Handing Out Our 'Worst of the Worst' NBA Awards at Midseason
Give me your tired jumpers, your atrocious passes, your huddled benchwarmers yearning for retribution. Give me your wretched airballs, your rejected dunks, your nauseating free throws.
Do not give me your magical Stephen Curry triples, your historically stingy San Antonio Spurs defenses and Kristaps Porzingis put-back dunks.
We want the worst. And then we want the worst of the worst.
Worst Shooting Performance: Brandon Knight
Brandon Knight has, at times, posted strong shooting numbers for the Phoenix Suns. But that wasn't the case during a Dec. 11 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, as the point guard missed all 12 of his shots from the field.
Eight of them came from beyond the arc, and his lone point of the night came at the charity stripe. The lowlight—even worse than missing so many spot-up tries from downtown—was a fast-break opportunity pinned to the backboard by Gerald Henderson. Adding salt to the wound, Henderson has only blocked eight other shots this season.
Knight is joined by Greivis Vasquez and Kyle Korver as one of only three players in 2015-16 to record zero makes from the field while taking at least 10 shots, and he's the lone man with a dozen attempts to score no more than a single point.
Worst Fast Break: Nerlens Noel
Sometimes, you just forget how to basketball.
Nerlens Noel isn't known as an offensive weapon for the Philadelphia 76ers. But even big men who rarely dribble in a half-court set can typically finish a wide-open fast-break opportunity. Somehow, Noel appeared as if he'd never touched a basketball during this play against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Stripping Anderson Varejao was a good start. So too were the first two dribbles in the open court. But gathering the ball didn't go as planned, and the desperation heave as he entered out-of-bounds territory was the cherry on top.
Worst Shot: Rajon Rondo
Rajon Rondo shoots just 24 percent from between 10 and 16 feet this season. That percentage goes up to 32.1 percent between 16 feet and the three-point arc.
Against the Toronto Raptors, Rondo's jumper looked more like an ill-advised lob pass to a rolling Kosta Koufos. It's hard to tell, but Rondo goes through a typical shooting motion. That's enough.
We also need a runner-up in this category, because Joakim Noah managed to throw up one of the worst mid-range jumpers you'll ever see:
It's tough to tell from that angle, but Noah's shot was both short and off-line. When Taj Gibson grabbed the offensive rebound, it's nowhere near the cylinder.
But we can tell Noah was actually shooting, which—sad as it may be—moves him ahead of the Sacramento Kings point guard.
Worst Post Move: Bismack Biyombo
When JaVale McGee is confused about your intentions on the basketball court, you've probably made a mistake.
According to NBA.com's SportVU data, Bismack Biyombo is scoring only 0.5 points per possession in post-up situations for the Toronto Raptors, which leaves him in the 6.7 percentile. Based on this play, it's not particularly difficult to see why.
The hop-step to his left is a nice beginning, but Biyombo had no idea what to do next. Instead of lofting up a lefty jump-hook in the general direction of the rim, he instead decided to leave the ball for Kyle Lowry once he was already in the air.
Sure, it didn't result in a turnover or missed shot, which stands in stark contrast to our runner-up move in the post.
A message for Andrew Bogut: You should probably leave the shooting to Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.
Apparently, McGee has a hypnotizing effect on his opponents this year.
Worst Pass: James Harden
Fans sitting in courtside seats are not members of the Houston Rockets. Sounds obvious, but we can't stress that enough.
Every season, we see a few players throw chest passes to referees. A few more keep swinging the ball around the horn to an invisible man in the corner—invisible because he doesn't exist.
But Harden took passing to empty space to the next level against the Utah Jazz. There was no heat on this attempted feed, nor was there any desire to actually make a good play. He just wanted to escape the lane that had turned into his personal prison.
Worst Dunk Attempt: Markieff Morris
Was it the reaction of the announcers that made this so priceless? Was it the fact Markieff Morris was already embroiled in a miserable season with the Phoenix Suns? Was it because this served as his comeuppance after demanding a trade once his team sent his brother, Marcus Morris, to the Detroit Pistons this offseason?
No matter the reason, this rim rejection was the best of the season—so far, at least.
NBASavant.com shows that among the 89 players who have dunked at least 20 times this season, Jeff Withey has been the least accurate, making 23 of his 29 attempts. Andre Drummond, Anthony Davis and DeAndre Jordan are all tied for the most missed dunks with 13 clangs apiece. Elijah Millsap, Nick Young, Mario Chalmers and Rodney Stuckey have each missed their only dunk tries.
But none of the failures stood out quite like this—one of Morris' three failed attempts in 21 tries.
Worst Injury: Blake Griffin
Blake Griffin was finally drawing close to a return from a left quadriceps injury that had kept him out since a Christmas Day contest against the Los Angeles Lakers. Then he found himself in a disagreement at an unnamed Toronto restaurant.
Per ESPN.com's Michael Eaves:
According to Sam Amick of USA Today, the staffer was equipment manager Matias Testi, who was both Griffin's friend and a member of the offseason delegation sent to Houston in an attempt to win over DeAndre Jordan. ESPN.com's Marc Stein and Ramona Shelburne reported the power forward had fractured his right hand, and Griffin could now miss around two months of additional action.
"He feels awful about it, and he's let everyone know that," Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers recently told ESPN.com's Kevin Arnovitz. "That's all you can do. You have to forgive people at some point. I believe that. We built Richard Nixon a library. I mean, my goodness. You forgive people. You really do. You kind of move on, and you build it back."
We can forgive Griffin. But the Worst awards will never forget.
Worst Defender: Shabazz Muhammad
It's not just the terrible defense. Throughout the season, Shabazz Muhammad has struggled to make a positive impact for the Minnesota Timberwolves in too many areas.
The 23-year-old can hold his own in post-up situations and when caught against a ball-handler in a pick-and-roll set. But put him in open space or ask him to stay disciplined against spot-up shooters, and disaster ensues. The 'Wolves are allowing an additional 4.5 points per 100 possessions when he's on the floor.
ESPN.com's defensive real plus/minus (DRPM) grades Muhammad as the worst defensive player in the league, and it's not even close. His minus-5.13 DRPM is well clear of the two players directly above him—Gary Neal (minus-4.62) and Devin Booker (minus-4.39). Defensive box plus/minus concurs, giving Muhammad the worst score of any player who has logged at least 500 minutes.
The former UCLA standout has regressed on the point-preventing end each season of his career, and he desperately needs to reverse that trend.
Worst Team: Phoenix Suns
According to Basketball-Reference.com's simple rating system (SRS), which looks solely at margin of victory and strength of schedule, the Brooklyn Nets, Los Angeles Lakers and Philadelphia 76ers have all been worse than the Phoenix Suns. But is it even remotely surprising any of those three squads are at the bottom of the NBA?
The Suns, on the other hand, were supposed to be fringe contenders for a playoff spot in the Western Conference. ESPN.com's Summer Forecast had them at No. 10 and winning 35 games. Bleacher Report's Josh Martin had them going 37-45 in early October, which was hardly an embarrassing record.
But Phoenix now sits at 14-35 on the season, tied with the Timberwolves for the West's second-worst mark and on pace to win just 23 contests.
Eric Bledsoe is out for the season. Tyson Chandler has been a massive disappointment. Phoenix owner Robert Sarver has blamed millennial culture for his team's shortcomings. Now, losing 19 times in 21 games has led to the firing of former head coach Jeff Hornacek, as reported by Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski.
"Jeff Hornacek's dismissal from the Phoenix Suns should be the first of many, many dominoes to fall within one of the NBA's most tumultuous organizations," Dan Favale wrote for Bleacher Report before launching into a drastic, blow-it-up rebuilding plan.
We'll take it one step further.
Even in its current state, this team might be able to beat a few bottom-feeding NBA squads—though two losses to the Sixers, one to the Nets and another to the Lakers bring that into question. But no other squad has been as tumultuous, disappointing and embarrassing in 2015-16.
Least Valuable Player: Emmanuel Mudiay
We have to give shoutouts to Kobe Bryant, Markieff Morris and Ty Lawson, but Emmanuel Mudiay has been the NBA's least valuable player thus far. The Denver Nuggets have granted him loads of playing time, and that's allowed him to blend together offensive inefficiency, a lack of defensive ability and plenty of volume.
According to my total points added metric (TPA, which is explained in full here), the following players are on pace to hurt their teams most throughout the 2015-16 campaign:
- Emmanuel Mudiay, -202.49 TPA
- Julius Randle, -190.63
- Jahlil Okafor, -182.88
- Derrick Rose, -164.29
- Ty Lawson, -158.42
Mudiay is on track to finish dead last by a decent margin, and my databases show he could become just the seventh player this millennium to take away more than 200 points from his team—1999-2000 Michael Olowokandi, 2006-07 Adam Morrison, 2000-01 John Amaechi, 2005-06 Desmond Mason, 2000-01 Marcus Fizer and 2005-06 Jamaal Magloire are the others.
Fortunately for the Nuggets, he's continued to show flashes of the potential that made him such an intriguing first-year commodity.
He's shooting only 33.3 percent from the field, but the tools are still there, lying dormant under all the ill-advised looks and off-target jumpers. Turnovers have reared their ugly heads, but so too have passes that showcase Mudiay's impressive vision and distributing ability.
Denver will take the bad with the good for now, allowing him to develop on the job with enduring hopes of a brighter future. But that doesn't negate the unequivocal fact that there's been a lot of bad for the rookie point guard.
Adam Fromal covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @fromal09.
Unless otherwise indicated, all stats are from Basketball-Reference.com or Adam's own databases and are current heading into games on Feb. 1.
