Ty's 2018-2019 NBA Preview: Hawks, Kings, Magic
/I was flipping through channels the other night and I came across a preseason NBA game. I watched for a bit, then I realized, holy cow, the NBA regular season is going to start soon. I was kind of shocked to be honest with you. I am fully in on football right now, the MLB playoffs are going on right now, and then pow, NBA season is getting ready to start, and college basketball practice has begun. So, as I have done since the invention of the website, I'm going to do my preseason NBA countdown. I'll go from worst to best, giving three teams a day. I'll do a short few sentences on why I have them ranked where I do, and if they have any shot at all at winning the title. After the countdown, I will do a postseason and awards predictions, and the following day, I will do my NCAA men's basketball preview. So buckle up, the next 12 days will be, with the occasional NFL quick hits or a movie or music review sprinkled in here and there, will be all basketball. Enough preamble, lets get to the rankings.
Coming in at number 30, dead last, I have the Atlanta Hawks. This team won 60 plus games a few seasons back. This team was a playoff team 2 years ago. Then, they traded Kyle Korver, Pau Milsap, Jeff Teague, pretty much everyone that was important to them. Then this offseason, they offloaded more talent. This team is in full on rebuild mode. They even, much to his delight I'm sure, let Mike Budenholzer go. When I look at their roster now, it has a bunch of retreads and rookies. What I do like about this team though, they have Taurean Prince, who is wildly underrated, and John Collins, who has the looks to be a very good modern big man. After that though, it gets rough. Vince Carter is there, and he is looking ever bit the 40 year old he is. Good on him though that he is still out there. Jeremy Lin is on this team now. I wanted Lin to be great after what he did as a Knick, but he cannot stay healthy and he is wildly inconsistent. Kent Bazemore is no more than a trade chip for a younger player or a pick. He will most certainly be a salary dump at some point. Alex Len was traded there, and he has been a total bust. Thomas Robinson, a former fourth overall pick in the draft, is back from the G League, and he will probably get big minutes on this team. Dewayne Dedmon left the Spurs for this team, and he has not been the same player. They drafted Kevin Huerter, who is a big time project, that will take a few years to develop, and Trae Young. They traded Luka Doncic for Young in fact. I think they will regret that. Young has a ton of pressure to score in bunches, and if summer league and the preseason are any indication, he is going to struggle. The Hawks are going to be real, real bad. I do not expect them to win 20 games. They will most certainly get a lottery pick next year. They have zero chance of making the playoffs, let alone the Finals.
At number 29, and this was a real tough choice to put them ahead of the Hawks, I have the Sacramento Kings. The Kings are the most moribund NBA franchise. This team is so, so , so bad. And they have been for a long time now. The days of Chris Webber and Vlade Divac and Jason Williams and Mike Bibby seem like forever ago. And when I look at their roster, I just do not see them being any better this year. They took Marvin Bagley number 2 overall this past draft, and he has bust written all over him. He is long and lanky and athletic, but he is way too skinny, doesn't like contact and his jumper is not a threat. All that can change, but he has not looked great in preseason and summer league. He should have dominated both, and he just hasn't. I hope he gets better, because he is so athletic, but I just don't see it, especially in the Kings culture. I love DeAron Fox. He is the only player on this team that I think is a real, legit future NBA star. He is fast, can score, can find the open man and play defense. He is too good a player to be on the Kings. He deserves so much better. I feel for him. Willy Cauley Stein has never developed into the rim runner and rim protector that some thought he could be coming out of Kentucky. His best highlight since he has been in the NBA is a missed dunk attempt. While it looked cool, that shouldn't be your career highlight. Imam Shumpert is there, but he was washed about 3 years ago. Harry Giles is still a work in progress, and who knows when, or if, he will get hurt again. He did show flashes in summer league. Ben McLemore is back, but I am done defending him as a player. He is not a very good NBA basketball player. Yogi Ferrell is here, but so what. Skal Labissiere is on the team, but that kid wasn't great in his one year at Kentucky, and that was just a sign of what was to come. I loved Buddy Hield in college, and I have stomped and yelled about how he was going to be great, but he hasn't been. He has gotten lost in the shuffle, and his scoring has not made it to the NBA level. Zach Randolph is the Vince Carter of the Kings. Frank Mason is a fine backup, but the Kings play him far too much. The rest of the roster is just blah. The Kings are a bad team with a bad culture. They have gotten used to losing, and that should not be the case. As I stated before, I fell for DeAron Fox. He should be the starting point guard on a team that has a winning record and in playoff contention. The rest of the Kings roster, I just don't care about enough.
My final team for today, at number 28, I have the Orlando Magic. This team reminds me a lot of the Kings, in the same sense that they are forever rebuilding. They haven't been relevant since Dwight Howard was their center. They seem to pop up from time to time as a supposed "sleeper" team, and then they shit the bed. The Magic are not good. They just gave Aaron Gordon an inordinate amount of money, and while I love his freakishly athletic dunking, that is all he does. He isn't a great shooter, rebounder or defender. Yet the Magic seem to think he is the guy to build around. That doesn't make much sense to me. Nikola Vucevic is clearly a good stats bad team guy. Evan Fournier is known much more for his hair than his game. He is the French version of Jeremy Lin. Johnathan Issac didn't look great last year, but early reports about him from this season say he has bulked up and his game has improved. We just haven't seen it yet because he didn't play in summer league and I have not seen him in any preseason action. DJ Augustin is somehow still in the league, and he is on the Magic. So what. Johnathom Simmons is exactly like Dewayne Dedmon. He left the Spurs and he is not as productive on a different team. They signed Timofey Mozgov. Why? Why is he still in the league? Terrance Ross is hyper athletic, and can dunk the shit out of the ball, but they already have Aaton Gordon to do that. And they drafted Mo Bamba. I love Bamba, but he is going to take some time to develop. This team needs a ton of help. I do think Bamba can be their center of the future, but they will have to be patient. Gordon is a fine power forward, but he isn't an All Star caliber player. They don't have a real point guard. They don't have a real 2 guard. They don't have a real small forward. I mean, who on this team can guard LeBron or KD or Steph or Klay or Kyrie Irving or Ben Simmons or Jeol Embiid or James Harden or Kawhi Leonard or, even a player like DeAron Fox. The Magic need a lot more help. Until then, they will be stuck in 20 win land and picking in the lottery again. That has now been the case for about a decade now.
That's it for today. Come back tomorrow for my next three teams.
Ty
Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing, the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast, and the greatest basketball writer on the internet.
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