The 10 Biggest Storylines Dominating the NBA at the Quarter-Season Mark
Quarter-season NBA marks are big.
Now is the time things start falling into place. The Western Conference playoff picture begins to take shape, while the Eastern Conference playoff picture continues hurting your eyes. Superstars are fading or rising. Your favorite team is inciting hope, depression or nuclear nausea.
Compelling anecdotes are filling your brain.
Ah yes, those. Storylines have become something of a cliche in this "What have you done for me lately—like, the last six seconds?" league. Still, they remain an important ingredient to regular-season journeys. They shape discussion, inspire debate, foster rage and parent excitement.
Fortunately for you fine fellows and females, we've compiled a one-stop digestion center for all your narrative-devouring needs.
Fair warning: We don't make the rules. The Spurs-ian Atlanta Hawks, the still-soaring Memphis Grizzlies and Santa Popovich's beard should be dominating conversion. And to some extent, they are. But the biggest storylines are more polarizing topics—more commonly captivating, for whatever reason, both good and bad. They are what you read about most.
They are what you will better understand here.
Derrick Rose's Return, Performance And...Candor
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At a time when we should all be talking about the Chicago Bulls' 2-4 record against above-.500 contingents, as well as their 10th-ranked, not-quite-elite defense—Carlos Boozer was obviously their essence—we are instead left to ponder Derrick Rose's future.
Rose's career has been the source of debate since before the San Antonio Spurs roster began using calcium chews as currency. After appearing in just 50 regular-season and playoff games between 2011-12 and 2013-14, this campaign was always going to be something of a transition—a rust-razing crusade more about Rose's health than his actual play.
But the point guard has already missed eight games, inciting the type of anxiety that in turn spurs hot takes. His spotty performance when playing hasn't helped quiet doubters either. He's averaging just 16.2 points and 5.1 assists with a 41.4/31.2/78.0 shooting slash.
Glimpses into Derrick Rose, the superhuman specimen, haven't been infrequent, but they have proved inconsistent and temporary. He's clearly hesitating in certain situations, settling for jumpers instead of attacking, and he's averaging fewer drives per game (5.5) than point men such as D.J. Augustin, Dennis Schroeder and Mario Chalmers.
Oh, and he has also dared to dream about life after basketball.
“When I sit out it’s not because of this year," he said in November, per Pro Basketball Talk's Kurt Helin. "I’m thinking about long term. I’m thinking about after I’m done with basketball. Having graduations to go to, having meetings to go to, I don’t want to be in my meetings all sore. Or be at my son’s graduation all sore just because of something I did in the past."
Opinions of Rose's performance, health and availability are, as always, split. And while public perception of all three will change with time, one thing is bound to remain the same: Rose, for whatever reason, will always be his own storyline.
Brooklyn's (Attempted) Blowup
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Recent rumblings out of Brooklyn attest to the swiftness with which storylines can consume the NBA.
According to ESPN.com's Marc Stein and Ohm Youngmisuk, the Brooklyn Nets are looking to offload the contracts of Joe Johnson, Deron Williams and Brook Lopez, who are making roughly $62.7 million combined this season—or nearly 0.7 percent of owner Mikhail Prokhorov's $9.2 billion net worth, per Forbes.
Holding a fire sale makes sense for the Nets. They're footing a $93.7 million salary bill before luxury taxes, and it's bought them the (L)Eastern Conference's eighth-best record. But the numbers make it nigh impossible for them to hold said star-shedding sale.
Williams' contract totals $63 million through the end of 2016-17, Johnson is on the books for two years and $48 million, and the injury-prone Lopez, assuming he exercises his player option this summer, is due almost 32.5 million for this season and next.
Trading the latter is totally possible. Lopez is only 26, and the NBA is bereft of offensively apt centers. Moving Williams and Johnson will be more difficult. And if the Nets cannot move both—plus Lopez and perhaps Jarrett Jack—they'll only be saving luxury-tax dollars rather than gaining cap space, rendering their deconstruction partially futile.
To that end, there's no telling what the rest of 2014-15 holds. Maybe a title contender gets desperate enough to absorb Williams' pact. Maybe the Charlotte Hornets become smitten with Johnson. Maybe Anna Kendrick finally follows me on Twitter.
Anything's possible, I suppose.
Cavaliers Everything
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Superteam formations can be exhausting. Naturally, the 2014-15 Cleveland Cavaliers have killed our spectator stamina.
Kevin Love's point totals, shooting percentages and usage rate are down. He's totally leaving Cleveland. David Blatt hasn't shied away from using Joe Harris during crunch time. He's definitely confused. LeBron James sat out against the Oklahoma City Thunder. He's declining; everybody panic.
Cleveland started 5-7. Its season is over. Oh, wait. The Cavaliers went on an eight-game winning streak. Give them the Larry O'Brien Trophy now.
That's the level of turbulent exposure these Cavaliers are facing. Coverage of them that doesn't focus on the big picture—as in, the sky isn't falling after one loss—has been taxing. That's not going to change.
Until their season ends with a championship or early playoff exit, the meticulous, ever-shifting discussions won't cease. And even then, once their inaugural campaign is over, it's only a matter of time before the Cavaliers are thrust back under the microscope.
Anthony Davis' NBA Takeover
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Anthony Davis is the best player in the NBA not named LeBron James. He's also having the best season of any individual in the NBA, including James.
Both of these statements are true.
Per-game averages of 25.1 points, 10.6 rebounds, 2.0 steals and 2.9 blocks on 56.9 percent shooting have taken Davis' reputation to galaxy-guzzling heights. Not one player in NBA history has maintained those statistical benchmarks before.
The 21-year-old is also on pace to set the league's player-efficiency-rating record. His current 32.9 PER exceeds that of the current record holder, Wilt Chamberlain (31.8), by 1.1 points. To be absolutely clear, at the age of 21, Davis is on pace to register a better PER than the career highs of James and Michael Jordan (31.7). (Both of their PERs peaked at 24; imagine what Davis' could be at that age.)
This is not only absurd, but it's left us looking for answers and comparisons that, truthfully, don't exist.
No player has ever moved like Davis before. No one has ever possessed his far-reaching skill set. He is Hakeem Olajuwon, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Kevin Love and many others rolled into one. He is beyond compare.
Soon enough, in the not-too-distant future, he'll also end up beyond reach—outside the grasp of everyone, including James and Kevin Durant themselves, hoarding headlines and arresting attention more than he is now.
The Fallen Lakers
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How did the Los Angeles Lakers end up here, in the papers, atop the headlines, for all the wrong reasons?
There isn't one event or one single person to blame. A vast array of things left the Lakers in this suspect state, this foreign loll that guarantees they'll miss consecutive postseasons for the first time in three decades.
Hiring Byron Scott and riding Kobe Bryant has done little to distract the outside world from this downturn. The Lakers are tracking toward the second-worst defensive rating in league history, and their offense includes heavy doses of Bryant, who is on pace to record the fourth-highest usage rate ever (36.3) at 36 years old.
Such a role hasn't looked good on him.
"Statistics always have had a rocky relationship with Kobe," Ian Levy wrote for The Cauldron. "He is in the all-time top 15 in minutes played, field goals made, field goals attempted, free throws made and attempted, steals and points. But once you start adding denominators—turning his mountainous, voluminous achievements into ratios of opportunity—things start to look a little different."
Bryant's 25.5 points per game have him contending for his fourth scoring title, while also ensuring he'll be remembered as the third-most potent scorer of all time. But he's also on the verge of recording the worst true shooting percentage (49.1) of his career, not to the mention the second-worst field-goal percentage (39.0) of anyone to average at least 25 points a night.
All of which has left the Lakers in an unenviable position—near the bottom, watching as their prized star exerts his remaining will in inefficient fashion, hoping that cap space promises fortune-turning change.
Philly's Futility
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If Sam Hinkie's aim is, in fact, to ensure the Philadelphia 76ers lose with spectacular volume, he's doing a wonderful job.
With only two victories through their first 21 games, the Sixers' tank is on in a big way. They're on pace to finish 8-74, which would earn them sole possession of "Worst Team Ever" honors.
First, they would break the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats' record for the lowest-ever winning percentage. Then, for good measure, they would also have notched the fewest wins over the course of an 82-game season, a touchstone currently held by the....nine-win Philadelphia 76ers of 1972-73.
Monitoring these Sixers has become imperative practice. There's a tendency to doubt those pursuing history, both good and bad. The 2014-15 Dallas Mavericks won't finish with the best offensive rating in NBA history, because that involves them scoring at unprecedented rates. It's easier to reject that which hasn't been done before.
Yet the Sixers are a special kind of awful. Their roster is headlined by three raw prospects (Tony Wroten Jr., Michael Carter-Williams, Nerlens Noel), two top rookies who won't play this season (Joel Embiid, Dario Saric) and a smorgasbord of fringe NBA players. As of now, they also have the sixth-worst offensive rating in league history.
Put simply, the Sixers look like they were built to make this kind of history. And so, we watch and we wait, all the while wondering if these Sixers are the worst basketball product we can't take our eyes off of.
Those Dysfunctional New York Knicks
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'Tis the season for rampant rumors of New York Knicks drama, discord and general dysfunction.
Even with Carmelo Anthony back in town, the Knicks were always scampering toward painful transition. Derek Fisher wouldn't thrive as a sideline-stalker guiding a flawed roster overnight, and the triangle offense wouldn't work its intended magic instantaneously.
But the Knicks have been worse than most expected. They're off to a franchise-worst start, their offense is a disjointed enterprise showing zero progress, and they own the league's fourth-worst defense.
Unflattering chatter has reached viral proportions, too. Chris Broussard of ESPN The Magazine reported that the Knicks were fighting among themselves and revolting against the triangle system—a batch of intel that was quickly denied by Anthony, per ESPNNewYork.com's Ian Begley.
Shortly thereafter, the New York Post's Marc Berman alleged that a frustrated Anthony was willing to waive his no-trade clause amid the Knicks' turmoil, provided they dealt him to a team of his liking. That report has also been rebuffed by its focal point.
"Come on, man," Anthony said, via Begley. "After all the work I did to get here and get back here? If I was to get up and want to leave now that would just make me weak, make me have a weak mind. I've never been a person to try to run from any adversity or anything like that, so I'm not going to pick today to do that."
Loyal though Anthony may be, the Knicks remain a polarizing circus, carrying on a years-long ritual that pins them to the forefront of our NBA storybook, no matter how irrelevant their on-court brand becomes.
Eastern Conference Blues
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Comparing the Eastern Conference to the Western Conference hasn't just become old, it's become impossible. It's insulting to the West's slew of contenders.
It's...everything Bleacher Report's Ethan Skolnick says it is:
"It's not exactly news that the West is superior to the East; to continue to insist that it's just a temporary cycle is akin to asserting that, eventually, Yuma will get more snow than Stowe because eventually everything evens out.
At this point, the conference chasm is a largely unexplainable, but widely accepted, phenomenon. Like Big Brother surviving 16 seasons, or Drew Carey being classified as a comedian, or people stopping to stand in front of an escalator.
"
Perfectly stated.
Here are some faultfinding factoids to keep this crazy train rolling:
- Seven of the NBA's 10 best records belong to Western Conference teams.
- Seven of the 10 best offenses belong to Western Conference teams.
- The Southwest Division has more teams with at least 15 victories (four) than the entire Eastern Conference (three).
- Three Eastern Conference teams are on pace to win fewer than 40 games yet still make the playoffs (Milwaukee, Miami, Brooklyn).
That last tidbit of information is the most damning. The last time three teams with under 40 wins from the same conference made the postseason was 1985-86.
Guess what? It happened in the East (Washington, New Jersey, Chicago). Go freaking figure.
Plunge on, East. Plunge on.
Streaking Warriors
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Might the Golden State Warriors never lose again?
No, duh. They'll lose again. But they're playing the kind of dominant basketball that makes you wonder if they'll flirt with 70 victories.
They are off to the best start in franchise history, deploy the Association's sixth-best offense and remain owners of the league's best defense. And while aided by the NBA's third-easiest schedule, the Warriors are thriving amid less-than-ideal circumstances of their own.
Steve Kerr—for all his sideline sagacity—is new to this coaching thing, David Lee has played only seven minutes all season, and Andre Iguodala is averaging career lows in points (6.5), field-goal percentage (43.5), three-point percentage (29.8), rebounds (3.1), assists (2.1) and just about every other statistical category one can cite.
And yet, on the back of the league's most formidable starting five—Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green, Andrew Bogut—the Warriors have still won 90-plus percent of their games.
Favorable schedule, smavorable schedule. The Warriors are on many a mind—not just because they're technically on pace to have the best record in NBA history, but also because they're legitimate, title-chasing monsters with no limits to the damage they can inflict.
Oklahoma City's Hopeful Climb
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Oklahoma City's injured superstuds have returned. Now the Thunder are off and running, whole again, trying to make sure Russell Westbrook's and Durant's absences didn't derail their season.
Catching any team other than the eighth-place Suns is out of the question. Seven Western Conference squads have won at least 70 percent of their games as of this writing. For the Thunder to even flirt with a winning rate north of 70 percent, they'll need to finish the season 49-11.
So, yeah...
Overtaking the Suns is probable, if not inevitable. Should Phoenix continue winning at its current pace, the Thunder need only go 35-25 the rest of the way to nab a better record. There are other teams to consider—New Orleans, Sacramento, Denver—but the Thunder are within striking distance (2.5 games) of the West's final postseason lot. Their turnaround feels like a foregone conclusion.
It's the extent of their climb that's so captivating. Can the Thunder somehow rise higher than eighth place? What happens once they reach the postseason? Will they be the most dangerous No. 8 seed in NBA history?
"Yeah, we gonna make the playoffs," Kendrick Perkins said, per NBA.com's Fran Blinebury. "And I feel sorry for anybody who gotta play us."
Already 4-1 in contests played with Durant and Westbrook as their offense gradually finds life—though it still ranks 26th in efficiency—the Thunder do look as if they'll make the playoffs. There's just no telling what they'll do upon arrival—a scary notion for both the rest of the league and the Thunder themselves.
*Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited and are accurate as of games played on Dec. 11, 2014. Salaries via ShamSports.
