After coming out of three years of rebuilding, Squirtle re-emerged from a three year slumber last season to capture a fifth seed in the playoffs as Giannis Antetokounmpo bulldozed his way to his first NBA MVP. With a possible back-to-back MVP coming his way, Giannis led the way during this 2020 campaign and got Squirtles to the very top, giving SQSQ their second-best season of all time — their first was a 10-2 record in a lockout shortened 2012. After making four postseason appearances in their first six seasons, Squirtle had hit a lull but has crept up from three wins, to eight, to nine, to twelve, to fourteen.
With those fourteen wins -- tied with three other teams this season — SQSQ had two juicy ties to take the regular season crown for the second time in their eleven long history — and captured their third division/conference crown as well. And all this happened with John Wall and Jusuf Nurkic out for the season, and basically Blake Griffin as well.
It’ll be interesting to see if GM Brian decides to go with a younger keeper core or to work the veterans back in. The emergence of Bam Adebayo as a fantasy monster this year gives SQSQ two massive cornerstones and it looks like the future backcourt could be set as well, with free agent sensation Devonte’ Graham and 2018 RD1.2 Lonzo Ball firing it up from outside and finding his stride in New Orleans.
Squirtles were the odds on favorite for the title this year, so it’s sad to say that we may not get to see them finish out and potentially earn their first SlamNation title. Still, Giannis and Bam are both quite young so there will be more contention ahead. Congrats Squirtles on a fantastic year and a paper title!
#2 SPDE Spade (14-4-1)
Whew, SPDE really handled business over the second half of the season as they won eight of their last games heading into the postseason. (Oh wait, what postseason?!) Randall had a shot at capturing his first regular season crown but instead will have to settle for garnering a power ranking of two for the year.
This was actually mostly a dream season for SPDE, as their health remained steady and they even managed to put up the second-most Games Played in the league at 498 GP. The only person to miss significant games was Derrick Favors early on, plus a splash of Kevin Love, but everyone else on the team stayed quite healthy. The only question is how this veteran laden team could pull off this trick again. Having only dipped below twelve wins once in their seven year Slam history, SPDE has no problem getting into the playoffs, but this year might have been one of their most healthy iterations. Too bad, so sad.
And while Kawhi Leonard is squarely in his prime, his regular seasons will always be load managed, and the only under twenty-five year old cornerstone on this squad is Devin Booker. It’s likely we’ll see at least Al Horford drop out of the keeper rotation, but will someone like Favors, O.G. Anunoby, Norman Powell, or rookie Tyler Herro make the cut instead?
SPDE ended the season with ODE splits of 2/3/5, making them analytically the second-best team heading into the almost playoffs. Would that have translated into their first ring? I guess we’ll never find out!
Luka magic! Well, okay, it was magical for the first half of the season. After starting off 7-4, ILCN petered out to just 2-6 the rest of the way as Doncic, Jaren Jackson Jr., Draymond Green, and a whole host of others all hit injury issues. There was all still enough on this team to take IL Conceived to a playoff appearance — the first in their three year history — but they still haven’t broken 0.500+ yet. It's likely they would have preferred a seat in the Toilet Bowl but upward progress is great and the super young core here is still drool worthy.
Luka's faster than expected ascent into the MVP conversation has this team on a quicker trajectory than anticipated, and it’s just a matter of putting the right pieces around the core of Doncic, JJJ, and Donovan Mitchell. More drafts like this season’s would be a huge boon. Possible NBA Sixth Man of the Year Dennis Schroder was a wonderful get at RD3.12, but the real gem may have been the post-draft trade for Markelle Fultz — exchanged mid-draft for Reggie Jackson. Fultz has resurrected his career and may even contend with RD1.4 Darius Garland for a keeper slot. Who would have thunk!
Frank won 2020 Coach for the Year for his league leading 502 GP, and that’ll be a nice first trophy on his mantle. We’ll see what this team can do next season, but with the core three averaging twenty-one years old, ILCN can look forward to taking another step up the contention ladder next season.
#9 ABCX Another Bad Creation (8-9-2)
After finishing with the second-to-last worst record in the league last year, ABCX was looking for a bounce back season and they got it. While they finished a tiebreaker out of the postseason, the acquisition of 2020 RD1.2 Ja Morant was enough to reenergize this franchise, who has seven playoff appearances in their decade plus in Slam.
ABCX finished the year with a 3-2-1 record, with two of those wins coming against excellent competition — WK14 versus SWMP and WK15 versus FJUB. A lot of that probably had to do with the unleashing of Russell Westbrook, and the super athletic trio of Westbrook, Morant, and Derrick Rose has to be some sort of super point guard slam dunk team.
An injection of youth was exactly what Oliver needed, as his 2020 draft, aside from Morant, was heavy on veterans. And now the virus shortened season means LaMarcus Aldridge gets one year older, as does Westbrook. With an actual Toilet Bowl not happening, it’s likely ABCX could get another very high draft pick coming their way. That’s good news as their 2020 draft didn’t yield much except Morant. (Could free agent pickup Daniel Theis supplant Enes Kanter in the keeper lineup? Seems likely right?) We’d love to see ABCX back in the playoff picture, and it looks like they’re headed that direction. Go Ja!
After a disastrous 2019 campaign where this talent laden roster went 10-9-1 — yes “disastrous” is relative, we know they won the 2019 Toilet Bowl — there were hopes that SBUK would return to contention status. Instead they slipped backwards, even after course correcting and getting their Games Played to league average. What gives?
After six straight wins to begin the season, SBUK slid back to the pack with two losing streaks of five games each, and a 0-5-1 whimper to end the year — four of those losses were against future playoff teams and the fifth was versus a surging Snack Bears.
Their 11/12/4 ODE splits over the past month were quite different from their season long 13/7/6, and it’s hard to pinpoint the problem. Of course, having Joel Embiid and Kyrie Irving end the year injured, and Gobert shutting down the entire NBA didn't help, but SBUK was all over the place for most of the season.
On paper, this is still a very strong team though, as evidenced by a roster featuring Irving, the twin towers, and filled in with CJ McCollum, DeMar DeRozan, and some combination of Thomas Bryant (also injured most of the season) and Serge Ibaka. The big question is how good 2020 RD1.3 RJ Barrett will become. The rookie put up some of the worst shooting in history with 40.2 FG% and 61.4 FT%, but will get plenty of minutes on a Knicks franchise without much else. After two straight years out of the playoffs, SBUK fans are clamoring for better times since they are used to a winning tradition. Let’s see if Josh can give it to them!
#14 BUFF Buffy (5-14)
As for winning traditions, BUFF racked up two division titles in their first four Slam seasons — 2011 and 2013 — but haven’t found much success since then, averaging a mere 6.4 wins during the past seven campaigns, highlighted by a 0.500 season five years ago. After last year’s promising 8-11-1 year, BUFF looked to be trending up but it’s another step backward for them this past season.
However, dig underneath those very average 10/9/10 season long ODE and we have some gold underneath. The 2-11 start transitioned to a 3-3 finish and it’s impossible to ignore how much GM Roger has upgraded this roster. After trading for Ben Simmons pre-draft, BUFF also stepped into All-Star campaigns for first timers Brandon Ingram and Domantas Sabonis, and found Kendrick Nunn on the free agent pile.
While 2020 rookies De’Andre Hunter (RD1.5) and Cam Reddish (RD4.11) had some hefty struggles this year, they both picked up their games as the year went along. Will both be keepers? Add in a mid-season trade of Malcolm Brogdon for Spencer Dinwiddie and BUFF went from zero All Stars last season to three this year! With Klay Thompson returning, BUFF should be an offensive powerhouse next season, and things are looking up for them after a long time out of the spotlight.
Welp, we were hoping to celebrate the end of a dynasty for SOUR this season, as they were sinking to the bottom after four titles in five years, but this aborted postseason means they’ll be the returning champs once again. Ugh, how lucky can one team be?!
With Steph Curry joining Kevin Durant on the injured list for most of the season, SOUR’s repeat title hopes were sunk from the start, but it looks like they’ll be back to defend their title with a fully healthy roster. The last time SOUR got only four wins — in an aborted twelve game season — they came away with 2013 RD1.2 rookie Damian Lillard as the Toilet Bowl runner-up. So maybe we should be lucky there’s no Toilet Bowl this season?
SOUR racked up six lineup violations this season and was bottom three in Games Played, but those numbers don’t tell us much of anything as this was a lost year for Trieu. They’ll return two former MVPs, Pascal Siakam, Zach LaVine, and some combination of Mitchell Robinson, pre-draft acquisition Terry Rozier, and 2020 RD1.13 Steven Adams or 2020 RD4.8 rookie PJ Washington. We have no doubts SOUR will be back in the championship mix next year and I guess we’ll just have to settle for an off year that turned into a really off year for the defending champs!
#16 HSTL Hilt the Stilt (4-15)
It’s been tough sledding for Dave his first two years in Slam. They’ve gone 6-14 and 4-15, with bottom of the rankings in Games Played and lineup violations — this year they had a second-“best” seven violations. With an eight game losing streak and a 1-10 record to end the season, it’s hard to say where HSTL is heading.
The thing is, we still like this team! After a promising dispersal draft, HSTL has been beset by bad luck. Sophomore Wendell Carter has only played forty-plus games each of his two years, franchise cornerstone Victor Oladipo finally made his return to the court mid-season, and Andre Drummond achieved his dream of going to suck up bricks in Cleveland.
However, there were still some bright spots this year, which could point to some shot at respectability for HSTL moving forward. 2020 RD1.7 rookie Coby White emerged as an explosive, if erratic, gunner; 2019 RD2.6 sophomore Mikal Bridges proven his defensive chops once again; and Jaylen Brown made a leap (he was acquired along with Carter for Josh Richardson).
However, for a team with a glaring hole at point guard — we don’t think White is the answer, at least for AST — not keeping Fred VanVleet and trading away Terry Rozier before this year’s draft could come back to haunt them. We’d like to see some improvement in GP and moves — HSTL tied for the league low with four total — for this franchise to see if they can scrape into mediocrity at least.
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