Which of the NBA's Surprise Playoff Contenders Are for Real?
There are four* NBA teams capable of winning an NBA title this season, and you already know who they are.
The Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder and Cleveland Cavaliers occupy a different space than everyone else, and their presence in the exclusive upper reaches of the league's hierarchy isn't remotely surprising.
In all four cases, we saw this coming.
Our typical foray into the contender-pretender game doesn't work because the dividing line between contention and pretension is so clear. So let's try something else.
Let's highlight teams that have been more competitive than expected this season and figure out if they're capable of making the playoffs and, more importantly, making noise once they're there.
New York Knicks
With Carmelo Anthony coming off major knee surgery, Kristaps Porzingis thought to be a capital-P Project who'd take years to develop and a roster filled out with mid-tier veterans, the New York Knicks weren't supposed to do much this season.
The ESPN Forecast panel tabbed them as the 14th-best team in the East back in August, which, harsh as it sounds, fell into the tough-but-fair file.
Since exceeding expectations with a solid start, the Knicks are now, improbably, getting even better during the season.
Per Scott Cacciola of the New York Times:
"These are incremental changes—nothing dramatic or otherwise noteworthy, except that the Knicks are now winning games that they once would have lost, and (head coach Derek Fisher) is fielding questions about expectations and playoff berths as a spokesman for the city's most stable pro basketball team.
"
With Anthony playing a more well-rounded game and Porzingis showing new facets every day, New York is trending up at the midway point.
Encouraging as all that is, there's still a lot of work to be done to climb over the jumbled mess of East playoff contenders. And it's still difficult to see this Knicks team finishing ahead of squads like the Boston Celtics or Detroit Pistons—one of which it'll have to beat out for that No. 8 seed.
This verdict is a tentative one. And if anything, it should encourage Knicks fans because everyone's been wrong about this Knicks club all year.
Verdict: Pretender
Dallas Mavericks
A summertime defined by disappointments and questionable plan-B plays has given way to a regular season that looks a whole lot like most of the years we've seen from the Dallas Mavericks lately.
Good offense built around Dirk Nowitzki and Rick Carlisle's inimitable (by anyone not named Gregg Popovich) ability to get the most out of everyone on the roster has Dallas in the thick of the West playoff race. This wasn't supposed to happen, as there was preseason talk of the Mavs tanking to keep their first-rounder if they missed out on DeAndre Jordan, per Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com:
They did lose Jordan, but no tank followed.
Instead, Wesley Matthews, Chandler Parsons and Deron Williams have stayed mostly healthy, and the Mavs have every chance of finishing among the conference's top five.
That last part is crucial. If Dallas finds itself in the four-five matchup in the first round, it could conceivably win that series. That would definitely qualify it for contender status here. Slipping to sixth or below in the conference would mean instant elimination at the hands of either OKC, San Antonio or Golden State.
So I guess this is an optimistic take on the Mavs' chances of avoiding that small slide.
Verdict: Contender
Sacramento Kings
The Sacramento Kings targeted near-term success this past summer, but they went about it in what felt like the wrong way. It was crazy, the thinking went, to give up pick swaps and overpay for middling free agents when the best-case payoff looked to be the eighth seed and a first-round annihilation.
And while it's still true that the Kings, within spitting distance of that No. 8 seed in the West, are effectively sacrificing their lottery odds for a meaningless playoff elimination, at least they've succeeded in their original goal: The Kings are mostly competitive.
What that's ultimately worth depends on how big you want the picture to be.
Heading into a new arena next year, it'd be nice to sell fans a product that had a chance to win most nights. But fans are going to have to fill that arena for years to come, and giving up long-term assets for a nearsighted rebuild on the fly doesn't foster sustainability.
The Kings are a pretender, but that seems to be what they're going for.
So...mission accomplished?
Verdict: Pretender
Indiana Pacers
Even with Paul George returning, the Indiana Pacers' 2015-16 prospects were, at best, dubious.
A full-on stylistic overhaul carried real questions with it. Could the Pacers succeed without the physicality and defensive presence of Roy Hibbert and David West—which had effectively defined them for the past few years?
Could Frank Vogel really find the personnel to pull off this uptempo, undersized, PG-at-the-4 gambit he'd been planning?
Would George even buy in?
No wonder Will Laws of Sports Illustrated pegged the Pacers as the No. 11 team in the East in his win-share-based preseason prediction.
Funny thing, though: Indy's plans worked out better than anyone expected, aided by what looks so far like a career year from George. It's hard to sort through the mess in the East's second tier, but the Pacers are in it somewhere.
And it's not crazy to buy them as a possible No. 2 threat in the entire conference by season's end.
Verdict: Contender
Orlando Magic
The Orlando Magic stand out in this group because they were supposed to take a step forward. It's just that nobody was sure how big that step would be.
Based on just about everyone's preseason rankings, including ESPN.com, Sports Illustrated and CBSSports.com, none foresaw one large enough for a playoff push.
In hindsight, it might have been a mistake to underestimate the first-year impact of head coach Scott Skiles, who generally exacts big gains from his new teams before giving some of them back as his intense approach grates a bit more in his second season.
Orlando, so far, has looked very much like a postseason threat.
There is no shortage of near-.500 teams in the East vying for one of the last few playoff berths, and virtually all have more experience on the roster than the Magic do. Toss in a shaky first couple of weeks to start 2016, and it's getting harder to see Orlando retaining its position, let alone bother one of the top two or three East teams in a playoff series.
The progress has been promising this season, and though many underestimated the Magic, it's fair to say another lottery trip is still in the cards.
Verdict: Pretender
*If you're really, really, REALLY pushing it, you might get away with including the Los Angeles Clippers as a fifth. In which case, your new name is Rudy Gobert because your reach is fantastic.
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Stats courtesy of NBA.com. Accurate through games played Jan. 12.
