Summing Up Every NBA Team's Season so Far in a Tweet
If there is one thing to take away from the 2015-16 NBA campaign thus far, it's this: People tweet.
Is 140 characters enough for someone to sum up a team's entire 2015-16 season?
Let's find out.
Our search will emphasize the most recent tweets. Nothing sent out before December is eligible for inclusion. Special consideration will be given to those that were fired off on or after Jan. 1.
These tweets don't have to focus on the entire team. They just have to highlight something or someone that's standing out—anything that offers valuable analysis on or insight into the state of each organization.
To The Twitter Machine!
Atlanta Hawks
We needn't journey too far back for an adequate review of the Atlanta Hawks' season. The Starters' J.E. Skeets nailed it on command.
Paul Millsap doesn't have fewer All-Star votes than Skeets' colleague, Leigh Ellis, but he does trail DeMarre Carroll, who is on the shelf after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his right knee.
First off, nicely done, Toronto.
Secondly, this goes to show you how much the Hawks are undervalued. They aren't as fantastic as what we saw in 2014-15, but they are still a top-10 point-piling machine, in play for a top-two playoff seed and on track to flirt with 50 wins—all after losing Carroll in free agency.
Boston Celtics
Chris Forsberg of ESPN Boston has a point.
To watch Jae Crowder is to watch a fast-rising star. He leads the Boston Celtics, the NBA's second-best defensive team, in defensive win shares and owns the team's second-best net rating among all everyday rotation players (sorry, Jordan Mickey).
Just three players, meanwhile, are reaching 15 points, five rebounds and two steals per 36 minutes while shooing 35 percent from three-point range. Crowder is one of them; Stephen Curry and Kawhi Leonard are the other two.
On another note: Celtics coach Brad Stevens' nearly yearlong Twitter drought is still alive.
Brooklyn Nets
Why is this tweet from the New York Daily News' Stefan Bondy relevant?
Because the Brooklyn Nets are trying to prevent the Celtics from drafting LSU's Ben Simmons with their first-rounder—a pick Brooklyn gave up for, among other things, one year of the Kevin Garnett-Paul Pierce-Jason Terry trio, 44 wins, a second-round playoff exit and a lifetime's worth of regret.
And at the moment, the Nets aren't doing a good enough job of keeping Simmons out of Celtics green. They boast the NBA's fourth-worst record and rank inside the bottom 10 of both offensive and defensive efficiency.
It's Draymond Green deja vu all over again, only worse, because few expected him to be a superstar. Almost everyone assumes Simmons will be everything the Nets need but don't have.
Charlotte Hornets
Tom Haberstroh of ESPN is right. Life does indeed come at you fast—unfathomably, unpredictably fast.
Last season, the Charlotte Hornets ranked 24th in total three-point attempts. This season, they not only rank fifth but are on pace to jack up 775 more triples than they did in 2014-15. Their offensive rating has also skyrocketed by more than five points per 100 possessions.
Props to Hornets head coach Steve Clifford for reshaping the offense. Additional props to Tyler Hansbrough for remaining perfect thus far from downtown. Shooting 2-of-2 is hard.
Chicago Bulls
The lesson Bleacher Report's Kelly Scaletta hand-delivers to us? The Chicago Bulls are weird, and Jimmy Butler is a hero.
Fred Hoiberg was hired to succeed Tom Thibodeau as Chicago's head coach last summer so he could revamp the offense. But the Bulls are scoring fewer points per 100 possessions than they did last season under Thibs, and it's often looked as if they booked a non-refundable trip to Bottom 10 of Offensive Efficiency Island.
That is, until Butler parlayed his frustration with a Dec. 19 loss to the New York Knicks into an awkwardly aimed, perhaps poorly phrased, soundbite we'll never forget, per Chris Kuc of the Chicago Tribune:
On the one hand, this is a weird, borderline inappropriate thing to publicly say.
On the other hand, Butler might've saved Chicago's offense. So whatever.
Cleveland Cavaliers
Turns out hoops enthusiast Conrad Kaczmarek is not mistaken.
There are occasions when the Cleveland Cavaliers offense gets bogged down by a lack of on- and off-ball movement, in part because Kyrie Irving and LeBron James are so darn good/mesmerizing/aggressive with the rock in their hands. And statistically, that's OK.
Cleveland is brutalizing opponents by 25.6 points per 100 possessions when both stars are in the game—or by more than double the Golden State Warriors' net rating.
These Kyrie and LeBron fellows are pretty good, and the Cavaliers should maybe keep them around.
Dallas Mavericks
Short. Sweet. To the point.
Incredibly accurate.
Kirk Henderson of Mavs Moneyball used a clutch fourth-quarter shot from Dirk Nowitzki in the Dallas Mavericks' Jan. 5 double-overtime victory against the Sacramento Kings to encapsulate the 7-footer's perpetuity. Nowitzki himself uses that and, well, just about everything else he does on the floor.
A 37-year-old is clearing 17 points per game and 35 percent shooting from deep for the 12th straight season and 16th time of his career. Sixteenth.
Please excuse me while I go and commission an acclaimed tattoo artist to permanently plaster "Be Like Dirk" 16 times up and down my shooting arm.
Denver Nuggets
Kudos to Hardwood Paroxysm's Adam Mares for having the gall to compare the Denver Nuggets' Nikola Jokic to more commonly celebrated rookie bigs.
Jokic's stock has surged in recent weeks, but it's still easy to let the significance of his campaign fall by the wayside. He ranks second among all newbies in player efficiency rating and is just the fourth rookie over the last 20 years to average 16 points, 10 rebounds, two assists and one block per 36 minutes. Tim Duncan, Yao Ming and DeMarcus Cousins are the other three.
Is that impressive? I feel like that's impressive.
Detroit Pistons
Tweeting on behalf of his piece for the Cauldron, Jared Dubin cannot tell a lie. Besides, it would be pretty hard to conclude that the Detroit Pistons are anything other than insanely reliant upon Reggie Jackson anyway.
When he's on the floor, the Pistons score like a top-five offense and post a top-five net rating. Once he steps off, they deploy what would be a bottom-two offense and notch a bottom-seven net rating.
Golden State Warriors
No, Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes was not being intentionally cryptic. He was just watching the Warriors' Dec. 28 victory over the Kings.
More specifically, he was watching Stephen "You have no idea what you just watched" Curry hang 17 points on Sacramento's defense. In the final three minutes of the first half:
Superhuman occurrences such as that portray the Warriors' efforts in a nutshell.
Curry is having the best offensive season ever; Draymond Green is a triple-double machine and inarguable All-Star; Klay Thompson still bombs atomically; and Golden State, despite laboring through myriad injuries, is going to challenge, if not assuredly break, the 1995-96 Bulls' record of 72 wins.
Houston Rockets
"Rockets pic.twitter.com/dwcd4KSdCM
— Hardwood Paroxysm (@HPbasketball) January 1, 2016"
CBS Sports' Matt Moore's assessment of the Houston Rockets—specifically during their Dec. 31 loss to the Warriors—needs no explanation. But here's one anyway.
Defense carried the Rockets to last year's Western Conference Finals. They now dwell inside the bottom five of efficiency, have crept above .500 just twice all season and are only back within the playoff bubble because the West is a collective jumble of mass confusion and, apparently, incurable underachievers.
Indiana Pacers
Hopefully BBallBreakdown's James Holas won't mind if we read in between the lines a little bit.
The Indiana Pacers are one of the few teams to have mastered the art of retooling without sacrificing playoff contention. It helps that Paul George is one of the foremost non-Stephen Curry MVP candidates, but this squad has undergone a complete stylistic shift, all but abandoning traditional lineups for floor-spacing combinations.
Though the Pacers have played sub-.500 basketball over their last 10 games, they rank in the top half of offensive efficiency and are fielding the Association's third-best defense. That they're so stingy with Monta Ellis logging heavy minutes is nothing short of fantastic.
Here's the piece de resistance: Basketball-Reference's Simple Rating System, which cumulatively measures a team's point differential against its strength of schedule, ranks the Pacers as the fifth-best team overall, behind only the Cavaliers, Oklahoma City Thunder, Warriors and San Antonio Spurs.
Los Angeles Clippers
Don't lie. You're upset Sean Pendergast of CBS Houston SportsRadio 610 thought of this bench gem before you did.
Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers has helped mitigate the second unit's bleeding of late, finally opting against using Josh Smith at center (or, for the most part, at all). The bench, however, still sits inside the bottom 10 of offensive and defensive efficiency, according to HoopsStats.com.
Running off seven straight victories and climbing back into the top four of the Western Conference has helped the Clippers re-establish themselves as legitimate contenders. But they continue to face the same glaring lack of depth that's dogged them throughout the Chris Paul era, which after doing so much over the summer to strengthen the second-string corps, is pretty damning.
Los Angeles Lakers
Los Angeles Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak didn't feign redirection when speaking with ESPN's Baxter Holmes, admitting the team is prioritizing Kobe Bryant's send-off over everything else.
That explains why Bryant is enjoying the Lakers' highest usage rate without consequence and why youngsters such as Julius Randle haven't been given a liberal license to make mistakes.
Oh! It also explains why head coach Byron Scott still has a job.
Memphis Grizzlies
Memphis Grizzlies head honcho Dave Joerger's basic admission, per Sporting News' Adi Joseph, that the Grizzlies have no idea what they're doing on offense is so perfect.
Joerger has tried running small, relegating Zach Randolph to bench duty to no avail. The Grizzlies don't have the requisite floor-spacing forwards to make it worthwhile. Their most-used small-ball lineup this season is being outscored by 6.5 points per 100 possessions—more than twice as bad as the team's overall net rating (minus-3.2).
Trotting out Marc Gasol alongside Randolph hasn't helped, either. Memphis is actually worse than normal when those two play together.
No in-house remedy can solve the Grizzlies' bottom-five offense. Barring a trade, their playoff hopes rest on a gradually improving defense that, as of now, won't get them past the first round.
Miami Heat
As Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel noted, Dwyane Wade is keeping it young as he gets older.
The Miami Heat aren't a demonstrative plus when he's on the floor, but his PER is higher than it was last season, and he remains the most important cog in Miami's lackluster offensive machine—especially when it comes to Hassan Whiteside.
Wade tosses him lobs off pick-and-rolls like regular passes are illegal. He's the primary reason Whiteside gets so many point-blank opportunities, and the big man's field-goal percentage climbs by more than seven points when playing beside Wade.
Not every number supports it, and the Heat are recognized as Eastern Conference threats because of their defense, but Wade's importance to Miami's success, even 13 years into his career, hasn't waned.
Milwaukee Bucks
Frank Madden of Brew Hoop is totally serious.
After finishing fourth in points allowed per 100 possessions last season, the Milwaukee Bucks are now dead last in defensive efficiency, speeding their way toward becoming the present-day version of the overachieving-turned-implosive Phoenix Suns.
So long, pleasantly surprising Bucks. We hardly knew ye.
Minnesota Timberwolves
Steve McPherson of A Wolf Among Wolves highlighted a growing issue for the Minnesota Timberwolves: Interim head coach Sam Mitchell has failed to sufficiently aid in Minnesota's search for an identity.
Tuning in to see Karl-Anthony Towns pad his Rookie of the Year resume is fun, and the Timberwolves have enough young talent to qualify as interesting. But Mitchell's offensive playbook is dangerously thin, and Minnesota isn't using youth to its advantage. The offense is neither fast nor furious and consists of too many mid-range jumpers.
Not surprisingly, the Timerwolves have plummeted to the bottom five of offensive efficiency, and their defense isn't yet sturdy enough to counteract the offense's uninventive structure.
That these Timberwolves remain in play for Ben Simmons, this year's top draft prospect, is simultaneously exciting and disappointing.
New Orleans Pelicans
Rick Stone of Pelican Debrief needed only six words to tell it like it is for the New Orleans Pelicans.
And, well, here it is: The Pelicans defense is bad. Really bad. They rank 28th in efficiency, and though a broken roster isn't helping matters, they've been consistently terrible defensively since Anthony Davis entered the league in 2012.
Blame cannot be haphazardly handed out to Davis. He is a defensive plus for New Orleans, and Tyreke Evans is the only Pelicans player with a better net rating—and more than 85 percent of his minutes have come alongside Davis.
The Pelicans are essentially what happens when a rebuilding process is wrongfully rushed because the team in question gets seduced by its star player's development and, as the Omer Asik contract shows, ending a playoff drought.
Also, anything unfortunate that unfolds in New Orleans from here on is, to some degree, karma exacting its revenge upon the Pelicans for trading Ish Smith in December.
New York Knicks
Another tweet was going to make the cut, but the Wall Street Journal's Chris Herring unloaded a hashtag too fitting to ignore.
The New York Knicks are under .500 but have already surpassed last season's win total (17). They have played the Eastern Conference-lording Cavaliers supertight three times but have lost on all three occasions.
They win four games in a row only to lose four in a row. They score a franchise-low eight fourth-quarter points on Jan. 1 against the Bulls but have since rattled off three straight victories against top-five conference contenders.
Carmelo Anthony's shooting percentages have dipped, but he's playing the best basketball, stylistically, of his career. Kristaps Porzingis continues to battle inefficiency but is Towns' only legitimate challenger for Rookie of the Year.
#TeamIsWeirdBruh
Oklahoma City Thunder
The story of the Thunder's existence.
Those numbers Haberstroh relayed have changed, but the result stands. The Thunder continue to outscore opponents by more than eight points per 100 possessions, maintaining the third-best net rating in the league.
But the difference between them and the first-place Spurs is about equal to the gap separating them from the 12th-ranked Hawks.
Just as the Thunder ran into the LeBron-led Heat in 2012 and untimely injuries every year since, they're colliding with a pair of more dangerous obstacles now: Golden State and San Antonio.
Orlando Magic
Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today is a slinger of truth.
New Orlando Magic coach Scott Skiles has his blend of kiddies and veterans playing top-10 defense and grinding out just enough victories to remain part of the East's postseason picture. If Orlando doesn't eclipse last season's 25-win showing by 20 or more victories, it will be a surprise.
The issue, as it always is for Skiles' teams, is this: Can the Magic keep this up or have they already peaked?
Skiles has been unafraid to make changes, most notably tinkering with Victor Oladipo's role. He was moved to the bench and now appears to be back in the starting lineup. The defense has also shown signs of cracking for long stretches, a setback the Magic's oft-anemic offense cannot offset.
Where will Orlando end up finishing the season? Inside the playoff bracket or in the lottery? No one knows.
Philadelphia 76ers
Sure, we could focus on the bad. The Philadelphia 76ers have endured a lot of bad. But that would be an improper summation of their season because it places stock in the pre-Ish Smith era.
And as Jake Pavorsky of Liberty Ballers pointed out, there is only the Ish Smith era:
| With Smith | 99.7 | 28 | 104.1 | 12 | -4.3 | 25 |
| Without Smith | 95.2 | 30 | 108.6 | 28 | -13.3 | 30 |
What's missing? Something feels like it's missing. Oh, yeah: Ish Smith #NBAVote.
Phoenix Suns
Truer characters than the above 126 from Bright Side of the Sun's Dave King have never been tweeted.
Phoenix Suns ownership, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports, is "reluctant to fire" head coach Jeff Hornacek and is instead "affording him every chance to work the team out of its struggles."
Totally. That's exactly what the Suns are doing. After firing two of Hornacek's assistants. And leaving him with a disgruntled Markieff Morris, whose effort levels have driven him out of the rotation. And giving him an imperfectly built roster that, even when healthy, never projected as a playoff squad.
If this is what giving Hornacek a fighting chance looks like, just think about what would happen if they were blatantly sabotaging him.
Portland Trail Blazers
"The 2015 Blazers play that special kind of ratball where they could go for 120 on any given night
— Dane Carbaugh (@danecarbaugh) December 28, 2015"
We are all better educated after reading this tweet from SB Nation's Dane Carbaugh.
Eleven of the 15 Portland Trail Blazers players to take the floor this season have a sub-zero offensive box plus/minus, which measures how much better the average team is with a given player in the lineup.
Somehow, though, Portland is manufacturing one of the NBA's eight best overall offenses. This is not unprecedented (s'up, Rockets?), but it is bizarre.
It also means Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum are pretty good at scoring that round orange-brown thingamajig.
Sacramento Kings
"if I eat a tainted cheeseburger, will you end this torture, basketball gods?
— Tom Ziller (@teamziller) January 6, 2016"
Allow me to translate this coded message from SB Nation's Tom Ziller.
The Kings have lost 12 games by seven points or under, tying them with the Suns for the most such losses.
If just four of those 12 losses were wins, they would have sole ownership of the West's No. 8 seed.
Thus, there is frustration with yet another Kings contingent trafficking in artificial hope.
San Antonio Spurs
There is a subliminal message located within this tweet from Quixem Ramirez of Pounding the Rock.
It reads: "Spurs gonna Spurs."
Toronto Raptors
As if you needed more proof Kyle Lowry is the thebomb.com. The fact he joins the injured Eric Bledsoe and Curry as one of the only players averaging at least 20 points, six assists and two steals per 36 minutes while shooting 35 percent from beyond the arc should be enough.
Except it isn't.
But that's because the National Post's Eric Koreen isn't exaggerating. Lowry does have chemistry with everybody. Anthony Bennett is the lone Raptor who doesn't have a positive net rating when playing with him.
And I'm inclined to blame that on Anthony Bennett.
Utah Jazz
To answer the question of the Deseret News' Jody Genessy: No. You shouldn't. But selective short-term memory loss is an epidemic 'round these basketball parts.
Injuries have threatened to define the Utah Jazz's season. Alec Burks, Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert are all banged up, and that's in addition to Dante Exum being done for the season.
Still, the Jazz are firmly entrenched in the Western Conference playoff scrum and project as stupid good when at full strength.
Never mind even getting Exum back. In the almost 55 minutes Burks, Favors, Gobert, Gordon Hayward and Rodney Hood have spent playing together, Utah is outpacing opponents by 11.3 points per 100 possessions—a net rating that would rank third in the NBA, behind only Golden State and San Antonio.
Washington Wizards
Solid tweeting, Mike Prada of SB Nation.
Embracing "any-sized ball" hasn't turned the Washington Wizards into an offensive juggernaut. To the contrary. They are scoring fewer points per 100 possessions this season than they did in 2014-15 and rank even lower on the leaguewide offensive rating scale. That's not ideal.
Nor is it ideal John Wall is shooting at a below-average clip inside three feet of the hoop. The same goes for Washington's other primary driver, Bradley Beal, who was burying buckets from that same range with career-worst efficiency before suffering a leg injury.
Washington ranks 23rd in points scored inside the paint per game, according to TeamRankings.com, and the defense hasn't been pretty, as the Wizards grapple with the absence of a true playmaking 4. Worse, a playoff berth is no longer guaranteed.
Here's hoping Kevin Durant hasn't noticed.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited and are accurate leading into games on Jan. 7.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @danfavale.
