The definitive ‘A Star is Born’ NBA power rankings

Lady Gaga just hit the big screen and turned our world upside down. Which NBA player has the best chance to do the same this season?

Once or twice a generation, a movie comes along that makes us reconsider how we look at some seminal aspect of our lives that we thought we knew. Most examples are obvious. Taken set a new standard for good parenting. Pulp Fiction redefined the perfect first date. After Marley and Me, anyone who claimed to be a cat person realized they had been living a lie. Titanic forever changed the way we view both arranged marriages and passenger-to-lifeboat ratios.

When you have one of these experiences, you realize it instantly. Life as you know it ends, and something else takes its place — something different, but unmistakably beautiful.

This past weekend, A Star is Born hit theaters. As anyone who’s seen it can attest to, there’s never been a better year to cancel the Oscars and donate the production costs to charity. It is, unquestionability, the greatest remake of a remake of a remake in cinematic history. If 1960 Elizabeth Taylor had a baby with an actual supernova, it would not shine as bright as Lady Gaga né Stefani Joanne Germanotta in this film. Bradley Cooper made me want to check into rehab, just to be safe.

More importantly, A Star is Born has inextricably altered the rags-to-riches success story as we know it. Sure, it’s the same basic plot as the previous three versions of the film, but c’mon…Gaga? The Stranger? Dice? The story of Ally and Jack is off its meds; this is officially the real Star.

Meanwhile, crosstown, the NBA preseason is wrapping up. As we near the start of another Warriors’ bloodbath, we can begin to get excited for all the ups and downs of 82 games, including guys making names for themselves that casual fans don’t even know exist.

It begs the question: of everyone playing in the NBA today, which player is most likely to be the real-life Ally? In other words, who’s currently the player anonymously waiting tables while their otherworldly talent goes largely unnoticed?

For a league that contains 450 players (510 if you count two-way contracts), the list of viable candidates is thinner than you’d imagine. First, an obvious rule: Ally starts out as an unknown, so no All-Stars, near All-Stars, former All-Stars, or high pedigree draft picks qualify.

Other caveats are less perceptible but just as important. First: Ally lacked traditional beauty, and made her name on the magic bubbles of happiness that filled a room whenever she opened her mouth. This is, therefore, going to be a player who makes his bones off of something other than highlights, yet keeps some pizazz hidden away in his back pocket, like a schoolboy sneaking his pet hamster into school. Second: Ally is young-ish, at least compared to the industry she’s trying to break into, so this is probably someone under 25 or thereabouts. Lastly, this is someone who supersedes the mentor who took them under their wing. We’re looking for a bench guy playing behind a former great with a self-destructive streak here.

Since there’s probably not going to be anyone who fits perfectly into all three of these descriptions, we’ll grade out prospective candidates on a 15-point scale, with five points for each category.

Let’s get started, going in reverse order through everyone who qualified to be graded:

Lauri Markkanen, -12.5

Lauri (a truly great unisex famous person name) is Abby from A Star is Born if A Star is Born was playing at a theater in the Bizzaro World.

Markkanen gave his team a first-hand look at his burgeoning stardom last year, but apparently, no one noticed. Instead of centering the organization’s priorities around his obvious talents, they signed Jabari Parker and matched an offer sheet on Zach LaVine, ensuring that the two ball-hoggiest guys in the NBA would be stealing Lauri’s thunder on the regular.

Markkanen is also from Finland, which is next to Sweden, home of ABBA and Ace of Base — both noted Lady Gaga influences. This seems relevant.

Boban Marjanovic, 1.5

Boban doesn’t really meet any of our qualifications. He’s 30 years old, isn’t playing behind anyone of note (although the Polish Hammer would surely disagree), and although there are those who suspect he’s a secret weapon hiding in plain sight, the chances of a Koufaxian late career surge are slim.

But he’s Boban, and if you’re doing an NBA column loosely tied to an absurd movie that inexplicably works and he’s not in it, you’re just not doing it right.

Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, 2.5

Timothe is 23, and his name kind of reminds me of Timothee Chalamet. That’s about all he has going for him. He’s here because he plays behind Russell Westbrook, who has more Jackson Maine potential than every other NBA star in history combined.

You can see it in the not too distant future, can’t you? His knees are starting to go, he’s throwing no-look passes into the stands towards anyone wearing Kevin Durant’s old jersey, his postgame pressers go from understated petulance to a simple string of vulgarities…it’s happening, people.

If TLC becomes Russ’ roommate and they get a dog together, he shoots much higher up the list.

Quinn Cook, 6.5

There was about a 48-hour period last season where everyone stopped, looked at each other and asked, in absolute sincerity, “Wait a minute…is Quinn Cook the key to the Warriors season?”

Over the final month of last year, Cook averaged 34 minutes and 15 points a game. Golden State was playing out the string, but there was talk about Cook’s ability to hit an open three being the difference in the inevitable showdown with the Rockets. Then we all came to our senses.

Still, is it that far-fetched to imagine Curry’s ankles acting up prior to the 2019 playoffs, Cook taking over, and subsequently making Steph irrelevant, to the point that he and his max salary were dumped to the Hornets for 17 future first round picks?

Yes. Yes, it is.

Derrick White, 9.5

There’s an alternate universe where Derrick White takes the top spot here.

If Tony Parker never got excised in a last-ditch effort to convince Kawhi Leonard to stay wanted to spend a year comparing Carolina and San Antonio BBQ, he’d be ripe for a Texas takeover at the hands of White. Instead, he departed, and then we got this weekend’s unfortunate Dejounte Murray news.

The 24-year-old White is definitely a candidate to blow up this season. It just won’t be accompanied by the slow climb he needs to reach the top of these rankings.

Thomas Satoransky, 12.5

Now we’re talking. Picture it with me friends:

It’s the 2019 ESPY’s. The category is Best Breakthrough Athlete. Thomas “Tom” Satoransky is the NBA’s only nominee following Washington’s miraculous run to the Conference Finals. He took over the starting point guard duties in mid-December, with the Wizards sitting at 9-16. At the time, they were just two games clear of a Hawks team that was already starting this guy at shooting guard in the league’s most blatant tanking effort to date. John Wall, following off-and-on knee tendinitis and an unconfirmed, flatulence-related dustup with Dwight Howard in the locker room, had been shut down for the season. Everything was thought to be lost.

Then, suddenly, it all came together. The Wiz finish the year 41-16. Dwight received a surprise All-Star nod. Bradley Beal lead the league in scoring. Scott Brooks was named Coach of the Year. All thanks to Satoransky.

The young man from the Czech Republic put the team on his back. With him in the lineup, Washington played with a weightlessness reminiscent of every team ever that didn’t have John Wall as the starting point guard.

As his name is announced, he confidently steps up to the podium for his moment in the spotlight, when out of nowhere, an overweight, stumbling man saunters onto the stage, and promptly (spoiler alert) pisses himself. Washington immediately gets on the phone with the Vladfather and makes him an offer he can’t refuse. Wall checks into rehab for recovering Dwightbola victims soon after. He gets released, and is ready to head off to Sacramento to continue his career, but takes one last stroll through the garage. He looks in the mirror and sees his reflection, but the figure staring back at him is wearing a Kings jersey. He slowly removes his belt and…

(scene)

If this all seems a bit too perfect, that’s because it is. Satoransky is spunky, but not all that good, and despite not being the most photogenic sort, John Wall still has some gas left in the tank.

Still, we can dream.

Delon Wright, 13.5

We’re getting really close now.

Delon is just the right age (26), talented but flawed (long, great on D, fast as hell, nice passer, unreliable shooter) and currently sits behind a 32-year-old All-Star who finally started to show signs of slippage last season.

There are some nitty gritty bonus points here too. Like Jack, Lowry himself was something of an improbable success story, bouncing around the league while moving in and out of both his teams’ starting lineups and long-term plans. He also just had a painful separation from his brother DeMar DeRozan, whose game is so old school that its human embodiment would make Sam Elliot blush (seriously though, how has Elliot not aged in 20 years? I’ll have what he’s having…).

Here’s the only problem, and ultimately what prevents Wright from taking the top spot: he’s almost too obvious. Given their age, salary, and the way their games are trending, smart basketball people might pick Wright as the more valuable NBA commodity right this second. If the Raptors tried to dump the old dog’s expiring salary this summer and go forward with the kid, no one would be surprised.

It’s enough to dock him just enough points for the One True Star to take his rightful place among the legends…

Josh Hart, 14.5

For our champ, we have to go back in time a bit to the original 1937 version of the film. Our anonymous leading lady isn’t a singer, but an actress and the plot plays out in Hollywood, with the climax at the Academy Awards, not the Grammy’s.

Ah, yes…Hollywood – the world LeBron James has now sought out to dominate. There is nothing left for him to accomplish on the court, so what the hell. His greatness is so well-established at this point that it’s almost an afterthought. The idea of his downfall, while inevitable, is so far afoul of what we’ve gotten used to over the years that its occurrence seems more farce than fact. When it happens, no one will see it coming, despite every camera in LA being focused on him, at least for a bit.

Hello, Jackson.

On the other side of the locker room, in the darkness, a young man tends to his business in relative anonymity.

Josh Hart is no stranger to success, having won a national title at Villanova in 2016 before becoming a consensus first-team All-American. It wasn’t enough to prevent him from nearly slipping out of the first round of the 2017 draft, where the Jazz picked him and subsequently dealt his rights to the Lakers. Last season, he personified “solid if unspectacular,” doing a little bit of everything while his more heralded teammates garnered most of the attention. He didn’t mind, just putting his head down and honing his craft all the while. True fans of the game, though…they took notice.

Hello, Ally.

Now, Hart will get a chance to learn from the best fill-up-the-box-score guy the NBA has ever known. He’ll be appreciative every step of the way, and LeBron will no doubt take the young man under his wing. They will grow close, maybe so close that Hart starts to realize the signs of decline before anyone else. He’ll no doubt feel the pain himself but won’t have time to wallow in sorrow for long, for as he’ll realize if he hasn’t already, in order for a star to be born, one first must die.

Or maybe he just remains a really good sixth man while LeBron coasts to his 5th MVP.

This is a movie, folks. Get real.