After the preseason ended, time passed day by day, and there were still three or four days before the new season officially started. The major media began to come out to make things happen again, such as player strength rankings.
At the time of the announcement, the three major authoritative media announced the team strength rankings and the top ten player strength rankings, which caused another bloody storm among the fan groups.
This time, among the three major media, Sports Illustrated and TNT, both media agreed that Wang Zelin is the strongest player in the new season, and his Trail Blazers team is also the team with the highest aspirations to win the championship.
As a result, the Cavaliers and James were unhappy, and ESPN took the opportunity to stir up trouble and earn a wave of traffic.
Although the various analyzes of the ESPN expert jury have been slapped in the face every year in recent years, this does not prevent them from being still the most popular sports media in the United States.
Every new season, ESPN will make a wave of predictions as in previous years, and will also make player strength rankings. This is something that many fans like to see every year.
The NBA regular season is about to kick off. ESPN invited a group of 18 experts to make a series of extremely professional predictions for the new season.
The first is the team strength ranking.
In terms of team strength, ESPN did not dare to be harsh and followed the general trend and ranked the Portland Trail Blazers at the top of the list.
"Their previous performance was gratifying. Coach Terry once again proved his coaching ability, not only in terms of on-court tactics, but also in player training. This can be seen from the physical management of the Trail Blazers players.
Of course, the most important thing is that their desire to win the championship this season will be stronger than other teams. No one can refuse the temptation of three consecutive championship dynasties!
We have reason to believe that they can break out of the Western Conference again this year, defeat the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference, win the championship, and ultimately establish a dynasty that belongs to Portland!"
The ESPN expert team that predicts the championship in the new season has a very strong lineup. The famous basketball reporter Mark Stein was the first to express his opinion, and he also successfully convinced many colleagues, including Wende Horst, Adan
Famous journalists such as De Ford, Thorpe and Abbott.
Second on the list is the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“Basketball is a team sport, and tacit understanding is a very important part of a basketball game. After a season of running-in, the Cavaliers will only be stronger than last season!
At the same time, the Cavaliers, who have the three stars of James, Cousins, and Irving, should have been the favorite team to win the championship, but defense is their biggest problem, and it will be especially fatal in the playoffs."
Third on the list is the Golden State Warriors.
"The Warriors players are really, really good. In the first try of Cole's system last season, they set a new record against their opponents and returned to the Western Conference Finals after decades. Maybe you will think my next idea is crazy.
But I still want to praise the Warriors again...
I believe that after a season of running-in, the Warriors are the team most likely to interrupt the Trail Blazers' dynasty in the West. I believe they will bring us more surprises in the new season.
However, their only weakness is also their strength. As a shooting team, this attribute will make their performance ups and downs in the playoffs. This is a bit similar to the Suns, the running and gun team back then. Next, they need to add more
stability.
That’s why they’re ranked third.”
The Los Angeles Lakers ranked fourth.
"To be honest, it is indeed a bit risky to rank the Lakers in this position. The Lakers, who just acquired Paul, are undoubtedly the biggest uncontrollable factor in the new season. They now have the basics of Kobe, Paul, and Gasol, which is doomed for the team.
high upper limit.
But don’t forget that time is the most ruthless killer. Among all the Big Three teams in the league, the Lakers’ Big Three have the oldest average age. The aging team structure may become a problem for the Lakers in the new season.
Biggest weakness.”
The Houston Mosaics ranked fifth.
"Putting the Mosaic team in this position is not disrespectful to Harden, Howard and the newly arrived Lawson. As we just mentioned, the Big Three model has a high ceiling, but it also takes time to adjust. The entire pre-season
The Mosaic team, which has lost two games, undoubtedly needs more training to develop a tacit understanding among the three giants.
But the good news is that Mosaic’s new coach D’Antoni seems to have created a very good system for this team, and I hope they can prove themselves in the future.”
The Chicago Bulls, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Rams ranked 6th to 8th on the list respectively.
Among the other popular teams, the Spurs ranked 9th, the Clippers, who had just lost their captain, ranked 15th, the Pelicans, who had acquired Jimmy Butler and Josh Smith, rose to 11th, and the Raptors ranked 13th...
After this list came out, it attracted crazy complaints from fans.
Of course, compared to the team strength rankings, what fans find even more outrageous is the player strength rankings for the coming new season.
In the second list, ESPN chose to risk the world's disapproval and ranked Wang Zelin, who has completed the single-season honors Grand Slam in the past two consecutive years, in second place. The top spot is still LeBron who has not changed for thousands of years.
·James.
Such a move can be said to be going against the version, and it is an absolute headwind in output.
Although it is controversial, we have to admit that this move of theirs is indeed the right one. After all, what the media needs most is traffic, topics and popularity. From this perspective, they have indeed succeeded.
The other top ten players on ESPN's list are Durant third, Curry fourth, Chris Paul fifth, Griffin sixth, Harden seventh, Westbrook eighth, Davis ninth, Al
Delic tenth.
Well, ESPN has ranked an unnamed No. 24 outside the top ten for three consecutive years, and this time it ranked the latter at sixteenth.
Unexpectedly, it sparked another heated discussion.
Sports Illustrated's top ten rankings are Wang Zelin first, James second, Curry third, Durant fourth, Harden fifth, and sixth to tenth are Westbrook, Griffin, and David.
Si, Paul, Kobe.
The top three in TNT remain unchanged, namely Wang, James, and Ku, and the fourth to tenth behind are Davis, Griffin, Westbrook, Kobe, Aldridge, Lillard, and Paul.
Apart from ESPN, the one with the most doubts belongs to TNT's ranking, because it is the only media company among all the media in the United States that ranks all three core players of the Trail Blazers in the top ten of the league.
Of course, the reasons they gave are also very strong. In the past two seasons, the Trail Blazers have proven that the lineup system centered around Wang Zelin, Aldridge, and Lillard is enough to support the Trail Blazers to reach the top. As the league has done in the past two years
The strongest threesome, even if the last two are not as outstanding as Wang Zelin, they are still the best players in the league at the same position, basically in a position of sitting back and watching the third.
Based on the above considerations, it was decided today to list all three of the Blazers among the top ten players in the league for the new season.
In the last three days before the new season is about to start, at this point in time, the stars have no time to worry about rankings. Instead, the loyal fans of each team and each star are constantly fighting each other online, attracting the masses to watch.