OKC Thunder: Ladder shifts shake up tank wars in week 19, Ep. 3

Marvin Bagley III #35 of the Sacramento Kings(Photo by Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images)

The others:

Of the clubs positioned seventh or higher on the lottery ladder, it’s unlikely any pose any true challenge to usurp the Thunder.  The Kings who are seventh have 4.5 fewer losses. Teams place eighth through 14th have five to 11 fewer losses.

This group then becomes interesting more in terms of what they’ll do if they fall out of contention to be in the play-in tournament.

The Eastern Conference is intriguing because of how closely grouped the teams are. There are three distinct groups within the seeds ranked fourth through 12th.

Specifically, the tier of seeds currently positioned fourth through seventh (Knicks, Hawks, Celtics, and Heat) are separated by two games.

The next tier of clubs ranked eighth through 12th (Hornets, Pacers, Wizards, Bulls, and Raptors) are separated by 4.5 games with the teams ranked eighth through 10th separated by just two games.

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Clearly, the bottom trio in that group (Wizards, Bulls, Raptors) are under the most pressure as they each seek to get the 10th seed. Washington seems best positioned to gain the berth and could even move up to ninth since they are only one game back of the ninth-place Pacers who are devasted by injury to their frontcourt specifically.

While the Raptors have the most difficult schedule among this bottom tier they are also the only team who’ll play both the Bulls and Wizards and could make up games by winning those contests.

However, they will first need to get through a four-game Western road trip with matches against the Nuggets (who they lost to on Thursday), a back-to-back set versus the Jazz and Lakers this weekend and finish the trip versus the Clippers. Suffice to say if they fail to win at least twice they may elect to tank the remainder of their matches to drop down for better odds in the Draft Lottery.

Closing:

At this point, it seems unlikely the OKC Thunder will bring back Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to play any more games this season.

Of the nine matches remaining on the schedule, only three are against top seeds including the Suns this weekend as well as the Jazz and Clippers in the final two matches of the campaign.

Losing those matches shouldn’t be a problem but there are some upcoming games of concern. Specifically, three games against the Kings. Although it’s unlikely the Kings will lose enough to fall beneath the Thunder, they may not present enough of a threat to win all three matches.

Something to watch for from OKC is whether Mark Daigneault switches up his lineups and whether either Luguentz Dort or Darius Bazley is sat in upcoming matches.

Next weekend, Intentions will return with version 4.0 of the tank wars and update the standings.