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| Damian Lillard has the Portland Trail Blazers playing like title contenders. |
In case you missed Part I yesterday, you can find it here. In it, we covered teams ranked No. 30 through No. 17. In Part II, we hit the best 16 teams in the league right now.
Western Wanderers
16. Los Angeles Lakers
The Lakers are 10-11 despite seeing just 135 completely ineffectual minutes from Steve Nash and largely substandard play from Pau Gasol. That's a [expletive deleted] miracle.
They have five players shooting 39% or better from three, and they're launching them like it's going out of style. Their entire offense is predicated around whipping the ball around the perimeter until someone is open for three. If that doesn't work, Nick Young careens into the lane and misses a 360 reverse layup. There's absolutely no reason this offense should work, and yet they win games. Now that Kobe's back, this might be a playoff team.
15. Memphis Grizzlies
The offense is still not very good, which is to be expected. It's just too hard to manufacture space when you don't have reliable shooters. That spacing will become even more strained with Quincy Pondexter possibly out for the season with a stress fracture in his foot.
The concern going forward, however, is how bad the defense has been. They rank just 22nd in defensive efficiency, and it's not like it's because Marc Gasol is out with injury - in the 447 minutes he's played, Memphis has a Defensive Rating of 103.8. Without him (571 minutes), it's 104.2. One major problem has been their three-point defense - after finishing 2nd in Opponents 3-PT% last season, that ranking has plummeted to 23rd this year.
