jcmacri

[jcmacri]

The Debate I Never Thought I’d Have

That’s it?

I’m assuming it was a Friday night, just because for most of my life, those were my dad’s days with me. Picked me up from school Friday afternoon, dropped me back off at mom’s Saturday for dinner. In between, there was basketball. From November to June, always basketball, starting in the Fall of 1992, the first time a kid who never wanted so much as to play catch in the front yard showed interest in sports of any kind. The local baseball and football teams were terrible, but something about this team in the orange and blue did it for me. It was the beginning of the most painful love affair I’d ever have. In the early days, that pain was mostly due to one man.

That’s all? That’s not that crazy.

I don’t remember why my half-brother was in from the city, but on this particular Friday, it gave me, him and our dad a chance to watch the Knicks play their rivals, the Chicago Bulls. I knew very little about basketball or the men who played it, so when my brother told me there was this guy on the Bulls that could literally fly, my ears perked up. “His name is Michael Jordan. You have to see him…he jumps with the ball, and then hangs in mid-air. It’s unbelievable.” I was pretty naïve, even for a nine-year old, so when my brother told me that the dude could fly, I was expecting some serious comic-book level shit. And then we watched the game, and, well…

Hs’s not flying…I mean, he jumps really high…but it doesn’t look like he’s that much better than everyone else around him. Is it time for TGIF?

Like I said, I wasn’t the worldliest kid. Over the next five years, my impression of the man I first witnessed that Friday night would change considerably. Like many others between the ages of 30 and 40, I came to regard Michael Jordan with something of a God-like reverence. Debating his place in the hierarchy of NBA history with someone close to my age is only slightly less fruitful than trying to convince a staunch Republican or Democrat to switch their party allegiance. There is no argument. There is the view that Michael Jordan is the best basketball player of all time, and then there is being wrong and stupid. There is no in between.

Figuring out the reasons why are both incredibly simple and incredibly complex. On one hand, there is a symmetry to his accomplishments: six championship battles, six rings, six Finals MVP’s, two three-peats, zero losses. A person who was dropped onto this earth from another dimension could sit and listen to a merits-based Jordan argument and walk away convinced in under a minute. There’s not much to it.

On the other hand, for those who grew up watching him, understanding the true measure of Michael’s greatness is to understand why The Godfather is considered the greatest movie ever made by anyone raised in an Italian American household or why New York City is a place without parallel to anyone who lives there. If you watched him, and experienced that sensation of “he’s not going to lose…he’s never going to lose…he can’t ever lose” - a premonition that never failed - then you know the feeling.

Well, it did fail. Once. To Orlando, in 1995, in a moment history remembers merely as footnote to Jordan’s dominance. Oddly enough, the way that loss ended up fueling his undying dedication to dominating everyone and everything he encountered from then on has rendered it another notch on his belt, not a knock on his legacy.

The other part of the narrative that gets swept under the rug is the Washington era, which I experienced as a 19 and 20-year-old, and in some ways is still my most vivid memory of him. Most choose to ignore those years, but I embrace them, not despite of their imperfection, but because of it. A 40-year-old man who had no business being anywhere near a basketball court could still, on any given night, be the best player on the floor. I was in attendance on one of those nights, his last as a visiting player at MSG. He scored 25 points in the first half, cut his chin diving on the floor for a loose ball, and the Wizards lost a game they needed to win to keep any remote playoff hopes still alive. To this day, it’s the only time I’ve ever rooted against the Knicks.

He would hang up the sneakers that bore his name once and for all a few weeks later, two months before a precocious kid from Akron landed with the franchise that Jordan tortured perhaps more than any other. Now, fifteen years into a career that is unparalleled in sports history for its combination of length and level of dominance, LeBron James finds himself in a similar position to Jordan on that final afternoon at the Garden. 

Much like Mike, James has no business being where he is right now. The Cavs, to put it politely, are not good. They just emerged victorious in a Game Seven in an arena that has historically been the toughest place to win one of those. Jeff Green, playing on a minimum contract that was (correctly) lambasted by the NBA illuminati the moment it was signed, was Cleveland’s second best player. Tristan Thompson, who might very well be playing on a minimum contract himself right now if it weren’t for James, was probably the third. The rest of the Cavs combined to go 7-of-24. Ty Lue, who stated last week that he didn’t put his best shooter in a game because he was waiting for a particular substitution from Boston, is the coach. It’s as far a cry from Riles and Spo and Wade and Bosh as you can get.

And yet here he is. Through what can only be described as sheer force of will, the Cavs will play in a fourth consecutive Finals, the eighth straight for James. The Knicks have not won eight playoff games since James has been in the league, so LeBron haters can forgive me for being the slightest bit in awe of his most recent accomplishment.

It has, of course, ramped up another round of debates, this time at levels not previously heard. The conversations have been getting gradually louder ever since Cleveland dethroned Golden State two years ago, and they have now reached a fever pitch. It seems, for the first time, that there is a place in the Venn diagram - ever so small - where previously staunch Jordan stans are willing to, at the very least, listen to opposing viewpoints.

That, in and of itself, is miraculous. It also isn’t going to make the debate go away any time soon. The Godfather is still The Godfather, New York is still New York, and Michael Jordan is still Michael Jordan to all who were lucky enough to watch him in real time. I’m one of those people, and for LeBron’s entire career, I’ve never been willing to budge on my stance regarding Jordan’s place atop the pantheon, not even a little. If I ever came close, LeBron’s performance in the 2011 Finals versus the Dallas Mavericks sent back the tide. LeBron scored eight points on 11 shots in Game Four. The Heat lost by three, and then went down with something resembling a whimper in games five and six. Game, set, match.

That series ended with LeBron, a petulant pre-teen in the body of a man, at the podium reminding everyone how shitty their lives were and reaching perhaps the lowest point that anyone who’s ever actively held the title of “Greatest Player of his Generation” has ever sunk to. Since that night, all James has done is dominate his sport unlike anyone before him ever dreamt of doing. The numbers don’t lie:

LeBron, 2011 to 2018, age 27 to 33: 26.5 points, 7.7 rebounds, 7.4 assists, 1.5 steals, 0.7 blocks, 36 percent from deep on 4.0 attempts per game, .615 true shooting, 31.2 percent usage, 37.1 minutes per game, 42 games missed, 143 playoff games, seven Finals, three rings, three Finals MVP’s, two MVP’s, seven All-NBA First Teams.

Michael Jordan’s age 27 to 33 seasons, years 1990 to 1996: 30.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.1 assists, 2.3 steals, 0.8 blocks, 37 percent from deep on 2.4 attempts, .575 true shooting, 33.2 usage, 38.2 minutes, 153 games missed, 105 playoff games, five Finals, five rings, five Finals MVP’s, three MVP’s, five All-NBA First Teams. 

Pretty close. If you add up the last five categories for each player – Finals, rings, MVP’s, Finals MVP’s and All-NBA First Team selections – its 22 for LeBron, 23 for Michael. If you throw in the preceding years, it’s James 31, MJ 29.

Here’s the point: if you’re planting a flag for the kid from Wilmington, the numbers are no longer a safe haven…but again, to Jordan’s staunchest supporters, those numbers were never the crux of the argument. No one gives a shit how many Oscars Godfather won. The numbers in an MJ argument have always been background noise. The memory of Michael and what he did -  the sheer inevitability of the result and the brute force with which he made it come to pass - has always been the trump card.

Until now. On the Lowe Post this week, Kevin Pelton wondered aloud, “How much can one man do?” We’ve seen the answer over these last six weeks. Never before has one player done so much for a team, and not in a Russell Westbrook, late-career Kobe, or yes, early-career Jordan kind of way. LeBron has extracted every ounce of what he can from this rag tag bunch, and every time that well runs dry, he dips back into his reserves and finds another pocket of energy. 

The difference between this postseason and 2007 is that those energy reserves are no longer endless. The gas light can go on, and it has, repeatedly. It’s as if he’s calculated, not only within games but over the course of entire series, when and how he needs to spend those precious last few pennies in the account so that he can still make rent. As he lay on the floor following his Game Seven win in Boston, it’s clear that he had been living on ramen noodles and saltine crackers for a few days just to make it past the finish line. 

Jordan needed to do this once, in the flu game (or the hangover game, depending on which story you believe). It is perhaps the moment that defines him more than any other. James has, in a way, had the equivalent of his own flu game since the playoffs began, and he is still standing.  

It has become clear that the man who cowered under the lights in Dallas is gone. The force of nature that has replaced him is in command of every faculty of the game, more so than anyone who has come before him. The most physically superior specimen in sports since Jim Brown has finally put it all together… 

..and yet, in roughly a week from now, in all likelihood, this man will have as many losses in NBA Finals as the man he is chasing has wins. It feels as inevitable as Jordan’s victories once were – the inevitability that defined him in my eyes and the eyes of so many others - and that, more than anything, is the hump some people can’t get over. 

Is it fair? Who’s to say. What’s undeniable is that the 35-year-old man I am is trying to reconcile what I’m seeing with what the 15-year-old boy in me refuses to let go. The answers that were once clear are no longer so. That, in and of itself, is a place I never thought I’d get to.

[jcmacri]

The 50 Most Valuable Assets in the NBA

by Jonathan Macri

Now, perhaps more than ever, the task of coming up with a list of the most valuable assets in the NBA is nearly impossible. There are several reasons for this. For one, contracts are generally shorter, which makes a player’s value go down because he can leave sooner…except that the new CBA makes it really tempting for players to resign with their own team, so it’s not that big of a deal…only the player is resigning at a super-duper high salary, which makes him less valuable…but not really because the cap is so big and there is such a premium on star players that teams will pay whatever they have to to get them. 

Making all of this more complicated is the fact that right now, there are, barring major injury, two teams with a realistic chance at winning a championship, not only this year, but next year as well. In the NBA, as with any professional sports league, the primary goal should always be winning a championship. Much ink has been spilt over the last several years about the team building ethos of the Charlottes, Utahs, and Grizzlies of the world, teams and markets who value being consistently competitive over going for the all or nothing approach perfected by the 76ers. Admit it: outside of Oakland, Cleveland, and maybe Minnesota, what current team has a better shot at winning the whole damn thing at some point over the next decade than Philly? 

Therein lies the difficulty of these rankings. If you believe there is inherent value in simply being a good team that may, if everything breaks right, sniff a conference finals or two in the near future, than someone like, say, Marc Gasol should be incredibly high on this list; he is probably still the best all-around center in the NBA, and as long as he is on the Grizzlies, they will probably figure out a way to be competent enough to win a solid number of games and even a playoff series here or there. 

If, on the other hand, you believe that playoff mediocrity is the worst fate for a team because it gets them no closer to the ultimate prize, than Marc Gasol would hold much less value, as one could argue Memphis would be better off trading him for young assets and draft picks and bottoming out. 

For these rankings at least, I have attempted to split the baby. A player’s ability matters first and foremost, but team and contract situation are not ignored, and if a young player gives a team a chance at building something that could eventually lead to that organization climbing the mountaintop, that player gets preference over a better player who will in all likelihood never be able to lead his team to such heights. That being said, nothing is more valuable than a truly great player on a team built to win right now.

A few other notes: I tried to consider a player’s value to his own team as much as, if not a bit more than, his value to other teams (for example, the fact that Golden State isn’t giving up their core pieces for basically anything this year because they’re overwhelmingly favored to win it all matters significantly). On that note, it’s almost impossible to consider a player as an asset in a vacuum - merely looking at his current performance, potential, and contract situation, and taking team out of it - but in situations where team context is rather muddled, this was done to break ties. Salary matters, but less so than in years past, mostly due to the cap boom, but also because, again, top level talent is truly priceless today in this league above all others. Platoons work in baseball, but Anthony Morrow and Andre Roberson do not equate to Kawhi Leonard. Lastly, re: the new CBA, the assumption has been made that a player is far more likely to take the giant sum of money waiting for him if he stays put. This isn’t true across the board, but it is the rule, not the exception. 

With all that said, a look at the honorable mentions before moving on to the top 50…

HONORABLE MENTION

Carmelo Anthony

It was hard to even squeeze him into the honorable mention category, not because of the negatives he brings (ball hogging, defensive indifference, and general inconsistent effort, mainly) or because of the bloated salary, but because it’s unclear that there’s a single team in basketball that he would make even 5% more likely to win a championship if you dropped him in the middle of their lineup tomorrow in exchange for precisely nothing.

Khris Middleton

Derrick Favors

Two players who have gotten lost in this NBA season due to injury; Middleton just came back, while Favors hasn’t been himself all year. They both seem like they have been around forever, but each is still 25 years old and possesses a skill set that any team could use. Middleton is signed for two more years at $27 million, followed by a player option, while Favors makes $12 million next season and then becomes a free agent. There would be a long list of takers if either became available. 

Jahlil Okafor

Nerlens Noel

It’s good for them both that it looks like the Sixers are finally going to trade Okafor, because each has a chance to make positive impact in the league for a long time. Okafor is looking more and more to be a reasonable facsimile of Brook Lopez, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Noel, meanwhile, could wind up being a defensive player of the year someday in the right system. The problem with both players is that, due to their limitations, neither fits seamlessly into just any system.

Gary Harris

Rodney Hood

Two shooting guards in the third year of their rookie contracts who have been somewhat marginalized on their own teams, but nonetheless will become $15-$20 million players before too long given the lack of reasonable options at the position across the league. 

Mike Conley

Bradley Beal

CJ McCollum

Harrison Barnes

Each of these four vets signed new deals in the offseason at over $20 million per year (and in Conley’s case, over $30 million), which doesn’t make any of them a bargain, but it’s telling that at least so far, none of their teams are having buyer’s remorse, which is far more than a lot of teams can say about their offseason moves. Conley is the best of the bunch, but his age and mammoth contract relegate him below the other three in this group. 

Justise Winslow

A year ago, he was number 43 on this list. Since that time, his passing improved and he became comfortable shooting more, but his shot still seems like it needs an overhaul, and then finally he went down to season ending shoulder surgery at the end of 2016. At this point, he seems like he’ll end up closer to Tony Allen than Kawhi Leonard, but if there is any organization who can figure out how to work out the kinks in the next few years, it is the Heat.

George Hill

About to get very expensive, but he is the league’s most underrated point guard and Utah is not going to let him get away.

Paul Milsap

Here’s what I wrote about Al Horford a year ago, last season’s final omission before the top 50:

$145 million over the next 5 years. That’s what Al Horford’s next contract with the Atlanta Hawks (or whoever might trade for him this deadline) could be worth, and he’ll be on the wrong side of 30 when he signs that deal…while he’s still one of the 20 to 30 best players in the league, the fact that the Hawks are not legitimate championship contenders this year, when added to the above, makes him the final cut from the top 50.

Replace Al’s name with Paul’s and $145 million with $150 million +, and we’re all set.

THE TOP 50

IT’S STILL TOO EARLY TO TELL

50. (tie) D’Angelo Russell & Emmanuel Mudiay

More than a season and a half into each of their careers, it isn’t yet clear what either of these guys is. League average point guards? That’s probably the most likely outcome for each player (which wouldn’t be that bad, considering the current definition of league average – guys like Jrue Holiday and Jeff Teague – will be highly sought after come summertime). There’s still a chance one or both elevates their game to something higher than that; just think about Kyle Lowry, Goran Dragic, and Isaiah Thomas, each of whom has been or is currently an All-NBA level player. All three also needed to change teams to reach their full potential, and there already exists the notion that Denver should consider including Mudiay in a package for a more established player. They are too smart for that though, and will give him a chance to hone a still raw skill set. Russell, on the other hand, seems closer to being what he’s going to be: a steady but unspectacular pro who will benefit greatly from better talent around him. The reason they squeeze onto the list ahead of players that at first glance one would think should be below is because of just how tough it is to land a star, and the face that either of these guards could potentially reach that level would have teams jumping to take the risk of finding out. 

49. Jaylen Brown

He’s still kind of lump of clay, figuring out the pro game as a 20-year-old who looked raw even against college players. He was starting for three weeks before suffering a hip injury and the results were mixed. While Boston won nine of the ten games that Brown started, their scoring margin with him on the court in those games was negative (granted, most were close games). His elite athleticism and ability to get to the rim, along with having the prototypical body for an NBA wing, are qualities that more than justify his placement here, although it’s too early to say what his eventual ceiling is going to be.

48. Brandon Ingram

Like Brown, Ingram is still so raw, but won’t turn 21 for a year and a half and has done nothing to suggest he wasn’t deserving of the second overall selection in the Draft this June. One would think that he is the most untouchable young asset that the Lakers have, although if a star came on the market, it would be difficult to see LA passing up the opportunity, even if it meant parting ways with the 6’9” swingman.

47. Jamaal Murray

Is he a straight two guard, or can he handle the ball well enough to run Denver’s offense from time to time? The answer to that question will go a long way in determining his future value, but regardless of the answer, it’s becoming increasingly clear that he is the steal of the 2016 Draft. He’s a pure shooter at the NBA’s scarcest position, and is already showing tantalizing ability as a rookie. He is absolutely part of the Denver core.

46. Aaron Gordon

45. Zach LaVine

They were grouped together on last year’s version of this list, not because of their legendary dunk contest performance, but because of how they each seemed like they were just starting to figure out how to use their freakish athleticism in the context of NBA games. Since that time, LaVine has mostly soared, averaging 19 a game this season while hitting 39% of his threes (to be fair, his defense was still a train wreck). Just when it looked like the Wolves might make a late playoff push (and they still might), LaVine went down with a left ACL tear at the beginning of this month. Alternatively, Gordon’s season has been a disaster from the start. He has been playing out of position at small forward, and even now that Orlando has traded away Serge Ibaka, there is still no guarantee they play Gordon full-time at the 4. Somewhere in there, an intriguing player does still exist, though it seems like it’s going to take a semi-competent franchise to unlock his potential.

(as an aside, The Magic should send regular gifts on all holidays to both the Kings and Knicks, who each make Orlando’s regular-old “we don’t know anything about team building” dysfunction look pale in comparison to the “complete and total tire fire” dysfunction that New York and Sacramento specialize in.)

DIRT-CHEAP 3 AND D CELTIC WINGS

44. Avery Bradley

43. Jae Crowder

Yup, they get their own category.

First, Bradley…quick: name every guard/wing player in the league averaging at least 17 points, 7 rebounds, and shooting 40% from three? If you count Kevin Durant as a wing, the answer is two, with AB being the other. Yes, it’s an arbitrary stat, but it underscores how valuable he is, and that’s not even mentioning his elite level defense.

As for Crowder, he was originally in the honorable mention section of this list, but then I started to write about how guys who do what he does are getting paid two and three times as much money as him even though they’re 75% as effective, and I quickly recalibrated. Like Bradley, Crowder is making over two 3’s a game this year and shooting them over 40% while also locking up opposing wings. The reason he edges Bradley is the money; AB is only making $8 million per, but will become a free agent in 2018. Crowder on the other hand will make as much money over the next three seasons as Chandler Parsons makes this year. He takes home the award once again for the best contract in basketball.

NOT QUITE ALL-STAR POINT GUARDS

42. Goran Dragic

41. Eric Bledsoe

Both were thought to be on the block earlier this season, and then they really stepped up their level of play since the new year. Each player is signed at reasonable money for at least two more seasons after this one (Dragic has a player option for 2019-20), and are likely to remain nearly as effective through the life of their contract. There’s little doubt that there would be several takers offering real assets if either team decided to make them available.

VETERAN BIGS

40. Hassan Whiteside

39. DeAndre Jordan 

38. LaMarcus Aldridge

37. Al Horford

36. Marc Gasol

At the league’s most loaded position, each of these centers (to hell with what Al and LMA claim they are) bring their own positives and negatives to the table:

Gasol is the best of the lot right now and is earning under $25 million in each of the next two seasons before his player option comes up, but he’s 32 and his team is locked into mid-tier playoff mediocrity for the foreseeable future. Of all of the big men here though, he is the only one who could probably elevate half a dozen teams in the league from fringe contenders to legitimate threats to win it all. 

Boston is already thinking they will have a championship run in them at some point during the length of Horford’s deal, but like Gasol, his play is likely to decline and he only gets pricier as he ages.

The Spurs can never be counted out, and LaMarcus Aldridge has had a ho-hum, near-All-Star season in helping lead San Antonio to the league’s second best record, but like Gasol and Horford, he is over 30 and can opt out of his current deal after next season.

DeAndre Jordan is the only key Clipper locked up after this year, and he finally made an All-Star team, but his value is severely dampened without Chris Paul throwing him lobs, He can also opt out after next season.

Finally, Whiteside has thus far justified Miami’s bet on him and he’s the youngest of this bunch, but he doesn’t bring the complete package the other players do and there’s no telling how well he’d function outside of Miami, who has figured out how to use Hassan to the best of his abilities. 

35. DeMarcus Cousins

This seems about right for Boogie, just below a group of young assets that have a chance to be franchise cornerstones and established stars who don’t come with the baggage of the NBA’s most mercurial All-Star. 

We all know what he is. One of the two or three best all-around bigs in the league when engaged, and he’s still just 26 years old. There’s nothing he can’t do on a basketball court, but there’s no locker room he can’t destroy off of it, according to the sum total of the evidence collected, the most damning of which might be that former teammates feel like it’s just too damn tiring to have to constantly walk on eggshells in his presence. 

He’s as good a candidate as any to round out the top 35. 

YOUNG BUILDING BLOCKS

35. Jabari Parker

Jabari was in the top 20 before the second tear of his left ACL, which feels criminal considering he had finally come alive as the offensive force he was predicted to be coming out of college. There’s no telling how his game will adjust once he comes back, but he was never exactly a high flier to begin with, and his offensive game is fairly crafty. Even before the injury, he was never going to be the best player on a contending team, but as long as he plays alongside his front court mate in Milwaukee, he doesn’t need to be. He lands here, as there’s still a good chance he averages an efficient 25 a night for the next six to eight years after he returns. 

33. Miles Turner

He’s been a slightly worse version of Kristaps Porzingis, so he probably shouldn’t be all the way down here, but he doesn’t appear to have quite the same level of superstar potential (you have to guard his long ball, but it’s nowhere near the threat of KP’s), although that could be more perception than reality because of where he plays and the fact that his team doesn’t feature him quite as much.

32. Devin Booker

He’s averaging over 20 a game and he’s not yet old enough to drink. He plays a premium position, can move with the ball enough to keep defenses honest, and after a disastrous early season shooting slump, has his three-point shooting up to 36%. His defense is always going to be an issue, but he looks to be the most indispensable part of the Phoenix rebuild.

GOOD, OLD-FASHIONED ALL-STARS

31. Gordon Hayward

Even though Utah can offer him far more than any other team, there is some thinking that he is the likeliest free agent to change teams this summer. He’s still only 26 years old, but there already seems to be league-wide acknowledgement that he is not going to be worth his next contract. Despite all of the above, Utah will roll the dice that he stays, and will pay him whatever it can to make sure that happens. 

30. Kyle Lowry 

It seems rude to put the best guard in the Eastern Conference this season so low. Unfortunately, he is 30 years old – not a great age for point guards, especially ones who have had conditioning issues in the past. His next contract will start at a number right around his age, and won’t be pretty on the back end. Toronto’s offseason will be fascinating to watch, especially now that the Ibaka trade has been made and he is also due for a new contract come July.

29. Andre Drummond

28. DeMar DeRozan

27. Damian Lillard

Each of the next half-dozen NBA seasons will likely feature an All-Star appearance from at least one of these players (this year, it’s DeRozan). They are locked up at dollar amounts that are high but fair in the current economic landscape. None of them play for a team that is likely to end up in a Finals any time soon (although Toronto will certainly try), but none of their franchises would even consider a rebuild at the present moment. Most significantly, there are legitimate questions about each player’s game even as they enter or become entrenched in their prime: defense for Lillard, shooting for Derozan, free throw shooting (and general offensive prowess) for Drummond. But in a league where Evan Founier can sign an $80+ million contract and have it be considered a bargain, even with their faults, these three are looked at as assets that almost every other team in the league would kill to have. 

26. Kemba Walker

25. Isaiah Thomas

Isaiah Thomas and Kemba Walker are both All-Star point guards in the prime of their careers. If the season ended today, Isaiah would probably slot next to Steph Curry on the All-NBA 2nd team, while Kemba would have a compelling case for 3rd. Thomas is as good a crunch time scorer as there is in the league, while Walker might be its hardest worker and greatest overachiever, willing his way to becoming a 40% three point shooter after he entered the league barely over 30%. They are both ridiculously underpaid. 

Despite the similarities, they are in drastically different situations. Kemba Walker is not going anywhere, but it’s because the Hornets are so hard pressed to find free agents willing to go there (they just traded for four years’ worth of a Plumlee brother). That they have Walker’s services for the next two seasons after this one at the price of an above-average backup is the best thing the organization has going for it. 

Thomas’ is a different story. He is getting paid less than some guys who are not good enough to be in the rotations of bad teams, but that contract is up after next season and his team is about to get a guaranteed top 4 pick in the most point-guard rich draft maybe ever. It will be fascinating to see whether Danny Ainge “backs up the Brinks truck,” as Thomas has politely requested, to keep a brilliant offensive player whose defense may never be good enough to allow his team to win it all. The other scenario would have him trading a soon-to-be 28-year-old MVP candidate on a pseudo-contender, which is something not even Danny would likely be able to stomach.

24. Blake Griffin

23. Chris Paul

How does one even begin to assess the trade value of the Clippers duo? Let’s start with Paul. He’s still the best point guard in the league, at least in the classical sense of the position. His value to a team, at both ends of the floor, has only been reinforced by his absence this season. When the team was healthy and rolling early on, there were at least discussions about whether they could pose a threat to the Warriors in a seven game series. Since he went out, they are a tire fire that can’t stop anyone.

And yet…he is over thirty with a lot of tread on the tires and a not-insignificant injury history. As a pending free agent, he would be impossible to move this season, not that the Clippers would ever entertain a trade. If, though, an alternate universe existed in which they did, it would be hard to find a team willing to give up the assets it would take to get him. Damn near every established playoff team is already set at point guard, and Paul obviously has no interest in resigning anywhere that isn’t a contender. And then there’s the small matter of his next contract, which could be the worst in the league by the time it ends.

As for Blake, much has been written about how well his game will age once his athleticism goes (and the thinking seems to be that he will still be very, very good) but this will be the third year in a row he plays under 70 regular season games due to injury. The Clippers will happily pay him the max, but like Paul, the better question is where his value lies if he ever did hit the trade market. He’s not a get-to-the-rim, three-point bombing guard, he’s not a rangy, switchy 3 and D wing, and he’s not center who drains bombs and protects the rim (he does neither). In other words, he doesn’t give you one of those gotta-have-it skills that teams crave…he’s just really, really good. Plenty of teams would move pieces and use up cap space to take the risk of finding out just how he is going to age, but for all the above reasons, he’s no longer considered the top-10 asset that he was for years, even as he enters what should be his basketball prime. 

22. Rudy Gobert

He might be the best defender in basketball outside of Leonard and Green, and for Utah, that skill set is the foundation of everything they do on that end of the floor. On offense, he is functional enough to be an asset. Most importantly, any team in the league would be able to seamlessly fit him into their framework (assuming you don’t own one of the freak-of-nature centers lower on this list). He is locked up for the next four years after this one at a rate only slightly higher than some backup centers, and he won’t turn 30 until after that deal is up. He may never make an All-Star team, but his value is undeniable.

21. Kevin Love

Would the Cavs do the Wiggins deal over again? Certainly, given last year’s outcome. But what if they had the opportunity to rescind the trade today and get Wiggins back? Even with Love out for 6 weeks, it’s still unclear if they would, being in a position to once again win it all and Love giving them the better chance to make that happen. So why is Wiggins higher on the list that Love (spoiler alert: he’s not that much higher)? The Cavs would at least have to give the deal some thought, and there’s a chance that even with the championship, they end up regretting the original deal. The Wolves, on the other hand, would hang up the phone, and you’d be hard pressed to find another team in the league that would give up a shot at Wiggins’ potential for the surer thing in Love.

WE’RE GOING TO LET THIS ONE PLAY OUT

20. Andrew Wiggins

19. Ben Simmons

In all likelihood, within a few years, one of these two will probably end up as a top five asset. There’s also a non-zero chance that one of them doesn’t make this list at all. Even though Wiggins has all the tools to be the next Kawhi Leonard, enough questions have been raised about his game for some to wonder whether he is the best long-term compliment for Towns. Simmons, on the other hand, has yet to play an NBA game, but even if he never develops a jump shot, his playmaking and physical tools alone are enough to justify his place here.

WE NEED BOTH BROOKLYN PICKS…AND THEN SOME

18. John Wall

17. Jimmy Butler

16. Paul George

Three ultra-talented players. Each has an argument for filling out the bottom of anyone’s top-10 list of the best players in the league. All three might even make the cut. Each plays for a team which is firmly planted somewhere in the delicious, creamy middle of the Eastern Conference. All three of those teams have had their organizational directions questioned at some point since the summer, and none of them appears to have a clear path towards contention any time soon (although the Wiz are sure making it interesting). Before the new CBA, each would have had as good a shot as the other two to come in second (after Boogie) on the list of superstars most likely to be traded in the next calendar year, but now things are more complicated. Even though neither the Wizards, Pacers or Bulls seem able to rise to contender-level status in the near future, these three would be nuts to leave the money on the table that is sure to await them from their current team when their present deals run out. They are also all either 26 or 27 years old, meaning there is more than enough left in each of their primes for their teams to think they are one fortuitous event away from a magical Finals run.

EFFECTIVELY UNTOUCHABLE

***With their teams poised to meet once again in the Finals (and easily the favorites to make it a four-peat the year after), these three aren’t going anywhere.

15. Draymond Green

14. Klay Thompson

13. Kyrie Irving

Let’s start with Green…so what if he's just the best complimentary player in the league? He’s the best complimentary player on the best team in the league that is poised to be great for several more seasons after this one. They are not moving him, but as a theoretical trade candidate, he is as interesting as any player in the league. His on-court antics must be balanced with his unselfishness, not to mention his undeniable presence in the locker room. His contract is the second-best long term deal in the entire league for a player making over $10 million annually (Kawhi takes the cake there). No, he probably wouldn’t be very successful as a team’s alpha dog, but the league actually has a surprisingly large amount of alpha dogs and not nearly enough guys who do everything else really, really well. There is arguably no team in the league that he wouldn’t make considerably better, and no team where he wouldn’t be able to fit in seamlessly. He deserves to be here. 

As for Klay and Kyrie, two guards with identical contracts, the question is which player would have more value to other teams in the league. On one hand, Klay Thompson doesn’t seem to be the type of player that one could build a team around, primarily because he’s a guard who doesn’t move particularly well with the ball. Outside of a historically great offense featuring one - and now two – all-time greats, it is unclear how good he would make a team by himself, although last year’s on/off numbers for his backcourt partner would seem to indicate that Klay’s value without an elite ball-handler is limited. There are also varying opinions on his defense.

Kyrie’s time with the Cavs before LeBron arrived and more recently when he hasn’t shared the court with the king has shown exactly what an Irving-led team would be: pretty average. He is an isolation player, and even though he is a great one, maybe the best at his position, he doesn’t seem like the guy another team would mortgage everything for if LBJ retired tomorrow and the Cavs decided to rebuild. Still, he edges out Klay here because there’s still a chance that at 24, he hasn’t yet reached his potential.

THE DIRTY DOZEN

***The following twelve players can be put in any order, because unlike every other player on this list, there is zero possibility of any of them going anywhere.

12. Russell Westbrook

Really? There are 11 better assets players in the NBA than a 28-year-old averaging a triple double who is all but guaranteed to finish top-3 in the MVP voting this year? Hold that thought.

11. Nikola Jokic

10. Kristaps Porzingis

9. Joel Embiid

8. Anthony Davis

7. Karl Anthony Towns

6. Giannis Antetokounmpo

This is where it gets tricky.

Russell Westbrook is very likely to sign a mammoth contract extension this summer that will keep him in OKC into his early 30’s (the new CBA made an exception so that he will be able to sign a 5 year, $219 million deal). Given that he’s unlikely to go anywhere, isn’t he more valuable than at least a few of the young, unproven players listed here?

Not necessarily. Let’s start with age: Russell is 28 years old, while the oldest player out of these six is Anthony Davis at 23, meaning none have hit their primes yet. Of greater importance is how Westbrook plays. He relies so much on his athleticism that it’s a bit scary to think of how his game will adjust when his unholy natural abilities start to wane.

The better question is whether any of these teams would give up their young stud for Russ. Even if they knew they would have him for the long haul, the answer is simple: not a chance. On the other hand, OKC would make any of those deals in a heartbeat. They’re not competing for a championship this year, and that’s unlikely to change any time soon. Trading away an MVP candidate having a historically great season would be impossible to swallow, but hitting the reset button with someone between five and seven years younger would be in the best long-term interests of the franchise.

The next question is how to order these six monsters. There’s a chance that any of them could wind up having the best NBA career, but if every NBA team outside of Golden State, Cleveland, San Antonio and Houston was given the chance to trade their best player for any one of the six, one of two would likely be at the top of everyone’s list: Towns and the Greek Freak.

Before a comparison between the two, a look at the other candidates…

This spot for Jokic may seem high, especially since he was coming off the bench not long ago, but it won’t be long before the entire basketball universe knows what Denver finally figured out and what NBA nerds have known since last year: this guy is unreal. A team can not only run an offense through him, but he’s already showing the potential to become a Marc Gasol-level playmaker and the most unstoppable low post scoring machine in the league. 11 is probably too low for him.

As a Knicks fan, it’s painful to put the unicorn all the way down here at number 10, but there’s no telling the sustained damage that playing for the league’s most dysfunctional franchise will have on his long-term potential. He has Curry’s range, moves well with the ball, and routinely makes highlight reel defensive plays in the post, but it doesn’t appear he’ll ever have the body to dominate down low and it’s unclear how he’ll fair defending the perimeter in the long run.

Embiid is a tempting choice to not only put at the top of this group but to put at the very top of this list, but the foot issues did not go away just because he has taken the NBA by storm. That alone keeps him down here.

Anthony Davis has reasserted himself this year as the best big man in basketball. There is nothing he can’t do on a court, but at this level, it’s about splitting hairs, and while Davis has reached his peak, Towns and Giannis are just approaching that level. He can also opt out of his max contract in three years, and if New Orleans continues to be mired in sub-mediocrity, there’s at least a chance he will leave money on the table to go elsewhere.

That leaves Towns and Giannis. Both will be with their teams for the long-term. They are 21 and 22 years old, respectively. Giannis is an All-NBA level player this year, and Towns will be there next season. Each has a supporting cast that will give them a real chance to compete for big things in the coming years. Ultimately, Giannis edges out Towns for the simple reason that NBA wings are as premium a position as there is in sports outside of NFL quarterbacks and MLB aces. Otto Porter and Kentavious Caldwell-Freaking-Pope are about to make twenty million American dollars per season, a year after the Nets were lauded for attempting to sign Allen Crabbe to a four year, seventy two-million-dollar deal. Meanwhile, teams can’t give away centers. Obviously, a game-changer like Towns is a different story, but the fact remains: wings are the thing, and Antetokounmpo is the ultimate NBA Swiss-Army knife. If we knew for sure that his jump shot was going to develop as it seems like it’s going to, he’d be an easy number one here.

5. James Harden

This seems high. A year ago at this time, Harden was the captain of a sinking ship, and his work ethic, off-court choices, and on-court disdain for defense were all being highlighted by people who reveled in the downfall of Darryl Morey’s grand experiment. Even now, Morey himself would agree that the team is a long shot at best to contend this year, and without one more semi-major move, they will likely remain just outside the circle of teams who have enough to go all the way. 

But that move is more likely to be made with Morey at the helm (who still possesses as deft a touch when it comes roster construction as anyone outside of his own state, despite the failed Dwight experiment) and that is exactly why Harden finds himself so high on this list. Well, that and his also being allowed to sign a mega max deal as an exception in the new CBA.

There are less than ten players in the league at any given time who can be the driving force behind a championship team, and Harden is one of those guys right now - and will be for a few years. Unlike Westbrook, he doesn’t rely on his athleticism to be successful, and his jump shot is far superior. He also has the best supporting cast of anyone other than the four players above him on this list, and because his team is only a piece away (and even that might be underestimating their chances), he’s as valuable as ever.

Now, if we’re picking nits: Would the Rockets consider dealing him for one of the younger guys just below him on this list? Even though they are all younger (and some of them come considerably cheaper), it’s highly unlikely for the simple reason that the Rockets have figured out how to build the perfect roster around their superstar, and have the perfect coach to run the show. A theoretical Harden for KAT or Greek Freak trade would leave the Rockets starting over, and while the long-term potential could be even greater, the uncertainty would be too great to take a chance. 

4. Steph Curry

One look at the current perception of Steph Curry by the larger basketball community will tell you everything you need to know about what is wrong with the NBA. After being named a starter in the All-Star Game over Russell Westbrook, reactions ranged from tacit acceptance to outright scorn.

Think about that for a second. Steph Curry gave his unconscionable-for-a-star-in-2016 approval to the Warriors to go after Kevin Durant, knowing full well what would happen: lower stats, no chance at a third MVP, and a lower profile around the league among media, players and coaches (Erik Spolestra: “How is Westbrook not starting the All-Star Game?”). Yet he didn’t think twice because he knew it was best for the team. He knew they could get Durant because KD had had enough of attempting to share the ball with the guy who has now reached the levels of adulation seen only by Curry in the previous two seasons, but Westbrook is putting up his stats on a team paced to win 46 games; Curry’s team is making another run at 70. 

Is there any question as to whether Curry could sign with a mediocre team this summer and average 35, 10, and 6 while once again setting the league record for threes made in a season? That would be derided as a ridiculous, me-first type of move, of course. Russell Westbrook, on the other hand, never gets criticized for failing to adjust his game to make sure Durant never thought twice about leaving. Instead, he gets heaped with praise, and will finish somewhere between five and ten spots ahead of Curry in the final MVP balloting. People will look back years from now and assume Curry dropped off, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. 

3. Kevin Durant

2. LeBron James

1. Kawhi Leonard

These are the only three players in basketball that, if you put them on just about any other roster, they would lead their team to 50 wins. (the Nets are the only possible exception, although if you gave them Pop as a coach I’m not so sure)

The task of distinguishing between the 3 is quite a bit more difficult, so let’s throw out some scenarios. 

First up: the Spurs, Cavs, and Warriors each get the chance to swap their player for one of the other two. Who blinks? The Cavs seem to enjoy the city of Cleveland and would rather not see it burnt to the ground by an angry mob, so they would pass…although if they could magically alter the brains of everyone in the city to embrace whatever move the franchise made (wouldn’t it be nice if the Browns had that ability?) would they make a switch? The thinking goes that LeBron is still capable of reaching heights that the other two simply can’t match, and since he can save his energy for the Finals, the Cavs probably wouldn’t want to diminish their chance of winning another ring, so they’d pass. The Spurs aren’t nearly as a good a bet to bring home a ring, but Leonard is as inextricably intertwined with the fabric and mindset of the organization at this point as Duncan ever was. Even from a purely basketball standpoint, Kawhi’s age alone would preclude any discussion, as would his salary, which is the best bargain in basketball. 

That leaves the Warriors and Durant. There is no indication that he plans to go anywhere at this point, but the possibility can’t be completely dismissed. The team is rolling and looks to be in the midst of a dynastic run, but they will have to make some difficult decisions in the offseason that may leave them dangerously top-heavy heading into next year. The fact that Durant’s salary next season will almost double Leonard’s therefor cannot be ignored. The better question is whether the Warriors would be better off with Kawhi right now. The defense he would provide against James Harden, LeBron James, and any other potential threats that might emerge is enough by itself to at least ask the question. In addition, Durant’s greatest strength is still his one on one scoring brilliance - something that some people would argue will be a detriment to the Warriors in tight spots down the line. This is all to say that Golden State’s title chances probably would at least stay the same this year and beyond, if not increase, if a swap was made.

So does Kawhi end up at the top? It seems ridiculous to think so, but when you add everything up, it actually makes sense. He is young. He has not significant injury history. He shows no desire to go anywhere. He would fit in more seamlessly into any team than any player in basketball. And maybe, just maybe, he is every bit as good as the other two guys right now and we’re all kidding ourselves not to realize it. #1 it is.

[jcmacri]

Carmelo Anthony, the Petulant Child Who Must Go

by Jonathan Macri

Carmelo Anthony is not getting traded to the Cavaliers for Kevin Love. Even LeBron James is smart enough to see how Anthony's talents would be duplicitous on the Cavs, who need more play making, not less.

However, the news is a sign that, for the first time, something legitimate may be brewing on the Anthony trade front. The Cavs, no doubt, were the first team on Carmelo's wish list, and their predictable turn-down of a star for star swap is merely the first domino to fall. The idea is now firmly planted in the head of the Knicks mercurial forward that he may just be better off taking his talents elsewhere, and the longer this goes on, the more teams he is likely to consider. He will begin to think that he is the missing piece of a championship roster in more and more cities. Knicks fans can only hope that the organization does not hold an equally emboldened view of his value.

-

The necessity for the Knicks to trade Carmelo Anthony has nothing at this point to do with getting a young asset or draft picks back in return. It's not about improving the team's talent level, now or in the future. It's not about shedding his salary for next year, and it's not about giving the keys to the offense over to Kristaps Porzingis.

All of those things are nice secondary benefits, but none of them are the primary reason why the Knicks need to do everything in their power to convince their enigmatic star - finally - that his future plans might best be made outside of the metropolitan area.

For the main reason, an example: Imagine a seventh grade classroom with a particularly frustrating student. He is very smart, but not as smart as he thinks he is, and although he has a broader knowledge base than all of the other students in the class, his opinion of himself and those around him combine to prevent any self-growth. The worst part of having this student in the room is that it is almost impossible to have a class discussion or engage in productive group work with him there. Instead of listening to others and building on what they say to further everyone's learning, he puts down the thoughts of others because he believes he has a better answer - the best answer, and the only right answer. He will occasionally follow the only major class rule of raising his hand and not calling out, but when he does not get called on immediately, he will either make offhanded comments in response to what other students say or simply shut down and begin muttering under his breath. He constantly gets into arguments with other students as a result of this, but it is never his fault, as there is always an offending student who's lack of intelligence renders he or she unfit to partake in any conversation with this student. He has rarely shown any respect for the betterment of the class as a whole, except for when it happens to intersect with the one thing he is concerned about above all else: his own grades. He claims, time and again, that he wants to be taught, but refuses to hear his teachers when they attempt to explain to him that his learning will happen as part of the whole, and that until he respects the classroom as a unit, he will never be happy in this class. There has been discussion about moving the student to other classes, but he only wishes to go to the highest level classes with other equally intelligent students, and the teachers of those sections don't want anything to do with the him. Every other student respects the boy's intelligence, but no one enjoys being in the same class as him due to his antics, and many follow his example of calling out and being generally disagreeable. He refuses to see anyone's viewpoint as correct other than his own, and the worse things get, he only becomes more steeped in his own positions. Thus, he is left to sit and brood and pout and disrupt the progress of the class as only he can.

If this student were moved to a different class, the intelligence quotient of the remaining group of kids would go down by a considerable margin. The class would have lost its brightest student...and yet, the collective intelligence of the group would eventually go up, because learning that is unable to take place right now would begin to become a reality.

Simply put: If I, as his teacher, were able to ship him out and get nothing in return, I would do it in a heartbeat, because it would be a clear case of addition by subtraction.

Such is the case with the Knicks and Anthony. While it is slightly unfair to compare Carmelo with the petulant child described above without also mentioning a number of fellow NBA headliners, he is at present the most glaring example. It is one thing for a thirteen year old to fail to see the error of his ways, but how is it that a grown man can fail to see what is so painfully obvious to everyone around him? That question is difficult to answer, although it is interesting that the current crop of NBA stars fall into one of two categories: those that were touted as potential future Hall of Famers before they ever scored a basket in the pros (Melo, LeBron, Dwight, Blake, and Boogie, to name a few), and those who had to work from the ground up to even have a shot at the league (Kawai, Steph, and Jimmy Butler come to mind). There are also the foreign players who, despite being NBA royalty, act nothing like many of their contemporaries (think Dirk, the Gasol brother, and yes, Timmy). The commonality is this: in America, we have a tendency, especially in the deservingly derided culture of AAU youth basketball, to dote on our clearly gifted youngsters to the point where they quite literally believe they can do no wrong. Carmelo has been living in this world for as long as he can remember.

Knicks fans have seen first-hand over the past six seasons how this type of thinking plays out. When he first came here, he never once considered adjusting his game to fit the style of his coach, despite the fact that the spread pick and roll system netted Mike D'Antoni's Suns teams some modicum of success. The Knicks floundered until Carmelo got hurt and D'Antoni turned to an undrafted point guard from Harvard out of necessity. Back playing his system, the Knicks thrived. Yet, Melo only deepened his line in the sand, refused to adjust his game, and unsurprisingly scoffed at sharing the spotlight. D'Antoni quit rather than deal with his nonsense any longer, and Lin was gone soon after. The following season, when the Knicks signed Jason Kidd to take the leadership reigns from Anthony, the Knicks thrived, as players in the locker room had an actual adult showing them by example what was required to play winning basketball. Kidd retires, and the Knicks fall off a cliff. Carmelo never again consented to playing the four full time, even though it was painfully apparent that it was the position which would ensure his team the greatest level of success. His effort level on defense continued to wane. He justified this to himself by pointing to the offensive load he takes, which is the pinnacle of irony. Unlike other stars across the league who's teams' offenses flow through them on every possession, Carmelo is dreadfully inefficient when he isn't passing and he makes nobody better in the process. This, in turn, begs the obvious and painful question at the heart of the Knicks struggles: why on earth would an Anthony teammate expend full energy on defense when their star never does and that same star doesn't make an effort to get anyone else involved on offense?

We're seeing the answer play out on a nightly basis this season. Defense - which is a byproduct of effort first, second & third and talent fourth (just ask Kevin Love) - has been been nonexistent. In addition to giving up an open three point shot or a drive into the lane on seemingly every possession, the ball and player movement that characterizes the offenses of all of the league's best teams is nowhere to be found when Anthony is on the floor. Earlier this year, and at times in years past, Anthony shows glimpses of becoming a more willing passer, but the moment the team meets adversity (including during the home stretch of close games), he reverts back to his ways, thinking he needs to shoulder the extra load to give the team its best chance at success. To this day, he still fails to realize that his forays into hero ball have the opposite effect.

As a result, most Knicks games have become unwatchable to the basketball purist. A great player is supposed to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts, and yet Anthony has the opposite effect. Granted, this is with more than a little help from Rose, a player who is nothing if not confident. The fantasy that he is still an MVP caliber player is made only more frustrating by Anthony's consistently feeding into it.

On defense, Carmelo is as grabby a player as there is in the league, and every Knicks fan has seen far too many instances of Carmelo jumping out towards a three point shooter about 2 seconds too late. The Knicks are as sure a bet as there is in the league to give up 30 in the first quarter and 60 in a half. It's embarrassing, plain and simple, and there is no longer any viable excuse.

Knicks fans hoping for a haul of equal talent or value need to finally embrace the truly cancerous effect that Carmelo Anthony has had on this franchise for far too long. He is a better version of JR Smith: a player who can be of incredible value to less than a handful of teams in the league, but who would bring more harm than good to the rest. Knicks fans just need to hope that one of those teams - or a team that believes they are among that group - is willing to take their calls and that Anthony is a willing participant in the transaction. Whatever they get back will be icing on a cake that, for the first time in a very long time, actually has a chance to rise.

[jcmacri]

A Postmortem

It was worth a shot.

On this, January 12, 2017, the day after TJ McConnell quite dramatically hammered the final nail into the coffin containing both the season and Phil Jackson's five year plan, the Knicks President of Basketball Operations is probably thinking that he shouldn't be too hard on himself. After all, sometimes, when you put together just the right mix of veterans, unpredictable things can happen. He only had to look to the Jason Kidd-led unit of a few years ago for proof. He had, at the very least, reason to hope.

But as Mark Whalberg utters prior to the unfolding of a disaster comparable to this Knicks' season in "Deepwater Horizon" (not a bad movie!), "hope is not a tactic."

No, it's not. A measured, patient and sustainable approach to team building, on the other hand, most certainly is. One look at the Patriots, Spurs, and Cardinals, the most successful franchises in each of the three major sports over the last two decades, proves just that. This approach, of course, isn't a guarantee of championships galore. Those three franchises also happen to have had three generational talents during the years they've won rings. Teams like the Jazz and Pacers have mostly employed this model for three decades and haven't gone all the way, but they have come close, and are good far more often than they're not.

Speaking of generational talents, the fact that the Knicks already have one - a player with a combination of skills and physical tools the likes of which the league has never seen - didn't deter Jackson from choosing a different path.

That other path - spend big in free agency and make trades with an eye on the present - can work too, but it is unpredictable at best and foolish more often than not. Spending a lot of money on a house makes sense if the foundation is solid; that's called an investment. Otherwise, if you pour money into a structure that can be taken down by the first major gust of wind, that's called hubris.

Phil may have thought that he had the formula to guarantee his quick fix would work, but even the Zen Master would have to concede that there is little rhyme or reason to why some situations work while others flop, or to what secret ingredient brings the whole thing together. Look at Houston: last year's team was an unmitigated disaster that played no defense. Added to the mix were two high priced vets that played no defense and a coach who last presided over an unmitigated disaster. The result has been magical. Trying to make sense of these sorts of things is futile. Was Dwight Howard the common denominator? He led a Florida duplicate of last year's Rockets team to the Finals earlier in his career, where he also presided over one of the league's premier defenses. No one can know for sure why this mix works while last year's failed.

Back to New York...was the Knicks one season of success five long years ago merely a product of Jason Kidd's presence? The same Jason Kidd who forced his way off of three teams in his career and got a coach fired? It can't be that simple.

Perhaps Phil spent all that money on Joakim Noah because he thought that he would be that secret ingredient for this particular mix of players - the force that would hold things together and inspire consistent, non-box-score-related effort from the two biggest names who have been known to chase stats throughout their careers. Clearly, he was mistaken.

Lucky for the Knicks, the collateral damage is light, at least when compared to the organization's previous win-now moves. With apologies to Jerian Grant, no real young talent was lost in the process, and in fact, the club managed to add several young pieces who look like actual NBA rotation players. No future draft picks were siphoned, and the coaching staff seems to have done a good job ensuring that the club's prized possession has continued his development towards the All-NBA level that would appear to be his destiny. Yes, the Noah contract looks dreadful, but in a landscape where $200 million + deals will soon become a regular occurrence, it shouldn't be a death knell to future team-building, especially if they go about this the right way. Regardless, if that contract is the worst byproduct of this ill-conceived plan, Knicks fans should consider themselves lucky.

The alternative last summer, of course, would have been to sit out free agency, have another season end with a mid-30's win total, and hope that that was enough to force Carmelo's hand and waive the no-trade clause that is the true black eye on Jackson's tenure - the one that could prove to be his undoing.

Here, perhaps, is where Jackson may have lucked out, and why he might be justified in having given this version of things a try. Had the Knicks done nothing, there is no guarantee that Carmelo Anthony asks for a trade, so Jackson relented and did it his way, and the results are clear. While there is no guarantee that the more grandiose nature of this failure will push Carmelo's hand, it may be enough to usher out a player, whether it be to Houston, Boston, LA, or some unforeseen destination, whose stranglehold over the organization needs to end.

There may be a subset of the team's fan base that would be upset at the notion of trading Carmelo Anthony for spare parts and contract filler...but none, I would argue, who have watched the team over the years with eyes open. If the Knicks can pry a Marcus Smart or a Sam Decker out of the transaction, all the better. But this is about addition by subtraction more than anything else, about ridding the organization of the least-beloved nominally "successful" player in the history of New York sports.

Regardless of system, the two pillars of successful basketball are movement - both ball and player - on offense and simple effort on defense. There is no universe in which these things become the norm for this particular player, and yet he sets the tone for everything they do on the court. His unfailing belief in his own greatness has become his and his team's undoing. Only in his absence will they be able to start to build a culture where winning is no longer a happy accident.

As for Rose, while he has regained 85% of the burst he once had, he is a prime example of the difference that extra 15% makes. What we're left with is a player who can't shoot, doesn't defend, and avoids contact. He rarely uses whatever athleticism remains to generate opportunities for teammates, despite the fact that he is a below-average shooter at the rim and he seems unwilling to accept the fact that the calls MVP's usually get are no longer coming his way. Refs, unlike Phil, apparently have a short memory.

And yet, the unraveling of this season has helped the Knicks avoid the one true doomsday scenario that existed going into it: handing the former MVP a contract extension that would make the Noah deal a comparative bargain. Whether the Knicks can obtain anything of value for him at this point is almost irrelevant. Maybe Sacramento will bite, figuring that one more outstanding draft obligation won't even matter at this point, or maybe Rose's former coach might want to see for himself what his old point guard has left, and would be willing to send back another point guard who can't shoot in return. There is no telling is Ricky Rubio is even on the table, but it's the first call Jackson should make, as he would undoubtedly be a better fit for the team moving forward, and is someone who looks to be in need of some new scenery himself.

Whatever does come to pass, Phil Jackson should be proud of accomplishing something this season that no one would have thought possible just a few months ago: having Knicks fans rooting for losses instead of wins a full month ahead of last year.

[jcmacri]

The Real Problem

It’s always fascinating / frightening to scroll through one’s social media news feed on a day like today (has there ever been a day like today?). For the few minutes I was able to stomach it this morning, it became clear that the reactions of people who I know, mostly, fell into one of two categories: either “I can’t believe a racist, bigoted, misogynistic, etc etc expletive is our President” or “I can’t believe WE elected a racist, bigoted, misogynistic, etc etc expletive to be our President”. 

 These are both valid responses, no doubt, but in and of themselves, neither hits at the most distressing part of all of his. Yes, we now have a deeply flawed President, but for all we know, most if not all of our Presidents embodied the same flaws. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves and there’s a giant carving of him on a mountain. JFK would stick it in a wall socket if he had the chance. W had the IQ of a woodland critter. The only difference is that Trump was smart enough to realize if he let his flawed views out in the open, it would win him more votes than anyone ever dreamed, not despite those verbalizations, but because of them…which leads us to the second prevailing view: “I can’t believe WE elected him.” 

 No, half of the country is not racist. 100% of the country is, to some extent (nodding solemnly). If you’ve been raised on this planet, it’s impossible not to attribute characteristics to someone’s skin color or ethnic background that should not be attributed as such, which is the definition of racism. We’re all wrong to do it, because there is no such thing as race (another column for another day), but obviously some do it in far more troubling ways and to a much greater extent than others, which is what came out in this election…but again, let’s be clear: these people did not sprout up overnight. They have always been here; they just found a candidate who spoke to them. No, neither of those things are what is most troubling this morning. 

To illustrate what is, a quick example: every day on my walk to the train, I pass a house that for at least the past six months has had a Trump flag hanging from his porch next to an American flag (for this example to work, you’ll have to make the leap of faith with me that he voted Republican yesterday). It is a nice house, and from a quick glance inside the living room window, it is populated by furniture and a fairly large hi def flat screen television. Regardless of what the interior of the house looks like, the location alone (three houses from the train in Massapequa Park, one of the more coveted areas in southern Nassau County) dictates its value at somewhere in the neighborhood of half a million dollars. I am also going to make an assumption that this person is not unemployed nor is he below the poverty line (they’re not giving away those Trump banners, after all. Or flat screen tv’s, for that matter) Yet, this person was dissatisfied, and voted yesterday for change. Voting for change, or for perceived betterment, is one’s right, no matter how big your house or how nice your things. That’s not the issue here. The issue is that a vote for this particular change candidate is evidence of a combination of stupidity and greed unlike that which our country has ever seen. 

 How is this so? Turn on the news. Or better yet, google “Trump Effect.” The world markets are tanking. Literally. Like, as you read this. A trade war is imminent. A recession is likely, according to those whose job it is to know these things. The delicate house of cards that is international relations is in danger of toppling if the new President makes good on his promises regarding our existing treaties. And that’s not even getting into the effect this could/will likely have on global safety (see: Russia, China, North Korea). 

 A Trump supporter can only have two responses to what is happening this morning and what will likely continue to happen. One is “I didn’t know this would happen.” That’s where the stupid part comes in, because anyone with access to the internet could have known this was going to happen with nearly 100% certainty. The other response is, I imagine, some variation of “this is the initial response, but there was bound to be some bumps at first if we’re ever going to achieve real change” (this requires us to takes Trump’s word for it, since he’s never actually released any concrete financial or tax policy specifics, by that’s neither here nor there). 

 This, to me, is the most damning part. Sure, anything is possible, including a rebound from where we sit this morning, and where financial experts all over the world seem to be in agreement about where we’re going. But really…did we need to take the chance that this meltdown will turn around? Are things that bad? As a country, we have an unemployment rate around 5%. If you’re one of those people and you voted for Trump, I don’t begrudge you, because hey, what have you got to lose. But something tells me that the unemployed didn’t make up a huge part of his voting block. Nor, I assume, did the 14.5 % of Americans living below the poverty line, but if you are and you voted for him, again…fine. That’s a calculated risk I can understand. Maybe the total number of unemployed and truly poor who voted for Trump was in the hundreds of thousands or maybe even the millions. I have no idea. But I think we can agree it wasn’t the block who won him this election. 

 No, the people who won him this election likely have a place to live, a job to report to every day, and a means to put food on the table. I’m pretty sure the guy whose house I pass every day does. I’m sure all of these people also have gripes that Trump promises to answer. Regardless of what those gripes are, whether they be nefarious (to many Muslims? People of color getting too far ahead, too quickly?) semi-nefarious (gay marriage, legalized abortion, etc) or perfectly legitimate (poor trade partnerships, for example), were those gripes really worth taking this chance? 

 Two final, semi-related points. First: Over the last year and a half, I was able to switch careers to a lower paying job in order to do something I love every day, and was still able to buy a home to house my daughter. I do not come from money, have not always made the wisest financial decisions, and no doubt have had to work my butt off to make all this happen. I could have, I suppose, complained that I lived in a country where I had to make several sacrifices in order to take on a more noble job that pays far less. I could have voted for change. But I would never do that; I am thankful for what I have and to put that at risk for a possibly easier path, but one fraught with peril, would have been an irresponsible choice for myself and my family…which leads me to my second point. 

 My 7th grade class is finishing up a unit on the American Revolution. The goal of the unit was to impart on the students this main point: Colonists got fed up with the actions of a global superpower that thought it was impervious to pretty much anything. It took 242 years, but it seems that we’ve forgotten the lessons we learned then. Any informed Trump voter must, to a certain extent, have thought that we as a nation are infallible. Either that, or they were so fed up with the state of things that they were willing to take the risk that, with this election, it could all start to come crashing down. 

 Stupidity. And Greed. 

 Even if I didn’t like Muslims or were fed up with illegal immigrants or feared how my position of power as a white man in the world was crumbling, I hope to God that I would have been responsible enough to make the choice that didn’t put the nice little life I have made for myself and my family at risk. Who knows. For right now though, I’ll do what I always do, and be thankful for what I have, or in this case, what I don’t have: I don’t yet have to explain all of this to my daughter.

[jcmacri]

The NBA Positivity Index

Ahhh, the start of a fresh NBA season. It’s that optimistic time when everyone’s record is 0-0 and fans across the country are teeming with the excitement that this is their year…to watch a third straight Finals between the same two juggernauts featuring the three best players in the league. Even for the NBA, where there are rarely more than a handful of teams with a realistic shot at a ring, this season’s resemblance to a presidential election is a bit of an oddity, but that’s what happens when one team’s conference is still relatively weak and the other team has four of the best twenty players in the sport. 

This is a uniquely NBA thing. In the NFL, more than half of all teams often have a legitimate right to believe that if things break right, this could be their year, and other than the Browns, even the worst teams can believe they’re a season away. Baseball is even more of a wide open race, and teams who feel they’re not in it are able to pivot and trade away major league talent for prospects that can put them back in the running.

  More than ever before, NBA fans have taken a page from baseball’s book, often conceding the current season, and sometimes the next two or three (trust the process!) in the hope that a realistic title-shot awaits them someday before the we all turn to dust. Judging how optimistic a fan-base should be if it has championship aspirations can be tricky, especially with a new CBA looming, but that’s exactly what we attempt to do here: if the ring is the thing, just how excited do fans from all thirty NBA cities have a right to be? 

In order to determine this, present status certainly matters, but a top 5 team this year with almost no chance of an actual title will finish lower than a top 10 or 15 team that, for whatever reason, is more likely to make the move that will put them over the top. Current rosters matter in every situation, but much more weight is given to those teams who already have either a) one of the half-dozen or so top flight talents in the league - those rare few who could be the best player on a championship team today - or b) one of the dozen to fifteen players who might be that and we just don’t know it yet or will likely get to such rarified air in the coming years. Cap flexibility, outgoing/incoming draft assets, the coach, the GM, ownership, and a track record of attracting superstars all matter here. Counting against teams are poor front-office leadership, unsightly long-term contracts, and most of all, residence in the NBA no-man’s land: the middle ground exemplified by teams like the Gilbert Arenas-era Wizards, the Pau Gasol-era Grizzlies, or more recently, the Josh Smith-era Hawks and the pre-tank Sixers. Tiebreakers go to teams that will at least be interesting/aesthetically pleasing to watch this season, and might actually win a playoff round or two. (Be forewarned: the odds are against you. Only 10 different teams have won it all in the past three decades. Vegas over/under win totals in parentheses.)

Without further ado…

Golden State (66.5)Cleveland (56.5) A pretty obvious 1a and 1b in some order. No fan base since the Red Sox a dozen years ago has relished a championship as much as Cavs fans just did, and they have every reason to believe their team will be right back with another shot in June. Likewise, no team, perhaps in any sport, has had a better offseason than the Warriors just had. In terms of positivity heading into this year, just like in the actual NBA, everyone else is playing for third.

 Minnesota (41.5) What could be better than being a Wolves fan right now? You head into this season knowing you have a) the best young player in the sport, b) an additional top-20 asset, c) someone running things who has a track record of success and has (apparently) learned vital lessons about long term sustainability since his days in Chicago, d) a treasure trove of young assets who may be able to work together as is, but are viewed favorably around the league as possible trade chips, and most importantly, e) no expectations! Wolves fans get to sit back and enjoy the show this year, and not have to worry about a looming playoff failure, because even making the dance would be a bonus. Not even Minnesota winters can knock the T-Wolves down a peg here. 

San Antonio (56.5) Ho hum. It’s telling that they are favored by Las Vegas to finish with the third best record in basketball, and people act like this season is already a lost cause because Pau Gasol was their best summer acquisition. Seriously, things could be worse. They have last season’s runner up for MVP and another top 10 player in his prime, both locked up through next year, not to mention the best coach in the sport, and probably in all of sports. This team made a legitimate run at 70 wins last year, and it’s always possible that they will have a prospective game 7 in their building this season. Worst case scenario: the Aldridge rumors are true, they trade him for a haul of assets from one of the dozen teams that would kill to have him, and then rebuild around Leonard. The lesson, as always: never count out the Spurs. 

Boston (51.5) While this offseason didn’t go exactly as planned, the Celtics are still in one of the more enviable positions in the league. While the notion that they could dethrone Cleveland in the East this season is a stretch, they are a piece away from being a legitimate contender, and they still have as rich a war chest of assets as any team in the league. Whatever picks and players don’t go out in that inevitable trade will fit perfectly into Danny Ainge’s timeline; this Celtics wave should crest just as Cleveland’s begins to fall. Throw in the best young coach in the league (actually, one of the best, period) and the only thing keeping this team from having total unbridled optimism is that the last piece to this puzzle will be the toughest one to come by: an All-NBA type talent who can put them over the top. On that end, it’s worth noting that their Durant meeting, by all indications, went exceedingly well this summer, and even if KD does decide to stay in the Bay Area long term, their near miss will play well in future meetings down the line. Los Angeles Clippers (53.5) On one hand, they’ve emerged as the favorites to play the role of David in this year’s WCF’s. And who better for the part? LA always plays GS tough, and that matchup definitely has some “nobody believes in us!” potential working in the Clips’ favor, which might be enough to propel Chris Paul to have the series of his life. But realistically, barring a major Warriors injury, it will not end well for the Clippers. At that point, LA will be left with nothing but uncertainty and questions for the immediate future, starting with whether or not they can/should resign their 32 year old PG to a max deal, and whether their other superstar wants to stay, or perhaps leave for greener pastures. 

Houston (41.5) Given the expectations, no team last season had a rougher year than the Rockets…but doesn’t this just have the feel of an unanticipated return to coaching glory for Mike D'Antoni? On one hand, we have a coach who once revolutionized the sport but has since had his basic basketball competence questioned on multiple occasions. On the other, a legitimate superstar whose reputation and game were repeatedly dragged through the mud over the last twelve months. If the preseason is any indication, this might very well be a match made in heaven, and while the Rockets’ offseason moves don’t evoke a single notion of long-term, championship-level planning, their cap situation is just flexible enough moving forward for Daryl to make one more big move. The only question is whether this core willever be able to play Championship level D, even with one more big name. Most importantly though, this season will not be last season, which, in the eyes of Houston fans, is all that really matters. 

  Oklahoma City (45.5) Feeling has started to return to their nether regions after the double nut punch that was last season’s playoffs and this summer’s catastrophe. They not only get to look forward to what will undoubtedly be one of the greatest individual seasons ever from Big Russ, but are a year away from the summer of Blake and a chance to quickly resume their place among the league’s legit contending teams. For a team that just lost one of the top three players in basketball, things could certainly be worse. 

Utah Jazz (49) They’ve done everything right, they’re still young, they’ve taken all the necessary steps to slowly climb the Western Conference ladder, and now here they are, favored to host a first round playoff series. They even have a sliver of possible unexpected upside this season if Dante Exum shows anything resembling what they saw in him before drafting him fourth overall 2 years ago. On the downside, apart from the looming uncertainty about Hayward’s upcoming free agency, he’s also out to begin the year. Also, unlike the teams above them here, there doesn’t seem to be championship upside in this team’s future, although crazier things have certainly happened. Either way, Utah fans would relish a second round bout with the defending conference champs, which would certainly render this season a successful one, regardless of the result. 

Denver (34.5) The poor man’s Wolves. All the young assets in the world, an organization that knows what it’s doing, a solid head coach and a fun style of play combine to have Nuggets fans feeling even higher than normal. Yet, there is no foundational superstar here, and even if one becomes available on the trade market, the lack of Denver’s broader appear makes it doubtful that such a big name player would OK such a move, let alone consider resigning. They’re this far up though because their young players are still raw enough that they could trade their vets for future assets this season, bottom out once more, and hope to luck into one more top draft pick, all of which could make the next decade very interesting for the Nuggets.

Portland (45.5) To say that Neil Olshay put all his chips in the middle of the table this summer would be an understatement, as is saying that they’re capped-out for the foreseeable future. Here’s the thing though: Olshey’s bet isn’t on the idea that this particular assembly of players will bring home a championship any time soon…he’s smarter than that. No, his confidence lies in the fact that, in a league where everyone needs good wings and versatile athletes, his collection of young players will outperform their contracts and become the trade bait he needs to land the final addition to the Lillard/McCollum/Turner core. Even putting aside the questions about Turner, who Terry Stotts will certainly figure out how to get the most out of, that’s a risky proposition. Still, this is as good a GM/coach combo as exists in the league, they have a clear plan, and a young superstar already in place. That’s enough to justify the positive vibes heading into this year. 

Toronto (49.5) It feels wrong to put an Eastern Conference finalist that is returning almost all of its core this low, especially when they’re run by one of the brightest minds in basketball. But even the great Masai Ujiri would probably admit that the current group of Raptors likely reached their peak last season. They will be good again, maybe even better than last year, but even a conference finals appearance will be tough to duplicate, and Kyle Lowry will become a free agent this offseason. Their young talent is solid but unspectacular, and although they have the Clippers pick coming this year, it’s likely to be even lower than their own. 

Philadelphia (27.5) You could make an argument that they should be in the top 5 on this list. One year from now, it is entirely possible that they will have five top 4 picks from the 2014-17 Drafts on their roster, including at least one # 1, plus a promising prospect in Nerlens Noel. You could also argue that, as the worst team in the league for three years and counting, and with Jahlil Okafor being the only one of those picks to have played a minute of NBA basketball so far, they should be in the bottom five. Either way, they will be very bad once again. But what they do with those picks and the roster between now and opening night of 2017 will be as big an influence on the next decade in the NBA as the actions of perhaps any other team in the league.

Los Angeles (24.5) How can a team whose next dynasty always seems to be around the corner be slotted so low? Simple: these are not your father’s Lakers. More to the point, they are not Jim Buss’s father’s Lakers. This is the summer the bloom seems to have finally come off the rose, after, in no particular order: they couldn’t get a meeting with the premier free agent for the first time in their history, they won’t have a meeting with what should have been next summer’s premier free agent (who has always been linked to them) because he signed an extension, and they were guilty of perhaps the most egregious overpay of free agency because, it seems, they lacked confidence that they’d be able to land anybody better. Yes, they have a coach, and the young talent could very well blossom as soon as this year, but the idea that they are a major summer splash away from righting the ship is becoming a pipe dream, with a messy cap situation to boot. The traditional route of tanking is also fraught with peril, as their draft pick obligation to Philly still looms (which, if conveyed this year, means they also owe their 2019 first rounder to Orlando). On top of all that, the basketball this year will be largely terrible. So why are they even this high? There is still a chance both Ingram and Russell could be special, and if they are and they can keep one more draft pick, a legitimate foundation for success could exist.

Dallas (39.5) Mark, Rick, and Dirk. With those three, Mavs fans will never be too upset heading into a season. Sure, the last few summers haven’t gone as planned, but thanks to their leadership, there’s the feeling that this team is always an offseason away from becoming dangerous again. In the meantime, they get to enjoy the swan song of a player so good that even with diminishing abilities, he makes tuning in worth it on most nights, regardless of the fact that this season has no chance of delivering a second championship to Big-D. 

Detroit (45.5) The Reggie Jackson thing stinks, but it’s not enough to completely derail the high hopes that Pistons fans (justifiably) have heading into this year. Stan the Man is clearly building something here, and although this year isn’t THE year, fans can enjoy this season knowing that next year or the year after might result in a deep playoff run. It’s not too much of a stretch to envision a universe where Andre Drummond and Stanley Johnson each make “the leap” at the exact point when LeBron is finally letting down. With no other obvious up-and-comers in the East outside of Boston, that’s enough to bump Detroit into the top half of teams here. 

New York (38.5) Had they done nothing this summer and waited until the middle of another lottery-bound season for Carmelo Anthony to finally become frustrated enough to demand a trade, they would be much higher on this list. That would have signaled a commitment to build this team organically through the draft around a player who has All-NBA level potential, and then add the proper pieces in free agency down the line. Instead, Phil got trigger-happy, and here we are. But KP has as high a ceiling as any young big outside of New Orleans and Minnesota, and he will wear the orange and blue for the better part of the next decade, which is enough to keep Knicks fans like myself feeling hopeful despite the misguided approach the team is currently taking. Still, as long as the team is owned by James Dolan, they will never appear too much higher on this list. 

Milwaukee (34.5) If it weren’t for Khris Middleton likely being out for the year, they’d be in the top 10, if for no other reason than point Giannis now officially being a real, nightly thing. But despite having one of the few under-23 players in the league who’s future ceiling might be as an MVP candidate, the optimism here has to be tempered. They took two huge swings over the last 18 months: trading for Michael Carter-Williams and signing Greg Monroe. By any objective measure, both have been gigantic misses. This summer’s free agency was uninspired, to put it lightly, and Parker is still a bit too much of an unknown to cement his name as a foundational player. In short, the fact that we have to question whether or not this team would be better bottoming out is disconcerting enough to put them down here. 

New Orleans (36.5) When you have one of the five best pure assets in basketball, you can only be so far down the list…but what does it say that the teams with the other four guys are all at the top, and the Pellies are sitting down here amongst other franchises with poor presents and uncertain futures. There is no indication that New Orleans is building something around AD that is legitimate or sustainable (consider for a moment that Solomon Hill - a guy that literally anyone in basketball could have had for free six months ago - was their big off-season signing at 4 for 50). If anything, it feels like Davis trade rumors could start as early as next season, which would be disastrous for the franchise, regardless of the haul it got in return. 

Chicago (38.5) As early as last preseason, there was still some “if everything breaks right” Kool-Aid available for Bulls fans who wanted to believe that their team could challenge Cleveland in the East. That ship has sailed. What’s left are question marks about whether the organization actually has a plan moving forward (has there ever been a more “let’s throw a bunch of it against the wall and see what sticks” off-season?) and what to make of a mismatched roster that doesn’t mesh with the current coach’s preferred style of play. But they haven’t muddied up their books with any long term ugliness, and there are some interesting young pieces here. Most importantly, they still have a top-10 asset in Jimmy Butler, who can either be part of the next championship core or traded if (when) it’s decided a reboot is necessary. Finally, with Rondo and Wade in tow, this team should be interesting to watch this year, if nothing else. Speaking of D.Wade…

Miami (36.5) Even after LeBron left, the long term outlook remained sunny in South Beach, largely due to the belief that the next stroke of Pat Riley’s magic wand was around the corner. This viewpoint, of course, completely depended on his ability to have players buy into what he’s selling, which begins of course with trust. That act got a whole lot tougher to pull off after Dwayne Wade’s departure, and will be nearly impossible after the still developing Chris Bosh debacle. Future superstars will be hard pressed to forget how both the face of the franchise and one of the all-around good dudes in the league were each treated this summer. And what kind of basketball situation will any potential offseason targets be looking at? Not a very good one, if the over/under is to be believed. At this point, Miami is at least somewhat likely to convey the first of its two owed first round picks in the summer of 2018, which is also the summer when they will begin paying Tyler Johnson almost $40 million over two years as a result of their matching the Nets poison pill offer sheet. Simply put, for the first time since he arrived, it’s unclear what exactly Pat Riley’s plan is at the moment, which is a scary thought for a team that just banked whatever future it has on Hassan Whiteside.

Indiana Pacers (43.5) Legitimate question: why hasn’t Larry Bird acquired any of that “crazy old man” stink that is emanating from Phil Jackson these days? Basketball Jesus let a good coach walk because he didn’t think Frank Vogel could execute his preferred faster style of play, and then hired a replacement who’s not known for being particularly innovative or fast. The roster is intriguing, but potentially ill-fitting, and there is no clear path here to legit contender status in the foreseeable future unless Myles Turner takes a far bigger leap than anyone anticipates. At this point, Paul George has to be considered more likely to be the next superstar traded than part of Indiana’s next championship level core, which has to be disconcerting, and puts a damper on what in it’s own right should be a fun year in the Hoosier State. 

Atlanta (43.5) For a fan base never accused of being overly excited, this season has to have a particularly odd feel. On one hand, you can still (barely) talk yourself into getting excited about Dwight, and the coaching staff is as good as any, but this team already took their best shot two years ago. There’s no up and comer on the roster, just a system that works and this rejiggered core that’s more “meh” than anything else, baring their thirty year old center finding the fountain of youth. 

Phoenix (30) They went for it in trying to sign LaMarcus Aldridge two summers ago, and are still feeling the brunt of that failure. The best thing about this team is that they have a legit shot to land the fist pick in June. Devin Booker is also young and exciting, but their two point guards are what they are at this point, and what they are is not All Stars. There is some other young and intriguing talent here, and if they luck into that top draft pick and sign or trade for a big name this summer, things could turn around in a hurry. But there’s a bit too many “if’s” and bit too much bad basketball to still be played this year for them to be any higher on this list.

Washington (42.5) Any team that just gave Bradley Beal $125 million has no right to be this high, especially when they just missed the playoffs. But there are reasons to be positive in the Capital. Scott Brooks appears to be an upgrade over Randy Wittman, and the team can’t possibly be as snake bitten with injuries for a second consecutive year. Most of all though, there is the remote possibility that we still haven’t seen John Wall’s best, and although no point guard in the league could elevate this roster to contender status and they are as likely as any team to spend the next several years in the dreaded NBA middle ground, if Wall does make even a mini-leap and some things break right, the next few seasons could be interesting. 

Memphis Grizzlies (43.5) A gleaming example of how teams are judged differently in the NBA based on location. They were lauded this summer for resigning a now 29 year old point guard who has never made an all star team to the largest contract in NBA history. They were also praised for giving nearly $100 million to another injury prone non-All Star (albeit one who fits their needs perfectly) who still isn’t back on the court. If everything breaks right, they will be medium-tier playoff team this year, and things will only get worse from there, which is problematic for a team that owes not one but two first round draft picks starting in 2017. But Gasol is back, which means they will be fun and competitive in a city that loves their Grizzlies, but few teams in the NBA have a bleaker long term outlook after the current cycle has run. 

Charlotte Hornets (39.5) Similar to Atlanta above. Good coach, solid principles, no untapped young talent, medium-high floor, low long-term ceiling. Last season had a “finally, we’ve arrived!” feel to it, and all of got them was a game 7 loss in round 1. The fan base is well aware at this point that no big time free agents are walking through the door, although Batum staying at a slight discount has to be reassuring. Still, this organization'a highest point on this list was the moment before the Anthony Davis ping pong balls didn’t bounce their way, and it likely won’t get much higher than this until they’re in that position once again. 

Sacramento (32.5) The best thing their fans can root for during the upcoming year is for the team to lose enough to keep their top 10 protected draft pick, which says about all one needs to know about the state of the Kings. Even that rooting interest, though, is in itself a reminder of the franchise’s ineptitude, as they gave Philadelphia swap rights to the pick (along with an unprotected 2019 first rounder) in one of the worst trades of the last decade. True, they have a coach, but the last time they had a long term solution at that position (sorry George), they fired him after a little over 100 games. They also have a superstar, but one who walks around with a ticking clock above his head for telling when, not if, he’ll be trashed. If they don’t end up trading Cousins, he’ll likely leave and the franchise will be left with as bare a cupboard as any team in the league. But hey, at least the team didn’t leave town!

Brooklyn (20.5) Not only do they have the lowest over/under win total for the upcoming season, but as a result of a trade that has finally become universally recognized for what it actually was - one of, if not the biggest heists in NBA history - their level of basketball over the next few years will not net them a single meaningful draft asset. So why aren’t they at the bottom of this list? Because the modus operandi that lead the franchise to make that move and others like it (don’t worry Gerald Wallace, we remember the good times as well) seems to have finally come to an end. With Sean Marks and Kenny Atkinson the the GM and HC, respectively, at the very least, the Nets are now viewed as an organization with a plan of smart acquisitions and player development, as shown by moves this summer that were widely praised. Yes, the basketball will be bad at times, but with a handful of few decent young players already there, fans can at least feel like they’re watching the beginning of something legitimate and sustainable. 

Orlando (36.5) The worst place to be in the NBA is no-man’s land, where you’re barely good enough to sniff the outer edges of the playoffs but too good to hit it big in the lottery, which is exactly where the Magic find themselves. It feels odd to bottom them out here, after so many top-half of the lottery draft picks, but save for Aaron Gordon and a player who we’ll get to in a moment, none of Orlando’s picks have yielded definitively above average NBA talent. But that’s not why they find themselves here. No, this summer made it clear that this is a team without a plan. Trading a promising if inconsistent young wing plus a lottery pick for the expiring (and, if you’re into advanced stats, declining) Serge Ibaka will leave them with either nothing in return for the former #2 pick in the draft or a disastrous contract one year from now. Neither of these options is appealing for a middling team with a lot of 4th or 5th starters but no apparent 1’s or 2’s. They might have edged out the Nets, but the indignity their fans will have to suffer this year from watching Jeff Green play basketball and knowing they are paying him $15 million for his services ensured that they would land here.

[jcmacri]

Thank You Mr. Trump

Before embarking on a Holocaust unit with my sixth graders this year, I thought about what my answers would be to several difficult questions that I anticipated getting asked…

Why did the Nazis hate the Jews? People hate those that are different than them, often for lack of understanding.

How could they kill so many people? They were following the orders of someone who had a very, very dark heart, and who genuinely believed that what he was doing was right.

Why didn’t the Jews fight back? The Nazis stripped them of any ability they would have had to do so through laws, and by the time they realized what was happening, it was too late.

Sure enough, I got all of these questions, and while my answers didn’t always make things 100% clear, they certainly un-muddied the waters in my students’ minds, even if just a bit.

For all of my preparation though, there was one question I received that I not only hadn’t anticipated, but that I struggled momentarily to come up with an answer for. The question was asked multiple times, by multiple students, in both sections I taught. One version of the exchange went something like this:

Student: But...what I don’t get is, like, why did all the German people let this happen?

Me: Well, we have to remember that Hitler wasn’t elected President, like we do here… he was appointed by the German government at first.

Well, yea, but the Germans still heard all his speeches and, like, all the awful stuff he was saying…but nobody did anything…what was wrong with them?

Well, I’m not sure there was anything wrong with them…but you have to understand that the German people were very angry because of how they were treated as a country since WWI, and Hitler was the one telling them that they had a right to be angry, they didn’t deserve to be treated this way, he would fix things, and best of all, he gave them someone to blame…the Jews.

I get all that, I mean…yea, it makes sense and all…but once he started saying these awful things about Jews, and then started treating them like he did and sending them to the camps…like, I would have been so mad…why didn’t anyone revolt or shoot him or something.

That’s a great question…well, there were people that didn’t believe in Hitler, but they were outnumbered, and many of them fled Germany…and as for the rest of the country, well…

…and that’s where I would run out of answers. I think I replied with some version of “being made to feel like the world is against you can make you do and believe some crazy things, and the German people had been held down for so long that they just wanted to hear someone promise them something – anything - again.”

I said it, but I didn’t really believe it. The truth was that I couldn’t bring my mind around to the fact that an entire country of people could drift that far afoul of what any rational person would normally allow themselves to endorse. But then again, these weren’t individual actors making rational decisions; this was a country unified in pent up frustration and anger and, perhaps without realizing it, hatred. That, above all, was Hitler’s greatest gift: he knew exactly what to say to tap into the veins running jointly through the bodies of a nation. He couldn’t convince everyone, but he knew what buttons to push, when to push them, and how incrementally hard he had to press down on each one in order to get the support he needed to avoid exactly the uprising my students wondered about but never came. Still, something about it all was unreal – the product of a world I couldn’t imagine.

Until last night.

The chanting, really, was what got me. While plenty of candidates for the highest office have evoked large crowds to shout their name, as well as the abbreviated name of our nation, I’m not sure I can ever remember a basketball arena full of people bellowing in unison phrases like “Lock her up” and “Build the wall.”  But the chants were exactly what you would expect in response to the man that was stirring the pot. One didn’t even need to hear the words coming out of his mouth; you could mute your television, and just watch the facial expressions of this candidate. He had the look of a defiant imperator about to embark on a quest to regain the lands that had been stolen from the kingdom. He, and only he, would be the one to reclaim what had been lost. The finish line here would be a great conquest – one long overdue. But there cannot exist a conquest without someone to be conquered.

There have been few themes that have been uniformly evoked in the presidential candidacies of the modern era, regardless of political party, but “unity” has undoubtedly been one of them. Every politician who has run for a major office has spoken of bringing people of different viewpoints together, and getting politicians from either side of the aisle to work as one for the betterment of the whole. Not so last night. No, there was no mistaking the underlying tone of both this speech and this campaign: we will make this country great again, and we will do so by force if necessary.

In the wake of the recent shootings, the Trump campaign has brought law and order to the forefront of their message. In reality, it has always been a major theme of Mr. Trump that the country’s problems can be solved by getting rid of the people that cause the problems (and in the case of foreign policy, if we can’t get rid of them, we just won’t play in their sandbox anymore). Nominally, the people who he has said we need to rid ourselves of have been immigrants, and the way to get rid of them will be to…well, we don’t quite know that yet, but there’s no mistaking the plan for keeping them out once they’re gone.

But when Trump spoke of law and order last night, a listener without any background knowledge would have thought he was speaking of a society bordering on dystopia. The crime and lawlessness in the America that Mr. Trump painted a picture of during his speech would require much more than an elimination of illegal immigrants to fix. This was not a veiled idea; every viewer could clearly read between lines: we will get rid of the crime by getting rid of the criminals, anyone who would be so inclined to commit a crime, and maybe even anyone who looks like they might someday contemplate committing a crime. He paid lip service (a line, to be exact, and only referencing children and “youth”) to the poverty faced by large numbers of African-Americans in this country, which made it convenient for his base – lightly educated, blue collar, white males – to tell themselves that their support of this individual is not driven by hatred and bigotry, but rather by their desire for the betterment of the country as a whole.

This, however, is also a base who would believe that Barrack Obama was secretly funding ISIS if Mr. Trump came out and said it. They are the ones who eat up every word about the need to restore law and order to a nation that has, by all measure of reliable data, largely reduced crime to levels not seen in some time (and to the extent that crime still does exist, it exists mostly within the inner-cities – not quite an area of concern for this voting block). His rhetoric about reducing crime gives them an excuse to feel the way they feel: “The (insert minority group here) are ruining this country. They’re lazy, they’re criminals, and they’re taking over. Thank God someone’s finally willing to put a stop to it.” But who can blame them; it’s tough being a white man in an America that has actually branched out over recent decades and made inroads – all be it minor and wholly insufficient ones – into leveling the general playing field. These are the people so far steeped in white privilege as to completely fail to see the fruits of its existence. In other words, post-WWI Germany, we are not.

But that hasn’t stopped this candidate from tapping into the same vein that was tapped into across the ocean some eighty-five years ago. It was more overt then, and more pointed at a singular group of people, but that is, sadly, the genius of Donald Trump. He recognized not only the simmering discontent that exists within the population of Americans that have become his most ardent supporters, but he has consistently satisfied it by merely fanning the flames that others have lit the match to ignite. He has never needed to spell out that in the perfect world envisioned by his base, we will add to the disproportionately large population of people of color in the prison system. It’s neater that way; besides, this might verge onto the touchy subject of the disproportionate amount of black and brown skinned people who are poor, which would then get us into a discussion of how that breakdown is merely a byproduct of the white power structure that has kept people like Mr. Trump on top even after several failed business ventures of mammoth proportions (none greater than the current endeavor, of course). He’d rather talk about his wall and how he, the most divisive and defiant political candidate in modern American history, will be the one to end violence in this country.

So, after last night, when one of my students asks me next year how an entire country could have possibly allowed themselves to fall for the whims and trappings of a madman, I will merely tell them to turn on the news. I will be sure to add that we have no idea whether or not Mr. Trump is a madman or someone who is merely saying what he knows he needs to in order to give himself the best chance at winning. I’ll also had that Mr. Trump’s supporters are not all bad people, and that they may genuinely believe that his path is the one most likely to succeed for the greatest amount of people. But as a case study in how a group that is bordering on the majority of a nation can be brought to support a leader bringing out the very worst in humanity, they will find no stronger example than the here and now.

But Mr. Macri, you said that post-WW1 Germany was suffering for years – that their country was in shambles because of what the rest of the world had done to them. Our country isn’t anything like that. Why are people so angry?

And just like that, I will be out of answers once again.

[jcmacri]

A Rose Blooms in Gotham: The Knicksiest of Moves

Let's start with this: if Kevin Durant now signs with the New York Knicks, everything you read below will be meaningless. Just as all of Cleveland's questionable trades and signings now get A+'s because winning cures all (hat tip to Brian Windhorst for that one), if the second best player on the planet decides for some reason to leave the 2016 version of 2010 Derrick Rose for the actual 2016 Derrick Rose, then this trade is brilliant. 

But the odds of that are so small as to hardly be worth discussing. If he is leaving (a HUGE if), he is leaving to win, and he knows as much about Derrick Rose's knee as anyone else, which is to say that he has no earthly clue how it will hold up. The best situation is still Golden State, and there are arguably other better rosters built for the long term without the question marks that come with Rose and an aging Anthony. Yes, Porzingas is, in fact, the second coming, but he is only one man (ok, he's more like 1.65 men. And a spirit animal). Boston is loaded with second tier talent and a brilliant young coach – they just need a superstar to compete at contender status. San Antonio is still intriguing. Washington will be in play. And we're not even counting a dark horse (Portland? the Lakers? Toronto? Orlando?) who has yet to emerge. So to judge this move because it increases the possibility of signing Durant from 6% to 15% is simply not rational. 

So let's look at the trade, and more specifically, what it takes off the table. Primarily, it virtually eliminates the idea of building organically with young players and not-yet-in-their-prime free agents. Is this a big deal? Look at the evidence. 2008 Boston and 2012-13 Miami are the outliers, not the rule. Most teams build it slowly from the ground up, and it's been the predominant model for sustained brilliance. Look no further than San Antonio for proof. No one thought much of Tony Parker when he was drafted, but the Spurs failing to grab a slightly post-prime Jason Kidd at Parker's expense was the best thing that ever happened to them (other than drafting Tim Duncan). 

Is Jerian Grant the next Tony Parker? Who the hell knows. And why does no one know? Because point guards take time to develop! The list of PG's who were somewhere between anonymous and horrendous in their rookie year that then went on to have good to great careers is long. Mike Conley, Chauncey Billups, Steve Nash, Derek Fisher, Goran Dragic...the list goes on. Hot take alert: being an NBA floor general is harder than being a lead guard in college, especially when a team tries to shoehorn you into a brand of offense that is completely ill-suited to your game, as the Knicks did with Grant. And did I mention that he costs pennies in modern-NBA terms, and is under team control for most of the next decade? Either the Knicks know something we don't, or they have the patience of a petulant child who wants what he wants and wants it NOW. 

But building organically is hard. You need get lucky enough to grab a young, generational superstar to really give it a chance at working...a player who almost completely redefines not only how opponents guard you but attack you on defense. 

Wait a minute...what's that? We have that guy?? Really??? Oh, that's right...the 7'3" blonde unicorn! 

Now it's true that said unicorn does play center, theoretically making RoLo, the other main component of the Knicks end of the deal, expendable. But no one thinks KP is ready to take on that role full time yet, and Lopez is solid and serviceable if unspectacular. More importantly, he's a guy who doesn't mind doing the dirty work, doesn't care about his stats, and is under a team friendly deal for the next three years. This is not a player you dump; this is an asset that would have garnered something good whenever it made the most sense to deal him (which wasn't now). 

Getting rid of Calderon is a wash. No, he's not a starting guard and is overpaid by a couple million dollars, but he's a damn good backup who won't hurt you as much defensively if he's playing against other backups, he’s a terrific shooter, and a good team guy. And if you didn't believe any of that, you could have cut him and stretched him out to make the cap hit almost negligible. 

But of course, this trade isn't about Jerian Grant or Robin Lopez or Jose Calderon (or, for that matter, Justin Holliday or whoever the Knicks get with their shiny new second round draft pick)...it's about the 2011 NBA MVP. 

And that's how the supporters of this trade will bill it...we're getting a 27-year-old former league alpha dog who finally showed signs last season of playing like his old self.

So let's play that game. Rose comes out next year and lights the league on fire. He meshes with Melo, feeds KP alley-oops at a Kempian rate, and D's up all those guards who the Knicks can never seem to stop. The Knicks make a deep playoff run. Wonderful. Bravo. Gummi Bears for everyone. 

But that's as far as next year goes. Even if Phil was high on the really good stuff, he wouldn't be so foolish as to think the Knicks can win a ring next year, not with LeBron coming back to the Cavs (he's already said he will) and the West still the West. 

So then what? I'll give you a hint: it rhymes with vine-figure contract. Rose will be 28, the cap will have just jumped to over $100 million, and he will absolutely have the Knicks by the balls. They will give him whatever he asks for because they will have no choice but to do exactly that. 

And then, at that moment, you've locked yourself into Derrick Rose as the permanent partner for Kristaps Porzingas. Along with him, you've locked in all the injury risk that comes with a guy who has missed more games than he's played over the past three years. 

Is this exciting to you? Or would it be just a tad worrisome that the primo version of Rose came out in what just happened to be a contract year. 

Why settle for that? Why not take the chance that Grant develops? Or that Westbrook wants a brighter spotlight? Or that you find your point guard of the future in next year's draft? Or that over the next couple seasons, you'll nab another player from the league's most loaded position via a trade - one that doesn't come with significant injury risk?

Sure, some of those options aren't necessarily closed off...but if they are still available, that means Rose either has a great year and then leaves for nothing, or he plays what would have to be considered the most likely outcome of a season: an inconsistent one, with flashes of brilliance, but also constant reminders that 2010-11 Derrick Rose will never be seen again. 

In that (highly likely) future world, the Knicks not only gave away their assets for a fun year of experimentation, but far more importantly, you've obliterated your young core outside of KP, and set the wheels in motion for more quick-fix, high risk/high reward solutions, when the alternative - surround your foundational big man with pieces that can grow on his timeline- would not only have been safer, but more likely to succeed as well. 

Again, miracles happen, and a small part of the lifelong Knicks fan in me thinks that all of the above is rubbish and that when you have a chance to catch lighting in a bottle in an NBA where bargains are harder and harder to find, you do it, and you don't look back. Regardless, the plain truth is that this is not a move teams like the Spurs, Warriors, Celtics, Raptors, Blazers, or other well run organizations would even think of making. But this isn't any organization - it's the Knicks, who've been trying to catch lightning in a bottle for most of the last 40 years. Only once during that time - when they let a superstar center grow along with a core that complimented him and grew right along with him - did they have real, sustained success, coming as close to a championship as you can without winning it. 

What can you say...other than what Knicks fans have been saying to themselves for decades: "maybe this time will be different."

[jcmacri]

My Complicated Relationship with the King

The first time I met LeBron James, it was exactly one week after his 19th birthday (spoiler alert: I don't actually know LeBron James. Although as you'll soon find out, it's not quite that simple).

I had just made the nearly eight-hour drive from Staten Island to Cleveland. It usually took a bit under seven hours, but an accident on Route 80 detoured me through the streets of Godknowswhere, Ohio (an actual place...look it up) where I preceded to go in the wrong direction for fifteen minutes until I finally realized that Ohio wasn't screwing with me by seeing how long I could make my own way without the assistance of a detour sign, and that I had, in fact, made a wrong turn.

Although who could blame me. My mind was totally clusterfucked. On one hand, I was in a state of complete uncertainty. My college girlfriend (I would love to make the "original Whore of Akron" joke here, but she was actually quite nice a nice girl who had the misfortune of meeting me. Plus, I have a daughter on the way. Women aren't whores; men are manipulative assholes) and I broke up right as Christmas break started. We were juniors at Fordham together. LeBron would have been a freshman, even though only a year and a half separated us in age, which never completely made sense to me. Both he and my ex were in Cleveland at the time - he for a home game, her for Christmas break. Speaking of breaks, this was our second (cue David Schwimmer), the one that would later cause me to seek counseling with Fordham's mental health services. I couldn't understand why I would be head over heels for women, date them, completely lose interest, break up with them, and then want them back. In other words, I was having trouble getting used to the fact that I was a heterosexual male human.

I was trying to reconcile all of this in my own head while also plotting how I was going to get her back as I made the long drive through the nothingness of Pennsylvania. I felt like I was off to a good start though, as I had gotten her to agree to attend that night's Cavs game with me, which brings us to the other reason for my trip: the Knicks were the road team visiting the Gund Arena (this was pre-Dan Gilbert and his loans) and that night would be the New York debut of the recently acquired Stephon Marbury from the Phoenix Suns.

I don't know exactly where the phrase "die-hard fan" came from - I assume it has something to do with Bruce Willis - but I considered myself as die-hard a New York Knickabocker fan as existed on the planet. The first form of sports that I ever watched were Knicks games with my dad during their run to the 1994 Finals. I cried tears of agony after John Starks went 2-18, then sat in stunned silence a year later when Reggie Miller scored eight points in eighteen seconds three days before my twelfth birthday. There was something about those mid-90's Knicks teams that created lifelong fans of anyone who was between the ages of 8 and 11 when they first started watching them. The team had a lot of defining characters and characteristics - Ewing's oh-so-close-to-greatness, Starks improbable rise, Oakley's just-try-me aura (not to mention his third row timeout dives) - but more than anything, there was a sustained toughness that screamed New York, even to a ten year old. And of course, there was the perpetual, always creative, you-can't-write-this-shit agony. In other words, for a few years at least, I knew what it was like to be a lifelong Cleveland sports fan.

So it was merely a happy coincidence that on the night I was hoping to see a hometown savior begin his quest to lead our team back to prominence, another hometown savior was just beginning to get his feet wet in the NBA. I don't remember much about how LeBron played that night; mostly I just remember feeling frustrated that the Knicks were losing to what was at that time one of the worst teams in the NBA. Seriously: if you ask the casual basketball fan to look at the Cavs roster that night and pick the first name they recognize, their first answer would likely be Kevin Ollie, and only because of his post-playing career coaching UConn to an NCAA championship. Sure, Carlos Boozer looked like a player, and Z was still a force when healthy (who could forget LeBron humbly telling all that would listen upon starting his rookie year that it was Z's team and he was just one of the gang. We should have suspected then to take the King's words with a few grains of salt). The rest of the roster? A who's who of wasted talent. Dejuan Wagner. Darius Miles. DeSegana Diop. And of course, the immortal Kendrick Brown (who led the team with a +19 differential that night against the Knicks. How that guy never panned out will always be a head-scratcher). In other words, these were the last guy you'd want to put around a precocious wunderkind, one who had the hopes and dreams of an entire city thrust upon him the moment that Jerry West winced in agony at having just missed out on what he knew was going to be this generation's generational talent.

The Cavs won that night, rather easily. It was not a display of what anyone would confuse with competently played basketball, but even a casual observer could tell that there was one guy who stood out. LeBron ended the night with an unspectacular double double on his way to winning the NBA's Rookie of the Year award in a landslide. And the Cavs, to their credit, traded away all of those knuckleheads in fairly short order, but in doing so, left the team bereft of any real talent. Although it sure was hard to tell at times. Just three and a half years after that January night I first encountered the King, LeBron dragging a motley crew of players who wouldn't have started for many NBA teams (Sasha Pavlovic and Larry Hughes were the lead guards) all the way to the Finals.

Meanwhile, I got back together with my girlfriend, then broke up again a few months later. Then went back. Then broke up. Then we spent a year in limbo, off-again/on-again, playing "who can top this" as we proceeded to take turns ripping each other's insides out (not literally. Well, actually...on second thought, never mind).

It was under these auspices that the seeds of my relationship with the city of Cleveland were planted. To say that I rooted against the Cavs in those years that followed would be accurate, although oddly enough, those hard feelings didn't carry over to LeBron. I was a basketball fan first and foremost, and I appreciated every moment of the complete and utter brilliance that would transpire on the court when he played. I still remember watching him score nine thousand straight points on the Pistons (Quick fact check on that one. It was either nine thousand or 25. Hold on...yup, nine thousand) during the aforementioned Finals run. It was, and might still be, the single most amazing thing I had ever seen on a basketball court. And yet, not once did that team have a roster which was anywhere close to being good enough to actually win a ring. But LeBron, at the ripe old age of 23, then 24 and 25, was asked to do what truly great players do: make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. But it's one thing to make chicken salad out of chicken shit, it's another to try and turn it into a seven course meal.

But yet, that's exactly what every sports fan wanted him to continue trying to do - beating his balding head against the same brick wall as the roster around him dragged him down. Even worse, and more egregiously, they started to blame him. The Finals run of 2008 was the worst thing he ever could have done.

Yet, he aptly complied...until he flipped the script one hot summer night.

I still remember July 8, 2010 vividly in my mind, which is to say I don't remember it at all after about 10 pm. Twitter was around already, but it hadn't yet taken off as a thing that everyone had (or at least not in the rudimentary circles I ran in) so I spent much of the day scouring hoops websites in the corners of the Internet for tidbits about where the King was heading. I vaguely remember one report- it may have been the day of the most ill-fated prime time special in history (no fact check needed here) or it may have been a few days before - from one semi-reputable source which stated that LeBron was going to choose the Knicks. For me, that tidbit was merely validation of what I already knew to be true. For almost two full years, I had built up the belief in my mind that the greatest basketball player on the planet was going to come to the greatest city in the world, not due to any report I had read but because, well, why wouldn't he? This was New York. And everyplace else on the NBA map might as well have been Minnesota in my eyes. He was going to come here because he had to come here, for him and for us. Greatness is chosen for so few, so why waste it on anything other than the grandest stage in sports.

But then the reports started to trickle in. Unfathomably, it was going to be Miami.

Miami? I had been to one sporting event in southeastern Florida in my lifetime- a Marlins game in the late 90's that looked like it had limited the attendance to friends and family only. These weren't fans. Fans lived and died by their team; they didn't show up in the second quarter and, to their surprise, a basketball game was being played.

I felt the same things that every other basketball fan under the age of ten did. We watched all the Dream Team guys spend the 90's trying to beat each other's heads in year after year. I wasn't around to watch in the 80's, but from what I understand, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson never vetted the possibility of joining sides. The entire sports-watching population outside of South Beach universally felt the exact same way in the instant he said those words:

That motherfucker's taking the easy way out. He turned his back on his city, on NBA history, on competition...he turned his back on greatness. All to go party like a rock star.

For that night at least, I joined him. At the exact moment he told the world where he was taking his talents, the bar I was working in was about three deep, but that didn't stop me. My world was crushed and I was going to drink enough Jamison to make me forget that I was a Knicks fan, at least for one evening. I was lucky I had worked at the bar for years and they didn't fire me when I took it upon myself to start pouring shots into anyone's mouth willing to accept them. It was not my finest hour. For one night, I shared something in common with the King.

I woke up the next day to face the stark reality that my life, much like my basketball team, was a mess. I had graduated from law school two months earlier. I should have been studying for the bar exam like the rest of my classmates, but instead I had been drinking nightly for something going on three months straight at that point. It was completely out of character for me. I had always been one of the best students in my class. I had attended one of the best high schools in the country, had graduated Summa Cum Laude from college, and had just completed a JD from Fordham Law School where I was one of the most successful mock trial students the school had ever seen. There was nothing stopping me from studying for and passing the bar exam, except for one, tiny detail: I never signed up to take it.

I would convince myself that I had forgotten, that I never got the school email instructing me to do so. But when you're the one person in a class of over three hundred students to not sign up for the very thing you've been gearing yourself up for for the past three years, it's tough to say such a thing was an accident.

Nor was it an accident that I was offered positions at two District Attorney's offices - the very reason I had gone to law school in the first place - and turned them both down.

Why would I, all of the sudden, at the age of 27, right when I should be putting the stamp on my professional career, throw away everything that I had been working toward for essentially my entire life?

And that's when it should have hit me. The next morning, when I woke up, in the midst of the drinking binge to end all binges. It should have hit me that I, above everyone else, should have understood what LeBron was doing, and why he was actually more in tune and honest with himself and his needs than any of us realized. It it why, in what seemed like the most immature and ill-thought action he could have ever taken, he was actually displaying wisdom far beyond his years.

He needed a break. A breather. A respite, even if just for a few years, from the pressure-cooker that had been his life since before he was old enough to shave. Think about it...LeBron James first appeared on his first Sports Illustrated exactly 50 days after turning 17 years old. Accompanying him were not the words "next big thing" or "high school sensation". No. "The Chosen One".

No pressure or anything.

And that valve never ceased to loosen. He bought in hook, line and sinker, right down the tattoo sprawled across his massive upper back, the one that looked like it was chilled from a block of granite before he was old enough to drink.

And the pressure only got more and more intense with every passing season. It didn't matter that his teammates were garbage or that his coach's best crunch time play was "everyone get out of his way." Not even a little bit. This was sports, and in sports, if you're gifted a too-perfect narrative, you ride it out until the end, whether it results in years and years of heartache or not. LeBron read the tea leaves just right. He could tell where that story was headed. So he jumped off the page in the middle of the book into a rooftop pool at the Fountain Blue (I have no idea if the Fountain Blue even has rooftop access. Or whether, if it does, there is a pool there. But if it doesn't, it should get one).

The moment he took that leap, he inspired the ire of literally millions of people who felt like he committed some kind of egregious felony against the human race. Fresh off the heels of the subprime mortgage crisis, where big banks and small-time homeowners alike shirked their legal responsibilities and expected others to feel pity for them, and in a country where the divorce rate has made sustained marriage a minority occurrence, we joined in unison to bash a man who had given seven years of blood, sweat and tears to the city he called home because he had the audacity to say “I need a break.”

He didn’t, of course, say those words, instead choosing to reveal the news in vernacular that will live on forever in infamy. What if he had merely called a press conference and said “I love you Cleveland, but damn it, this shit just isn’t fun anymore. I’m tired. Really. I’m tired. If I stay here, I’m going to lose it, because the pressure is getting to me, and it’s no good for my mind, by spirit, or my soul. Actually (long pause...wait for it...) I feel like its slowly killing me…tearing me apart with each loss. Like, literally, when we lose each year, it feels like I let an entire city down. And I look at the league, and I look at our roster, and well…no offense to the guys, but I just don’t see it happening. And I knew it had gone past the point of no return this year against Boston…I actually became resentful. For the first time, I started to hate the chase. I felt like I needed to go one on five and all anybody gave me was shit for it. I tried my best – I promise you, I did – but I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t. So I’m going to be selfish. I’m gonna go chill in the warm weather for a few years, play ball with my best friends, hopefully win some games, and take care of me, and after that, you know…maybe I’ll be back to finish what I couldn't do this time around...”?

Who knows. Would we still all have hated him? Probably. But regardless of the way in which he chose to deliver the message, and what words he used, what was the alternative? Stay in Cleveland, make everyone else happy, endure more years’ worth of misery, and face the very real possibility that he would go down as the greatest athlete never to win a ring, and for all his accomplishments, he would be remembered as simply the most enduring example of Cleveland’s eternal failures?

Would he have self-destructed at some point? Would the pressure and constant scrutiny of being the greatest athlete on the planet finally get to him? Less than a year before the decision, Tiger Woods life exploded like a piñata all over the front and back pages of tabloids all over the world. These are clearly two very different people, to be sure, but when the pressure finally gets to you, everyone is capable of cracking, albeit in different ways.

LeBron gave Cleveland seven years. Johnny Football barely gave them seventeen months. Was it the pressure of delivering winning football to the Browns that spiraled Manziel’s path out of control? Nobody knows.

What I do know is that on the morning of July 9, 2010, I didn’t wake up with any feelings of understanding for the man that shunned Cleveland and New York and LA and every place else that thought they had a prayer. I woke up with a hangover. But after I got over it, my first thought was one of hatred for the man who took the easy way out. Fuck him. Fuck him for being such a pompous asshole, for doing what he wanted to do, for joining what was supposed to be his greatest nemesis. And from that point on, I reveled in the hatred. I seethed as I watched the Yes We Did celebration. I purchased “The Whore of Akron” and read it cover to cover in three days. I clapped it up as the Heat looked like the JV squad against the Celtics on the opening night of the big 3 era. I was as ecstatic as I had ever been for a regular season Knicks win when LeBron’s shot got blocked in the final seconds and we beat the Heatles, even though I knew it meant nothing. And most of all, after the Dallas meltdown,I took pride in my conviction that no matter what he did from that day on, no one would ever dare utter his name in the same sentence as Michael Jordan.

I dealt with the championships, but enjoyed the 2014 Spurs win almost as if they were my team. When he went back home, and everyone had done their 180’s and talked about how great a story it would be if he won one for Cleveland, I silently harbored my same resentment, promising never to forgive him for what he did, probably out of jealousy. I enjoyed their Finals loss last year, although not quite with the same ferocity as I had the year prior. And finally, right up until the closing moments of Game 7 this year, I was rooting for Steph Curry to pull one more miracle shot from his rear end, one that would send the game to overtime, and keep Cleveland in the perpetual state of misery it rightfully deserved.

Then, just like that, it was over. And try as I might, I couldn’t hate him anymore.

I woke up this morning and thought about why. Why did I hold onto the hate for so long? Why was I now able to let it go just as easily?

I never appeared on any magazine covers. There was not a single person, let alone a city full of persons, who depended on me for a damn thing until I married my wife the year before last. Sure, my mom put some pressure on me to be successful, but as much as every boy wants to please his mamma, that can’t equate to one hundredth of one percent of the amount of pressure felt by LeBron James from the moment shortly after he became a teenager. Nonetheless, after years of striving, scratching, clawing, and putting everything I had into the pursuit of being the best I could be, I said fuck it. If I could have taken whatever talent I had to South Beach, I surely would have, but I couldn’t, so I settled for drinking myself into a stupor for the better part of six months during a time when I was supposed to be at my most focused. And then, I picked myself up, took the bar exam, passed it, and became an attorney, practicing privately for several years at a firm in Long Island, which I now call home.

Today, I’m a New York City Public School Teacher. I left the practice of law after five years, sick of the pressure and grind that came with arguing for a living. It was ok at first, but the novelty wore off, and soon it just became a job. As a teacher, finally, I can say that I am happy.

I’m 33. Eight years ago, when I was the same age that LeBron was when he forever changed the basketball landscape for the first time, I had already started to have serious doubts about whether or not I wanted to practice law for a living. From speaking to most of my classmates, I suspect that most of them had those same suspicions as well. I would further suspect that most people who are twenty-five and just starting out careers begin to sense that their life is not the one they hoped for. But they persevere, just as I did, because I didn’t want anyone to call me a quitter. Instead, I bottomed out, wasted good opportunities, and spent a few years doing something that I’ll probably never tell my daughter about unless she asks. Better than being a quitter though, right?

Truth is, I didn’t have the balls. Nor do most people. Not to take a huge risk, one that people will question and ridicule them for, even if they know it is what is best for them and will ultimately lead to them being a better, happier human being, who will thus have a more positive impact on the world around them. Instead, they stay, and become more and more miserable, and they wear that misery like a badge of honor, as their wife or husband slowly begins to hate them and they get so deep into the forest so as to forget that trees are a thing.

No, LeBron James was never going to be miserable. Millions upon millions of dollars usually (although certainly not always) prevents that. But he was not – and he knew he was not – going to be his best self if he stayed in Cleveland. So he did what he did. And that took Balls.

And that’s where we reach the crux of this little narrative. It’s the one thing that no one thinks about, and no one brings up, even now, six years after the fact. As that special went to air on that fateful July night, LeBron James knew exactly what he was doing. If he has shown us nothing over the last decade plus, it is that he is not a stupid person. He knew he would be ridiculed and lambasted and criticized for his decision. He had to know. How could he not? To not know would be to ignore human nature. Yes, athletes and celebrities tend to wear rose-colored glasses when they look in the mirror, but even if he thought he was universally loved, LeBron couldn’t have been so foolish as to think that those sentiments would remain intact, not after picking that city with those teammates in that way with those words.

To do what he did was to know that he was taking all the favor he had curried over the preceding decade and throwing it out the window. He did it because he knew in his heart that it was what was best for him at that moment in his life. He was able to do it because he had conviction, perhaps irrationally, in himself, his abilities, and specifically, his ability to let the words of others bounce off of him. It didn’t hurt that he could isolate himself to a certain extent in his bubble of confidants, and spend his time between Akron and Miami, two places where he knew he wouldn’t have to deal with the ire of the masses. The barbs were worse than he anticipated, to be sure, but he withstood them, and came out stronger for it. Looking at him the night before last, six years later, I’d say it worked out pretty well.

As for me, did I give up practicing law because I had the utmost confidence not only in my ability but in my judgement as well? Maybe. Or maybe I was just really sick of being a lawyer. Either way, I knew I would get ridiculed for my decision – not in the way that James was, but still, I knew it would exist out there in the ether. I sit here now, having nearly completed my first year as a middle school special education teacher. I don’t make a lot of money, and I’ll never make it big by anyone’s definition of the word, but I’m happy, and those around me, including my students, are better off for it.

But it wasn’t this realization that LeBron and I have, by my logic at least, this one minuscule thing in common that had me smiling as I saw him cry tears of ecstasy on the floor in Oakland last night. No, I was happy for him because to be anything other than happy for him would be inhuman. A natural part of being a human being is to see someone so happy for all of the right reasons and feel happy yourself.

Maybe LeBron James isn’t Michael Jordan, and maybe he never will be. After all, the words we associate with Jordan – cold-blooded, assassin, relentless, that sort of thing – don’t exactly apply to James. But maybe, as we’re now farther enough away from it to take stock of what exactly he did and why he did it, James, and not Jordan, will be the one parents encourage their kids to take a page after. I know I will. After all, you only live once. Might as well have a smile on your face in the process.

Either that, or a bottle of Jamison in your hand. Definitely one of the two.

[jcmacri]

On Kobe, and other End-of-the-Regular-Season NBA thoughts

             Over the last couple years, I've been increasingly befuddled over being one of the few NBA fans under 35 who doesn't worship at the altar of Kobe Bryant. I've watched his whole career, appreciate the player he is, his accomplishments, and most especially the competitiveness that, while it has it's obvious drawbacks, is not something we are ever likely to see again at so high a magnitude. This never changed the fact that my eyes and brain have told me repeatedly that he has never been, even at his peak, nearly as efficient an offensive player as the other all-timers I've had the privilege of witnessing. That he gets an automatic pass into everyone's top 10 list shows far too much disregard for the number of seasons and games when he's made his team worse, not better, and gives far too much weight to the volume of shots he's had the privilege to jack up (thanks to, from all indications, the fact that no one within the Lakers organization outside of Phil Jackson has ever been able to avoid caving into his every demand).

What bothers me perhaps the most is if Tim Duncan had even half the same attitude, it would be he, and not Kobe, who got the overwhelming praise which Bryant is now routinely showered with (smart basketball people know better, of course, but still: you could already sense the narrative building. Duncan will be history's Stan Musial to Kobe's Mickey Mantle). More than anything, it has bothered me that I've had to listen to talking heads speak and write about the sham that has been this season for the Lakers and take it easy on Kobe because of the aforementioned praise that has built up over two decades. He deserved much worse this season for the mockery he made of the game, and has deserved much worse in several other seasons throughout his career. 

I say all of this as a preface to a simple fact: watching him put the finishing touches on his final NBA game last night gave me chills. The idea of a player scoring 60 points in the last game of his 20th NBA season is an absurdity for which I have not the words to properly describe. The best I can muster is this: it was really, really, really cool. (Although I'd be lying if I said I didn't get more than a bit annoyed at the ridiculousness of a 37 year old man putting up almost 60% of his team’s shots, especially on a night when Steph Curry scored 46 points on less than half – half! – as many attempts as Kobe took)

Now on to some other thoughts on end of the year awards and the playoffs...

-          I’m surprised at how little I’ve been seeing basketball writers giving consideration for Draymond Green as their All-NBA 1st team Center. I assume this is because people feel like they need to vote for someone at Center who plays most of their minutes at Center. This isn’t a ludicrous idea, and I’m not sure that anyone would even be thinking about it if the disparity between Draymond’s play and that of the league’s next best center weren’t so large, but it seems patently unfair to reward someone with a fairly coveted honor when Green is far more deserving and doing so just because of semantics. That being said, I’ll be fascinated to see who gets the nod. My feeling is that it won’t be Green. Do you vote for a guy who got his coach fired and whose team lost 49 games? What about a player who missed over 20 games and whose team was 24-37 when he played? Oddly enough, Boogie and Davis are both more palatable than Andre Drummond, DeAndre Jordan, or Al Horford, none of which was even the best player on his team (and yes, I realize neither was Green, but 73 wins buys you a bit more currency as a second banana). The last contender would be Duncan, but as much as I love him, he played barely 1500 minutes this year…which is probably about double the minutes that Green spent at C. My prediction: Horford gets the nod.

My picks:             1st:         Westbrook, Curry, Green, James, Leonard

                            2nd:        Paul, Lowry, Horford, Milsap, Durant

                            3rd:        Lillard, Walker, Duncan, George, Aldridge

-          Is it too early to anoint KAT as the guy that would be the first pick in a draft of all NBA players by GM’s across the league if they were starting teams from scratch? The only other contenders would be Curry and Leonard, and I’m not sure that either is as sure a bet to elevate a team to automatic contender status as Towns is over the next  decade, not to mention that neither is under team control for nearly as long. Without the right supporting cast, there’s a universe in which both Steph and Kawhi  would both struggle to elevate a team to a contender by themselves; meanwhile, I can’t imagine that for years 3-10 of his career, Karl-Anthony Towns’ teams will ever win less than 50 games (although in fairness, you might have said the same thing about Anthony Davis before this season).

-          I’m sure if I had a basketball nerd ID card, I’d lose it for saying this, but I can’t say I’m terribly excited for any first round series outside of Miami vs Charlotte. That being said, I hope that that series is as good as it looks to be on paper. Much like a lot of folks, I’m already penciling in the winner to face Cleveland in the East Finals. Is that fair to Toronto? Of course not...but both the Heat and Hornets are far better in the coaching department, and that matters during the playoffs when the games are closer to chess than checkers.

-          Speaking of which, in the "First NBA coach who will receive multiple COTY votes to get fired" draft, is anyone not taking Dwayne Casey? I feel like, barring any real surprise vote-getters, he's gotta be + 500 in that category.

-          I'll second Zach Lowe's support for Kemba Walker in the MIP category, and go one step further: he should win the award. As a Knicks fan, I remember reading something before the season that predicted he would be the next big name, low production NY trade target. Not sure how close such a trade ever was to happening, but if it was, that makes two in a row where the Knicks whiffed by not swinging (Kyle Lowry being the first).

-          My two biggest off-season curiosities: where Jimmy Butler gets traded, and how much money Dwight gets (and from whom).

Let the countdown to Spurs-Dubs begin...

[jcmacri]

The Trade Value Column, 2016

by Jonathan Macri, https://twitter.com/JCMacriNBA

(scroll to the bottom if you just want to see the list)

16 years ago, almost as an afterthought in the "teams to watch" column he wrote leading up to the NBA trade deadline, Bill Simmons debuted what that would eventually become known as the Trade Value column. In it, he named a few honorable mentions and the 25 players with the highest “trade value”, with one liners about most and then about a paragraph for everyone in the top 10. 

Of the 25 he named, six are still playing. Elton Brand is a token piece on the worst team in the league. Kevin Garnett is preparing for his ownership role in Minnesota. Vince Carter is the 9th man in Memphis’ rotation. Paul Pierce has actually been starting of late for the always intriguing Clippers. Only 2 of the players are still, a decade and a half later, still playing at something close to an All Star level: Duncan and Dirk. Both remain as untradeable now as they were then, and both find their way into this column. And finally, there's the one player from that list (he was #2) who still actually is an All Star: Kobe Bryant. He will not find his way into this column. 

Simmons began with a simple premise: who has the highest trade value in the league?

The rules were straightforward, and remain basically the same: salaries and age make a difference (because even though Carmelo Anthony is better than Andrew Wiggins today, Wiggins is ten years younger, and will make as much this year as Melo makes in two months). The salary cap also didn't matter. So even though Kevin Durant couldn't fit under New York's current salary cap because they don’t have enough room to accommodate his salary at the moment, it won't stop us from arguing his trade value vs that of Kristaps Porzingas. It was also acknowledged that conversations like "we'll give you LeBron for Steph" don't actually happen in real life, but if they did, we’d look at which team's general manager would hang up the phone with even the smallest modicum of regret over the fact that he didn't pull off the deal. Finally, the list is in reverse order. 

The one thing to be clear about here though is that it's not as simple as "would team A trade player X to team B for player Y," because even though that question might have a definitive answer, that doesn't fully approximate the trade value of either player. Situations matter, and that's where things get dicey. 

A prime example: to at least a half dozen teams in the league at this very moment, Kevin Durant would have little value. Regardless of how much more money they could offer him next season, KD is not resigning with the Sixers, Suns, Milwaukee, Orlando, Charlotte, Minnesota or Denver, and even with him on their teams, they are not winning anything this year. There are at least a half dozen other teams (and likely quite a bit more) that Durant would never resign with, although you could argue that Memphis, Utah and a few others in the East might be able to put together a Finals run with him there, and that has value. 

Why does all this matter? Because the fact that Nuggets would not trade Jusuf Nurkic for Kevin Durant does not mean that Kevin Durant has less trade value than Jusuf Nurkic (if you're asking who Jusuf Nurkic is, this might not be the column for you.)

So essentially, there's two different ways of grading someone's trade value. The first is the scenario Bill Simmons built his column off of, where you picture the imaginary GM in a room picking up the phone and he hears, "we'll give you player X for player Y" and the answer is either yes or no. The second is grading players in a vacuum. So, for example, if every NBA player at their current age and contract were put into a room and two walked out of the room, out of the 30 NBA GM’s, how many would pick player 1 and how many would pick player 2?

An example: Jahlil Okafor may never be the complete player that Al Horford is today. There are surely teams (those chasing a championship) who would pick Horford, but given age and contract length and size, Okafor is undeniably the better asset from the perspective of "if you're starting a team from scratch, which of these assets would you take first, knowing nothing about what other players might be available to you down the road, and what contracts those players might be on." If you don’t know these other variables and pick Horford, but the rest of your team is nowhere near championship contention, you've just wasted a golden opportunity. By taking Okafor, you've given yourself eight or so years’ worth of likely All Star appearances.

Regardless, the list is skewed to players on teams that can actually win it all this year and in the immediate future, because you don't get many of those chances and you're not about to punt on one to try and improve for the long term. That's why nine of the top fourteen players on the list are from the teams generally thought of as the serious championship threats this season.

(Add as a side note: for the purposes of this column, we're going to assume that the owners aren't going to lock out the players in the Summer of 2017 and that smarter heads will prevail, allowing the league to continue running smoothly as it’s in the midst of its most successful stretch since Michael wore red and black. We all know that's not going to happen, but still...let's pretend) Finally, there are the irrational variables that can't be ignored (Simmons always did his best to factor these in). Doc Rivers is not going to trade Chris Paul, Phil Jackson is not going to trade Melo, and Dan Gilbert would best secure a one-way ticket to someplace far, far away if he ever traded LeBron James. Stars don’t get traded unless they ask out, regardless of who is on the table. Look at Miami – if Pat Riley traded, say, Chris Bosh, it would go against his entire mantra, and would cut out his legs from under him the next time he tried to drop his rings on the table for whatever star he wished to court. These irrational variables are factored into a number of names on this list. However, there are a few names who are so far embedded into the fabric of their franchise that placing them somewhere on this list would be impossible, so we start with them:

The All-Timers

Dirk

Duncan

Wade

Ginobli

They each only need one name. Manu obviously isn’t in the same class as the other three, but his likelihood of ever leaving the Spurs is equivalent to the others on this list ever playing in another uniform. They all still have value, and all are capable of being a big part of a championship level team, but it’s impossible to properly rank where they go on this list. In all likelihood, they’d end up somewhere on the honorable mention list, at the very least…unlike the following folks:

Name Guys Who Didn’t Make the Cut

Tristan Thompson

He’s living proof that it pays to have Lebron James as your agent. It's not to say that he's not valuable, but he’s in the first year of a near max extension. His defense will be paramount to their title chances, but it’s unclear how many teams, if any, would be willing to give up a nice asset to take on his contract if such a deal were ever made available. 

Jeff Teague

You don't get to be considered in a trade value column if your name comes up in 65% of fake trade scenarios at the deadline.

Kyle Korver

He was an All Star last year but his play has declined...a lot. He went from shooting 49% to 37% on threes, is making one less three a game, and has gone from having a 122 Offensive Rating to a 101. Still, he's only making $5 million this year and next. Just misses the honorable mention section here.

Al Jefferson

Someone will pay him this summer. You probably don't want it to be your team. He’s 20 and 10 when healthy, but those days might be gone, as he’s only appeared in 19 games this season.

Derrick Rose

It might not be in Chicago, but it feels like there's a second act to this career coming. Remember: every NBA MVP either is in or definitely will be in the Hall of Fame...except him.

Frank Kaminsky

What is his ceiling? Can he start for a contender? Probably not, which made his selection over Justise Winslow, Myles Turner, Devin Booker and Trey Lyles – taken, in order, by the four teams that picked after Charlotte – so egregious. But he’s got talent, he’s seven feet tall, and he can hit threes. Will he ever be enough of a rim protector to be able to play 20 minutes a night at center? Doubtful, which is why he’s down here. But there’s a ten-year career in there somewhere, and he looks like he’ll figure out a way to be a contributor to a winning team somehow.

 Hassan Whiteside

Whether or not you think he's worth the absurd amount of money he's going to get next year and beyond (and whether you think it will affect his, ahem, motivation or not), the fact remains that because of the contract he signed with Miami, if he was traded this year, the team that got him wouldn't really have any substantive advantage in terms of the years and money they'd be able to offer, so that right there limits his trade value unless you think he’s the missing piece to a championship contender, which it wouldn’t seem like many teams do. Yes, he leads the league in blocks, and as much as people overreact to just how "empty" of a stat that is, there remain legitimate questions about just how much he improves a defense. To put it simpler, paying him over $20 million a year could single handedly be a franchise crippling move, especially with the type of stuff that still surfaces. Think about the fact that he’s playing for the most important payday of his life, and recently got told to go home from the arena by the team after being ejected from a game for a flagrant 2. Again: invest wisely.

Dwight Howard

How can anyone possibly view Howard as a trade asset if he is less than six months from signing what will almost instantly become the worst contract in basketball, and since it has come out that the Rockets are shopping him in advance of the deadline?

Yes, he's looked better this year than he has in a while, and his pouting during stretches when he doesn't get the ball has noticeably decreased. Even though it's pretty clear that "peak" Dwight has permanently left the building, what remains is still very good. He's never going to be a leader and is always going to show signs of his goofy self, but it's obvious that he still can be a primary contributor on a really, really good team.

But he's on the wrong side of 30 and could sign a contract this summer worth as much as $170 million. That’s $70 million with a 1 in front of it. Bad teams wouldn't trade for him; some decent teams who might think that Howard would elevate them a level could inquire, but again, what would they give up for the right to pay him an extra year or years everyone seems to think will immediately become a sunk cost?

As they say, all it takes is one asshole, but even so, with the strength of the top of the West, smart teams will realize Houston probably knows they don't have a prayer of beating at least two of the Warriors, Spurs and Thunder. So if any offers did come across Daryl Morrey’s desk, they would be light knowing that he’d probably sell Howard for whatever he could get at this point.

Rajon Rondo

Dallas showed everyone that trading for him midseason is a poor idea. Yes, he leads the league in assists, but he also lets his desire to maintain that lead get in the way of making the correct basketball play sometimes. He’s shown the ability to care and be effective on the defensive end in the past, but this year has been an abomination. He would garner something if the Kings ever decided to move him, but also will certainly be one of the worst contracts in the NBA the day he signs it this summer.

Now, onto the players who just missed the cut:

HONORABLE MENTION (The Next 50, roughly in order from least to most valuable)

All Star Who Should Almost Certainly be Traded Because His Team is Too Hurt to do Anything This Year

Pau Gasol

Ok, so I made up a category for him, but he deserves it, because he’s in the unique spot of being the ideal trade candidate (no one thinks he’s going to resign with Chicago) that’s also good enough to swing a championship. No one who trades for him will likely have any kind of advantage in resigning him, and his next contract might be an abomination anyway. But it would be scary if he were traded to the right team (OKC has always been the fantasy destination) and is an easier fit and better offensive option than Howard (his D also has never been as bad as its reputation).

“Meh” Centers

Greg Monroe

Brook Lopez

Jonas Valanciunas

Nikola Vucevic

Monroe is probably the best of the bunch, but he came onto a team that became a defensive powerhouse down the stretch of last season and his fit has been anything but seamless. Yes, he’s played at the outer reaches of All Star level, but with an opt-out in his contract after next season, no team is likely to value him as anything close to a long term building block or a piece that’s going to make any team go from non-contender to contender.

The same goes for Lopez, who’s probably a hair worse than Monroe when you factor in every part of his game and makes slightly more money, but he’s under contract for an extra year at $22 million in 2017-18, and if his foot stays healthy (which it has) he could turn into a nice asset at the tail end of his contract.

As for Val and Vooch, it seems that at this point, even though they’re both still very young and each has only started about 250 NBA games, we kind of know what they are…offensively gifted big men that will probably never be able to play championship caliber NBA defense. So even though they’re both under team control for three more seasons and are cheap for the stats they produce (Vucevic is actually about $3 million cheaper per season), their limitations limit just how valuable either can ever be.

 Good, Cheap Talent

Avery Bradley

Will Barton

Marcus Morris

Appropriate that we start off this section with a guy who just fired his agent because he's locked into a seven figure salary for the next two years, even though the deal was looked at as a gamble - for the Celtics - when it was signed. Avery Bradley has become one of the preeminent 3 and D wings in the league, and at $8 million for each of the next two years, he's making about half of what similar players will wind up signing for this summer. If Bradley's agent lost his job, the agent for Will Barton should be tried for criminal negligence. Barton is one of the best sixth men in the league, providing a spark to the Nuggets off the bench to the tune of almost 20 points per 36 minutes, and he will make a TOTAL of seven and a half million dollars over the next two years combined. Finally, there's the unique case of Marcus Morris. After the Suns gave him and his brother a total dollar amount and told the brothers to split it between them however they liked, Markief looked like the bargain and Marcus the beneficiary of his brother's good graces. Oh, how things have changed...now, Marcus looks like one of the better bargains in the league, making $5 million per season for each of the next three years. He's been more than serviceable starting at both forward positions for the Pistons.

 They’re About to Get Really Expensive, RFA Edition

Jordan Clarkson

Bradley Beal

A year ago at this time, no one knew who Jordan Clarkson was and everyone thought that Bradley Beal was one of the more important foundational building blocks in all of basketball. How times have changed. All Clarkson has been is the lone real bright spot (aside from raw rookies and sideshow acts) on the Lakers. He’ll get paid this summer, but all indications are that he’ll be a wise investment.

The same can’t necessarily be said about Beal at this point. Although he’s looked good of late, his injury issues have overshadowed the shooting stroke that helped him make a name for himself when he averaged 17 a game as a twenty-year-old. His defense also continues to be a sore spot in a league where it’s becoming increasingly difficult to hide a weak defensive guard. If nothing else, the number of teams lining up to make Washington match a max offer to him is significantly shorter than it was just six months ago (but there will definitely still be a line).

Injured Kids

Joel Embiid Dante Exum Two players who still have people believing they are the best prospects from last year's draft. Embiid has yet to step foot on an NBA court due to the type of injury that has ruined the career of many a big man. That, plus concerns about his conditioning have dimmed his value. As for Exum, he was terrible last year but showed the tools you salivate over for a point guard, then he suffered a season ending injury before this year began. Both players are nothing more than lottery tickets at this point, but in a league where getting a superstar (more the best case scenario for Embiid than Exum, but both players' ceilings are high) is ridiculously tough, more than a few teams would take a chance on these two.

Cheap, Young, and Full of Potential (Glass Half Empty Edition)

Michael Carter Williams

Recent reports that the Bucks were already taking calls on him less than a year after shaking up their core to trade for his unique talents didn't do much to help the trade value of Emcee Dubbs, nor has the fact that since that trade, Milwaukee is eighteen games under .500 between this season and last. On one hand, this is a player only a year and a half removed from a Rookie of the Year campaign, but he hasn't shown the consistent signs you'd like to see from a player this far into his career, and we've seen rookie studs flame out before as their game didn't develop as expected (ahem, Tyreke Evans, ahem). But on mere ability alone, the desperation of teams in this league to find an unpolished gem still gives him value, especially with a year and a half left before a possible big payday.

Otto Porter

Other than the few weeks he put together during last season’s playoffs, his career has been mostly a disappointment. The former number three overall pick (granted, in what looks to be the weakest draft so far this decade) was supposed to be Washington’s answer at the small forward spot, but now looks to be more of a playmaking four – except we’ve only seen flashes of the ability that would make him an asset at that position. He’s here though because he’s only 22 and plenty of guys have figured it out at later stages of their career than he’s at right now.

 Nikola Mirotic

Even before the appendectomy which now has him out indefinitely, Mirotic’s season was already considered a disappointment. Handed a starting spot, he most certainly did not run with it. Why? It’s pretty simple. The theory behind the new age big man is that you get either elite shooting and/or playmaking from a nontraditional spot, or you get a player who can protect the rim while also being able to switch out on smaller players effectively, or some combination thereof. Mirotic has been a minus across the board on defense, his shooting has been nowhere near as consistently good as advertised, and he doesn’t do any of the traditional big man stuff on offense to make him valuable in that way either. True, he’s a bargain at just over $5 million, but that contract expires after next season, and it’s far from a certainty that he’s part of the long term future in Chicago.

 Julius Randle

Seems like a while ago that he “fell” to the number seven spot for the Lakers in last year’s draft, only to break his leg in his first quarter of NBA action. It’s nearly impossible to evaluate anything that’s going on in la la land this season, but this much is clear: Julius Randle didn’t seem to gleam any great deal of veteran wisdom by spending a year on the sideline. He’s far from a bust, but he’s no sure thing at this point either. Most importantly, nothing he’s done – yet - is going to entice any star free agent to pack his bags and hightail it to the Lakers to play with the “bright young core” they claim they’re developing.

 Elfrid Payton

He’s a point guard that can’t shoot the ball, and he doesn’t yet have the court vision that would make him an elite prospect. Still, he seems like a demon on defense, fills up a box score, and seems like the type of player who doesn’t hesitate to put in the work needed to improve. Skiles likes him, which is a plus, as is the fact that he’s only in year 2, so he’s young enough not only to improve but to continue to provide good value.

 Reasonably Priced Vets (Shooting Question Marks Edition)

Ricky Rubio

Unlike Peyton, he matched incredible court vision with top notch defense, but whereas Peyton’s already at least a 45% shooter this year, Rubio is a career 36% shooter from the field. He’s also not as cheap, but is on a fair contract for what he brings. The question is whether his considerable gifts are enough to overcome his considerable deficiencies if just the right team was placed around him. The efforts that the Wolves have undertaken to figure out if Zach LeVine is the future at point guard makes one think that Minnesota will not wait around to find out, but he is too talented not to have a future on some team with a smart coach and GM that will figure out how to harness his considerable talents.

 Michael Kidd Gilchrist

He needs to be here, even though his latest injury (a torn labrum) will likely keep him out for a while. This is a former number two pick and a notoriously hard worker who has improved the one huge question mark about his game (shooting), albeit not enough to prevent people from suggesting the team is better off without him this year because of the spacing issues that exist with MGK on the floor. He’s looked good since returning this year, and hit as many threes in seven games this year (3) as he did in his first three years combined. Not the biggest sample size, but it’s something, and even though he probably won’t play again this year, he still has three years remaining on a deal that pays him only $13 million a year.

 Cheap, Young and Full of Potential (Glass Half Full-Ish Edition)

Bobby Portis

Earlier in the year, Portis looked like he was on his way to becoming one of the steals of the draft, as he looked great in the limited minutes he received behind the arsenal of big men Chicago had at its disposal, and had many calling for the Bulls to trade one or more of the players ahead of him on the depth chart so Portis could see the floor more regularly. Now, with Noah out for the year and Mirotic out for the foreseeable future, Portis has been receiving that PT and has been exposed a bit as being not quite ready for prime time. Still, he's a rookie, he's young, and he's with an organization that, despite its faults, has repeatedly shown the ability to develop young talent. Unless a deal for a superstar is available, Portis is staying put. Cameron Payne

Another guy who looks the part of a first guard off the bench for a really good team. He hasn’t played with Westbrook a ton, but when he shares the floor with Durant, his team is plus 14 points per 100 possessions, and the sample size is big enough (over 150 minutes) for that to count. His three-point shooting seems to be legit (he’s hit 22 of 56 in the new year over 19 games) and he’s also shooting 60% on long 2’s (a sample size of about 20, but still, a good indication considering these shots are now looked at by some as an undervalued asset). He’s definitely someone capable of holding the fort at the very least while Westbrook is off the floor, and the Thunder will no doubt take more time to experiment with them together, especially if Waiters leaves this offseason.

Mario Hezonia

The fifth pick in what's looking like one of the better drafts in recent history, he started out the year stuck on the bench but showed flashes when he did make appearances. In the last two weeks, he's had his three highest scoring games of the season, and the league is undoubtedly not too much for him to adjust to. Whether he becomes a stud like some of his draft mates clearly already are is still uncertain, but that uncertainty means you also can't drop him much further than this.

Victor Oladipo

Oladipo's had kind of an odd career so far, fulfilling expectations as the number two pick during his rookie year and then looking at times that he was emerging as a two-way star last year, improving his numbers across the board while looking the part of a guy who could play a big role on a winning team. He was also playing a ton and seemed like the undisputed leader and future of the Magic. This year, his points and minutes have taken a dip, and Scott Skiles even experimented with bringing him off the bench. His advanced stats have actually improved and he's taking one more three a game while making a higher percentage than last year, but his game hasn't seemed to take the overall step up that many expected, culminating in his name appearing in some trade rumors as we near the deadline. Still, despite the fact that he's a year and change away from getting very expensive, Oladipo seems like a guy who will be making big plays for a championship contender before all is said and done. Nerlins Noel

Looking at the plus minus column in the box score after a Sixers game is always a fun exercise. It's gotten to the point where Noel and Okafor simply don't play together much, and usually, one comes out looking great while the other looks like part of the problem and not the solution. When he plays center and his inability to shoot doesn't hurt the team's spacing, Noel looks like a building block, and perhaps on a team that didn't just spend two top 4 picks on traditional centers, he'd be considered one as opposed to being viewed as the odd man out. If Philly decides to go that route, some team will happily take his defense and figure out a way to turn him into peak-Tyson Chandler-light on offense (he's shooting 71% on shots at the rim and around or under 30% from everywhere else).

Kentavious Caldwell Pope

KCP has been the equivalent of a 5th starter on a really good baseball team. He's not going to blow you away with his stuff, but he'll get the job done and most importantly, he eats innings. Prior to suffering a groin injury that's going to keep him out for a bit (initial reports have him out for at least a month), he was second in the NBA in minutes played. Nothing he does blows you away (he's barely shooting 30% on threes this year) but he's averaging 15 a game, is solid defensively, and he's still only 22 years old, so there's room for growth.

 Reasonably Priced Vets, Pt. 2

Goran Dragic

Dragic's value over the course of the last calendar year has been all over the map. Last year at this time, he was considered to be a major get for whatever team ended up winning the bidding war that everyone figured would develop. The only problem was that Dragic was an unrestricted free agent and his reps made sure that the worst kept secret in the league was that he'd only resign with a few teams. Of those, Miami was the only one who could put together a real offer, but despite there being no real competitors, the Suns got two future first round picks. It was still looked at as a huge win for Miami. Now, it appears there would be no way any team would give up two future firsts for at least three more years of Dragic's services at between $15 and $20 million a year. So why is he not on the dishonorable mentions list? Because teams are smart enough to see that a player like Dragic doesn't go from borderline All Star to nonentity in less than a year. Not only has he been an incredibly poor fit with Dwayne Wade, but he's been hurt this year. Somewhere in there, the same guy exists who would be an upgrade at point guard for all but a quarter or so of the teams in this league. He's about to turn 30, but doesn't have a lot of tread on his tires due to years spent as a bench player, and with the increased cap, he's making fair money for a guy who could still be the third best player on a contender. A bunch of teams who strike out in free agency this summer will be lining up for him if Miami decides to part ways.

Wes Matthews

Despite his performance thus far this year, the smart money says that Wes Matthews will resume being one of the more invaluable two-way wings in the league before long. Yes, he makes a lot of money, but those dollars will be equal to what an average starter makes once the cap jumps up to $109 million, at which point he’ll still have two more years left on his deal. He’s one of the hardest workers in the NBA, as shown by his ability to even get on the court by the start of this season after a knee injury that would have kept most guys out until 2016. His true worth won’t really be seen until next year and he’s fully recovered from the knee injury that cost him the end of last season.

 DeMarre Carroll

His injury (and the Raptor’s subsequent success without him) has skewed just how effective of a player this guy is on a contract that is likely to age very well, as Carroll is another documented hard worker who keeps himself in impeccable shape. His shooting dipped when he was still healthy earlier this year, but his ability to switch on defense will be a key for the Raptors if they want to make any real noise in the Eastern playoffs this season. To put it another way, barring an unforeseen consequence of this injury, there’s not a team in basketball that wouldn’t want his services and he comes at a fair price.

Danilo Gallinari

Probably the most likely borderline-star player to be moved at this year’s deadline, but that’s only because his timeline is so different from the rest of the Nuggets core (many of whom appear after him on this list). That doesn’t change the fact that he can still put the ball in the basket during crunch time and can still hold his own on defense, which is why the Nuggets are not going to give him up just to do so; they’ll be sure to get something good in return for a guy who could potentially swing a playoff series or two this year.

 Khris Middleton

Nothing about him jumps off the page. He's not on a rookie deal. He's not a twenty-point scorer (yet) and doesn't make any defensive highlight reels. But he's one of the ten to twelve best three point shooters in basketball and has shown the ability to be part of a great defense (Milwaukee's D has been inconsistent to say the least this year, and Middleton's defensive numbers have suffered as a result, but anyone who watched them last year knows he's more than capable on that end). Most importantly, he's locked into three more years at a decreasing rate of 15/14/13 million per, he's only 23 years old, and he's trending toward being an efficient, 20 point per game guy for each of those remaining years.

  Cheap, Young and Full of Potential (Glass Half Full Edition)

Marcus Smart

The questions about Smart begin and end with his shooting. Everyone knows he's already an elite defender, even in his second year. The Celtics are definitely trying to make him into an efficient player, as over 85% of his shots are either threes or twos within 10 feet, but despite a high volume (over 4 three pointers taken per game), his percentage is still horrible, barely making a quarter of those he takes. For a point of comparison, Rajon Rondo, who he essentially replaced, is making 35% of his threes. If Smart could even get up to that level, his ceiling would be raised considerably.

 Willie Cauley Stein

Clint Capela

Both are in the same mold as Nerlins Noel at this point, but get bumped up a category mostly due to service time (Noel only has one more year after this on his rookie deal before be becomes a RFA, while Capela and WCS have two and three years, respectively) and because we have less than 82 games of each to go by (remember, Capela didn't burst onto the scene until the playoffs of his rookie year last season). They're both already really good defensively, and are each extremely efficient on offense (more so than Noel) but neither has shown the full offensive skill set that would elevate them into the top 50 here. Stein has attempted less than a handful of shots from outside of 10 feet, while Capela has taken exactly zero.

 Gary Harris

Jusef Nurkic

Goodness, does Denver know how to draft (and we haven’t even gotten to their top two prospects yet). Harris is a guy that a lot of people thought fell too far in the 2014 draft, although his rookie season didn’t do much to prove those people wrong. This year, however, is a different story, as he absolutely looks like the running mate to Emmanuel Mudiay in the Denver backcourt for years to come. He still has some games where he disappears, but others where he looks like a guy who can lead his team in scoring someday. As for Nurkic, only some bad injury luck has him in the Honorable Mention category, as he was out for a while this year with an injury and has struggled a bit since coming back. It also doesn't help that the other shiny, seven-foot European toy in Denver has been killing it all year long, so that's taken some of the attention away from Nurkic. But based on his performance last year, he’s the real deal. The Bosnian cursing on court is also a definite plus.

  Stanley Johnson

Physically, he looks the part of a new age wing that could switch all over the court. He's still a kid and hasn't made the immediate NBA impact that some thought he would make coming out of Arizona, but has been getting starts under Stan the Man for a Detroit team fighting for a playoff spot, so that's telling, as is the fact that he's been putting up some nice stat lines since being given the starting opportunity. The safe bet is that a year from now, he'll be a lot higher on this list.

Kelly Olynyck

Another guy likely to get into the top 50 at some point. Olynick still doesn't have the name recognition to the casual NBA fan, but whether it's as a starter or a first big man off the bench, this guy is going to help teams win for a long, long time. At 7 feet, he's not only a gritty defender (just ask Kevin Love) but he also has a justifiable beef for not being included in this year's three point shootout, as he's hitting over 40% from long range. He only plays twenty minutes a night but is averaging 18 points per 36 minutes and still has a year left on his rookie deal. Nothing not to like here.

Dennis Scheoder

CJ McCollum

Steven Adams

In a year and a half, we know each of these three players will be given the chance to sign something very close to a max offer sheet with some team. The question is whether any of them will be worth it. Each of their team's circumstances make it difficult to assess their true value. Adams is at best the fourth option on a great offense, and he fits in wonderfully alongside two superstars, but we have no idea if he can function as even a third option let alone one of the top two. As for Schroeder, it's still unclear if he has the play-making chops to equalize the minus he is from long range. The thing is though, he's SO fast and operates the offense well enough at only 22 years old that he's worth the investment once he becomes restricted. His per 36 minute numbers certainly seem starter worthy, but he also hasn't taken the step forward this year that you would have liked to see. Finally, there's CJ McCollumn. Yes, he averages 20 points a game, but he's probably too small to start at off guard for a contender, and he's certainly going to get maxed out, so there's a limit on the value of what is ideally a 6th man making that kind of money.

 Worth Way More To Their Current Teams

Andre Iguodala

Danny Green

Andre Iguodala is perhaps the poster child for why making a list like this can be more than a bit challenging. To all but maybe a handful of contending teams in the league, his value would be such that his name would appear much lower down the honorable mention section of this list. But he is an intricate part of the delicate yet powerful ecosystem the Warriors have perfected over the last several years, and for a team that is currently close to an even money favorite to win it all - again - that has an extraordinary value. No, he probably won't win another Finals MVP, but he could still swing the result of a few playoff series before his time in Golden State runs out. Like Iguodala, Danny Green’s value is higher to the Spurs is higher than it would be to other teams just because his execution of their offensive and defensive game plans is second nature at this point. The interesting thing here is that, after he initially signed his 4 year, $40 million deal to remain with San Antonio this offseason, it could have been argued that he left some $20 million on the table...at least. But this season, he started off struggling from the field, hitting only 35% of his threes (after being above 41% in each of the last four seasons) and sporting an effective field goal percentage under 50%. Still, his defense alone has great value, and he’s picked up his shooting since the start of the new year. This deal is back to looking like an incredible bargain.

 Really Good, Really Cheap Celtics

Jae Crowder Isaiah Thomas

It’s unclear who is the more egregious omission from the top 50.

Let’s start with Thomas, who currently sits 13th in the NBA in scoring and 10th in assists (everyone else in the top 15 on both lists are perennial all stars and none of them started this year coming off the bench). Advanced metrics agree that, despite his height and defensive deficiencies, he's been one of the ten best point guards in basketball this year. He trails only Draymond Green in the race for the biggest shoulder chip in the league, he's making about six and a half million dollars in each of the next two years, and he’s about to turn 27 years old.

Then we get to the poor man's Kawhi Leonard. This much we know. What we don't know yet is whether he's the slightly poor man's version (he eats at Morton's while Kawhi is at Peter Luger) or the homeless man's version (Golden Coral). Worst case scenario, you still get a guy who does a whole lot of stuff really, really well. Not only did Danny Ainge nab Crowder as a throw in in the Rondo trade (now known as the Crowder trade, btw), but he has him on what by any measure is one of the five best non-rookie contracts in basketball. For comparison's sake, Carmelo Anthony will have a player option for $27.9 million in 2018, when he will be 34 years old; Crowder will make roughly that much over the next four seasons after this one. So why is he below Melo on this list? Because even at that bargain price, there is a limit to what he can do, and while he could absolutely start for a championship team, as your first or second best player (which he is this year...flip a coin between he and Isaiah Thomas. Tough call to make in a vacuum), you're not a legitimate contender. On a crappy team (there’s a lot of them), Crowder's value might not be nearly what it is in his current situation. Melo (again, for argument’s sake), on the other hand, even at his age, could completely alter the trajectory of a team, which is why if the opportunity came up to flip Crowder and David Lee's expiring for Melo, Ainge would think long and hard about whether he could do that, then promptly dangle his Nets picks for Boogie, and finally package Thomas and some of his other young assets for…let's say, Chris Paul this summer. And that right there is why each of these players is just outside of the top 50 here. They are not untradeable…not even close. These are the guys Danny Ainge is going to include in a package for the guy, whoever and whenever that may be. But both of these guys are really, really good, and if this list ever gets done again, they’re far likely to be higher than lower.

Young Athletic Freaks

Zach Levine Aaron Gordon

(I swear I had these guys grouped together in a separate category before the dunk contest and added the pic later)

It's way, way, WAY too early to tell what either guy can be yet, but they get a bump up from the “glass half full” group of young guys because their stunning athleticism puts their ceiling at a higher level. Neither guy has played what anyone would anyone would call "winning" basketball yet, but this year especially, they've both started to show signs of what they could turn into eventually. In LeVine's case, that appears to be a dynamite shooting guard (unfortunately, his coach remains unwilling to fully unlock that potential and instead continues to hammer the square peg into the round hole where LeVine would play point guard long term. He's played so little with Ricky Rubio as a result that it's tough to judge what he could do in a more elite offense). Gordon appears to be the type of switchy wing that thrives these days, and while the Blake Griffen comps we heard when he was at Arizona are pretty much dead, he could very well be a starter on a contender in the Sean Marion mold. The only reason they're below some of the young guys who made the top 50 is that we haven't seen enough from either to be sure that they're a true building block and not another in a long line of athletic specimens who could never put it all together.

Expiring Guys Who Are Still Good, Part 2

Mike Conley DeMar Derozan Nicholas Batum

Three wonderful players, all in the last year of their deals, who are about to get pricey this summer. Each one is a player who you'd arguably like to have the right to offer an extra year and extra dollars to. DeRozan is an All Star, Batum could have easily been one, and Conley probably should have been one last year. All three entered the NBA at a young age and while it seems like they have been around forever, they are each between 26 (Derozan) and 28 (Conley) years old…young enough to feel like some good years are still ahead but old enough to know that what they’ve shown to this point is basically what they are. They also all play on teams that are enjoying success and that have problems attracting big time free agents. So why did none of these guys make the actual list? Because although all three hold incredible value to their current teams, they’re all about to get very, very, very expensive and none of them is so good that a step down in ability wouldn’t relegate them to becoming a contractual albatross (Joe Johnson, Amare Stoudemire and Carlos Boozer are worst case scenario comps).

Al Horford

$145 million over the next 5 years. That's what Al Horford's next contract with the Atlanta Hawks (or whoever might trade for him this deadline) could be worth, and he'll be on the wrong side of 30 when he signs that deal. Unlike his front court teammate Milsap, his play has slipped this year, and while he's still one of the 20 to 30 best players in the league, the fact that the Hawks are not legitimate championship contenders this year, when added to the above, makes him the final cut from the top 50.

THE TOP 50

Really Good Vets in Unique Situations

50. Tony Parker The rumblings about his decline seem to increase year by year, and yet here he is, starting and playing 27 minutes a night for a team that is on pace to win close to 70 games. Yes, his defense is the weak link in their starting lineup, and yes, this is going to continue to be a problem as long as Steph Curry is breathing. But his defense has never been good and he has the greatest coaching mind in the world who has been thinking up creative ways to deal with roster issues for twenty years. He'll figure out a way to minimize the damage caused by Parker's gradual slowing down.

49. Eric Bledsoe

The injury this year didn’t help, nor did the fact that his team started to crater when it was still healthy. But when he was still playing, this guy was putting up outstanding stats as the lead dog of his own team for the first time. There may be some growing pains ahead here, but the talent is there, and despite the seemingly endless number of ups and downs to his career so far, he’s still only 26 years old and his contract runs for three more seasons at an average of $15 million. If the Suns ever opened up conversations on him, despite the copious state of the point guard position in the league, there would be suitors galore based on the fact that he’s already showed the ability to play effectively on and off the ball.

48. JJ Reddick

Amidst all of the exciting young potential future All Stars, how do you rank the trade value of a guy who is: - 31 years old, and will be 33 at the time he signs his next contract, but has only started a bit more than 200 games and has played as many career minutes as an above average NBA starter sees in about five seasons. - has worked his butt of to become an average NBA defender (a skill that will not age gracefully) and doesn't create his own shot, but does everything on the floor at least pretty good and does one thing spectacularly. - plays for a team that, as currently constructed, probably isn't a true championship contender, but is close enough that they're wise to keep the core together for now. Sounds like a player who probably doesn't belong anywhere on this list...but then there is that one spectacular skill. Outside of the witches' brew being concocted nightly in the Bay Area, he's the best long distance shooter in the league when you look at both percentage (47%) and volume (taking over 7 threes a game). He's also averaging a career high 21 points per 36 minutes and has achieved a new career high FG% overall. He's sixth in effective FG% and ninth in Offensive Rating. By any metric, the Clippers are a much better team when he's on the floor. And they get his services for the grant total of $7 million next year (or $10 less than what Enes Kanter and Tobias Harris make). Do you want any part of his next contract? Probably not, unless he prioritizes continuing to chase a ring highly enough to give a contender a discount, which he might very well do. Either way, for a guy who takes nothing off the table and puts something really important on it, he's too cheap in the interim to not be included amount the league's best assets.

47. Harrison Barnes We're less than 6 months away from the expiration of Harrison Barnes' rookie deal and we still don't know exactly what he is. Throughout mostly all four of his years in the league, he's never needed to be a top 3 option on offense, let alone THE top option. He's had the privilege of playing in one of the greatest offenses of all time the last two years, and gets to spend a good deal of his floor time with the best shooter on the planet and quite possibly the second best as well, not to mention arguably the best playmaking big man in the NBA. He's called on to defend players of all shapes and sizes, from Zach Randolph to LeBron James to Kawhi Leonard, and he's handled every assignment more than aptly. But he's also part of a defensive unit that collectively operates as if they were on a string, with hardly ever a wasted movement between them. Simply put, it is as difficult to separate Harrison Barnes the Warrior from Harrison Barnes the basketball player as it is to separate any player from the effect his current surroundings have on him. If he was on this year's Timberwolves instead of Andrew Wiggins, how much better would they be? 5 games? 10 games? Would they even be better? What about if he were starting for the Bulls...would he be their 2nd option on offense? 3rd? Would they be a championship contender? What if he were the key figure in the Sixers next stage of "the process"...could he be the nominal best player on a contender if he was surrounded by Okafor and some other real, live NBA players? Or would they miss the playoffs entirely? These are all questions that almost certainly won't be answered because one would think that Golden State will not mess with a winning formula and they will pay Barnes the max extension he's up for. One would also think that they will just keep on winning, and the next several years will be filled with more questions about Barnes...except this time, they'll be questions about whether he's really worth all the money that the he'll be getting paid. Regardless, given the amount of teams who would give up real assets to find out the ultimate answer on Barnes, and how his own team values him enough to not let that happen, he's more than earned a place on this list.

46. Carmelo Anthony

His deficiencies have been so well chronicled at this point that the fact that he is still one of the five most devastating offensive players on the planet almost gets overlooked. On the other hand, although he has garnered rays of sunshine for his passing and defense this year, he has merely gone from being embarrassing at times in both areas to somewhere between "average" to "good" for each. But he’s not getting any better, or cheaper, and his knees aren’t getting any stronger. Baring a shocker from Kevin Durant this offseason, the next real chance at making this a championship roster won't come for a year and a half when Russ becomes a free agent. What will a 33-year-old Melo, having by then played in over 1000 regular season games, be at that point? If the Knicks had a chance to trade him for players who were more in line with KP's timeline, they’d be crazy not to consider it. But what team in the league (other than Miami or the Clipper, two teams with GM’s that could think they’re a Melo boost away from competing for a title this year) is going to trade for him at the high cost the Knicks would certainly demand? Exactly.

 Young Studs (Slightly to More Than Slightly Uncertain Edition)

45. Jabari Parker Ok, so other than pedigree, he hasn’t shown anything so far that would indicate he has stardom in his future. Who can tell what Parker is at this point? He profiles as a new age power forward in the Carmelo Anthony mold, but as of now, has no semblance of a three-point shot (he’s hit exactly zero this year and is only hitting 31% on long two’s), and defensively he’s been a train wreck. His overall play has been inconsistent to say the least, and rumors have it that the Bucks have already put him on the trading block (they would no doubt want a fortune in return, but still, the fact that they’d even consider giving up on him at this point is disconcerting). But he’s shown enough flashes of the skill level that got him drafted #2 overall, and he has yet to play a full season’s worth of NBA games. Yes, he’s been bad, but his potential is still too high to drop him any lower on this list.

44. Trey Lyles

It was only a cameo, but during a recent six game stretch before Derrick Favors returned to the lineup, Lyles averaged over 13 points a game and hit 10 of 17 from three. Guys who are 6-10, can hit from long range, can operate down low, and have the natural capability to at least hold their own most anywhere on the defensive end don’t grow on trees. That stretch was enough to at least get people talking about what Utah could get for Favors and then insert Lyles in as a stretchier four.

43. Justise Winslow

Pour one out for the Hornets fans. As if Charlotte turning down Boston's offer of four first round picks to move into the Hornets’ draft slot wasn't bad enough, they used that pick on Frank Kaminsky. It was viewed as a short sighted move the second it was made, mostly because everyone thought (correctly, it seems) that Frank the Tank's ceiling as a player was far lower than Justise Winslow, the player people thought Charlotte should take, who the Miami Heat promptly scooped up.

Everyone seems pretty clear on what type of player Winslow is. At the very least, he's a very strong 3 and D guy that will be able to defend any one of four positions on many nights. At best, he's Kawhi Leonard (yes, everyone sees now that Leonard is a transcendent talent, but a quick look back at his rookie year reveals that at that stage of his career, he wasn't all that different from the player Winslow is now). He's in the perfect environment - a place where he's well coached, utilized correctly, and can be brought along without much pressure or the weight of the organization's future being hoisted upon his shoulders (which is one of a few reasons why Winslow's fellow rookie classmate who plays in NY is quite a bit higher on this list; he's done it all with the weight of the world on his shoulders...and hasn't blinked once).

41. Emmanuel Mudiay

42. D’Angelo Russell

The smart money says that two years from now, one of these guys will be a lot higher on this list than many of the point guards that are going to follow as we get closer to #1. The reason they’re both ranked here is that anyone who claims to have any real knowledge about whether it will be one or the other is simply lying, as is anyone who states with certainty that one or both won’t be a bust.

Granted, Russell was taken second in this year’s draft while Mudiay was taken seventh, although in the year leading up to the draft, there was a lot of flip flopping over who was the better prospect. Since then, the picture hasn’t become much clearer. Mudiay has been horrible, in many ways, on both ends of the court, but also has displayed the court vision and athleticism that had teams salivating over his potential years ago when he was considered the best point guard prospect in the country since John Wall. Yes, he’s shot it dreadfully from beyond the three-point arc and not much better overall, but that was to be expected, and like Wall, he seems to have all the tools necessary for the requisite improvement.

Russell has also had a bumpy year, but how could anyone possibly judge anything he’s done playing for Byron Scott? It’s almost impossible to judge anyone on the Lakers this season, even since the circus left town and they’ve started playing something that resembles actual basketball, but it’s obvious that Russell has gotten better as the year has gone one. He’s been shooting it more efficiently and has gotten his three-point stroke closer to where people thought it would be coming out of college. His ceiling doesn’t look to be quite as high as Mudiay’s, but his floor isn’t nearly as low based on early returns, so he nudges him out here.

 Underpaid, Not-Quite All-Stars

40. Gordon Hayward

When I did the first draft of this list (and, in full disclosure, the second...and third...), Gordon Hayward was not on it. And it's not that he plays in Utah, because Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert were included from the beginning.

Let's start with the contract...it only runs through the end of next season, during which he will make roughly $16 million. After that, he will sign a nine figure deal that will take him into his 30's. How desirable is it really to pay a guy that much when it's become quite clear that he is not capable of being the "best" player on a championship team? The question was initially enough for me to slot him after several of the rookies and second year players that he’s slotted above now.

But to do that to Hayward completely ignores where the NBA is at in 2016 (and where it surely will be in summer of 2017). Yes, Hayward's salary will vault past $20 million a year, but the cap will be over $100 million and he will sign that contract having just turned 27. He can do almost everything on the court that you can ask from a small forward, and while he's not in the category of the top players on this list in terms of being able to consistently dump him the ball at the end of games and telling him to go get you a basket (as even his own coach has pointed out), he's not afraid to take those shots, and he makes his fair share. Those players don't grow on trees. He won't ever be the "best" player on a championship team in the traditional LeBron/Shaq/Jordan sense, but as Zach Lowe recently discussed on David Locke's Jazz podcast, there's no reason why he can't carry that mantle for a really, really good supporting cast, a ‘la the '04 Pistons. He has, after all, played at a borderline All Star level this year, and there's no reason he can't still improve a hair over the next few seasons.

All that being said, even Hayward acknowledges that he's far from an untouchable franchise cornerstone, as his recent comments about his long term future in Utah indicate. But given the player he is, that doesn't mean he shouldn't be included somewhere on this list.

39. Derrick Favors

It feels like he’s been around forever, and the guy is still only 24 years old and was playing at an All Star level before he got hurt. His long term fit might not be on the Jazz and playing next to Rudy Gobert, but he still has two more years left on his contract after this one, and makes only $12 million a year. If the Jazz pulled a Deron Williams next year and decided to move him in favor of giving Trey Burke the lion’s share of minutes at power forward, there would be no shortage of takers. In fact, a package of Favors and Exum would be enough to snag a superstar level player, although a player of that caliber would have to endorse the idea of playing in Utah. Such a player who fits Utah’s needs doesn’t appear to be on the market at the moment. However, if it almost makes too much sense to trade a player, he can only be ranked so high on a trade value list.

37. Reggie Jackson

38. Kemba Walker

The last two point guards on our list for a while. There seems to be a clear demarcation here between them and the truly elite players at the position or those that we think might someday become elite.

A lot of similarities here. Both guys, for starters, are having career years, albeit for vastly different reasons. A year ago at this time, Reggie Jackson was still stuck in OKC where things had not gone well for him. After being a late first round draft pick, he periodically showed signs of being a really nice player. Finally, thanks to some injuries, the situation arose where he was allowed to do a lot more than ever before, and he took advantage of that opportunity. There was talk that maybe the Thunder had found a gem with Jackson, but it didn't last long, and he was once again relegated to the bench, perhaps unfairly. At the trade deadline, one needs to look no further than what Detroit gave up for him to know that the market for Jackson's services was lukewarm at best.

Since coming to Detroit, Jackson has thrived. He's in the first year of a five-year deal that will pay him a more than reasonable salary, he's playing for a coach in Stan Van Gundy who has essentially structured the entire offense around the Jackson / Drummond pick & roll. This has led to some nice number and, more importantly, a winning record and a season that should culminate in a playoff berth.

If the Pistons are going to make the playoffs, they will have to beat out the Hornets, a team led by someone who has garnered praise this year unlike that which he ever saw before in the NBA. Before this season, Walker was looked at as being somewhere near the top of the bottom third of point guards in the NBA. He signed a 4 year, $48 million extension last season that was seen as fair value for his services, which says everything you need to know about what most people thought of the services he offered...or more accurately, those he didn't. Kemba, prior to this year, had never been a good enough shooter to be considered anything more than a middling point guard, as he couldn't do anything else well enough to compensate for that deficiency. This year, for some reason, that has changed. He's shooting much better than he ever has, and it's resulted in Charlotte being one of the many teams, along with Detroit, in the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff scrum.

Even with the stronger shooting, however, there's a sense that This Is What He Is, and "This" still has a ceiling. He's been playing out of his mind and with a decent supporting cast, and his team is still below .500. Like Jackson, no one is going to confuse him with an untradeable franchise point guard. Still, the size and length of both of these contracts make them each a nice piece to build around.

 Young Studs (Really Freaking Excited Edition)

35. Rodney Hood

36. Devin Booker

Two players that appear to be the future of the shooting guard position in the NBA.

Since the new year, Devin Booker been doing a damn good Klay Thompson impression, averaging over 17 points per game and showing the pristine shooting stroke that got him drafted so high in the first place. He makes all the classic rookie mistakes on defense, but the tools are there, and then you remember that he didn't even start for Kentucky in his one year there. There's no telling how high his ceiling is at the league's most barren position. The only reason he's lower than Winslow here is that defensively, he'll have a tougher time being able to hold his own guarding bigger players, whereas Winslow, despite the short stature, has the build to mix it up down low with the big boys. If Draymond has taught us anything, it's that height isn't everything. And oh, btw – he’s the youngest player in the NBA (seriously – he looks like he’s about 12).

Hood on the other hand has been a downright revelation this season. He’s averaged 15 a game this season, but even that doesn’t tell the whole story. He seems to lead the Jazz in scoring every other night, and he’s doing that while shooting 65% on shots at the rim and making 2 threes a game while shooting 36% from downtown (not great but he’s upped how many he’s putting up, taking 2 more a game than last year, so the percentage figures to go increase with time). He appears to be an absolute stud in every sense of the word.

34. Nikola Jokic

Unless you live in Denver or are a big proponent of advanced stats, there's a good chance you've only heard of him in passing. He's currently the starting center for the Nuggets, who are not one of the better teams in the NBA. He's also not putting up much in the way of traditional counting stats, averaging less than ten points a game. He also came seemingly out of nowhere (he was drafted last June, but played overseas for one season before making his NBA debut this year). But make no mistake- Nurkic is not only their best rookie, but one of the best in the entire league. For starters, much like Towns and Porzingas, his range extends out to the three-point arc. He’s comfortable with the ball in his hands, and he's a huge plus on the defensive end as well. In a league that places more and more value on doing everything at least ok as opposed to doing some things great and others terribly, Nurkic is one of only 10 players to have at least a 2.0 in both offensive and defensive real plus minus (the others are all current or very recent All Stars, plus Ricky Rubio). Along with Emmanuel Mudiay, he's absolutely a part of Denver's short and long term future.

33. Myles Turner

Since the middle of January, folks in Indianapolis (because people in Indianapolis are folks) have been positively giddy about Mr. Turner. Despite being a big time prospect entering his freshman year at Texas, he dropped in the draft thanks to concerns about his back and a lackluster showing in college (although we should have known this was no indication of his future ability. Rick Barnes was, after all, his coach). Initially slowed by a fractured thumb that kept him out for 6 weeks early in his rookie season, Myles has really started to shine. He’s been getting more playing time of late and has produced, averaging roughly 15 points per game since mid-January and protecting the rim like a vet on the other end with over two and a half blocks per outing. His per-36 minute averages are roughly on par with Porzingas, and while he doesn’t have KP’s range, he’s shooting a hair below 50% on long two pointers. His recent insertion into the starting lineup alongside Ian Mahinmi has even shown his ability to play power forward, although his long term value is most certainly in the middle.

 Foundational Big Men

32. Marc Gasol

Gasol was originally placed further down the list when, earlier this season, it looked like he was beginning his decline sooner than expected. Then he picked it up and began playing arguably the best all-around ball of any center in the league. Now, he’s got a broken foot that might keep him out for the year, so he lands here.

The good news is that this injury means he will finish the season having played in under 600 career games. Still, Gasol the Younger is tough to rank on this list for the simple reason that he doesn't play for a team that automatically gets meetings with almost all of the NBA's top free agents every offseason. While the argument is largely academic, because the only way Gasol is ever going anywhere is if he asks out, the fact is that he is part of an aging roster with no clear path to advancement. Gasol's game should age gracefully though, and his new contract will soon look like a bargain, so if he was ever on the trading block, there would be teams lining up to make a championship run with whatever is left of his prime.

31. DeAndre Jordan

One of the more divisive players in basketball. On one hand, he’s shown that in the right situation – where the best natural point guard alive is getting him the ball in such perfect spots that even if he weren’t the most physically imposing specimen in the NBA, he’d still probably get his fair share of dunks – he can be a borderline All Star (you could easily argue he should have made it this year and last). On the other hand, that statement discounts just how much Jordan has to do right to put himself into position to get all those dunks. He’s gotten to the point where his execution of the Clippers offense is flawless. Defensively, while he’s not the second coming of Bill Russell (seriously Doc), he’s damn good, and he anchors the unit in more ways than one, even showing the ability to pop out and guard smaller players around the perimeter if need be.

But how do you judge the trade value of a player that in all likelihood has found the absolutely perfect situation to maximize his success? This isn’t to say that he would become a nonentity on another NBA team. Quite the opposite, actually – he would probably score a lot more if he were the first option. But how good would such a team be? Or what about if he was the second option on a team without an elite point guard? No one knows, which is why gauging his value is so tough. And at over $20 million for the next 2 seasons with a player option the year after that, that’s a pricy gamble…although one almost every team in the league would take in a heartbeat.

30. Rudy Gobert

He's 23 years old and might already be the best defensive center in the NBA. The advanced stats from when he was inserted into the Jazz starting lineup last year were off the charts. Those numbers have come back to earth a bit, and his per 36 minute averages have also decreased, but despite the drop, this is a player who is capable of anchoring an elite NBA defense through the end of his next contract, and he still has a year and a half left on his rookie deal. Offensively, he’s also showed enough to be a plus on that side of the ball, although all of his offense comes at the rim. Thus, the major concern here is about the fit long term with Derrick Favors, who has much farther range (Favors if hitting 44% on long two’s) but nothing resembling a three-point shot. An offense needs to be darn good at everything it does if two big minute players don’t have range that extends beyond the arc (the Jazz also need to figure out their point guard situation, but they’re hoping Exum is still the answer there). Favors may be good enough to make that happen, but even if a lineup featuring Gobert and Favors can’t work long term, the emergence of Trey Lyles ensures that the Jazz have a backup plan. That means if one of these guys has to go, it’s unlikely to be Gobert.

28. Paul Milsap

29. Serge Ibaka

Two afterthoughts in the minds of the casual NBA observer who just tunes in for the playoffs, although ones heading in different directions.

A few years ago, Serge Ibaka was all the rage. People always started off by noting how raw he was when he came into the NBA and that when he learned the game fully, he would be unstoppable. Then we saw the beginnings of the development of a three-point shot, culminating in him hitting more than a three per game 2 years ago while shooting at a 37% clip. That, plus his defensive prowess (he lead the league in blocks four years in a row until last year when he missed a month and a half following knee surgery. He currently trails Hassan Whiteside for first) was the reason that no one ever suggested they necessarily chose wrong when they decided to sign him over Harden.

The last year and a half has seen Ibaka slowly recede from the average NBA fan’s consciousness. Last season was a lost one for the Thunder, and any attention paid to them was directed towards Russell Westbrook’s nightly impression of a runaway train. This year, the Thunder currently sport the NBA’s third best record but have flown under the radar as the bridesmaid to what has become a race to 70 wins for the Warriors and Spurs. When people do point out how the Thunder could crash that party, the attention is usually focused on Russ and KD, perhaps justly so. Ibaka has had kind of a ho hum season, and while the on/off court numbers are roughly the same for all three, none of Ibaka’s other stats jump off the page. There’s also the small matter of Enes Kanter having just signed a virtually untradeable extension, and the prospect of KD having to play more and more minutes at power forward as he gets older. Add that to the fact that Ibaka will be a free agent in a year and a half and is going to cost a ton of money very, very soon. His block percentage has steadily declined for four straight years, and virtually all of his other stats are trending in the wrong direction. Either Ibaka is doing less because of the additional big men he now as around him to lighten his load, or we’ve already seen the best that Serge Ibaka has to offer. Regardless of the answer, the Thunder are chasing a championship as long as they have their two superstars, and at 26 years old, Ibaka is still young enough for a bunch of teams to take the risk and pony up max dollars for his services.

Paul Milsap, on the other hand, is finally getting the attention he has deserved for far too long. He’s always been good, but for a variety of reasons (playing behind more well-known big men in Utah, initially signing a dirt cheap contract in Atlanta, and being part of a Hawks team last year that got more attention for its style of play than for any individual achievements), he’s never gotten the pub he should have.

This year, that’s finally changed. Not only is he at career highs in every per game statistic, but by most advanced metrics, he grades out as somewhere between the tenth and twelfth best player in the league. So why is he this low? First of all, Milsap just turned 31. Between the regular season and the playoffs, he’s already appeared in over 800 NBA games, and with a few more moderate playoff runs, that number should be nearing 950 by the time he signs his next contract. All indications are that he keeps himself in great shape, but the back end of his next contract likely won’t be pretty, and if his production next year is similar to this year, that contract could be for an absurdly large sum of money. The height of his value is likely this very moment, although it’s almost impossible to envision a scenario where the Hawks would ever contemplate moving him.

27. Chris Bosh

He does everything that LaMarcus Aldridge does, and arguably does it all slightly better, and has never once had an issue playing center. He's probably become the most overlooked and underappreciated player in the league, and with the right supporting cast, he could absolutely play a version of the role KG did on the late 2000's Celtics, except with a more diverse and refined offensive skill set. But he's just a bit more expensive and a bit older than Aldridge, with lots more tread on the playoff tires to boot. Baring lightning striking twice and the most sought after free agent in the sport once again taking his talents to South Beach (and with Riles, you can never discount Durant as a possibility this summer), this Heat team appears closer to playoff mediocrity over the next few years to come. The Dragic trade looks like a heist for Phoenix, and despite Winslow's promise, this is a team who's prime appears to be in the rear view mirror. In this non-KD scenario, Bosh's trade value takes a hit, because how untradeable can an aging, expensive player be on a team that doesn't have what it takes to win it all?

  If You Tell Anyone We’re Even Talking, I’m Never Dealing with You Again

25. Blake Griffin

26. Kevin Love Doesn’t it seem like these two are always linked in the minds of fans? Let’s start with Blake, who seems to have finally crossed over from the tantalizing world of what-could-he-be to the current reality of this-is-what-he-is. And make no mistake about it - what he is is pretty awesome. He's one of the very few players in the league who have a legitimate chance to be the best player on the floor regardless of who else is in the game. While he hasn't developed his three point shot as some might have liked, he has extended his range significantly and is as deadly shooting from the outside as he once was around the rim on a fast break (and while those hops are not once they once were, all indications are that they're still there if need be). He's one of the best passing big men in the league, and he has replaced Chris Paul as the primary reason why, should the Clippers pull off two monumental upsets and wind up in the NBA Finals this year, while people would be surprised, no one would be shocked. Yet a funny thing has happened this year - a repeat from a similar script that was on display last season...as Blake has missed time, first with a left quad injury and then the infamous broken hand, the Clippers have done just fine without him. As of this writing, they are 17-13 with Griffin in the lineup and 16-4 without him. With Paul running the show and with DeAndre Jordan surrounded by a bevy of three point shooters, the Clippers have thrived. Against certain small ball lineups on defense, either one of Jordan or Griffin needs to sit anyway. All of this raises issues as to whether the Clippers are currently allocating their resources in the wisest manner. Of course, over an extended playoff series, a team featuring Griffin is far more likely to succeed than a team without Griffin, and no one has any misgivings about that, which is why the suggestions about moving him for a package of players have been nothing more than theoretical. But for a forward with similar offensive skills who’s range extended past the three-point arc – something we haven’t yet seen from Blake?

Enter Kevin Love. It wasn’t long ago that he was the consensus best power forward in basketball. What better combination could there be than a rebounding machine who threw outlet passes like Ben Roethlisberger and could hit threes at a 37% clip. 2 seasons ago, his last in Minnesota, he finished third in the league in Box Score Plus Minus behind only LeBron James and Kevin Durant and had 65 double doubles in 77 games played. In those 77 games, he led the Wolves to a (barely) winning record, but didn’t make the playoffs, and it was mostly for that reason (along with his questionable defense) that the masses didn’t widely acknowledge him as exactly what he was: one of the top five players in basketball. He was only 25 years old at the end of that season.

Now, Kevin Love is 27 – still young enough that his newly signed contract should age well. That, along with the fact that Love has never relied on his athleticism and has an offensive game that translates perfectly to the NBA in 2016 and beyond, should equate to Love being every bit as valuable an asset today as he was two years ago. So why did Kevin Love’s name recently appear on a list of one of the 10 worst contracts in basketball (seriously…Google it)?

The answer is intertwined with a human condition that every single one of us are susceptible to: recency bias. It’s becoming harder and harder to remember the player that Love was in Minnesota despite the fact that he finished that last, unquestionably dominant season little more than a year and a half ago. Currently, Love is a glorified version of Ryan Anderson. The Cavs – under David Blatt, and still under Tyronn Lue – fail to use the full arsenal of his offensive skills, and do nothing to mask his defensive deficiencies that have been so well documented (is there a way to fix his dreadfulness on the pick and roll? Put it this way...if Rick Carlisle can figure out how to mask Dirk Nowitzki’s defense for the last 2 decades, someone will be able to figure this out). That the Cavs, largely without Love, stomped through the Eastern Conference Playoffs last season without skipping a beat didn’t help his case.

Still, somewhere in there is the player the Cavs traded two number one overall picks for, and the smart money says that at some point – whether it’s with the Cavs or some other smart team who may better be able to utilize him the way he most certainly can still be utilized – we’ll see that player again. Just not on the Clippers, as they would likely do no better figuring out how to game plan around Love’s pick and roll deficiencies than Cleveland has. But some team will take that chance, and likely be happy they did.

 Are We Sure They’re Going to Be a Superstar?

24. Jahlil Okafor Admit it: your gut instinct is to say he’s way, way too high. And then you remember that outside of Minnesota and New Orleans, he’s the surest thing the league has to 25 and 10 every night for the next decade.

Tough to say exactly why Okafor's stock has fallen so far since being taken #3 in the draft last summer. Yes, there's been nonsense. Far too much nonsense. But all indications are that this is not a bad kid, and ownership bringing in Jerry Colangelo, who in turn brought in a couple of real, live NBA players, as well as the tarnished-but-still-really-awesome offensive mind of Mike D'Antoni, seems to have had the desired effect. He's averaging about a block a game, but his defense has been (predictably) something of a disaster. He routinely spends key stretches of close games glued to the bench in favor of Nerlens Noel, who is a gifted shot blocker that has picked up the nuances of NBA defense pretty fast. Offensively, Okafor has been as advertised, averaging over 17 points as a rookie. Okafor's pre-draft ceiling, on the other hand, was a lesser defensive version of Tim Duncan, and it's pretty clear that not only will he never approach Timmy on D, but that despite the buckets he's always going to be able to get, it's no guarantee at this point that Okafor will ever be able to spearhead a truly great offense. However, the 64% he’s shooting while he shares the floor with Ish Smith – the first real NBA point guard he’s played with – bodes well for his long term prospects. Philly seems close to answering the question of whether a lineup featuring both Noel and Okafor can ever be elite at either end of the court, and the answer to that would seem to indicate that one of them will eventually be moved. It's natural to assume that that player will be Noel, but before they reach that conclusion, Philly will have to decide whether Okafor can be brought up to the level of playing passable NBA defense. The verdict is still out on this, and because it is, it's tough to properly gauge the big man's trade value. If the answer is a resounding yes, he vaults up to the Davis/Towns stratosphere. If not, he need look no further than Brook Lopez to see an approximation of his worth. The answer will likely fall somewhere in between, which is why he's here for the time being.

22. Andrew Wiggins

23. Giannis Antetokounmpo

The top two players from the two drafts before the last one. On the surface, they both seem to be having good enough years, although advanced metrics are kind to neither (they each have a net rating of -4 on the year), which has more to do with the struggles of their respective teams as it does their play. Whereas a year ago at this time, there was nothing but excitement surrounding the future of each player, that excitement has now been tempered by just how well each player will be able to turn their considerable potential into a complete game that will actually help their teams rack up wins.

A quick comparison: Wiggins was drafted first overall in what was thought to be a strong draft, while Giannis was taken fifteenth in what was considered the weakest draft in years. Despite coming out in two different drafts, less than three months separates them in age. Antetokounmpo is three inches taller, but they both have outstanding height for the positions they nominally play (6’11” for Giannis at small forward, 6’8” for Wiggins and shooting guard). One of their primary strengths is that both are seen as having the ability to defend across three positions once they fully realize their defensive potential, but this is where the problems begin.

Antetokounmpo has defended well this year, but not as well those hoping to see a switch happy Bucks team featuring five guys that would be able to defend anyone who happened to be standing in front of them. Wiggins, on the other hand, has been below average defensively. Yes, he’s supposed to be a college Junior right now, but we’ve seen plenty of players come into the league in recent years and dominate on the defensive end by their second year.

Offensively, Wiggins is ahead, averaging over 20 points a game before his 21st birthday. He’s getting to the line a decent amount, but his three-point shot is still a work in progress, as he’s currently making less than a quarter of his threes on about two and a half attempts per game. That’s not good, but at least he hasn’t stopped trying. After making 41 threes as a rookie, Giannis has made just 20 over the last two years combined. Even though Jason Kidd wasn’t singling out the Greek Freak when he stated earlier this year that a lineup featuring him, Michael Carter Williams, Jabari Parker and Greg Monroe wasn’t playable due to spacing issues caused by the lack of shooting, he’s not exactly part of the solution to that issue. That being said, Giannis is shooting over 50% from the floor this year, with his true shooting percentage at .570. That’s not bad.

Still, all of the above concerns only mean that these players’ ceiling borderline All Star instead of full-fledged franchise player, and because of that, they’re the top two non-rookie young assets in the NBA.

 Not Going Anywhere

19. Kyle Lowry

20. Damien Lillard

21. Chris Paul

No, he doesn’t have the notoriety or the exposure – his upcoming All Star start notwithstanding - of either of the two players he edges out on this list, but there’s no doubting that after a tumultuous beginning to his career, Kyle Lowry has hit his stride. By any advanced metric out there – Real Plus Minus, Box Score Plus Minus, Value Over Replacement Player, you name it – Lowry has been a top six player in the league this year, behind only James, Westbrook, Curry and Kawhi, and running neck and neck with Draymond Green. He’s translated this outstanding individual play into team success, as the Raptors have emerged from the Eastern Conference playoff morass as the Cavs biggest challengers. Last year at this time, you might have seen Lowry above CP3 on this list, but the argument would have gone something like this: Paul is obviously the better player, but you’re getting Lowry for the next two years at almost half the cost. Now, you’re still getting him for about half the cost, but the first part of the previous statement may no longer be true. The only reason he’s not higher is that he’s a mere seventeen months away from unrestricted free agency, at which point he’ll be 31 years old. Still, because of how his career has gone, there will be less wear and tear on him than a normal player his age…something that isn’t the case for Paul, who will be 31 before these playoffs are over, but is still playing out of his mind. (Seriously. Would you bet your life on the fact that the chips won’t finally fall his way and he’ll go into Eff You mode as the Clips upset a powerhouse or two on their way to the Finals this season? You shouldn’t.)

As for Lillard, Zach Lowe put it succinctly in a podcast earlier this year: he’s the point guard version of James Harden. He just signed a max extension, but despite the salary slot he now sits in, there is no indication that his defense is getting any better. His team gives up 107.6 points per 100 possessions when Lillard is on the court and 102.1 when he’s off. His best defensive box score plus/minus was last year…when he broke even. Last year was widely considered his best in the NBA, and he was 28th in the league in Real Plus Minus. This year, he’s ranked 12th in point guards alone, well below the top four of Westbrook, Curry, Lowry and CP3. True, his team isn’t very good, which skews all stats, but Ricky Rubio ranks 5th in RPM, and that’s for a team lower in the standings than the Blazers.

More than all the stats in the world though, perhaps the loudest indictment of all came from the footsteps of LaMarcus Aldridge walking out the door. LMA had a chance to sign for more money and go down as the greatest Blazer in history, but left instead. Whether this had as much to do with his misgivings about the attention Lillard sought and was receiving (as has been speculated in some circles) is beside the point; at the very least, he had a chance to spend the remaining prime of his career with a twenty-five-year-old, two-time All Star wingman and said “no thanks.” At what point does Lillard go from being a promising long-term building block to being someone who puts up good numbers that you can’t win with? He plays in Portland, where the rabid fan base will always heap him with praise for staying while Aldridge left, and where he’ll always be able to fly mostly under the radar and away from scrutiny, but it doesn’t change the deficiencies in his game. Those deficiencies put him a notch below the truly elite young point guards in the NBA, and would make teams hesitant to mortgage their future to trade for him.

Would a team like the Clippers pass up a chance to get five years younger and three more years of team control at arguably the game’s most important position? They’d at least have to give it some thought. The Blazers, on the other hand, like most teams in the league are too far away from contention to have any reason to make such a trade, which is why, at 30 and nearing a final big contract that is likely to get ugly before all is said and done, Paul slots in below Lillard here. But not by much. He’s still one of the ten best players in basketball, and even though he hasn’t done it yet, there’s little doubt that he’s capable of leading a team to the promised last for at least a couple more years. What hurts his ranking here more than anything else is that the Warriors and Spurs are roadblocks that appear a bit too large for the currently constructed Clippers to overcome.

18. Boogie Cousins Roughly a decade ago, there was a big man who toiled away on a not-very-good team in what most people thought of as one of the more undesirable places to play basketball, albeit one with a rabbit fan base. No one doubted the player's MVP-caliber talent, or the fact that if the right pieces were put around him, he was capable of leading a team to the promised land as its de facto "best player." This player was considered the best of his kind in the sport at one end of the floor and more than capable at the other end, although pundits often questioned his consistency and production at that lesser end, especially in big spots. This player came into the league with incredible hype but also incredibly large questions, and an unquestioned temper that manifested itself in many ways, not all of them positive. While he never did anything to show that the hype was unjustified, after a certain amount of time in the league, there were doubts about where his career would end up. And because of that, and because of the team's continued failings, the talk of a trade only intensified as the years went by, until one day, he finally was. The stories of Boogie Cousins and Kevin Garnett are obviously not parallel to one another. For starters, by the time Garnett was traded, he had already won an MVP and led the Timberwolves to the Western Conference Finals, and before that, had taken several teams to the playoffs (with several first round playoff losses, seemingly always to the Spurs). Boogie has never sniffed the postseason, and if you are even remotely tuned into what has been going on in Sacramento for years, you know that Cousins has not exactly made himself into a pillar of stability for a winning culture. Garnett made several All NBA teams and Defensive teams, and his specialty was on that end of the floor, while Cousins is an unstoppable load on offense. He has yet to make All NBA anything. Most significantly though, Garnett - while his on court antics certainly perturbed some - was viewed as unquestionably one of the fiercest competitors in the game, someone who didn't know how to take a possession off, even when his teams were going positively nowhere. A simple search on YouTube reveals that no one will ever confuse DeMarcus Cousins with KG in this respect. Still, it's conceivable to imagine a world in which Cousins wears another uniform as he hoists the Larry O'Brien trophy above his head and screams his own version of "anything is possible." The key part of that is another uniform, because no thinking basketball fan could imagine a world in which the Kings put it together to the point of competing for a championship, at least not with this owner, who doesn't appear ready to look for buyers anytime soon. So how do you rank the trade value of an immensely talented player who comes with well documented baggage but also the potential to bring with him the ultimate reward? With difficulty. But here at the outer fringes of the top 20 seems about right.

17. Andre Drummond

Here’s the good news: there’s an 85% chance we know exactly what he is – a slightly lesser version of peak Dwight Howard. Their games are incredibly similar, and even though Drummond is 1-2 years behind Howard in age at this stage of developmental progress, he seems to be tracking Dwight’s career just fine. His coach is certainly betting on it.

Here’s the second piece of good news: Dwight, despite all that’s happened over the last several years, farts and all, had a pretty nice run as the de facto best center in basketball. He led the Magic to one NBA Finals, arguably had the best team in the league the following season when they lost an odd Eastern Conference Finals to the Celtics, and then finished 2nd in the MVP race the year after that. Not a bad three-year stretch. There’s no reason to think that with Stan Van Gundy once again running the show, with a better version of Jameer Nelson manning the point in Reggie Jackson, and with the same type of supporting cast members (including some nice young trade chips), Drummond can’t lead the Pistons to some deep playoff runs of their own.

Now for the bad news: he’s not quite as good as Dwight was. The free throw shooting is a thing, and as Howard’s new team showed not long ago, it can be exploited to ridiculous proportions. He also doesn’t appear to have the finesse around the basket to make a team like, say, the Warriors pay for going small against them. There are also questions about just how good his defense actually is despite some good numbers. Put all that together and ask the obvious question: just how excited would you be to pay Andre Drummond an average of $25 million a year for the next half decade? There’s no doubt worse ways to spend your money, but you would also need to consider how a successful team needs to be constructed in just such a particular way around him (three elite shooters around the perimeter, and a premier pick & roll point guard), and even then there’s no guarantee of ever hitting pay dirt.

Even still, 22 year-olds with this skill set don’t grow on trees, but whereas Bill Simmons at one point considered young Dwight to be the best non-LeBron asset in the league when he wrote this column, young Andre doesn’t warrant being quite so high on the list in 2016.

  Untouchable

16. James Harden Raise your hand if you want to be the guy who puts his job on the line to pay James Harden his next contract - one that will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 million - and see Harden, a player not exactly well known for keeping himself in the best shape, reach his 30th birthday before he even begins the second season under that contract? Hmmm....light crowd. Well maybe we don't even have to get that far...raise your hand if you think you're winning an NBA Championship with James Harden as your best player in either of the next two years (going on the assumption that, should the Rockets even get into the playoffs this year following the firing of their coach and continued, shall we say, inconsistent play, they will not be raising the Larrry O'Brien trophy in 2016) before he becomes a free agent (again, this makes the assumption that the Rockets pick up his $17.7 million option for 2017-18)? The lack of audience participation here is not startling. Yet, this is a player who many NBA pundits - many of whom have no use for Harden the person - argued should have won the MVP award last season. This is a player who is unquestionably the best in the league at arguably the skill that ages best: getting to the line and hitting free throws at a ridiculous rate. He is the most diverse offensive player at his position in the NBA. He was the best player on a team that made it to the Western Conference Finals and he led the league in scoring to boot. And for all these reasons, he comes in here, and not any lower, on this list. What is perhaps most disconcerting about James Harden's well chronicled on again, off again relationship with defensive effort and conditioning is the timing of his most recent flip of the off switch. It coincided with his getting (justifiably) lauded for getting his team as far as he did in last season’s playoffs, signing a $200 million shoe deal, and garnering much attention for his relationship with a well-known celebrity. The intersection of all this does not seem to be a coincidence.

15. John Wall He's one of the best point guards in the NBA. He's developed his three-point shot. He's 3rd in the NBA in assist percentage now after finishing 3rd last year. He can fly, and gets the rim when he needs to. He's a legit defender and has been nothing but a stabilizing force for the Wizards locker room for years now. He's still young, has room to improve, and his contract is lengthy and gets better with age. But in a league with Steph and Russ, he's never mentioned in conversations about the best point guard in the league. This was supposed to be the year that his team took the next step, and at least be in the conversation for who would be the last barrier for the Cavs on their way to the Finals, but due to injuries the team has underperformed. Everyone can see that Wall has more than done his part, but still, this is a player nearing the prime of his career who, as the best player on his team, can't do anything more than have them hovering around .500. Last year, in a comparatively tougher Western Conference, Westbrook did the same and looked spectacular doing it. Wall's work has gone largely under the raider this year, as his All Star voting returns showed. Is all this to say he's any less valuable? No. But it does seem to speak to what his ceiling is as a player, and that ceiling is just low enough to put him below some of the other names on this list.

14. Kyrie Irving

No one doubts his talent, and the numbers bear out pretty clearly that the Cavs are a much better team when he plays than when he doesn’t. There’s also very little doubt that when he went down with an injury during last year’s NBA Finals, the Cavs became a noticeably better team defensively without him, and arguably, a better team overall in that small window of time. Of course, no one thinks that they’re better off in the long term without him, but that Finals injury served as a reminder that before LeBron brought his talents back into town, Irving appeared headed towards a fate closer to Stephon Marbury than the one he’s currently on track to live out. Thus, the question remains: without the benefit of a transcendent, still-barely-in-his-prime player alongside him, how much trade value would Kyrie actually have? The answer to that question likely won’t come for a while. When it does - say, three years from now - it’s a safe bet that Irving will either be very close to the top of this list (he’s still only 23, and if he tops out on the high end, he’ll be right in the middle of his prime) or off it completely. At the moment however, the fact that he’s locked up for 3 more years for an average of $17 million (after which comes a player option) makes Irving a top 15 asset, regardless of the criteria one uses.

12. Jimmy Butler 13. Klay Thompson In what has unquestionably become the scarcest position in the NBA to find elite talent, these two, along with James Harden, are the cream of the crop (Demar DeRozan has reached a new peak this year, and you can argue that he's sneaking up to this group, but he's nowhere near them on this list mostly due to contract situation. Not only is he a pending free agent as discussed already, but his next contract is going to vault him well past these two in salary). A quick comparison: They are roughly the same age (Butler is six months older), but both are going to be only 26 years old before the season ends and are each arguably entering the prime of their careers. Their contracts are both amazing values...Butler makes about a million dollars more per year in each of the next four years, after which he has a fifth year player option, which, barring a catastrophic change of course in his career (all he need do is look at his backcourt partner to realize that such a scenario can never be ruled out), he will decline. Still, neither player will ever get over twenty million per season over the course of their respective contracts. Most importantly (ahem, Harden, ahem), while neither is the one-man offensive show that their bearded counterpart is, they bring complete games to the table. This means different things to each team. For the Bulls, this is something closer to a luxury; for the Warriors, it is a necessity. If Steph Curry had to expend the energy necessary chasing around the premier point guards of the Western Conference (Westbrook, Parker, Paul, and Conley - at least two of which the Warriors will likely have to face in the playoffs this year - to name a few), he would not have as much energy to do his thing on the other end. The most obvious question is why, even putting all of the nonsense that goes along with Harden aside, the complete pictures of both of these guys is enough to put them ahead of Harden here. Butler's case is the easier one. After otherworldly Kawhi Leonard, he's the best two way guard/wing player in the league, and while he's still refining his offensive game, the signs are there that he can absolutely be, if not the "best" player on a championship team, a 1a to a 1b with a slightly different game (imagine, for instance, him with Carmelo Anthony. With the right supporting cast, that would be a team at least capable of making the Finals). For evidence of exactly where his game is at, look no further than the 50 point game he had this January, which he then followed up with a 4 point effort. Pretty soon, those inconsistencies will vanish. Kay's case is a bit tougher, because while his three-point shot is one of the best in the league, he doesn't have the offensive toolkit that Butler possesses, and he's not Butler's equal on D. But would the Warriors trade him for Harden? Or, for that matter, any of the more superstar-y players closer to the top of this list? As we'll soon see when we discuss the Warriors' second most untradeable player, chemistry means as much to this team as any champion in recent memory, and unless it was for a clear upgrade, they would never upset that balance, especially for a guy like Harden. But even more than that, for this particular team, Harden might not even be a step up. Factor in the lack of defense and the fact that Harden, perhaps more than any other player in the league, needs the ball in his hands to operate effectively. The Warriors already have someone who fills that role. You may have heard of him. And while Daryl Morrey has made his bed with Harden and they are going to ride out whatever slim hopes they have of nabbing a championship together by surrounding him with juuuust the right mix of players, here's betting there's a lot of GM's out there who would rather take Thompson to start their team with tomorrow and not risk all the headaches. Oh, and by the way: this isn't a purely theoretical conversation. When Sam Presti began shopping Harden when he knew he couldn't resign him to an extension with the Thunder, the Warriors were either the first or one of the first teams he called. Bob Myers had a chance to trade Klay for Harden three years ago...and said no thanks. Granted, even the most optimistic observer didn't realize that Harden would soon become an MVP candidate and the league's leading scorer, but Thompson hadn't yet developed into the all-around player he's become either. If nothing else, we can bet that were Myers given the chance to make the trade today, he'd still say "no thanks.”

So while Klay Thompson, contract and all, would be taken lower in a straight up asset draft than many of the players below him on this list, there’s little chance that the Warriors would take that risk, and in this column at least, that counts for something.

11. Kristaps Porzingas Full disclosure: your author is a Knicks fan. So this was a tough call. Porzingas finds himself in some lofty air here, above MVP candidates, All-NBA’ers and All Stars. The excitement surrounding him has a lot to do with his game, but even his most ardent supporter would have to admit that part of the hoopla comes from the fact that a) he's a giant, and he does cool stuff that giant people don't usually do. Despite Phil Jackson's professed doomsday scenario, he's the antithesis of Shawn Bradley in every way possible. And people dig that. b) he wasn't supposed to be any good, at least not this fast. There were at least a few articles around draft time that pointed out how he wasn’t that good playing for his Spanish league team, despite their efforts to showcase him, and how no one could be sure he wouldn't be just another European bust at this level. Even optimists thought it would be two years before he made any kind of a noticeable impact. So when we sit here at mid-season of his rookie year and Kristaps is unquestionably the second best and second most valuable Knick, people are downright giddy. But that's not as big a reason for all the craziness as... c) it's New York, and it's the Knicks. They screw up everything. And they've screwed up everything for a very, very long time. When they screw up, it's always worse, but when they get something right, it's always better, because, well, it has to be...we're New Yorkers and we're better than you. So when the Knicks got something right here, it can't just be that they got a really promising young player. No, they've drafted the second coming. As Zach Lowe said on a podcast earlier in the year, he belongs to Knick fans, and he's good enough for the team to not make the stupid trade they always make...not for Boogie, not for anyone. At least that's how Knicks fans feel. Hell, within a month of this, typical Knicks fans were scheming for ways to get Melo out of town for some young assets so we could officially give the key to the city to KP. So yes, there's hoopla. But this is still a raw 20-year old. Potential only means that no one can yet be certain as to what he'll become, and in the case of a type of player that no one's ever really seen before at this size, that can be both titillating and frightening. Yes, the reality is nice and much better than expected, but there is still tons of risk associated with this player, and the value some of his supporters have anointed him with only comes with continued growth in all areas of his game (although, to be fair, his shot blocking is close to elite right now.) So why is he this high? All one needs to do is watch him play and it doesn't take long to see why. The Dirk comparisons are fair, and while he likely won't ever reach that level (which is nothing to be ashamed of, as Nowitski will go down as one of the 5 or 10 greatest shooters ever), his offensive game has all the facets of Dirk's. But that's only 75% of his offensive game. The other 25% is some unholy amalgamation of prime Marcus Camby and Hakeem Olajuwon. And that's not even considering his defense. Switchability is everything, and while he's not nearly there yet, his foot speed and insane length should allow him to avoid the bench when teams go super small throughout his career. Plus, as mentioned before, he's already blocking 2 shots a game and he gets a fair amount of his blocks just standing there and putting his hands up. So when you consider all that, and then look at the guys below him on this list, who really deserves to be up here ahead of him?

10. LaMarcus Aldridge You know the Spurs aren't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. This is the first major free agent splash the organization has ever made, and it was - and still is - a doozy. They got themselves the best traditional offensive big man in basketball, and one who can do all the little Spurs-y things that Pop requires of his players on both ends of the floor. He's been such a good fit that, if/when Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobli both retire following this season, would anyone really bet heavily against them winning another 60-something games and finishing with a top 2 seed in the West next year? A lot of that has to do with the other Spur slightly higher on this list, but make no mistake: LMA has every bit as much to do with this team's current and future trajectory. But yet...here in the top 10? It feels high, not only because it's someone even legitimate NBA fans never considered a top 10 asset while he was still in a prime, but also because he's almost certainly a player who's left that prime behind. But therein lies the magic and mystery of the Spurs...it's not what you put on the table, but what you don't take off, and LMA gives you everything you need to have a solid meal night in and night out, and that's not changing anytime soon. The fact that he also now happens to be (along with his running mates Kawhi and Danny Green) one of the more ridiculous bargains in the NBA doesn't hurt matters one bit. For that reason alone, there’s not a team in the NBA who wouldn’t jump at the chance to build around him for the next half decade. And yes, an escalating salary starting at just under 20 million a year for a player of this caliber, in a world where the cap will be more than five times that amount in a year and a half, is a steal. Don't think so? Here's the list of the other players in the league on the exact same salary structure: Brook Lopez, DeAndre Jordan, Kevin Love, and Marc Gasol. Who would you want on your team for the next four years?

9. Draymond Green

The first version of this list had Draymond Green and Blake Griffin lumped together, with Draymond a spot ahead, and a line that “such a thing would have been unthinkable not too long ago.” This is still true. A year ago at this time, Blake Griffin was still arguably the young star in the league, the player who had crossed over from potential to reality, and he was still under contract for two and a half more seasons. Draymond was just coming into his own as the devastating force that fueled the Steph Curry-led engine that is the Golden State Warriors. He was also a restricted free agent who people weren’t yet quite sure would be maxed out. That’s not what’s amazing.

No, the amazing part is that now, if anyone suggested that the Warriors would even consider a Green for Griffin swap (or, arguably, a swap of Green and damn near anybody else in the entire league, even the names that are ranked higher than him here), they would be laughed at. Heartily.

So the real question is, just when exactly did it crystalize for everyone that Draymond wasn’t just the guy that made the Warriors machine hum…that he was more than Steph Curry’s wingman, and that his value wasn’t specific to the behemoth team he was on?

Perhaps a different question is in order: How many players in the league currently exist that can run an offense and effectively switch onto literally almost any player in the league on defense, that can hit threes at both a high volume and at an effective percentage, that single handedly motivates their team on a nightly basis and serves as the spokesman for a unit that garners more media attention than anyone since the ’96 Bulls, and that is in the first year of a five year contract that will never pay him more than $20 million in a season?

The list starts and ends with one name. The Warriors, regardless of what happens this year, will enter every season of the next half decade as the favorites to win the NBA Championship, as long as they keep their core together (and by all indications, they will be able to, and have an easier time of it in comparison to former dynasties - something the Warriors are on the verge of becoming before our eyes) and that core remains relatively healthy. The primary reasons for that are Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson...in that order. He is, it seems, the closest thing we have to Scottie Pippen, not in the way their games are structured (Leonard is much closer in that way), but in how they can function seamlessly as a #2 to an all-time great and be a great player in their own right, capable of leading a team on his own. Are there still people out there who doubt that Draymond Green could be the best player on a 50 win team? Probably. And they would be right – no player in NBA history short of prime LeBron and Wilt could guarantee that. But anyone who doubts that he could be the best player on a smartly constructed contender isn’t paying attention. At press time, he currently sits at 7th in the league in Box Score Plus Minus and 4th in Real Plus Minus. For those not a fan of advanced stats, he also leads the NBA in triple doubles with 8 and is currently the only player in the NBA averaging over 7 rebounds and assists and over a block and a steal per game, to go along with a 14 ppg average on a team that doesn't really need him to score on many nights.

More importantly than any of that is the fact that he will continue to conduct daily checks of his teammates shoulders to ensure that those chips don't go anywhere, regardless of how many titles they accumulate. Put it all together, if this ranking looks ridiculous in a few years, it's more likely that it's too low than high.

8. Paul George With the amount of ups and downs he's already had in his career, it's amazing to think that Paul George is only 25 years old. He's younger than Draymond Green, even though it seems as if he's been on the scene for three times as long. Why does it seem that way? Let's just say his short career has been a bit of roller coaster ride thus far, starting on a less than positive note... Down: falls, somewhat inexplicably, to 10th in the 2010 NBA Draft, after such luminaries as Wesley Johnson, Ekpe Udoh, and Al Farouq Aminu (The Pacers actually nailed the draft 2 years in a row - in '10 with George and in '11 with the 15th pick, but traded the rights to that player to the Spurs. It still unclear how any NBA offenses would have scored points against a wing combo of George and that decently skilled player, Kawhi Leonard. The closest comp would be the thing that Indiana Jones had to get through in the Last Crusade, with Roy Hibbert waiting in the paint, playing the role of the incorrect chalice) Up: starts opening eyes over his first two years in the league, as in, "hey, looks like the Pacers found a real nice player in that Paul George kid" Up: "that Paul Gorge kid" nearly leads the Pacers to an Eastern Conference Finals upset of the eventual champion Miami Heat (yes, they were blown out in Game 7, but the fact that there was a Game 7 to begin with is enough to call it a near upset. "Very nearly" would have indicated a close game in the fourth quarter) Up: Paul George becomes a sheik MVP pick by the middle of the 2013-14 season, as he leads the Pacers to a 46-13 record by the beginning of March. The Pacers appear ready to truly challenge the Miami Heat in the playoffs, and Paul George is being heard in conversations about the best two way player in the NBA. He is 23 years old. Down: Following that start, the Pacers are a sub-.500 team the rest of the way, including the playoffs which saw them get pushed to the limit by a better-than-anyone-realized Hawks team in the first round and again saw them reach the Eastern Conference Finals and again get blown out in the decisive game, this time Game 6. The end of the regular season was filled with constant rumblings of locker room turmoil, with the team looking like a shell of itself down the stretch. The young core of Roy Hibbert and Lance Stephenson, both of whom had garnered praise as truly unique talents in the Pacers run up to this downfall, would never be viewed the same again. Down: In an exhibition Blue vs. White game for Team USA, Paul George lands awkwardly against the stanchion and breaks his lower right leg in an injury various press outlets initially described at the time as "devastating," "horrific," and "gruesome." While no one doubts that his work ethic will take him back to the NBA at some point, no one can be certain of the type of player he will be on his return. Up: On April 5, 2015, George returns, roughly eight months removed from the injury. He doesn't start any games and shows predictable rust, but it sets the scene for this season, in which George regained his place as one of the best two way players in the league, averaging a career high in points per game while leading the surprising Pacers into the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff race. He will start the All Star game this year. He is currently 15th in Real Plus Minus, with Kawhi and Boogie the only players higher up on the list that are younger than him. So here he sits, locked up for the next two years at under twenty million per. He seems to like Indiana, and while his next contract will be pricy, if it's for the full five years, it will end when he has just turned 33, and he should still be in the tail end of his prime. While it may not be this year, a world exists in which Paul George could be the best player on an NBA championship team. He has a smart front office in place and a good coach who has survived the disaster at the end of 2014 and should be there for the long haul. Paul George has survived the worst. The Pacers will be happy to sit and find out whether he can outdo his previous best.

6. Russell Westbrook 7. Kevin Durant Travel, for a moment, into a world in which Kevin Durant had been drafted a year earlier. Instead of entering free agency this upcoming offseason, he instead would have just signed a five-year max extension with the Thunder this past summer, one could make a good argument that Durant would be in the top 3 on this list, while Russell Westbrook would be quite a bit lower. One would make such an argument quite easily by pointing out that Russ is only locked up for another year and change, and has long been linked to more glamorous destinations across the NBA landscape (and with the young talent bases being built on both coasts, those theories will only continue to gain traction). Meanwhile, there are several younger guards across the league - Klay Thompson, John Wall, and Jimmy Butler are the three that come to mind - who all, while not of Westbrook's caliber as a player, might be better fits on OKC for two main reasons, the most obvious one being contract. Each are locked up for 2 more season that Westbrook at dollar amounts that look good now, and in a year and a half will look like downright steals. Those contract numbers would also give the Thunder more leeway to sign another big player in the summer of 2017 when the cap jumps again, and all of the sudden you've just more than doubled your championship window. Who that other player might be gets into the second and touchier reason why they would be best off trading Russ in the aforementioned alternate universe scenario. If he were traded for Butler or Thompson, the Thunder would try to bring in a more traditional point guard, and if he were exchanged for Wall, they might get a traditional spot up shooter who can do all of the things that they are currently mixing and matching 3 or 4 different players to get. A team with Butler or Klay and, say, Jrue Holiday or George Hill next to Durant and Ibaka (which would be tricky with him due to hit free agency at the same time as Russ, so this would take some cap creativity) might look pretty good, as would Wall with JJ Reddick or Kyle Korver. Any of these combos would give the Thunder a point guard who actually functioned as a point guard, which, if OKC rides out this era with ringless fingers, people will always wonder if maybe that would have been the better way to go. At the end of the day, these scenarios need not be discussed, as Durant is entering free agency this year, and trading Russell Westbrook, even for one of the players listed above, would not only decrease any chances the Thunder have of winning the chip this year, but it would open up the realistic possibility of the Thunder having traded away or lost 3 genuine MVP candidates in a span of little more than 3 years, at which point the organization might as well retreat back to Seattle. If they don't win it all this year, that possibility might still remain, but OKC has no choice but to keep this core together in the meantime to roll those dice. That means not trading Durant either, who remains a no-doubt-about-it top 10 untradeable player despite being in the last year of his contract and having that darn foot injury which is never going to disappear. This team could absolutely win it all this year, and that possibility only exists because of these two players. Replace Durant with, say, Paul George, Jimmy Butler, Blake Griffin, or someone else slightly further down this list, and you've just guaranteed your championship window to stay open for at least another year, but you've also taken that window from being maybe 25% open to something around 5%, as none of those players can bring to the table what Durant does. That's why you don't trade Kevin Durant. That, and because if you do, you might as well pick up a one-way ticket out of town for his running mate while you're at it.

 Don’t Even Pick Up the Phone

4. Karl Anthony Towns 5. Anthony Davis Yup...already. Think about it...what justifiable reason is there to invert the two? Even if we put aside Davis' injury history which, because of recurring bumps and bruises, never seems to drift too far in the rear view mirror, why would anyone prefer him over KAT at this point? Let's start with age. Towns is almost three years younger. With that comes three more years at a discounted rookie rate, whereas Davis' extension will start next season at over $20 million and escalating yearly. This would not be as big of a deal if either the Pelicans were in a win now situation or Towns was still more potential than realization. Neither is the case. Let's start with the Pelicans. There is nothing about the Pelicans’ situation that appears very promising for the long term outside of Davis. They are on the verge of positively nothing this season and, even assuming they can nail what will likely be a low lottery pick and a free agent or two, the best case scenario for next season would appear to be a lower seeded playoff berth. Even that assumes they resign Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson, two players whose next contracts will likely be disasters almost from the moment they are signed in the climate certain to evolve this summer. There is not a single significant player outside of Davis on the roster who has yet to reach their developmental ceiling. Add it all up, and it simply makes more sense to get an additional three years of control while the organization figures its way out of mediocrity. And that's before we even get to Towns. It was not supposed to happen this quickly for KAT. The skill set was obviously there, which is why what started out in the beginning of the college season as a debate between he and Okafor was, by draft night, a formality. But he was supposed to develop a three point shot, not go 18 for his first 48 (not to mention be among the league leaders in FT %). He was supposed to be a solid rebounder as a rookie, not be 21st in the league in defensive rebound percentage (Davis is 19th). On defense, he shows all the signs of being what every team craves: a big man who can switch effectively enough so that his team could play small without actually playing small. Despite all of the above, we have already seen hard evidence from Davis that he is fully capable of being not only the best player in the league, but being a transformative, generational talent. Towns has only scratched the surface, and no one has mistaken his rookie season for anything other than what it is: a bumpy road with lots of really, really positive signs. But those signs are so good and have come frequently enough that, given all the other factors at play, KAT edges out AD by a hair.

3. LeBron James LeBron James is not going anywhere. If he did, again, whether that was through his own volition or by the will of someone else, Cleveland as a city would cease to exist as currently constituted, and would be replaced with a barren landscape out of Mad Max, as the townspeople would veer off the cliff of sanity. The only reason he's number three on this list and not 1 or 2 is that if either of the players above him was every offered straight up for the King, after the message was relayed to Cavs ownership, Mr. Gilbert would probably lose a little sleep that night, knowing that he left a good deal on the table. LeBron and his Cavs will very likely make this NBA Finals, and they will just as likely lose to the Warriors or Spurs. They will enter next year as the Eastern Conference favorites yet again, but they will do so with LeBron then somewhere between one and three years removed from his athletic prime...a prime that Curry just stepped squarely into. And next year, if some team upset the Cavs and stopped LeBron's Finals streak at six (assuming he does in fact get there this year), it will be surprising, but not shocking. James will turn 32 next season, and by the end of that season, will have played in more NBA games than Michael Jordan; he has already played in more games than Jordan ever did with the Bulls. And while his passing skills will no doubt age as well as Stockton, and he will no doubt continue to refine his post-game and may eventually take on the more ground-bound role of traditional 6'9", 260 pound NBA players before him, at some point, likely soon, LeBron James as we know him will cease to exist, and with it, so will the automatic Finals favorite status that has come with his mere presence for the last decade or so. On top of that, the consistency of James’ jump shot (which was never exactly thought of as an asset) has reached depths the likes of which we have not seen since very early in his career. At the moment, he’s 0 for his last 18 from downtown. All of this is why, in a vacuum, James is not the asset that the players below him on this list are, and probably not even the asset the Towns or Davis are (and that's to say nothing of his year to year contract, which is something so incredibly unique in the world of sports yet gets almost no attention. What is undeniable is that by itself, it essentially makes LeBron James untradeable for anything remotely close to approaching his value, as he would become an asset that expires in less than twelve months. There is something ironic about James having what an objective viewer would call the weakest contract strength of any superstar athlete in decades, and yet, it essentially gives him full control and his team none. By virtue of the fact that he returned to his hometown and the manner in which he did it, LeBron would still command max money even following the most devastating of knee injuries). But even though LeBron James is starting to show signs of being something less than unquestionably the most dominant athlete on the planet, and there are a number of teams who, given their situation, would rather have Towns or Davis or even another one of the players lower on this list because of the years of team control or the age of the existing supporting cast, but his value and meaning to the city of Cleveland alone means that as long as he remains even remotely the same player as he is now, he’s going to be in this top category.

2. Kawhi Leonard Two years ago, before the Finals MVP, you already read the tea leaves that the San Antonio Spurs knew exactly what they had. Not a good player. Not even a great player, or even an All Star. They knew they had the lynchpin that would carry on their traditional of organizational greatness for the next decade. There may still be those who think Kawhi Leonard is just a product of the Spurs system, but the tape shows that they actually have it backwards. Two years ago, the Spurs played 16 games without Kawhi due to injury, and were a .500 team during that stretch. With him, they went 54-16 in the regular season and won the Championship. Last season Leonard again missed 18 games due to injury, and again, the Spurs won exactly as many games as they lost without him, and likely lost out on a slightly higher playoff seed and what very likely would have been another deep playoff run, as they were 46-18 in games he played. This year, he is, along with Steph Curry, LeBron James, and Russell Westbrook, at the top of virtually every advanced stat leaderboard. Unlike those other players, he brings to the table something that no other NBA player currently does: the ability to completely and totally shut down the best guard or wing player on the opposite team while not taking anything off his own offensive game (frightening thought: what if Kawhi concentrated mostly on offensive like the rest of the league's superstars do...). And in a league with no Shaq or other comparable unstoppable big man, and where the best low post offensive player (hell, you could argue the two best) don the silver and black, shutting down the rest of the guys on the top 10 of this list is a fairly valuable skill. Oh, and he currently leads the league in three point percentage. So there's that. Simply put, in our imaginary asset draft of players on their current contracts, there's little question that Kawhi Leonard would be taken first by more teams than not. Even if you could guarantee Steph Curry would sign his next contract with your team, are we sure that he - someone who has admittedly needed to work hard to become even a respectable defender - would be more valuable at over $30 million per year in the 17-18 and 18-19 seasons than Kawhi will be at an average of $19 million per? And in an NBA where current thinking is now to the point of worrying about how much the back end of a player's NEXT contract will hurt you, it's nice to remember that Leonard is all of 24 years old - and is the only player currently in the NBA's top 30 in VORP (value over replacement player) under the age of 25. He ranks 4th, btw. All of this is to see that, even at 2, he's likely still a bit too low on this list.

1. Steph Curry It seems so easy now to put Curry in this spot, but remember, it wasn't that long ago that there was real debate about the value of Curry vs some of the other top tier guards in the league.  It was only a few seasons ago when Curry was still hearing the whispers about whether his ankles would hold up in the long term. Just a year and a half ago, Curry and the Warriors had just been the victim of a first round playoff exit at the hands of a Clippers team who themselves lost to the OKC Thunder, who then went on to lose to the eventual champion Spurs. Mark Jackson was fired as coach and he was replaced by someone who had never been on the sidelines for an NBA or college game in his life. It didn't seem like they were on the cusp of anything more than being just another solid non-Spurs, non-Thunder Western playoff lock, nor did it seem prudent to put Curry in a class above the Westbrooks or Durants of the world. He was clearly a special player on a ridiculously below-market deal, but untradeable? Not by a long shot. Even last season, the Harden / Curry debate raged on until the very end of the year, and as late as last season's NBA Finals (and really, into tis summer), there was still a general sentiment of "sure, he might be the best shooter in the league, and he makes some crazy plays, but he's obviously no LeBron..." Today, the ankles are still there, and they always will be, but it's almost as if the air of invisibility that surrounds this player and this team has rendered any former concern about them to be a moot point. LeBron is still LeBron. And if the Cavs, or any other team holding the rights to any of the players immediately below Curry on this list, called up the Warriors tomorrow and tried to make a deal, whoever initiated the phone call would either hear laughter or silence as the phone lay on the floor, as Bob Myers rolled around next to it. It’s unclear exactly who first said that Steph Curry was playing basketball like one plays a video game with all the cheat codes, but it was before the 2015-2016 NBA season, when Curry's nightly brilliance has become so commonplace so quickly that not a bit more than halfway into the season, his exploits are almost being taken for granted. As has been said before about certain athletes but perhaps never used as appropriately as with this player at this very time, he is playing a game with which we are all unfamiliar. Peak LeBron did pretty much everything better than everyone else; Curry is better than better - he's different. It would be as if there were a running back in football who gained 5 yards after contact, every single time. Or a golfer who never missed within 10 feet. And yet, none of this is why he's the most untradeable player in the league. What makes Curry untouchable is the same thing that makes us all watch sports. Golden State fans hit the lottery, a lottery that most fans never hit in their lifetime. He's theirs, and if he ever got traded, there would be no recourse. It is a unique thing, and it is the reason that unlike Durant and Westbrook now and LeBron twice before, no one discusses Steph Curry's pending free agency with anything more than thoughts about how it will affect Golden State's cap. There is no scenario in which, as long as he can squarely aim a basketball towards the rim, he will wear another uniform, ever, because he’s the most popular athlete in the world and the most popular basketball player the sport has seen in 30 years. And that is what makes him the most untradeable player in the league.

- hat tipto Bill Simmons for being the inspiration for this column and to Zach Lowe for his always valuable NBA insights

the top 50:

50. Tony Parker

49. Eric Bledsoe

48. JJ Reddick

47. Harrison Barnes

46. Carmelo Anthony

45. Jabari Parker

44. Trey Lyles

43. Justise Winslow

42. D’Angelo Russell

41. Emmanuel Mudiay

40. Gordon Hayward

39. Derrick Favors

38. Kemba Walker

37. Reggie Jackson

36. Devin Booker

35. Rodney Hood

34. Nikola Jokic

33. Myles Turner

32. Marc Gasol

31. DeAndre Jordan

30. Rudy Gobert

29. Serge Ibaka

28. Paul Milsap

27. Chris Bosh

26. Kevin Love

25. Blake Griffen

24. Jahlil Okafor

23. Giannis Antetokounmpo

22. Andrew Wiggins

21. Chris Paul

20. Damien Lillard

19. Kyle Lowry

18. Boogie Cousins

17. Andre Drummond

16. James Harden

15. John Wall

14. Kyrie Irving

13. Klay Thompson

12. Jimmy Butler

11. Kristaps Porzingas

10. LaMarcus Aldridge

9. Draymond Green

8. Paul George

7. Kevin Durant

6. Russell Westbrook

5. Anthony Davis

4. Karl-Anthony Towns

3. LeBron James

2. Kawhi Leonard

1. Steph Curr