2015 Midseason Worst of the Worst NBA Awards
The 2014-15 NBA season has been one of the best in recent memory, featuring Anthony Davis' ascent to basketball Olympus, killer first halves by the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks and tons of intrigue surrounding the league's top teams.
But it hasn't all been great.
The first half also provided catastrophic failures of the personal and team variety. We watched, open-mouthed and bug-eyed, as truly horrendous air balls and missed dunks made us consider switching over to standard definition—just to lessen the trauma.
We saw bad injuries, worse flopping and truly horrible body language.
Once-proud franchises fell flat, promising rookies floundered and the Orlando Magic visited a grotesque, pinstriped perversion of a uniform on the few souls unlucky enough to see them.
It's been a beautiful year on balance, but you can read about that elsewhere.
Here, we're about to get ugly.
Worst Team: New York Knicks
Boom!
A big one right off the bat! This isn't the Oscars, which means you don't have to wait until the end of the show to see who won Best Picture.
The New York Knicks hit bottom when they fell behind the Philadelphia 76ers for the worst record in the league during the first half. A hot streak (relatively speaking) has them neck and neck with Philly these days.
The math still says the Sixers and Minnesota Timberwolves are worse than New York; both have net ratings that plunge deeper into negative territory, per NBA.com. But if we consider actual performance against expected performance, no team has been a bigger disappointment than the Knicks.
Fans are spending thousands of bucks to wear paper bags on their heads.
The triangle is obtuse.
Cole Aldrich's field-goal attempts are inspiring wonder around the league, particularly with Grantland's Zach Lowe:
The only remaining intrigue in a lost season is centered around when the Knicks will shut down Carmelo Anthony for good.
These are dark, dark times in New York.
Worst Hat(s): Carmelo Anthony, New York Knicks
Just all of them. Every last one.
The burgeoning love affair between NBA players and high fashion provides plenty of entertainment, but whatever statement Melo's trying to make with his headwear isn't working.
You can check out the full spectrum of his ridiculous lids here. Just know the range of explanations is narrow, spanning between "he lost a bet" and "somebody convinced him he's an Amish alderman."
Moving on.
Worst Three-Point Attempt: Cory Jefferson, Brooklyn Nets
It slipped. It had to have slipped, right?
Cory Jefferson, a rookie for the Brooklyn Nets, shot 36.8 percent from long range in his senior season at Baylor, so it's hard to believe he got halfway through the shooting motion and suddenly lost confidence. So let's go with slippage.
Amazingly, the catch, gather and release don't look all that bad. And Nikola Mirotic's closeout wasn't urgent enough to bother the shot.
The result, though, was pretty dreadful.
Worst Dunk Attempt: Ronnie Price, Los Angeles Lakers
Viewing tip: If you crank up R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" in the background while you watch Price's ill-fated slam, it gets approximately 83 percent funnier.
Now, to be fair, Price has had his share of successful dunks. Here's one worth noting, if only to explain why he was so ambitious on his award-winning miss.
Next time, Ronnie. Next time.
Worst Uniforms: Orlando Magic Alternates
They say a camel is a horse designed by committee—a simple, tried-and-true blueprint complicated and made worse by too many opinions and unnecessary additions.
The Orlando Magic's alternate jerseys are the camel of NBA apparel.
Sleeves, pinstripes, wonky color schemes...it's all just too much.
Worst Defense: LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers
James is still an effective defender when he wants to be. But on this play, we can safely say he was short on desire.
There's something to be said for the mental game of telling a shooter you have so little respect for him that you're not even going to bother putting a hand up. That can mess with a guy's head. But James' lack of effort here didn't bother Wesley Johnson.
Cleveland is looking much better, but LeBron still deserves a nod here for engaging "Chill Mode" so egregiously.
Worst Rookie Performance: Zach LaVine, Minnesota Timberwolves
The bounce and athletic promise are beyond doubt, but LaVine's overall game has left plenty to be desired this season.
According to ESPN.com, his real-plus minus of minus-7.99 is the worst of any qualifying player in the league this season. And with a player efficiency rating of 9.0 in nearly 1,000 minutes this season, per Basketball-Reference.com, he's done major cumulative damage.
Caveat: LaVine is on a terrible Timberwolves team where the offense consists primarily of stagnant isolation post-ups and very little movement. When he was forced to play minutes as a point guard after Ricky Rubio got hurt, he was set up to fail.
There's still a good chance he'll leverage his incredible physical skills to become a quality rotation player down the line. For now, though, he's had the biggest negative impact of any rookie in the Association.
Worst Free Throw: Andre Roberson, Oklahoma City Thunder
For someone so used to being left alone when shooting, Roberson made a real mess of this foul shot.
Opponents don't pay any attention to Roberson on the perimeter because of his inaccuracy from deep (21.3 percent on 47 attempts this year), which has made the defensive stopper occasionally unplayable in late-game situations.
He's been reluctant to fire away from deep all year as a result, despite being consistently wide-open. With this lowlight on his resume and a 47.6 percent accuracy rate from the free-throw line in the first half, Roberson may soon think twice about driving to the hole as well.
Worst Body Language: DeMarcus Cousins, Sacramento Kings
Dion Waiters has been caught more than once with his hands up, looking disgustedly at teammates who won't pass him the ball. And you'd have a good chance to capture slumped shoulders and dejected stares if you snapped a shot at random from any Los Angeles Lakers game.
But Boogie is the winner (and still champion) of bad body language.
He can't help it. Every no-call baffles him beyond belief, eliciting upturned palms and incredulous scowls for the nearest official. Even when the whistle blows, Cousins sometimes whips his head around at the referee as if to ask "why didn't you blow it louder?"
Cousins has been an absolute monster this season, is almost certainly going to be an All-Star and has weathered the difficult trial of seeing Mike Malone, the first NBA coach to truly reach him, fired. His dissatisfaction on that front is justified.
Nonetheless, if we're being objective about this, nobody comes close to Cousins on this one.
Worst Actor: P.J. Hairston, Charlotte Hornets
Option 1: Tony Parker is actually the Hulk.
Option 2: Hairston provided the flop to end all flops against the San Antonio Spurs this year.
You be the judge.
Worst Injury: Brandon Jennings, Detroit Pistons
Every injury stinks, and we've had what seems like more than our share of dispiriting ones this season. Kobe Bryant's torn rotator cuff, Kemba Walker's meniscus and Kevin Durant's Jones fracture all come to mind. If you want to consider the summer as part of the season's first half, Paul George's broken leg deserves mention.
But Jennings' ruptured Achilles feels especially awful.
"He's been the guy who's been our catalyst offensively," Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy said, via Vincent Goodwill Jr. of The Detroit News. "He's been averaging 20 a game, high-assist, low-turnover, playing at the highest level of his career. Was a huge factor in the previous 15 games, so it's a major, major loss."
Jennings was in the midst of a career resurgence, playing the best basketball of his life for a Pistons team turning things around in a big way.
A freak accident ended one of the happiest surprises of the season. This is a 10 on the Bummer Scale.
Worst Treatment of Footwear: Tyson Chandler, Dallas Mavericks
It's always hard to understand how often shoes come flying off players' feet during game action. Does nobody know about the double knot anymore?
When Marreese Speights lost one of his wheels against the Mavericks, teammate Stephen Curry tracked it down and tried to flip it back to him (because that's what MVPs do). Chandler, ever hungry for swats, batted the shoe away in midflight.
No violation was called, probably because there's nothing in the rule book about open-hand slapping shoes.
It'll probably be a point of emphasis when the competition committee next meets.
Worst Player: Josh Smith, Detroit Pistons/Houston Rockets
Objectively, the numbers tell us LaVine has been worse than J-Smoove this season. Waiters and Jarrett Jack have both been massive negatives over huge chunks of playing time this year as well.
Any time the removal of a single player turns a 5-23 dumpster fire into a surging playoff contender, though, you've got to give him serious consideration for Worst Player of the First Half.
Smith was cut by the Pistons just before Christmas, and as soon as he was out of the rotation, they went on a seven-game winning streak. Since waiving J-Smoove, they're 12-5 overall.
A lot of factors went into Detroit's rise, but removing Smith, who'd played horribly on an individual basis and apparently allowed his malaise to seep into teammates, was the biggest.
Smith has actually been even worse on his new team; according to Basketball-Reference.com, his PER has dipped from 14.2 to 11.6 since heading to Houston.
There's really no other option here.
Worst Collective Layup Conversion: Philadelphia 76ers
We made it all the way to the end without a win for the Sixers.
Consider that remedied.
