Howard Beck

It's a super young roster.

Huge credit to Michael Porter Jr.

and, of course, Jordy Fernandez as coach of having them still playing like a definable style and of him being a centerpiece.

Not of a good team, but they're competitive.

They win a lot of games that you wouldn't expect them to.

Anyway, so those are the four locks for me.

Jalen Johnson, Donovan Mitchell, Michael Porter Jr., Scotty Barnes.

Jalen Duren, the Pistons have been excellent.

Duren's been excellent.

I didn't struggle too much to put him there.

The last two, Norm Powell is the guy who's kept the heat afloat the whole time, got them off to that great start while Tyler Hero was out.

Like, who's powering that offense?

They just don't have a lot of shot creation and scoring.

Norm Powell has done it all.

And then my seventh was actually Pascal Siakam, who is...

Quietly having a really good season, quietly because the Pacers are terrible, because they don't have Halliburton, and they let Miles Turner go, and they've been injury-wracked.

They've been a mess.

But I really think that Siakam's earned it, and that was with apologies to Evan Mobley.

I couldn't consider Bankero or Wagner.

I couldn't quite get to Bain, Logan.