It’s been a while, about 5 months, so I’m gonna recap some of the stuff, we had a ton of movement in the top 50, Surge came in, and is now in the top 25, Melo is following behind him, Bdawg just made it, BobRoss made it twice, I slipped in, and AJGreen and Corey are pretty close to coming in, we have had some new users emerge and some old users retire, some came back and Fanspo is growing. User of the week for this week is ScottieB4DPOY, he’s a rising user and one of the best Raptors fans on here right now, shoutout to him

The true contenders and pretenders of the NBA this year

It’s almost playoff time so now we have reached the time to talk about the contenders and pretenders, some teams are ready to make a run and some are gonna flop and go nowhere, here are the contenders and pretenders

In the east there are a few pretenders, the biggest one and the one I’m gonna talk about are the Pistons, they have had a great regular season and Cade is having a career year but after him and Duren the rest of the depth is interesting, they don’t have a true third guy and they have decent depth with Ausar, Harris, Levert, Robinson, and Stewart but they don’t have a true third guy, they also have Daniss Jenkins but he’s been on and off all year, he has hot streaks and then disappears for a week and then comes back. The Pistons need to sort out their set up or else I see a second round exit for them.

The contenders of the east are the Celtics, Knicks, and Cavs, it’s too early to tell which one of them is the team to beat because of seeding, assuming they all make it to round two and the Pistons do too then it will probably be Pistons vs Cavs which I see going either way, and Celtics vs Knicks, I have some memories from that. The Cavs have a contending roster, their weakest position is probably small forward but they have a ton of wing depth to make up for it, the Knicks have one of, if not the best starting 5 but their bench depth after Robinson and Alvarado is interesting, the Celtics are the most interesting team because of Tatum, he just came back from a torn achilles, it’s been exactly 300 days since, but he had a good first game back, he will most likely take in an off ball role but the Celtics could make a run with him back

In the west the pretenders are interesting, the Rockets and Timberwolves are the two teams that stand out to me, Houston has not been consistent enough and not having a true point guard isn’t gonna help the case, Reed has had a nice breakout but he’s not a natural point guard, if they had VanVleet then they would be a contender. The Timberwolves are weird because they have made it to the conference finals back to back years and they have a great core with Ant, Randle, McDaniels, Rudy, and they have a strong bench with Naz, Ayo, and Divencenzo, they just seem to be lacking something, they haven’t been to the finals, they need that experience first

The contenders in the west are pretty obvious, the Thunder and Nuggets, the Nuggets, when healthy, have an elite starting 5 and they have nice depth now with people like Tyus Jones, Bruce Brown, Jonas Valanciunas, and more, then there’s the team to beat, the Thunder, ESPN’s BPI index currently gives them odds of over 50% to win the finals, they have one of the best young cores with SGA, Jdub, and Chet, while having nice veterans like Caruso and Hartenstein, the Thunder are the team to beat in the west, their bench depth is insane too, Ajay Mitchell, Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins, they also got Topic back, they have too many good young guards, they have good forwards too with Kenrich and Jaylin Williams, there’s just no way to beat them.

Who are your contenders and pretenders

Fanspaper grid 2: https://fanspo.com/nba/grids/_V0mrhiASrmgy7

Thanks for reading, I’m gonna start getting more people to join in on the Fanspaper so if you’re interested please comment down below