Ranking NBA teams by tiers for the 2017-18 season
The Tank Candidates: Sacramento Kings, Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns, Brooklyn Nets
These teams enter the season with faint playoff aspirations, needing everything to go right to sneak back into the postseason. More than likely though, they’ll be feeding the young players heavy minutes by February and quietly positioning themselves for a top-heavy 2018 draft class.
The Sacramento Kings have a nice influx of veteran leadership with George Hill, Zach Randolph and Vince Carter, but more than likely, it won’t be enough to lead an exciting but inexperienced group of De’Aaron Fox, Buddy Hield, Willie Cauley-Stein, Skal Labissiere, Justin Jackson and Bogdan Bogdanovic to the playoffs.
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The Los Angeles Lakers have no reason to tank and are one of the league’s sexier bottom-feeders thanks to the arrival of Lonzo Ball and all the buzz over their 2018 free agency plans, but take all the hype away and this team’s newcomers (Brook Lopez, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and four rookies) probably aren’t good enough to earn L.A. a playoff spot unless Ball and Brandon Ingram make immediate leaps to stardom.
Eric Bledsoe will be back on the court for the Phoenix Suns after being a healthy shutdown at the end of last season, but even another year under Devin Booker’s belt won’t prevent this young core of Josh Jackson, Dragan Bender, Marquese Chriss, Tyler Ulis and T.J. Warren from getting heavy developmental minutes. With Bledsoe’s trade value never being higher and Tyson Chandler being another trade candidate, Suns fans need to remain patient and trust #TheTimeline.
Finally, the Brooklyn Nets should be better than last year after adding D’Angelo Russell, Allen Crabbe and DeMarre Carroll. A healthy Jeremy Lin and another season of development for Caris LeVert and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson helps, but replacing Lopez with Timofey Mozgov isn’t ideal. This team could very well end up with another bottom-three finish in the league.