#SLOE: People's Basketball Sim League

In honor of Larry Legend, every team has played at least 33 games, so we'll break the season into birdmesters. We'll revisit this around the 66 game mark, and also in the middle of the playoffs for 3 Birdmesters. Going to do a quick power ranking, crown the best team in the league so far, the best tank job so far (this could get awkward), and name the Most valuable and Least valuable player at this point in the season.

30. Charlotte Bobcats - (5-30) - In their second season the expansion Bobcats are only 2 wins away from last years total, a definite improvement so far. The team is understandably young and growing, and with the Ball brothers, or whatever their relationship is and McNary I'd say it's only a matter of time before Darth gets tired of losing and starts to bring real talent to Charlotte.

29. Boston Celtics - (6-32) - Everyone knew this was going to be a bad season in Boston, but the fact that it's so bad and looks so irreparable the shouts for hitting reset and trading Wall have grown louder and louder. As a homer I understand what's happening this season, but to have lost faith in the future makes it hard to watch.

28. Miami Heat (10-27) - The team that is currently sporting the longest current losing streak (10 in a row), have been struggling mightily since dealing their cornerstone in Lebron James. There's some young talented players here with 3 b/b players all under 26, but the bad news is the next team up on this list owns their pick this year.

27. Orlando Magic (11-27) - This is a current power rankings, but if we were doing future power rankings, I'd have to rank this team near the top. They already have 19 year old and 20 year old yellow/blue players on rookie contracts, Tyreke Evans' bird rights and unless my eyes deceive me are holding down 3 of the top 5 projected draft picks in this years draft. Their own pick, the Heat's pick, and a team coming up shortly on this list.

26. LA Lakers (12-25)
25. Trailblazers (12-24)
24. Mavericks (12-23)

I wanted to put the Blazers at 26th over the Lakers due to their mass exodus of talent recently, but the Lakers are sporting the second longest active losing streak at 7 in a row and the aforementioned Magic own their pick, that's bad. The Mavericks are still waiting to capitalize on the heist that was Beal's trade then subsequent RFA contract, but with Demarr DeRozan and potentially Aldridge coming off the books next year they'll be able to determine a direction.


23. Washington Wizards (14-22) - The Wizards started the season and had playoff hopes on their mind in mid December they even sported a winning record of 12-10. The next 30 days saw despair in the nations capital and they are in the midst of a 2-12 run. Again like nearly half of the teams in the lotto, they currently don't own their own pick.

22. Vancouver Grizzlies (14-22) - This team is staring a triple digit tax bill square in the face and saying 'I want more' Luc Richard Mbah Moute a well-known team index page killer is set to come off IR this sim and should help. The team has talent, they'll just have to get it to mesh and get back to that early season form. Owner Zacaras Aristizabal is known to be one greedy S.O.B. and will not like to see his money spent and still miss the playoffs.

21. Philadelphia 76ers (15-20)
20. Sacramento Kings (16-21)

Both of these teams are lingering, almost circling the league waiting for the right moment to pounce. There is plenty of talent on each roster both current and future. But both GMs are taking a patient approach and are waiting for the young talent to catch up before going all-in. I can't recall a single team showing such restraint, let alone two teams in a single season. But it's hard to argue with either's track record and the Kings are 7-3 in their last 10, so we'll sit back and see how this one plays out. Both teams have made big trades lately, but these two will be much more interesting to watch down the end of the season and beginning of next.

19. Cleveland Cavaliers (15-22)
18. New Jersey Nets (16-21)
17. Toronto Raptors (16-20)

The bottom half of the Eastern Conference playoff race is about as entertaining as an episode of Fuller House. The Cavs have the worst record of these 3 and again a recurring theme, do not own their draft pick this year. Both the Nets and the Raptors seem like they're kind of stuck in no mans land, and either need to push to acquire talent or hit the reset or at least the retool button.

16. Indiana Pacers (18-18)
15. Utah Jazz (17-20)

Both of these teams are anchored by superstars the main difference here is that one team is in the East and is a 6th seed, and the other is in the West and is the 10th seed. The Jazz albeit with a worse record hold a better point differential, which doesn't help them any in the standings or with playoff seeding, does help them here in the Birdmester power rankings.

Check in tomorrow morning where we'll finish up the top 14 and hand out awards for the first Birdmester.

Loved the writeup Conroy, looking forward to part II. Gotta say I'm shocked you didn't put Celtics at 30.

#Celtics2high


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Liked the write up as well. Moreso liked that you're active , the leagues better with you trying to win!

ballsohard wrote: Tue Sep 05, 2017 8:29 pm Liked the write up as well. Moreso liked that you're active , the leagues better with you trying to win!

Dat shade on the low.

14. Phoenix Suns (19-18)
13. OKC Thunder (19-18)

Can you imagine where the the zombie sonics would be if they hadn't traded Harden, wait wrong universe. But we still have a Mozgov that has been historically overpaid and under productive. At least he's finally making an appropriate amount of money. The Thunder have a very solid starting 5 and some decent bench players, but maybe are lacking that true 6th man to help them out on the road. They're great in OKC 14-3, but abysmal on the road at 5-15. Phoenix has a better point differential and again will have $0 under contract next year, they'll have a tough decision next offseason and may consider a S&T for Kevin Love.

12. Houston Rockets (20-18)

The Rockets jumped off to a hot start winning their first 5 to start the season 5-0. And they've yet to be better than 5 games above .500 ever since. They're getting another strong season from Al Horford and Ty Lawson who have a 25.9 and 20.0 PER each. They've had an easy-ish schedule so far according to the SOS report card so with just a half game separating them from the 7th and 9th seed, they'll need to tighten some things up to ensure they aren't in the lottery.

11. Denver Nuggets (20-16)

The same amount of wins as the Rockets above but two less losses. They are 5-5 in their last 10 but do have the 9th best point differential. They again have a strong defense allowing only 98.5 points per game (5th best) and are 6th in the DEFF rankings. Andre Drummond has been paid a little over $100,000 per point he's scored so far this season, but is providing excellent rebounding and defense. But Klay is an absolute stud and just now entering his prime, so I expect this team to always be making some noise.

10. Detroit Pistons (22-15)

Would probably be higher on this list, but they are in the midst of an early season swoon going 3-7 in their last 10. Anthony Davis is having another absolute monster season, and if you round up decimal points this team has 6 players averaging double figure points. I couldn't tell ya anything about the other 5 guys, but they can at least score 10 ppg...AD is insanely good and is primed to carry his team to the playoffs for the first time in his career.

9. New Orleans Pelicans (22-16)

The defending champs are 9-4 since adding Lebron to the roster, it will probably take some time to work in someone as versatile as King James to a new squad, but the Pels are hopeful Dame Lillard and Blake Griffin welcome the new addition soon. It's going to be a battle with the next team on this list for the Pels to grab a top 4 seed and have homecourt in round 1 of the playoffs, but Nick is never done trading so who we'll see what this roster looks like after the trade deadline.

8. LA Clippers (22-14)

The Clippers are on fire right now, holding down the leagues longest active win streak of 11 in a row. Durant and Hibbert are playing great while the rest of the team is still pretty meh. But when you have one of the all-time greats the supporting cast can be pretty meh. What's impressive about the win streak was that it was kicked off on a 4 game road trip and 7 of the 11 total wins have come on the road given that they were just 3-8 on the road before this win streak started goes to show how well they are playing right now.

7. New York Knicks (23-11)

Holding down the #3 seed by being atop the anemic Atlantic Division, the Knicks are coming along nicely winning 8 of their last 10. This team is balanced with the second most efficient offense in the league and 7th most efficient defense. Did I mention balanced their leading scorer, Nikola Jokic is averaging 17.2 per game and their 7th man Mario Chalmers is 1 decimal point away from averaging 10 ppg. Chandler is putting up a double double, and Lin is running the point well.

6. San Antonio Spurs (26-12)
5. Milwaukee Bucks (26-10)

I don't really recall anyone screaming that these two teams would be atop their division or fighting for a 1 or 2 seed, but here we are. The Bucks kicked off the preseason presser with little fanfare, but Kyrie Irving had other plans and is gunning for the under 6'10 scoring title. Both teams are struggling as of late with the Bucks going 4-6 in their last 10 and the Spurs 5-5. The undersized backcourt of the Spurs in Westrbook and Schroder might be interesting come playoff time if an opponent can exploit them, but they are probably athletic enough to make up for what they lack in size. Plus Russ' 8 rebounds a game from the shooting guard position have to be as high as I can remember.

4. Minnesota Timberwolves (27-9)

The Timberwolves are another team that are on fire. 9-1 in their last 10 and the second longest active win streak at 7 in a row. They are absolutely dominating the perimeter with the second best 3pt % in the league and holding their opponents to the 3rd lowest 3pt% in the league (both tops in their conference btw). Chris Bosh's return in Minnesota is going great so far and watching Andrew Wiggins and Otto Porter grow into their potential will be fun to watch moving forward. And to piggyback on the recent SOS article, they've played a tough schedule so far and have an easier one coming up.

3. Chicago Bulls (32-7)

What happened in Free Agency may have surprised the Bulls front office and not been what they expected, but I loved what they did. And it appears it's paying dividends this season. They are 9-1 in their last 10, have the most wins in the league right now, and are sitting pretty with the second seed in the East at the moment. The Bucks are right there only 4.5 games back, but the Bulls are in the driver seat right now. New addition Goran Dragic is leading the team in scoring and has the highest PER on the team. Will be interesting to see how they react once after the all-star break ends.


2. Atlanta Hawks (31-6)

I wanted to put them #1 simply because of the point differential, but seeing their strength of schedule I had to drop them a spot because they SHOULD be beating these teams by a lot. This has to be one of the deepest teams ever, a staple of Wig who somehow manages to always have talent on top of talent. I count 11 players with at least green potential and 9 players with at least green current rating that's insane and might be more than the entire Atlantic Division. They are a force to be reckoned with and will be around the top for the entirety of the season.

1. Golden State Warriors (31-5)

The research department is a little limited here at the office, but I believe this is the only team with 2 players that have a purple box somewhere next to their name. Everyone questioned whether or not this team would mesh or how long it would take but we all knew the defense would be top notch. Rudy Gay is handling the scoring load and Kyle Lowry is running an efficient offense. It will be interesting to see how this team plays out in the future their top 2 scorers are 30 and making big money the next three years, but that will be future Bow's problem. Present Bow's problems are few and far between.

So we crowned the best team it's extremely close between the Warriors and Hawks, but I'm siding with the Warriors here because they play in a tougher conference and division the Hawks are 12-0 in their division and the next closest team to them is 16.5 games back.

Lets get down to it and name the best (worst?) tank job so far. It's gotta go to my Celtics. The Bobcats may have a worse record (by a whopping 1 win), but they are in their second year of existence, it's extremely tough to be in that situation. What's the Celtics excuse? They have an all league caliber PG. Sources in Bostons front office have told me they are divided on Wall with the GM/Owner saying no chance he's traded, but everyone else is at least trying to gauge his value. One executive told me in trade discussions he went rogue and stated to an interested GM Wall has gone from "not even considering a trade" to "barely considering it" They are bad and need to figure it out quick.

The MVP is easy for me, the Hawks are too deep to have a player in the discussion. Same for the Warriors how do you choose between Gay, Jordan, or Lowry. It's gotta be Anthony Davis his PER is off the charts, if you take him off this team they are for sure in the lottery. Durant is probably the same for the Clippers but with basically the same record I gotta go AD here. I think he's surpassed Durant and there's nobody on the Pistons that's as good as Hibbert is for the Clips.

There's a lot of options for Least Valuable Player, hell the pool of players could probably be drawn from the Celtics. Like I stated the research dept. here is limited so we'll put this award on hold or maybe scrap it altogether.

you can claim 5 points.