6 NBA Teams That Need to Sound the Early-Season Alarm
Take a seat. Pop a squat. Rest those legs. It's taken a little while, but you're officially here, in the "Land of NBA Impulsion."
Your (slight) overreactions and (justified) hot takes are more than welcome.
Not one NBA team has made it through 10 games just yet. While that's typically code for "relax," there's no shame in worrying about teams already showing signs of distress. Early-season alarms are, in fact, a useful means of knowledge.
And knowledge is power.
A select few NBA squads are off to troubling starts for 2014-15. Certain powerhouses are struggling mightily, while some that were projected to stumble are rapidly spiraling out of control.
These are not to be confused with bad teams. At 0-6, the Philadelphia 76ers shouldn't be in panic mode. They are where they're supposed to be. Others are not; others are worse off than they should be.
To figure out which ones need to sound the alarm, we turn to records, stats, eye tests and subjective interpretations of a team's ability to remedy its greatest pitfalls long term.
Preemptive concern is permitted here. It's preferred, actually. So keep your minds open and your November panic buttons at the ready.
The Slow, but Steady
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San Antonio Spurs
Something about the Spurs playing .500 basketball feels sacrosanct. Then again, that can happen when your head coach views the regular season as an extended offseason for his best players.
The Spurs will be fine.
Charlotte Hornets
Someone put a BOLO out on the Hornets offense. It's missing. Hopefully it's not lost forever.
Still, the Hornets' absence of consistent point-totaling and three-point shooting is of little concern. They play in the Eastern Conference, have a strong defense, and Lance Stephenson has to start finding nylon again at some point.
Cleveland Cavaliers
It feels contrarian to argue that a superteam such as the Cavaliers doesn't need to panic...which is sad.
This team needs time more than it does anything else. It heals all. That includes Dion Waiters' current inability to resemble an actual basketball player and the Cavaliers' woeful defense.
"There’s too much compatible talent and collective intelligence in Cleveland to yield a subpar offense long term," Sports Illustrated's Rob Mahoney wrote. "But for the moment, the Cavs play as strangers—distinct individuals so far only paying lip service to the notion of a greater process."
Gloom and doom will eventually subside. Gordon Hayward didn't rip out LeBron James' heart. A few games do not prove Kyrie Irving is incapable of playing beside James or that Kevin Love will leave this summer.
Stick around and endure the growing pains. Something spectacular—specifically on offense—awaits fans with clear-headed patience.
Detroit Pistons
2 of 7
Stan Van Gundy can only do so much with an obviously flawed roster. The Detroit Pistons have looked gassed and disjointed to open the season. Their offense ranks in the bottom seven in efficiency, and they're still struggling to find reliable floor-spacers in Jodie Meeks' absence. Their 28.7 percent long-ball conversion rate ranks in the bottom five of the league.
Even their bright spots have come with blots and conditions and catch-22s.
Josh Smith played fantastic defense on Carmelo Anthony in the team's win over the New York Knicks, but he long two-ed his way to 2-of-17 shooting. The Pistons shot 36.8 percent from deep in that victory, but they nearly surrendered a 17-point fourth-quarter lead to a sloth-paced offense. Andre Drummond remains a rim-policing beast, but he's averaging more than five fouls per game.
Something eventually has to give. At this rate, it's going to be logic. The Pistons can—and probably will—improve from downtown. Drummond should limit his fouls. Meeks will heal. Smith might hit some of those awkward shots. Greg Monroe won't be lost to suspension. But none of that matters.
Playoffs are the goal, just like they were last season. Van Gundy was supposed to work his magic and end a half-decade postseason drought. Thing is, the Pistons roster looks suspiciously mediocre once again.
There's still time to right the ship—especially in the East—but if the personnel dynamics serve as any indication of what's to come, this team is in for a long season unless it does something drastic.
Denver Nuggets
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Teams inundated with offensive weapons should instill fear into their opponents. The Denver Nuggets have plenty of offensive firepower. But they incite no fear.
Though the Nuggets offense is off to the races—they rank second in possessions used per 48 minutes—they're running at breakneck speeds into the middle of nowhere. There is no chemistry, there is no ball movement and there is no clear alpha dog.
If you thought one would emerge out of Ty Lawson, Kenneth Faried, Arron Afflalo, Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler, you were wrong. No one on the team is averaging even 13 points or taking 12 shots per game. The Nuggets rank 22nd in offensive efficiency and 27th in passing. Things have not been pretty. Their 40.6 percent shooting (27th) has made sure of it.
"Talent-wise we're fine," Afflalo said, per The Denver Post's Christopher Dempsey. "But it's been proven year-in and year-out that talent isn't the end-all, be-all. You have to have some cohesiveness, you have to have game plans that work with the group that's on the floor and hopefully we can get that all together."
In order to salvage this season before the Western Conference eats them alive, the Nuggets will have to start embracing organized team ball. Playing as confused individuals has only put them in an early, perhaps inescapable, hole.
Oklahoma City Thunder
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Serious question: Can the Oklahoma City Thunder be expected to win more than 20 percent of their games without Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook?
At the very least, you must think before answering, a cause for genuine concern in and of itself.
Until one or both of those two return, the Thunder have no identity. Their absence does give Serge Ibaka and Reggie Jackson a chance to step up, but neither of those two has been a primary option before. Chances of them keeping the team afloat—as in around .500—are slim.
Oklahoma City already ranks 28th in offensive efficiency and 25th in defensive efficiency. The starting lineup Scott Brooks is now trotting out—Steven Adams, Perry Jones, Lance Thomas, Ibaka and Jackson—collected under 20 win shares combined last season. Three of the team's first five losses—one of which came with Westbrook—have come by at least 12 points.
There's a very real chance the Thunder are 10-plus games under .500 by the time Durant or Westbrook returns. Durant is expected back sooner, in late November, according to CBSSports.com. The Thunder will have played at least 15 games by then.
How many will they have won? How many must they win from then on to creep back into the playoff picture? What's their Western Conference ceiling by that point? Top-four seed? Top five?
Bottom two?
Only one thing is certain for the Thunder right now: Their fate is still firmly fixed to two injured players making up borderline insurmountable ground upon return.
Los Angeles Lakers
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Few people expected the Los Angeles Lakers to be mediocre this year. Even fewer expected them to be good. What they are actually showing, though, approaches inconceivable.
They weren't supposed to be this bad.
Injuries to Steve Nash, Julius Randle and Nick Young haven't helped, but the Lakers are still struggling in every way possible. They boast the league's worst defense, are off to their worst start in 57 years and are rewarding Kobe Bryant's availability with too many shots (24.4) and minutes (34.4).
Bryant's extensive use is especially troubling. He's on pace to log more than 2,820 minutes, something that's only been done twice in the last 10 years by players aged 36 or older.
Though the Lakers' 17th-ranked offense—which dwells in the bottom four of ball movement—needs his established scoring, Bryant is logging heavy minutes for a team that will contend for the Western Conference's worst record. That's hardly a good formula for health or harmony.
"It's a learning process, but it's very, very frustrating," Bryant said of this season, per the Los Angeles Times' Eric Pincus. "It's upsetting, but we have to stay determined."
Staying determined won't ever be a problem for the crazed competitor that is Bryant. His teammates should even fall in line, too.
Securing wins and finding purpose and balance amid a hapless season figures to be the Lakers' greatest challenge.
New York Knicks
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Much like the Lakers, the Knicks weren't expected to set the world on fire right away or at all. They're undergoing a cultural overhaul and installing a new offense.
Said offense is the reason we're sounding the alarm, though.
Growing pains were unavoidable, but the Knicks are developing detrimental scoring tendencies. Chris Herring of The Wall Street Journal provided more on this following New York's loss to the Washington Wizards:
"Part of that stems from the Knicks, in activating their shots from the wing, taking less efficient shots than they did when they thrived off small-ball and three-point looks from all over the court.
A league-high 32% of New York’s shots have come from the 16- to 23-foot range, an area the league’s best defenses often invite opposing offenses to shoot from. The question of whether the Knicks can continue to hit that shot—with a 49.3% field-goal percentage thus far, they rank second-best—figures to play big role in whether they can reach the postseason.
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These Knicks are already averaging eight more mid-range attempts (34.8) than the league's most mid-range-happy offense from last year (26.8), and they're shooting just 42.5 percent in those situations.
Nothing about this is evident of an elite offense. Only one top-10 point-totaler from last year attempted more than 25 of them. Five of the league's bottom-eight point-piling squads, meanwhile, did shoot north of 25.
It's fitting, then, that the Knicks are fielding a bottom-11 attack early on. The ball is moving more, and Anthony isn't as prone to digress into one-on-one situations, but the offense is broken. And slow.
The Knicks are on track to run at the league's slowest pace since 2008-09, lending merit to those who argue the triangle is outdated and incapable of working in the modern-day NBA.
Tweaks to the system can still be made. New York does rank second in three-point efficiency, after all. Fine-tuning the triangle to meet contemporary spacing needs would address many of the issues at hand.
But the Knicks must make those adjustments first, otherwise there will be no tempering the sounds of these alarms.
Los Angeles Clippers
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Title contenders can struggle. They slip, they fall and they plummet. It happens. But there's something especially unsettling about what the Los Angeles Clippers are doing to open 2014-15.
Their top-ranked offense from last year has been middling (11th), and, more importantly, their defense resides among the league's eight worst. That's uncharacteristic of a Doc Rivers-coached team even this early in the season. It's not one problem that's plaguing the Clippers either, but a slew of them, as Fred Katz broke down for Bleacher Report:
"Sure, perimeter defenders have been sieves, but [DeAndre] Jordan is nowhere near as sharp on his rotations as he was in the second half of last season. [Spencer] Hawes isn't the defensive presence the Clippers would like to have off the bench.
And [Blake] Griffin, who should be helping the helper whenever Jordan shifts over to cover for a teammate, has been late on his rotations, biting on pump fakes consistently while finding himself showing far too hard on some pick-and-rolls.
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"It’s no secret we’re trying to find ourselves right now, and we’re trying to win at the same time, because you have to do that when you’re in the West," Chris Paul said, via Clippers.com. "But it’s no secret we’re not playing the right way..."
Failing to play the right way is a blueprint for disaster in the West. And while the season is in its infancy, the Clippers don't have time for patience or process.
On the heels of their listless loss to the Golden State Warriors, they're playing like the fourth-best team in their division. The surprising Sacramento Kings, feisty Phoenix Suns and deadly Warriors all look worlds better.
Setbacks of this kind aren't typical of a core that's now been together for years. With the Thunder battling injuries, this is the Clippers' chance to grab control of a top-two standing. Instead, they're ceding supremacy to a handful of teams amid a dearth of energy and end-to-end consistency.
Now is the time to panic, to sound whatever alarms need to be rang. Wait any longer and it could be too late for the Clippers to regain last season's 57-win, division-leading dominance.
*Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited.
