Stuck In the Middle: How these 4 teams can move up (or down) the NBA pecking order

The gap between rich and poor in the NBA is always greater than other sports due to the impact the true superstar players have on the game, but with the 2014 Draft expected to deliver multiple franchise changers and poor teams (in terms of talent) looking to reap the benefits in the Draft Lottery, the 2013-14 season has seen and will continue to see a widening gap between the elite ring chasers and the purposefully dreadful ping pong ball collectors.

Having said that, not every team fits neatly into a category of winning now or losing now to win later. There will always be teams caught in the middle with important decisions to make, and as the first quarter of the season has passed us by and free agents signed in the off-season can now be traded, it's time to examine the situations some of these teams are faced with.

Phoenix Suns - The surprise story of the season so far, Phoenix is likely the envy of many franchises right now. Their trade with the Wizards just before the season started that sent Marcin Gortat to Washington appeared to be the final piece of a tanking puzzle for the Suns, who now had as many as four first round picks come June. Many expected the team to lose somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 games, if not more, take home one of the prized possessions in the 2014 Draft and be the talk of Draft night as a whole.

Instead, the Suns are 14-9, good for sixth place in the Western Conference and the eighth-best record overall. Sure, there are still 59 games remaining and the Suns' roster doesn't seem like the type built to withstand a grueling 82-game race to the playoffs in the loaded West, but at they very least, this is a franchise with one building block in place with Eric Bledsoe (maybe two if they keep Goran Dragic), a good young coach seemingly in place with Jeff Hornacek, and a plethora of first round picks coming up to go with a ton of cap space in a warm weather market sure to have its star appeal. The Suns are in good shape either way - a mid-season plummet to the bottom would be fine, as would a surprising place in the West playoff chase come March and April. But don't count out the possibility that Phoenix can turn some of those draft assets, Dragic and other pieces into a star for today to put beside Bledsoe, while still holding on to a 2014 pick or two in a Draft that is as deep as it is star driven.

This may be what they call 'win/win.'

Boston Celtics - While the Suns are an expected tanker hanging around in the tough West thanks to strong, encouraging play, the Celtics are a bad team that simply can't get to the bottom they were apparently striving for in a pathetically weak Eastern Conference. The dilemma with the Celtics is that with Rajon Rondo getting closer and closer to his return from a torn ACL, the team may soon be cemented in the treadmill that is NBA mediocrity - good enough to make the playoffs, not nearly good enough to contend for anything meaningful, but not bad enough to contend for a transcendent talent in the Draft, either.

Yes, the Celtics have a ridiculous nine first round picks over the next five Drafts, but if their own picks are stuck in the middle, a 2014 pick is coming from a Nets team that should still find itself in the playoffs and a 2015 pick is coming from the Clippers, their next chance to really be transformed by the Draft - if they don't bottom out this year - might not come until they receive Brooklyn's pick in 2016. And Boston doesn't have the cap space Phoenix will have next summer until 2015.

The Celtics can trade Rondo to add to their already enviable supply of draft assets and hope that the current roster sinks to the bottom, or perhaps they trade some of those aforementioned assets to add another star for today, but one thing is clear: standing pat would likely mean a couple seasons of languishing in the middle for Boston.

Toronto Raptors - It's no surprise that the Raptors would like to throw their hat into the lottery ring with Toronto star Andrew Wiggins headlining a mouth watering supply of 2014 draft prospects, but bottoming out will take some more work from Masai Ujiri.

As has been discussed at nauseam by now, trading Rudy Gay actually made the Raptors better, both by means of addition by subtraction and by the trade addressing present day team needs like a backup point guard and bench depth. And even trading Kyle Lowry now, with Greivis Vasquez on board, wouldn't make Toronto bad enough in the laughable East. If Ujiri and the Raps really want to bottom out and signal a full fledged rebuild, they'll likely have to trade one of Amir Johnson or DeMar DeRozan in addition to Lowry, putting the team in position to partner Jonas Valanciunas with a franchise changing talent next summer and cap space to boot (the Rudy Gay trade already freed up some valuable space).

The other option is to stand pat and watch a more enjoyable on-court product post-Gay put together a playoff run in the cheap East race. Option A would require some more short-term pain for a fanbase that hasn't had much to cheer about over 18 years of existence, but that risk also presents the highest reward.

Chicago Bulls - The most fascinating and unpredictable team on this list may very well be the Bulls. Chicago was supposed to jump back into immediate championship discussion with Derrick Rose's return this season. Instead they're a banged up 9-13 team missing Rose for the remainder of the season again, a team almost surely good enough to maintain a playoff spot in the weak East but nowhere near offensively capable enough of competing beyond that.

The easy thing to do for the Bulls is simply sit back and watch Tom Thibodeau and his men admirably scratch and claw their way through another somewhat successful season. The bold thing to do might be to sell off the expiring contract of Luol Deng, look to take a strategic step back this season, amnesty Carlos Boozer in the summer, and then start fresh again with a returning Rose next season.

It would be a gamble, and word is that Rose is already weary of a possible rebuilding project, but there's as much risk in allowing Deng to walk as a free agent this summer and watching Rose and the Bulls slide back to the dangerous middle of the pack next year.