Tristunday Feat. Week 1 Reverse Power Rankings (12/27/20)

I’m an elite stocking stuffer.

Welcome back to [NAME IN PROGRESS], I hope everyone had either a great Christmas or just a relaxing Friday.

Three entries in the books and I’ve already received rave reviews such as “I like,” “solid,” and “unnecessary but welcomed.” So far so good. Yes those quotes were all taken out of context, and yes I appreciate every single one of your comments, especially from those of you I’m positive don’t watch basketball. This new hobby of mine is super fun, but I still want to know what I can improve at so keep ‘em coming!

Like the Thursday Playbook, I have a planned hoop-pun template for my Sunday posts. The sections (for now) are as follows:

Outlet — Rather than a pass, Outlets will contain the main feature of the week. To distinguish it from Thursday Iso’s, Outlets will usually be lists of general NBA related content and not necessarily the news topic of the week

Heat Check — A check-in for the league. Contains my notes and comments on the nationally televised games I’ve watched the past week

Mailbag — Answering questions you, the people, want my opinions on. Might end up being bi-weekly or so depending on the volume I get, so DM away

Outlet

For my first Outlet, I’m introducing my Reverse Power Rankings (let me know if you have a better name; Impotent Rankings sounds too harsh) where every couple of weeks or so I’ll rank the sorriest teams in the NBA. In the spirit of the holidays, this time I’ll put a positive spin and give reasons for optimism. However, moving forward expect my tone to get more dismal as the season goes on.

1. New York Knicks

We’re #1 at something baybee!

2. Detroit Pistons

Tall task to spin positive here. Blake hit 8 3’s last game! Is that a good thing? This roster composition is a strange mix of young potential and marginally above average vets. The most important thing to do right now is establish a winning attitude while simultaneously keeping a top 3 amount of lottery ping pong balls.

3. Chicago Bulls

They allowed 125 and 124 points in their two games. Consistency.

4. Charlotte Hornets

Someone buy me League Pass because I would watch every single one of their games. Fun team construction and I love the Hayward pick up. LaMelo has the passing game down pat, he just has holes basically every else. But I believe in him as well as the other young talent on this roster in Devonte’ Graham and PJ Walker.

5. Oklahoma City Thunder

Shai “If I Ever Fall in Love” Gilgeous-Alexander can flat out hoop, and he’s consistently proven he’ll show up when it counts. This team will not compete in the west this year, and the veteran contracts they picked up will likely be shipped out by the start of next season. With 62 draft picks in the next 5 years, help is on the way.

6. Washington Wizards

Russ was good for the playoffs every season with less help than he has right now in Bradley Beal. They’re too talented to not bounce back, but the recent draft picks have to develop sooner rather than later if Washington is to convince Beal to stay.

7. Memphis Grizzlies

No longer the Grindhouse, but you can tell an exciting new culture is being formed in Memphis. And Ja, please stop landing on one leg when you jump. Definitely not in this year’s West, but you’re going to be special if you stay healthy.

8. Cleveland Cavaliers

Wow 2–0! And only needed 2 overtimes to beat the Pistons.

9. Golden State Warriors

Hate them but I’ll be nice. They lost 2 games to the 2 best teams in the East. Hard to evaluate them without Draymond, but I don’t think he would’ve changed the outcome of either game. Steph is gonna Steph but he has 0 help. New import Kelly Oubre Jr. is playing historically awful now that he’s on a team with expectations, but to end on a positive note, at least he’s handsome.

10. Portland Trail Blazers

Dame will get them out of these rankings by next week. They’re not playing up to expectations, as evidenced by barely scraping past a Houston team without their starting point and center. Their defense has been atrocious so far which is curious because the 3 in the starting frontcourt are all known to be stoppers. If the defense continues to struggle, perhaps Melo should get his starting gig back to pivot the strategy towards outgunning.

Heat Check

12/22

WARRIORS @ NETS

• Steph looking around at his squad like
• Nets won this game in the 1st, they look terrifying
• S/o to TNT for playing Mase to welcome back KD

CLIPPERS “@” LAKERS

• Was that Nic Batum?
• Love to see Schroeder and Caruso deny the point fullcourt on inbounds. It’s so disruptive to the opponent’s play set-ups, and worst case it means they take longer to get into the set. I don’t know why every team doesn’t do this at least a handful of times a quarter

12/23

BUCKS @ CELTICS

• Jrue Holiday exposed Marcus Smart as the fill-in point guard. To be fair, Jrue gives every guard trouble, but the shutdown was especially dominant in the 4th
• Did Tatum call glass or game

MAVS @ SUNS

• Slow start for Luka. Had a noticeable lack of hustle and he’s too young to take the LeBron low-battery mode approach
• Devin Booker has way too many turnovers for a 2 guard, especially with point god Chris Paul as a running mate
• But SMH at the Suns arena for playing “Tell Me When to Go.” That track should be played in one NBA arena and one arena only, The Oracle (Chase Center hasn’t earned it yet).

12/25 (*I wanted to enjoy my Christmas so these are more memories than notes)

PELICANS @ HEAT

• I don’t like the Pels offense one bit, but their defensive rotation of Lonzo + Bledsoe + Hart means 48 minutes of no easy dribbles
• In the battle for sharpest shooting white boy, Duncan Robinson beat JJ Reddick in a landslide

WARRIORS @ BUCKS

• Don’t be fooled by Wiseman’s decent numbers to start the season. No Draymond yet, and he put up most of his significant stats in garbage time
• Thanasis is built!

NETS @ CELTICS

• Nets jerseys were fire, but I don’t think Basquiat would have appreciated this commercialized homage (perhaps donate all profits from the jerseys to NYC arts programs?)
• Tristan got worked, but I’ll give him a few more games to prove his worth

(At this point I got drunk and had family time so I didn’t watch the other matchups sorry.)

Mailbag

These are all questions asked to me for the blog through text, DM, etc. I’ll eventually set up a Twitter to streamline this process.

“If you were Pat Riley, is Bam a deal breaker in any trade for Harden?”

This is a purely hypothetical question because:

1. no way it’ll happen there would be a locker room mutiny

2. Bam has the Poison Pill Provision on his new contract so the math would be prohibitive.

Those reasons are convincing enough that IRL it’s a losing play. But in a vacuum, PaTrist Riley would make that trade in a heartbeat. My stance on team-building is championship window > longevity and Harden maximizes that window.

Say what you will about the man, but Harden is unequivocally an MVP caliber player (I broke it all down already here). Bam is a star and deserves that title more than any other up-and-comer in the league due to his story, work ethic, and team-first attitude, but projecting him anywhere close to what Harden would give you in a championship window would be a reach. I get they play different positions so the value comparison is tough, but an easy tiebreaker is the fact that this league has been run by guards and wings for arguably a decade plus. If you could promise me Bam will approximate Tim Duncan within 2 years I’ll change my mind, but short of that I’ll take the superstar Harden and start Kelly Olynk. The story of recent championship runs has been to accumulate top-end talent and figure the rest out on the fly; I’d agree with that strategy for the Heat here.

“LaMelo or Lonzo rest of career?”

I’m not sure I’m legally allowed to speak on LaMelo too much, so I’ll leave it at this: you can’t teach what that kid has. Lonzo, on the other hand, I’ll always be a fan of. Even though his career hasn’t exactly gone according to plan, he’s still an elite passer, great defender, and a plus athlete. For this season and probably the next I’d take Lonzo, but for their careers I can’t help but buy into the LaMelo hype.

“Are you making a podcast? I don’t like reading.”

I have a couple ideas in mind that I won’t execute just yet because they require more planning and free time and I ain’t no half-stepper. Expect a hoops stream with friends in the future along with some higher concept features I’d need guidance for. Also read more; it’s good for you.

“Is Stevie Wonder really your favorite everything? What’s your fav song?”

I’m no music theorist (if that’s even a thing), but in my humble opinion, Stevie is the greatest musician to ever live. He is not my favorite everything but he is my favorite voice and songwriter.

As for my fav Stevie song, I don’t have kids but I bet choosing your favorite child is a similarly impossible task. Gun to my head the choice is “All I Do” because for some reason it hits me distinctly from the rest of his catalogue (bonus basketball fact: Caris LeVert is a relative of the O’Jay family and Eddie LeVert himself sings background on this track). But the true answer is it changes based on my mood. On a happy sunshiny day, I can’t go wrong with “Isn’t She Lovely” (the radio cut btw — I love the sentiment, but I’d prefer to not hear the baby crying in my headphones). However, the Sad Boi Trist playlist has gotten a lot of run this year so lately I’ve been partial to “You and I.”

As always, thanks for reading, stay safe, and see ya Thursday.