Looks like the tank is really shaping up into four categories:
1. Bottom-3: Milwaukee (9), Orlando (13) and Philadelphia (15). Milwaukee too far ahead to be caught. Orlando IS that bad. Philly has a few more wins, but they're also rumored to have Turner on the trading block. Major tank in 2nd half.
2. Tier 2 (#4-#8): Boston, Cleveland, Sacramento, LA Lakers, Utah.
a. Rondo is back for Boston. Does that mean more wins?
b. Varejao is back, but Cleveland is a mess with players on the verge of mutiny. They'll likely make some kind of move at the deadline, but will it improve or hurt them?
c. Sacramento is looking to improve. Gay is back and so is Cousins. Prediction is more wins.
d. Lakers may move Pau for Okafor and picks. Even with Kobe in another month, this team is terrible. Likely to finish worse than Utah.
e. Utah: No doubt RJ and MW are being shopped. But their high salaries make putting together a deal difficult, if not virtually impossible. Bad contracts or other assets would need to be included and I don't see Lindsey willing to do either, not when he can have a ton of cap space to go after FA's simply by letting all those contracts expire.
3. Tier 3 (#9-11). New York, Detroit and New Orleans are 3-4 games ahead of the group with 16 wins. Keep an eye on this group, but doubt any of them will fall into the bottom 8.
4. Tier 4 (#12-14) Denver, Minnesota and Memphis are on the fringe of the playoffs. Hoping Memphis can catch GS.
Prediction: No chance at one of the worst 3 records. Jazz at best could finish #4, at worst #8. Likely is at #6.