hour to a $7 Pacers game. Is Paul George a superstar or a star or just two Beatles combined or what’s going on? I don’t entirely mind watching Indiana play only because they forgot defense was a thing so it’s a great showcase for whatever other team I’m actually tuning in for.
If you had to make a list of NBA teams off the top of your head, you’d definitely forget the Magic until the last two or three teams right? It’s a travesty they’re so irrelevant. They don’t have a single player with star potential or anyone I really care to see develop.
The Magic have had four Hall of Famers ever. Along with Shaq, the others are Chuck Daly, Patrick Ewing, and Dominique Wilkins. What?? Have you ever associated any of those three guys with the Magic even once in your life?
The only retired Orlando number is 6. For the 6th man, which I think is the name of their fan.
SL: It’s a shame because Indiana should be more watchable than they are. They have Paul George and they have my son Myles Turner (who I’ve literally been trying to get in my fantasy league for a good part of this season, no one wants to deal), two athletic freaks who can score in multiple ways. They also have Monta Ellis who is the closest we will come to J.R. Smith without actually cloning J.R. Smith.
If you write that all out as an equation you should have an entertaining team, but the math doesn’t as much break down somewhere as it just turns into one of those bonus question equations you never bothered to solve on a test.
My only theory is that living in Indiana is basically a self-fulfilling prophecy of naptown.
The Doldrums of the East
21. Chicago
20. New York
19. Atlanta
18. Washington
17. Toronto
BA: We were at least seven spots apart on all of these teams other than my hometown Bulls, who we both find sad and mostly irrelevant. I’m not too excited to watch the Raptors myself but you had them in your bottom 10. Why do we hate watching our home teams so much?
SL: I think it’s Toronto fandom. I basically cringe every time DeMar goes for one of his “oh no, oh no, oh no, well, I guess it worked” expeditions to the basket against like three defenders. Mentally I can’t watch the Raptors without having imaginary arguments in my head against the fans who don’t believe this team has peaked in its current state or that T-Ross isn’t worth the jersey on which his name is printed. If I have to listen to another reminder that he once had 51 points I will literally throw my laptop through my TV and then beat its remains with my iPad.
I get your Chicago thing because it’s basketball torture grind, but New York I may have been harsh on. Their League Pass team is top five and they still have Our Lord and Savior Yung Kristaps, plus Melo. Their games are entertaining in a manner that a trainwreck is, you basically watch to see how bad it can get before LeBron Godfathers some sort of a trade for Carmelo with James Dolan giving Phil Jackson a conniption.
BA: Yeah I had the Knicks a lot higher at the start of the season for the trainwreck factor but even trainwrecks get boring. My depressed Bulls fandom just can’t take much more DRose or Noah. Is there a way to get a Twitter alert whenever the Knicks have Ron Baker, Mindaugus Kuzminskas, and the Lativian Gangbanger out there? That has to be the whitest lineup since Hoosiers, or every single Oscars ceremony.
I actually have the Hawks-Knicks game on. You’re not going to believe this, but Rose just missed a shot at the rim to blow the game for his team. I feel like I’ve seen this movie before.
The Wizards are the first team on the entire list that one of us has ranked in the top 15. What’s wrong with you?
SL: My best friend plays for the Wizards and I am contractually obligated to watch at least a quarter of a Wizards game per week. It’s often agonizing. I do enjoy that John Wall is starring in his own version of the Fast & Furious franchise as the car. Except that he’s actually a plane with two propulsion space jet engines on either of his elbows. He’s the only player that makes the whole experience fun for me.
I actually have a theory about the Bulls. If they shoot nothing but threes the rest of the season, my YMCA team will still finish with more three pointers made than they will. Just a hunch.
The Enigmas
16. New Orleans
15. LA Clippers
14. Sacramento
BA: The Pelicans are the only team in the NBA we both ranked exactly the same: 17th. There are only 16 playoff teams in the NBA, and we both write for 16 Wins a Ring. I feel like it’s probably not a good thing to be #17. New Orleans currently has 18 players averaging double digit minutes per game on the season, which I’m pretty sure means they are playing like 8-on-5 and still getting smoked, even though one of their eight is a Monstar.
This tier feels like teams from a bygone era. The Clippers would’ve fit in perfectly with the ugly ‘90s Knicks and Heat, and New Orleans and Sacto have the two best big men in the league in an era when that no longer guarantees you a title or even a playoff spot. Oh hey, I think that’s your cue.
SL: BOOGIE!! I’m naming like the first five of my children DeMarcus Cousins in hope that one of them gets magical powers. This side of Russell “The Plot from Speed” Westbrook, I think he’s the most entertaining player to watch. The French would call what he brings a certain je nais se quoi, I call it a certain not giving a fuck. Boogie behaves on the court like he’s settling debt for the mob in one of those gritty ‘90s mafia movies and I absolutely love it. It’s not his fault Sacramento is basically a life long experiment in negligence by Vivek. At least he tries.
Also, if you replay the action enough you can start to pinpoint the moments where McLemore looks like he’s remembering how to count to two every time he takes a step with the ball.
BA: I just can’t watch Kings home games. I can’t stand their play-by-play team and I swear to God it looks like my television is some sort of glowing-purple low-def orb whenever they play at not-Arco. I miss White Chocolate.
Why did I rank the Clippers so high? I hate the Clippers. I hate watching the Clippers. I hate almost every player on that roster. Do you think when our grandkids are defending the world against the robots someday, they’ll believe us when we tell them there was once like a 3-year stretch when the Clippers were more interesting than the Lakers?
SL: If you’re a non-Boogie fan (colloquially known as “a heathen”) the main reason to watch the Kings is that they probably have the highest in league probability of a baby race happening at the break. That’s worth the price of admission.
Everyone hates the Clippers, it’s almost like a self fulfilling prophecy for Chris Paul at this point. They’re kind of like the Pacers in that regard where it just doesn’t add up. They have, in no particular order: the best pure point guard in the NBA, a human trampoline constructed of parts of all other superior trampolines, the most versatile 4 in the NBA (when healthy and/or not fighting team staff for what I can only assume were dumb reasons, but then again, Blake was once in a Rage commercial so his judgment is always suspect), and Jamal Crawford, who I believe once crossed somebody over into Narnia. It should be entertaining, but they’re boring.
I also very much hate Doc Rivers. My running joke is that GM Doc and Coach Doc have never actually been in the same room together and every time I’m about to be proven wrong he offers his son a ridiculously overpriced contract. He can’t help himself.
BA: Great, now Chris Paul is hurt again. Let’s just submit this before anything else goes wrong.
Click here for Serge and Brandon’s League Pass Rankings Part II…
