All I want for Christmas is….

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by Matt

During everyone’s favourite season, we ask each team to sit on Santa’s metaphorical knee, and look at what they would ask the big dog for. This week, we look at Eastern Conference teams.

Philadelphia 76ers

The Sixers want two things:

First, they are patiently waiting for Christmas morning, so they can unwrap their shiny new toy. Ben Simmons is set to return sometime early in the new year (process relapse permitting), and he will need to be integrated into the new look starting line-up. With the emergence of ‘the process’, the process itself  is nearing completion. Philly fans will finally be able to see the rewards of their teams lack of hard work pay off.

The other thing we have caught Philly sneaking a peak at is the trade partner aisle. Nerlens Noel is growing frustrated, and some gamesmanship is definitely being played in his timeframe for a return. The Sixers have the pieces to be mildly competitive in the ghetto of the east and now it’s time to find out who is a star on this team. Besides Sauce Castillo, Philadelphia are looking at the shooting trend sweeping the NBA and find themselves below the league average.

The play here is to trade Nerlens, but they need a willing and able trade partner. Philadelphia is as good a place as any for Thrift Shop (Ben McLemore) to rejuvenate his career (Sixers already did this once for Sauce, why not do it again), and to move him out of the conference where Kawhi ripped out his manhood, along with he ripped the ball on repeated possessions. It’s a shame that the Kings have more big men than a Nevada brothel and is the least likely trade partner.

Brooklyn Nets

Santa, Big Dog, the Nets want a time machine.  They could go back and not give up the 6^th pick in the Damian Lillard draft for Gerald Wallace, who I’m pretty sure is warming the bench for the Guandong Tigers (just kidding, they need players who can actually run the floor). They also might want a redo on the horrendous Boston Celtics trade where they gave up 4 draft picks (swaps on 2), section 110-114 of Barclays Arena, Jay-Z’s last decent verse and the keys to their practice arena for the Boston big 3 (Pierce, Garnett and Terry, one of those is not like the others) who were a few seasons away from needing wheelchairs to get back on defence. Man, these guys need a Delorian

Miami Heat

The return of Justice Winslow. Miami need to keep developing their rookie, who played phenomenal defence all last year as a 19-year-old player. He could turn into a star player (slightly bias view) if he could shoot and has the work ethic to do so.

If the shop is sold out of Justices, the Heat might consider a trade for Goran Dragic. An option that makes sense is to package him together along with the resurgence of McBob for a stretch 4. Ironically, someone like Chris Bosh would be pretty good. He would have really slot in quite nicely for this team (Pat pls).

Orlando Magic

Orlando need Goku to come and fuse the defensive abilities of Bismack Biyombo with the offensive prowess of Nikola Vucevic. While watching the two big men do the dance would be hilarious, the resulting player would be ideal for the Magic who suffer from Biyombo;s butter fingers or Vucevic’s flat footing for 48 minutes a night.  The Magic’s spacing is so bad I imagine Justin Bieber at a LA nightclub, on the d-floor, with regular people have more room to move than Magic’s driving guards.

Washington Wizards

All the Bullets are wishing for is that their team gives a shit and gets their act together. Do we forget they are only 2 seasons removed from sweeping the Raptors out of the playoffs and giving the Hawks all kinds of problems in the second round? The team isn’t really that different, they lost the corpse of Paul Pierce (currently still making his way back on defence with the Clippers bench, their game ended a few days ago) and Nene (playing 16 minutes a night in Houston). How are they this bad? If anyone other than John Wall cared a bit more they would be in a much better position. Instead, they are 2 games out of 8^th in the East. They have the pieces, but lack the motivation to put together a decent stretch.

Milwaukee Bucks

The Bucks ask the Big Dog for modern medicine to advance to the point where torn hamstrings can be repaired immediately. They need shooting so badly that they traded MCW (not terrible) for Tony Snell (much more terrible) because MCW couldn’t hit water if he jumped out of a boat and Snell hovers between ‘passable’ and ‘maybe decent’ as an outside threat. When you’re relying on the 3-point stroke of Tony Snell, you sir require a miracle, and a double Vodka. Is their arena on 34^th street by any chance?

Milwaukee also has the single greatest Christmas movie moment ever, where in Love Actually Colin ‘The Legend’ is taken to ‘any regular American bar’ and proceeds to defy logic by luring the 4 hottest women in the bar to the greatest night ever. So maybe Middlestons hammy can be repaired in time to make a serious dent in the East?

Indiana Pacers

Please stuff the Pacers’ stocking with a shred of consistent play for their roster. They got thrashed by the Monstars (Warriors) on either side of blowing out the Clippers, Suns and Blazers. The Jeff Teague deal looks like an absolute nightmare as Hill has thrived in Utah while Teague has looked lethargic (although he has been much better recently). The Pacers roster looks like it was put together by a 12 year old playing ‘MyGM’ on 2K, there are just so many random pieces it almost looks like the Blazers (kidding guys its going to be better, maybe).

Atlanta Hawks

The Hawks need to figure out what the hell went wrong the last month when they lost what feels like 10,000 games in a row. Atlanta looked dangerous until the wheels didn’t just fall off, they were scrapping behind creating sparks and burning all hope and joy in sight. If they plan to be taken even remotely serious in the east they need to get back on track. They need Captain Christmas to sit the team down and address their flailing start to the season so they can get back on track.

Detroit Pistons

The return of Reggie Jackson is all they could wish for right? Oh wait; Andre Drummond still shoots free throws like a blind folded 6^th grader. They need to get Drummond a shooting coach, or the Winchester brothers because there’s some sort of demon that is haunting him at the free throw line. He shoots under 40%, Dean Winchester looks like he could shoot at least 60% if someone held his jacket.

Boston Celtics

Same as last year, the Celts want a taker for Jay Crowder and the Brooklyn pick. They’re doing everything except listing it on Amazon and seeing what sticks. I am sure we can come up with this ad, I’ll work on it for you guys.

Chicago Bulls

The Bulls need bionic knees for Dwyane ‘why the fuck do his threes go in now?’ Wade. There’s no way this holds up with Chicago’s sketchy at best medical staff after all those rest issues in Miami. Seriously, Derrick Rose had about one million problems with his knees, you don’t want to risk your season on Wade being out for 10-12 games in the New Year for ‘soreness’. Don’t risk it, turn Wade into part-robot now before age catches up with him and he is out a few weeks.

New York

A bench, they need a bench and badly. They need multiple people who can score and play a defence and generally be productive NBA players, not exactly a winning criteria. Jennings has settled down the last month after playing like he needs Adderal for the first few weeks of the season. O’Quinn is looking like Kyle O’Neil when he plays with the starting line up and Kyle O’Crap when he doesn’t, Lance Thomas doesn’t look comfortable holding the ball for longer than absolutely necessary and Sasha Vujacic should be playing somewhere that rhymes with ‘jong’ and ‘igers’ not playing meaningful NBA minutes for a 4 seed (I think Knicks fans need a lie down).

The good news is they are still winning despite this. The bad news, is that they lack the assets to do anything about this (hence asking for Christmas). Spike can you ask Freq if he is free for some backup minutes?

Charlotte Hornets

Charlotte couldn’t be in a better position now. They’re playing some phenomenal team basketball and Kemba Walker is emerging as an all-star candidate. They could really use a star player at the 4 who can roll to the rim with some force and hit the 3 to draw attention away from Kemba and Batum. Think how good Kevin Love would hit in on this Hornets team, he would be absolutely perfect for what they are trying to do.

Charlotte need this wheel to just keep turning, they don’t need anything to change they just need everything to keep ticking along the way it is.

Toronto Raptors

If Drake could lace up and teach DeRozen how to shoot a 3, then Santa going to be getting a lot more than milk and cookies. DD (love it, I’ll use it) is feasting (crashed back to earth lately after ascending to Kobe like levels for the first few weeks) in the mid range but is avoiding the 3 like Kanye West does rational thinking (nice bleach job ‘Ye). He is going to be locked up again in the playoffs if something doesn’t change over the next few years. Defences become more concrete, they become more focused and Cleveland is going to suffocate him with Shump and JR Smith, who both have made significant rededications to the defensive end since their move from New York (ironically both would have made this year’s Knicks team much more potent).

Cleveland Cavaliers

Speaking of the champs,  Cleveland wants Santa to bring about the return of Miami LeBron. He needs a revival if the Cavs are to defeat the Monstars over in Oakland. I don’t think any Cavs fan would be disappointed if another sabbatical to Miami for 2 weeks led to his 38% 3 point shot returning. That’s what the Cavs want and need for Christmas.

Coming soon, the Western Conference.