Ty Tells You How each NBA Team Can Win the Title: Nets, 76ers, and Lakers

In what will become a yearly tradition, I will count down all 30 NBA teams, from worst to best, prior to the start of the season. The regular season kicks off on October 25th, so I figured there was no better time than 2 weeks before to give you guys and girls my rankings and predictions. This will span the next 10 days, but I will sprinkle in some of my other stuff, i.e. "Ty Watches", and other pop culture things, but the NBA will be my main focus for the rest of this week, and most of next week.

Okay, enough foreplay, let's get to it.

Coming in at number 30, the worst team in the NBA in the 2016-17 season will be...the Brooklyn Nets. You thought I would pick the 76ers, they'll be on this list very soon, but I think the Nets will be slightly worse. The Nets are a dumpster fire. They have a few quality players, well, maybe only Brook Lopez, but other than him, this team is either too young, too overrated, or just plain bad. But wait you say, they signed Jeremy Lin and Luis Scola this offseason. I say, so what. Why Jeremy Lin worked in Charlotte was because he wasn't the first option. He was instant offense off the bench. In Brooklyn, he will be the guy, and that does not bode well for the Nets. Scola is old, slow, can't score anymore and is a liability on defense. Brook Lopez is a very good throwback center, but he is oft injured, but he will do his thing, but it won't matter because he has little to no help. He will probably miss some games too, as he always does. The fact that he didn't miss a game last year was a total outlier. That won't happen again. The rest of the roster is filled with guys like Randy Foye, Bojan Bogdanovic, Anthony Bennett and Grevies Vasquez. Does that sound like any kind of good NBA team? I didn't think so. The rookies they picked are so so. Caris Levert, who I root for because he played at Michigan, cannot stay healthy. Yogi Ferrell is smart, but slow and small. The NBA is going to be a grind for him. The Nets will be lucky to win 20 games this year. Bill Simmons should be thrilled because the Celtics are going to be picking in the lottery once again, the Nets owe their pick to them, because the Nets stink. This team is a mess and they will be a mess all year. I feel bad for Brook Lopez because he is legitimately good, he just has no help.

So Ty, how will the Nets win the title? The only way the Nets will win the title is if every other team decides to tank, and that is still a total longshot.

Coming in at number 29, the Philadelphia 76ers. I have been harder on the 76ers than most, but they finally rid themselves of the mess that was Sam Hinkie and "trusting the process". That was a complete waste of 4 years, the 76ers became a joke and I felt that I could play for that team. They are still a terrible team, but they have the look of a team that may, at the very least, try to win some games this year. I mean, they only won 10 all of last year, so there is nowhere to go but up. I know that their first pick, and the top overall pick in the draft, Ben Simmons, is out with a foot injury, but they should still be slightly better than 10 wins. The bummer with the Simmons injury, if you are a 76ers fan, that kid needs to play NBA games. He has no jumper and looks a tad slow right now. He needs that game experience because he is the type of player that will get better when he plays top level competition. But, the 76ers do get to finally see Joel Embiid, after 2 lost years. He has played in a preseason game, so I'm going to assume he will be playing when the season starts. He looked good during the preseason game too. He has great feet and is a decent low post scorer. He could be a decent defender too. Time will tell, but I'd be optimistic that Embiid could be a good NBA player. Nerlens Noel, who is forever on the trading block, is a very good defender and rebounder, but he has no offensive game whatsoever. He is a skinny version of DeAndre Jordan, but I think Noel is a better defender. He will probably be traded though. Jahlil Okafor is a good scorer, but he is an average rebounder and a terrible defender. He is also a hothead, so who knows how many games he'll play. Dario Saric is supposed to finally come over to the NBA, and he looks pretty good. He is a lot like Simmons, just 4 inches shorter. A lot of people have been waiting to see this guy play, me included, and he is supposed to be pretty good. But, who knows. Other than these guys, the 76ers roster stinks. Elton Brand is a million years old. Nik Stauskas is a bust. Jerami Grant cannot slow himself down and is always out of control. Jerryd Bayless is a poor three point shooter, which is his "specialty". This team is lousy. I do like the young guys, but they have too many big men, and Simmons is going to miss a lot of time. They 76ers will win more than 10 games, but they won't get to 20. They are, as I said before, only marginally better than the Nets, but both teams stink.

So Ty, how will the 76ers win the title? The same goes with the 76ers title chances as goes with the Nets title chances. They need every other team to have massive injuries and they still won't win anything close to a title.

Coming in at number 28, I have the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers finally got the Kobe Bryant problem off their books with his retirement. He was the main reason this historic franchise has been a gutter team for the past 4 years. I'm thrilled that he is done in the NBA. This roster is young, and could be good in about 3 or 4 years, but they do not have the players to compete right now. I do like the hiring of Luke Walton, but only for the Lakers. I thought Walton could have gotten a better job, but I'm sure he wanted to go back to the franchise that he played for. I get it, I just think it was a poor choice from Walton. Like I said, they have a good young nucleus, they just aren't ready to compete for anything important. Julius Randle is a very good low post scorer, and he could turn into a decent defender. Brandon Ingram was one of the few young guys I liked in the draft, but he needs to gain weight and start to look like he cares about basketball. He is a little too lax looking when he is on the court, and veterans will exploit that. Jordan Clarkson is a star in the making and he will thrive now that Bryant is gone. He can score anywhere on the court, and he can be a good defender, if he commits himself. The jury is still out on D'Angelo Russell. Will he learn from mistakes last year, or will he continue to be a locker room pariah? Can he score at an elite level? Can he defend the better point guards in the league? Can he play a whole season? Can he become a leader? These are all questions that have no answers right now. Russell will show this season if he is going to be worth the number 2 pick, or if he is going to be a bust. Then, their free agent class is a joke. Loul Deng, old and slow, Timofey Mozgov, couldn't see the court after the all star break for the Cavs last season, Yi Jianlian, who hasn't been in the NBA for years and was crushed by NBA players in the Olympics and Metta World Peace, didn't he retire a few years ago, just terrible. This team is going to be at the bottom of the league until the young players develop. The Lakers have proven to not be a free agent destiny in the past few years for star free agents, so they have had to build via the draft. They may be the first team to crack 20 wins, but that is it, 20 wins. The Lakers stink, and they will continue to stink until they land a big time free agent, or the young players develop.

So Ty, how will the Lakers win the title? The only chance the Lakers have to win the title is if they trade for Russell Westbrook, just re upped with OKC, Kevin Love, is he even elite anymore and one more big time player, and that is not happening.

That's it for day one. come back tomorrow for numbers 27, 26 and 25.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He was on the draft board for the 76ers, they just wanted him to sit for 15 years first. Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

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The 76ers are the Best at Being the Worst Basketball Franchise

Let me know when the 76ers are good and then I will fly away.

This week will be all basketball talk from me, specifically NBA talk. I love basketball and this is the time of year where things are beginning to happen, or at least, people are talking about things that may happen. This time of year is basically basketball fans favorite time of year. Coaching changes, players being moved either via free agency or trades, talk of players being traded and the ramp up to the finals, which start tonight.

What I want to focus my time on today is the talk of players being moved. More specifically, I want to address the talk that the 76ers, the moribound, useless, once proud, but are now a joke 76ers, have made it known publicly that they would be willing to part ways with either Nerlens Noel or Jahlil Okafor. I mean, WTF Philadelphia. How do they ever expect to put a team that is competitive out there if they continue to trade away all this young talent that they tanked so hard to get. A few years back they had the rookie of the year winner in Michael Carter-Williams. Sure, that rookie class wasn't that great and Carter-Williams did most of his damage on a terrible team and when he played against real defenders he got locked down, but he still did enough to win the rookie of the year. One year later, they traded him to the Bucks for some more draft picks.

This was all Sam Hinkie's doing. He told all the 76ers fans to "trust the process", he assured them that what he was doing was the right thing and they would soon be highly competitive again. With the pick he got from Milwaukee, he took Joel Embiid. Who can guess how many professional basketball games Embiid has played in his first two seasons? Anyone? He has played 0, and I'm including preseason and summer league games. He may even miss the beginning of this season and the front office has already stated that he will not play summer league as they are "taking every precaution imaginary". So, you trade away the reigning rookie of the year, in hopes of landing the next great big man, but you take a player that had known foot issues during his one season at Kansas, and he still hasn't played one single second in the NBA. What a joke. Also, the year before they drafted Embiid, they took Noel, who is now apparently on the trading block, and he tore his ACL during his one year at Kentucky. Two years in a row and the 76ers drafted injured players that had to sit out at least one full season before even stepping foot on a court. Yeesh, that is brutal.

Last year they took Okafor. Okafor "fell" to them at number 3. This pick perplexed me because they already had Noel and Embiid who play the same position and, I don't know if the front office watches modern basketball, but big men aren't the commodity they once were. But, I was willing to look past it because, you take the best available player, that's what teams do in the draft. And, to give Okafor a little credit, he played in about 60 games his rookie season and he was not terrible. Well, he was terrible defensively, but offensively, he was okay. He scored in double figures and was an average offensive rebounder and has some decent low post moves. But, he is also a 19 year old hot head that may not be ready for the responsibility of being a professional. Just look at the incidents he got involved in, at bars, during his rookie year. He may be a loose cannon. I guess not to worry 76ers fans because he may be gone as well.

This is what bugs me. Yes, I know that they won the draft lottery and that they plan to take either Ben Simmons or Brandon Ingram, but why are they making two of their young, half way decent players available for trades? Nerlens Noel has shown flashes of being an elite defender and, if he works on his low post game, he could be an all star. And yeah, Okafor plays no defense, but if he becomes, at the very least, a capable defender, he could also be an all star. He has the offense, he just needs to put it together on defense. Who knows with Embiid, but they seem to be putting all their eggs into his basket and they expect him to be immediately better than Noel or Okafor. I don't think that I would take that bet. I want to see Embiid play 30 or 40 games before I would even consider getting rid of any big men I have on my roster. Other people will tell me that Simmons and Okafor's game don't mesh or that Noel would clog the lane for a guy like Ingram. I say, who cares. At least Nerlens Noel has proven to be a decent enough defender and Okafor has shown that he can score double figures night after night.

The 76ers sound like they want to blow it up again, and that is not fair to the fans. They will not be able to attract any star players there because, whenever someone does something good on a basketball floor, the 76ers want to trade them for draft picks. Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, DeMar DeRozan or Kyle Lowry aren't going to want to go play for this franchise. Why would they want to waste the prime of their careers playing for this terribly run team. I naturally assumed that when Sam Hinkie stepped down that the 76ers would start to resemble a real basketball franchise, but the new people in charge are just doing the exact same thing. They want the fans to, once again, "trust the process". That's bull shit. That's unfair. Does the GM and the other higher ups making decisions realize how brutal it must be to be a 76ers fan right now? This team is an absolute joke. They are barely better than some of the D League teams. Hell, they may not even win the D League if they were relegated to play there because they are such an embarrassment to the NBA.

Which brings me to my final point and why I think this nonsense of making Noel and Okafor available is so stupid. First off, they want to take another 19 year old to be the face of the franchise. Well, its been reported that Ben Simmons would much rather be a Laker, and me personally, I don't think this kid will live up to the hype. He is an over privileged, spoiled brat that has never been pushed or told no by any coach and he carries himself with an arrogance he hasn't even come close to earning. He already acts like a Laker. Then there's Brandon Ingram. I think he will be a good pro, he could be a poor mans Kevin Durant, but it is going to take a few seasons, maybe even 4 before he is an all star caliber player. He has to put on weight, put in tons of time in the gym and become a much better defender before he is any kind of threat to the real stars in the NBA. I think Ingram will be a much better pro than Simmons, but I also think it will take much longer before he gets to that elite level. Just look at Durant's first few years in the league. It wasn't until James Harden and Russell Westbrook were drafted that Durant elevated his game and became the dominant player he is today.

If I were running the 76ers, I would either trade the top pick, not Noel or Okafor, for some established, semi decent pros, or I would take Buddy Hield. Hield would fit kind of perfectly with guys like Noel, Okafor and Embiid. He could come in and score points right away and his defensive game is underrated. But, since the 76ers only value assets, they will trade one of both of the guys I mentioned, draft either Ingram or Simmons, and be terrible for the next decade or so. The 76ers are the worst run team in any professional sport that I have ever seen. They are an embarrassment to the NBA and their fans.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He desperately wants to focus on good basketball and not bad management. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Ty tells you how each NBA team can win the title: 76ers, Lakers, & Trailblazers

I love the NBA.

So, for the next two weeks, I'm going to do an NBA season preview. There's 30 teams in the NBA and I will select three teams a day and point out why they won't win the title, and why they just might. I will rank these teams from worst to best, in my personal opinion. Not to worry, I will keep up with some other blogs, like Greatest American Bands and Irrational Hatred for Sports Teams, but this NBA preview will be my prime focus for the next two weeks. I'm also going to be a dad for the second time in two days, so these blogs may seem a little bit shorter, but they'll be packed with pertinent information. Everything will be as informative as before, but the NBA will take up the majority of my time, as well as the new baby, and will be the focus of my blogs. So, on with teams 30, 29, 28.

First, number 30. They've been the worst team in the NBA for the past three years, you may have read my previous blog about how they're the worst run franchise in all of professional sports, the Philadelphia 76ers. The 76ers roster reads like the exact difference of a who's who. They do have some players that could be decent, but this is a team of "potential". I put that in quotes because, when they get a player that looks like a decent NBA player with potential, a la KJ McDaniels or Michael Carter Williams, they trade him for "assets". That means draft picks. They've had top three picks the last couple of years and taken players like Nerlens Noel, he looks like he can be decent, but only on the defensive side of the ball, he plays zero offense unless it's a put back dunk. Two years ago they took Joel Embiid, and he has yet to play a single NBA game due to two different foot surgeries. This past season they drafted Jahlil Okafor and while he's a beast on offense, he doesn't play defense, so far as to not even hustle back because he's out of shape. Other potential starters include Tony Wroten, Nik Stauskas and Isaiah Canaan. Wroten is okay, but he's a bowling ball that looks out of control 90% of the time. Stauskas cannot play defense on the NBA level, and he hasn't shown his ability to drive to the basket like he did in college, he's relegated himself to being a corner three shooter. And Canaan is a great fantasy pickup only because he shoots almost 25 times a game. He puts up useless points for a team that's going nowhere. The rest of the roster is filled with has beens and never was players. This team is going to be bad once again. They'll be lucky to win 20 games.

How the 76ers will win it all.

I did say I'd give a reason that each team could win the title, so here goes for the 76ers. They will win the title if Daryl Dawkins and Moses Malone rise up from their graves and Charles Barkley goes back in time to his twenties, and they'd still be hard pressed to make the playoffs, let alone win the title. The 76ers are an embarrassment to the NBA and basketball in general. They stink.

My number 29 team is the Los Angeles Lakers. This is a team that thinks it's still the early 2000's. They don't shoot the three because their coach says it won't win games, they play no defense because they want to be a fast break team, but they don't have the horses to run fast breaks, and they're still led by Kobe Bryant. Sure, he's one of the greatest scorers of all time, but he doesn't pass the ball, he plays no defense, and instead of helping this young roster, what a veteran of his caliber should do, he berates them and calls them soft. His contract has crippled this team too. Not only that, but his attitude as well. They tried and tried to lure big time free agents, most notably LaMarcus Aldridge, but they all balked at the Lakers offer because they didn't like the "direction" of the team. They also questioned their leadership. If that's not attacking Bryant, I don't know what is. You may say, but they signed Lou Williams and traded for Roy Hibbert and Brandon Bass. So what is my response to that. First of all, there's only one basketball being used during game play and they have three guys that want to shoot 30 times each in Kobe Bryant, Nick Young and Lou Williams. Roy Hibbert hasn't been good in three years. The Lakers got him five years too late. And Brandon Bass, he couldn't crack the Celtics starting five. They have a really good, young player in Jordan Clarkson, but until Bryant either retires or goes to another team, he won't be able to develop his game, Bryant won't allow that. Julius Randle can become a very good player, but he won't get enough touches in the post, and he's coming off a horrific leg injury. D'Angelo Russell may end up being a good point guard, but he only played one year of college basketball and he disappeared at times. He didn't look too great in the summer league games either. But, he's young and will grow after Bryant leaves. The rest of the roster is either young, or veterans with little NBA playing time or experience. Until Kobe Bryant leaves, the Lakers will be, at best, a 25 win team.

How the Lakers will win it all

The only way this team has a shot at the Finals or even the playoffs is if everyone on every team in the West gets hurt and they have to bring in players from the developmental league. The Lakers are only slightly better than the 76ers and I never thought that two of the NBA's most distinguished franchises would be this bad this early in the 21st century. Like I said, Kobe is crippling this team with his contract, his need to shoot the ball and his unwillingness to help out the younger players. They will be bad until Kobe leaves.

My number 28 team is the Portland Trail Blazers. This team may have had the worst offseason of any team in recent NBA history. First, the night before the draft, they traded Nic Batum to the Hornets for two young, inexperienced players. Then, Wes Matthews and Brook Lopez signed with different teams, Matthews to the Mavericks and Lopez to the Knicks. They did some good in retaining Damien Lillard with a max contract, but their efforts to retain LaMarcus Aldridge were not good. No one expected him to resign with Portland, and of course, he didn't. I'll talk about his new team at some point next week. The Trail Blazers lost four of their five starters from a playoff team. That's brutal. They did retain Lillard, like I said, and he's a really good offensive player. He's unguardable at times and can put up close to 50 points any night. His weakness lies on defense. His weakness is, he doesn't care to play defense. He shows no effort and they didn't need him to with guys like Lopez and Aldridge clogging the lane. Now though, he's the franchise, and they need him to do All Star work on both offense and defense. A lot will be asked of Lillard, and while he may live up to expectations, who else do they have? Guys like Meyers Leonard, Mason Plumlee and Noah Vonleh don't make up the greatest front court in basketball. Meyers Leonard is an okay offensive player, but for a 7 footer, he's a pretty crummy defender and rebounder. Plumlee is sub par at offense and defense. The fact that this guy made a USA basketball team is laughable. And is he supposed to be Brook Lopez's replacement? I'd take Lopez any day over Plumlee, any day. Vonleh may be good, but he's a young, unproven player. One year of college basketball and one year spent mostly injured or on the bench in Charlotte does not make for a good start to your professional basketball career. Time will tell with Vonleh. The new back court consists of Lillard and younger, unproven players. Guys like CJ McCollum and Phil Pressey and Gerald Henderson will try to help Lillard out, but it won't work. Phil Pressey had little to nothing to do with the Celtics run to the playoffs last year, and he just doesn't seem like an NBA player to me. Gerald Henderson is a great dunker, a decent shooter and an average three point shooter, but he doesn't play defense. Damien Lillard is the better version of Henderson. I don't understand the signing of Henderson since he's a worse version of Lillard, but I'm not a GM. CJ McCollum has the tools to be a good NBA player, but he needs more time to develop and he won't help this team that much right now. In three years a back court of Lillard and McCollum could be great, but will the Trail Blazers have the patience? I don't think so. They did sign Al Farouq-Aminu, in what might be quietly one of the better offseason signings, but he seems to only thrive when he's a role player. We will see how well he plays as a starter.

How the Trailblazers will win it all.

As I said before, every other player is too young or past their prime. It was a very, very rough offseason for Portland. The only way they win the Finals is if Damien Lillard averages close to 60 points a game, McCollum becomes an elite point guard in one season, and the front court of Aminu/Leonard/Plumlee/Vonleh all become All Stars. Does that sound totally possible? It doesn't? No duh. Portland should go into full rebuild mode and try to get this team ready to be good again in about three years. They did the right thing in locking up Lillard, but they didn't put up much of a fight for Aldridge and lost three other starters and didn't get much to replace them. Portland seems like a 25 to 30 win team at best.

So, those are the first three NBA teams. Come back tomorrow for numbers 27, 26 and 25.

Ty 

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He is looking forward to watching some west coast basketball this season while he is up with a crying baby. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.