Ranking the NBA's Most Disappointing Teams This Season
The best part about a parity-ridden 2022-23 NBA season is the way it's kept disappointment to a minimum. Only four teams are effectively out of postseason contention, and bunched-up standings give squads that aren't measuring up to expectations some time to salvage a playoff trip or even climb into their conference's top six.
For everyone but the San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets, Charlotte Hornets and Detroit Pistons, at least a little hope is still alive. At the same time, merely making the play-in tournament or scrapping to finish above .500 won't cut it for a handful of teams we'll cover here.
This season's biggest disappointments are falling short of preseason expectations to a significant degree. Whether we thought of them as title contenders or potential in-season juggernauts, these clubs are struggling to measure up.
In some cases, big offseason moves aren't panning out. In others, off-court drama is creeping in.
Across the board, these teams just aren't delivering the goods.
Honorable Mentions
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Chicago Bulls
The Chicago Bulls aren't a disappointment if you expected their 2022-23 campaign to resemble the post-Lonzo Ball portion of last season, when they went 19-23 with a minus-3.6 net rating after losing the combo guard on Jan. 14. This year's team, on the periphery of the play-in mix and often playing some of the most listless basketball you'll find, comes with a "yeah, that's about right" vibe.
The Bulls wanted much more than this, though. Built to score in bunches and win in the short term, this team surrendered two first-rounders and Wendell Carter Jr. to add Nikola Vuceviฤ at the 2021 trade deadline, signed a 32-year-old DeMar DeRozan to a three-year, $81.9 million contract the ensuing offseason and maxed out Zach LaVine this past summer. Those moves made Chicago's intentions crystal clear, even if outside observers couldn't look at this roster and see more than a .500 team.
LaVine himself laid out the expectations on media day: "We're a team that held a top record in the East all the way until after the AS break, got a playoff berth and got our feet wet. If we're not competing for a championship, we're selling ourselves short."
Aging, nowhere near competing for a championship and short on the draft picks that would normally give a losing team avenues of escape, the Bulls have one of the bleaker mid-term outlooks in the league. With that said, this was easy to see coming from the moment of the Vooch trade. If this result seemed inevitable to anyone paying attention, does it really rate as disappointing?
Los Angeles Lakers
You could cut and paste a lot of the preceding Bulls section, swap in the Russell Westbrook trade for the Vuceviฤ one and wind up with a similar conclusion: The Los Angeles Lakers had no reason to believe they'd contend this season and therefore haven't disappointed anybody who gave their outlook much thought.
Even LeBron James' and Anthony Davis' injury issues were relatively easy to see coming. They both missed significant time in each of the last two years, and now James will miss at least a few critical weeks with a foot injury.
The deal that jettisoned Westbrook and a lightly protected 2027 first-rounder brought back three starters who address real needs in the shooting, athleticism and playmaking departments. It was hard to see L.A. scaring anyone with Dennis Schrรถder, Lonnie Walker IV and Troy Brown Jr. flanking James and Davis. D'Angelo Russell (whose ankle injury thankfully isn't serious), Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt, though? Those three give the Lakers a puncher's chance against most opposing first units.
In a macro sense, sure, the situation in Los Angeles is a bummer. James' prime, despite extending longer than anyone's in history, is still expiring. The trickle of sand in the hourglass may be exceedingly slow, but those grains are still falling, and the Lakers aren't positioned to make one last title run. But if anything, based on what the roster looked like coming into 2022-23, this team might be exceeding expectations. That's why they have no place alongside the five teams in our actual rankings.
New Orleans Pelicans
The New Orleans Pelicans teased us by surging to first in the West and holding a top-three playoff seed as late as the last week of January, which make their iffy play-in odds feel disappointing by comparison. But for an up-and-coming team whose season was derailed by bad luck on the health front, the highs matter more than the lows.
It wasn't realistic to view the Pelicans as true contendersโnot with so much youth on the roster, and not in a conference that, despite parity, has loads of more experienced and cohesive teams. That New Orleans looked like a real threat for the better part of three months makes 2022-23 more of a success than a failure.
Zion Williamson's right hamstring injury, which will likely cause him to miss more than half the season, is undoubtedly troubling. Add this to previous issues with his right knee and right foot, and you have what could be the latest entry in a scary kinetic chain breakdown. From that perspective, one could absolutely frame the Pelicans' season as a disappointment. Nothing matters as much as Williamson's health because he's proved that his presence on the floor elevates the team to a level it can't reach without him.
Still, taking the optimist's perspective, there was more good than bad from New Orleans this season. Though the final record won't be as stellar as seemed possible when the team was riding high and healthy, we at least learned that the Pelicans have the talent, coaching and competitive demeanor to make noise going forward...health permitting.
5. Portland Trail Blazers
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The Portland Trail Blazers have a losing record and the No. 27 defense in the league. Those are two objectively disappointing facts, and they're all the more dispiriting because the Blazers have been professing their intention to build a contender around Damian Lillard from the moment Joe Cronin took over general manager duties last May.
Following a trade deadline that actually saw Portland lose veteran talent in the form of Gary Payton II and Josh Hart, the party line was the same.
"The goal that we set when I started this job was to build a championship roster around Damian Lillard," Cronin told reporters in a post-deadline press conference. "So over the past year, we've been transacting with that goal in mind. The goal going into this trade deadline was to be extremely aggressive. We had identified several players who, for us, were difference-makers. ... [We] worked it super hard and came up empty."
The gap between what Portland set out to accomplish and what it actually achieved is wide, not to mention confusing. When the Blazers added Jerami Grant on draft night and later signed Payton, it seemed as though they had directly addressed the defensive issues that figured to plague a roster built around two small, defensively shaky guards and the not-so-mobile-anymore Jusuf Nurkiฤ. Grant's versatility and length would give the Blazers five-position switchability, and Payton was arguably the league's most disruptive defensive guard in 2021-22.
A sound theory failed in practice, and Portland now moves forward without Payton and with Grant's unrestricted free agency hanging overhead.
Lillard is healthy and productive, posting career highs in scoring and true shooting percentage. His 71-point eruption against the Rockets on Feb. 26 showed he's at the peak of his powers. That means we won't see a repeat of last year's tank (which netted exciting rookie guard Shaedon Sharpe), but the ceiling for this team remains lowโcertainly beneath the desired "contention" level.
There are still less drastic options than trading Lillard in the "well, what now?" list of fallback plans. But the Blazers are running out of time to make good on their stated goals. Lillard's patience has been considerable to this point, but it might not be infinite.
4. Toronto Raptors
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The Toronto Raptors are currently in the midst of a promising 8-2 stretch, but it speaks volumes that they had to win six of their final seven games prior to the All-Star break just to get back into the play-in mix.
The Raps sat 12th in the East on Feb. 5, and they're currently battling with the Washington Wizards (in whom no one is disappointed because their mediocrity was certain) for ninth. How does that happen to a team that won 48 games in 2021-22โone that figured to improve as Scottie Barnes, OG Anunoby and others took steps forward?
Toronto added center Jakob Poeltl to stabilize the interior at the trade deadline and resisted the urge to cut ties with impending free agents Fred VanVleet and Gary Trent Jr., Those decisions should make the Raptors an uncomfortable foe to face in the playoffs...if they even get there.
It's broadly disheartening that the Raptors spent most of the year playing well below the level they set last season, but the real bummer lies in the way this team failed to correct flaws that were so apparent in 2021-22.
Committed to positionless lineups composed largely of combo forwards and wings, last season's Raptors lacked the shot creation to score effectively in half-court sets, ranking 26th in efficiency against set defenses and 27th in effective field-goal percentage overall. This year, those ranks are 27th and 28th, respectively. Nothing changed!
Ditto on the other end. The Raptors' length, athleticism and scheme are generating more turnovers than any other defense for the third straight year. But just like last season, Toronto fouls too much, gives up a terrifying number of corner three-point attempts and hasn't defended the rim or paint effectively.
Bringing Poeltl back into the fold was a concession that the current roster couldn't handle the defensive interior, but it may have come too late. The Raptors will have to run extremely hot to drag themselves up to the much safer sixth position in the East.
You aren't alone in thinking this group still has a bright future if it can keep most of its talent together. But there's something especially disappointing about a team failing in exactly the same ways it did the year beforeโonly with much harsher consequences in the record department. If you know exactly what the problems are, which Toronto must have, there's no excuse for failing to fix them.
The Raptors basically tried to wish their issues away, which has cost them dearly.
3. Atlanta Hawks
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It's possible the Atlanta Hawks will win more than the 43 games they won last year, but that won't do anything to remove them from this list. Their position here owes to a pair of key factors.
First, the Hawks went all-in on offseason improvements, sending out three first-rounders to acquire Dejounte Murray. A pick outlay of that size typically nets a "put you over the top" piece or something close to a foundational superstar. Murray is a fine player, a 2022 All-Star who's averaging 20.8 points, 6.1 assists and 5.6 rebounds on a career-high (but still below-average) 54.6 true shooting percentage. However, he hasn't been transformational by any stretch, even if the list of Atlanta's problems features a dozen entries before you get to him.
The Murray move signaled ambition. That drive to win hasn't been enough to overcome the second issue leading to Atlanta's failure: top-down dysfunction.
Owner Tony Ressler imbued his son, 27-year-old Nick Ressler, with substantial decision-making clout, per Sam Amick of The Athletic. It was the younger Ressler who reportedly pushed the Murray deal through against the objections of other front office figures, including former team president Travis Schlenk, who stepped down earlier this season. General manager Landry Fields and a handful of what might uncharitably be described as Ressler cronies are now running the show.
But wait, there's more!
Trae Young and head coach Nate McMillan had issues that reportedly prompted McMillan to ask out of the job several times, a request management technically granted by firing him right after the All-Star break. Young, who failed to make the All-Star team for the second time in three years, is in the first season of his supermax deal, has basically refused to work off the ball to complement Murray and may now (fair or not) own the dreaded "coach killer" label. He and former Hawks head coach Lloyd Pierce also didn't see eye to eye, and we now have Young as the common denominator in both failed relationships.
The Hawks are like the Raptors in that they have considerable talent on the roster. But that fact makes their messy, chaotic campaign even more discouraging. New head coach Quin Snyder has his work cut out for him, as the Hawks will need some luck just to emerge from the play-in tournament this season.
2. Minnesota Timberwolves
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Yes, the Minnesota Timberwolves gave up too much to get Rudy Gobert. And yes, they did so with no guarantee that the playoff struggles of the three-time Defensive Player of the Year would abate. But the regular season was supposed to be the easy part.
Karl-Anthony Towns' calf injury makes a fair evaluation difficult, but it isn't like he and Gobert clicked in the early part of the season. The Wolves were outscored when those two shared the floor across 832 possessions prior to Towns' injury, undone by a brutally inefficient offense. That failure to score has persisted throughout Gobert's minutes this season, as Minnesota puts up a paltry 109.4 points per 100 possessions with him on the court, a figure that ranks in the 14th percentile of all lineups leaguewide.
Defensively, the results look better. The Timberwolves only allow 109.5 points per 100 possessions with Gobert in the game, which means they're losing his minutes by only the slimmest of margins. Opponents also get fewer shots at the rim and convert them at significantly lower rates when Gobert is protecting the interior. At least on one end, Minnesota is getting much of what it expected.
The bottom line remains uninspiring. Instead of vaulting into the West's top four and threatening to break the 55-win threshold, the Wolves are hovering around .500 with no promise of even making the play-in. There's virtually no chance Minnesota comes close to last year's 46-36 mark, and such significant short-term regression after the all-in, win-now trade for Gobert would be an utter disaster.
Anthony Edwards made his first All-Star Game, and the Wolves have had some other positive notes. Naz Reid's breakout has eased the pain of Towns missing so much time, as has the general serviceability of a much less heralded offseason get, Kyle Anderson.
Minnesota will get plenty more chances to prove this core can work. Gobert is under contract through at least 2024-25 with a player option for 2025-26, while Towns' supermax runs through at least 2026-27. Edwards isn't going anywhere, either.
Then again, considering how this season has gone, it's hard to know whether Minnesota being locked into this core constitutes good news or bad news.
1. Golden State Warriors
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Excuses abound:
The Golden State Warriors are worn down after a 100-game season that concluded in a title.
They proved the dynasty wasn't done, and whatever subconscious sense of satisfaction that achievement brought made it impossible for this year's team to summon enough competitive urgency. The Dubs lost their edge, basically.
Stephen Curry has missed two significant stretches of the season and will be lucky to finish with a games-played total in the 50s.
When Draymond Green punched Jordan Poole, it destroyed the leadership dynamic on the team.
The core is too old.
The young guysโJonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody and the since-traded James Wisemanโweren't good enough to offset the departures of Gary Patyon II (who's back but injured) and Otto Porter Jr.
All of those justifications for the Warriors' break-even play are fair. Reigning champions often fail to repeat, and it'd be shocking if the Green-Poole situation didn't have severely damaging effects on the team's chemistry. But zoom all the way out, and none of those various excuses change the bare facts: The Warriors won a championship, returned all five starters (and six of their top seven in total minutes played) and had young pieces poised to fill in the gaps.
Despite continuity, experience, talent and last year's proof that this group can beat absolutely everyone, the Warriors will have to scrap and claw down the stretch for a top-10 spot in the West. Even if you faded the Warriors' chances to repeat prior to the season, you didn't anticipate them potentially missing the postseason altogether.
Considering the theoretical highs this team was supposed to reach, no one has been more disappointing this season.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Accurate through Feb. 28. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@gt_hughes), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
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