NBA Bubble Power Rankings Preview: Catch up time
By Corey Rausch
With 22 teams making the trip into the bubble, this will be an experiment like nothing we have ever seen. The power rankings are back!
In a season already filled with variables beyond count, the collection of teams and how they proceed through quarantine has produced a title run like none before. Teams that looked poised for great success in March may struggle to make it beyond the first round of the playoffs. Young teams who may have been easier to right off suddenly have the advantage of fresh legs and the freedom of no expectations.
This week will be about catching up on what we missed during this long layoff. Teams have had players not make the trip down due to injuries, off-court choices and outbreaks. Players who were not in the league suddenly find themselves in the mix in important roles.
Allow this NBA Bubble Power Ranking edition to be your guide to who is in and who is out. Everything is variable in this bizarre dash to the end of the season but that makes this season fun in a way we could have never expected. For the Timberwolves, Warriors, Cavaliers, Pistons, Knicks, Hawks, Bulls and Hornets and their fans, this power ranking is not for you.
Washington Wizards. 22. team. 142. . 24-40.
The worst team from the regular season to make the trip to Orlando finds itself even worse off than when the season ended. Bradley Beal and Davis Bertans, the two best Washington Wizards this season, didn’t make the trek into the bubble. Gary Payton II and Garrison Mathews have also yet to make the trip.
So far the only addition the team has made is signing Jerian Grant to a substitution contract to fill out the bubble roster. Fans of the Wizards will have to be intrigued by the potential of Admiral Schofield, Thomas Bryant, Mo Wagner and Rui Hachimura to tune in to these eight games.
No matter which side you stand on, the inclusion of this Washington team makes the 22-team bubble look even worse. The need for TV revenue makes financial sense, but bringing down depleted rosters to serve that purpose is greedy at best and needlessly risky at worst.
The Wizards are 5.5 games out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Finishing within four games would push them into a play-in scenario with whoever finishes with the eighth seed. As depleted as the Nets might be, making up a six-game spread without Beal and Bertans seems an impossible task.