Weekly: Nov 18

This week we take a look at the two best ODE rated teams, plus the best managed team in the league!

Sour Snails (4-1)
Well, at least an undefeated season is off the table as Snails has already accrued a loss — albeit off a lineup error. Trieu’s team dipped to ten wins last season — and still made the Finals lest we forget — but any hopes of a continued slide are gone as Snails has revamped in a flash and came away with the best draft they’ve ever had. Long an Achilles heel, if there was one for this franchise, the draft usually doesn’t bring much onto Snails’ roster. Not this year! A combination of savvy drafting and free agent pickups have left Snails with their deepest lineup in awhile — and they had cut keeper Brook Lopez two weeks into the season.

2019 RD1 selection Caris LeVert may be injured as of now but he was a candidate for Most Improved Player and should remain keeper worthy. Then there’s RD4 Pascal Siakam, who is undergoing a breakout campaign of his own. Add in RD5 Laker wonder JaVale McGee and his early season barrage of REB/BLK and that’s three huge role players for this team via drat. Throw in the successful free agent pickups of Montrezl Harrell and Nemanja Bjelica and that’s a heck of a bench to surround Steph Curry and Kevin Durant. With pre-draft trade addition Kemba Walker playing at MVP levels, this team is cooking with hot fire as they are ODE rated first in offense and efficiency, while also being rated third for defense! Even with Curry dinged up, there’s too much talent on this team to perhaps ever lose a game again… Can they get into a Draymond-KD style fight or something?!?

Swamp Dragons (3-2)
Can Eddie finally make the playoffs after two Toilet Bowl winning seasons? So far their three wins have come at the expense of teams that are a combined 2-13 while their two losses have been to winning teams, so that’s not exactly confidence inducing. Then again, this team is number one rated in defense and efficiency, and is fourth in offensive rating. They are top three in five different categories and no lower than average everywhere else. Basically: this team should be trucking people.

Paul George and Nikola Jokic have mostly been spectacular while pre-draft trade acquisition Khris Middleton and 2019 number one overall rookie DeAndre Ayton (16.5 PTS, 10.5 REB, 2.8 AST, 61.1 FG%) have added the perfect amounts of wing and interior stats. There was a hole at point guard with the mystery of Markelle Fultz looking even worse, but the recent D’Angelo Russell acquisition looks like mostly a win and solidified the only spot in the lineup that was missing a plus piece. With the recent free agent acquisition of Trey Burke possibly about to pay dividends as well, Swamp Dragons are poised to go on a winning streak to vault them into contender status. A lineup of Russell, George, Middleton, Jokic, Ayton, and Jusuf Nurkic is quite deadly and balanced. So let’s get Eddie out of the Toilet Bowl and into the real tournament!

LA Buffy (2-3)
Having started the season off facing one of the toughest schedules in the league, it could be said that Buffy has overachieved with two wins already -- they had three all of last season. Coach Roger has clearly been pressing all the right buttons as he's maximized his lineups beautifully and Buffy leads SlamNation in Games Played. Buffy was a team that desperately needed an infusion of talent, as they ranked last in our keeper cores analysis, and it looks like they hit it big with 2019 RD1.4 Trae Young, who is averaging 16.2 PTS, 8.1 AST, and 1.3 3PT, albeit on 38.9 FG%. Still, Young at least gives this team another semi-star to pair with Klay Thompson.

The Brandon Ingram and Kyle Kuzma duo have been okay but not great, and any hopes of a further breakout may already have been buried under LeBron James’ suffocating brilliance. So what is driving this team to an efficiency rating of three and an offensive rating of seven? Welcome to the Nikola Mirotic and Domantas Sabonis show! The two big men are putting up double-doubles, good percentages from the field and from the line, and while they don’t offer much defense, their offensive contributions have been franchise changing.

With the recent return of Bojan Bogdanovic to Indiana, there’s another bomber added to a lineup that already shoots 3PT very well. There’s even some decent depth here as Malcolm Brogdon, Reggie Jackson, and Jeremy Lin are a merry-go-round of spare guards while Derrick Favors offers a light smattering of defense — although Buffy’s defensive rating is fourteenth so clearly the team is riding its strengths. Can all this offense drag Buffy out of the cellar, we think so!