NBA Tank Rankings — it persists

1. Brooklyn Nets

With the final inclusion of the Nets, the Suns are conspicuous in their absence. That might be wrong, but let me explain.

Phoenix has won three in a row so they’re spared ignominy for the week. Orlando makes me cry blood, so I’m sparing you ignominy as well. Does that make sense? No? Good.

Orlando.

I lied.

Brooklyn is inertia. That’s why people call them Brooklinertia. They want to stop being bad at basketball, but an object that’s bad at basketball tends to stay bad at basketball.

So they’re tanking. They don’t want to be tanking, and they shouldn’t be tanking, but they tank nonetheless. Pulling yourself out of the cellar just because you have no reason to want to be there isn’t simple. You have to decelerate before you start accelerating the other direction. Maybe their .500 record in their last two games is a sign that they’ve finally turned it around.

Or maybe it’s 2 wins in close quarters a within a run of 51 losses, and it’s just a tiny bit of noise in a big noisy world. Maybe it’s just a pothole, and the brakes lines are still cut. Maybe it’s the looney tunes’ character on the bottom of a falling anvil. They never seemed to put up much resistance.

Next: Top 5 drug testing performances of the NBA season

Regardless of why or how, this is where they are. This is where they should be. One day they won’t be, if not because they’ve turned themselves around but because someone else has rushed past them.