The NBA's Biggest Busts So Far This Season
Not everything goes according to plan over the course of an NBA season. Teams know this; they brace for it.
Sometimes, though, there is no preparing for certain flops.
A few squads bomb in one aspect of the game—be it offense, defense, depth or something else. Other teams are all-purpose letdowns that fail to meet the most basic expectations.
In some cases, it's a player who goes bust. Guys fail to stay healthy after a big payday. Others are available and just plain stinking up the joint.
The severity of these setbacks is relative to preseason expectations. Every slump—indefinite or temporary—warrants extensive concern, but some are much more damning to a team's big picture.
Fringe-Bust Candidates
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New Orleans Pelicans
It's not clear what the New Orleans Pelicans were supposed to be this season—a low-end playoff seed or mid-tier postseason squad. But they were definitely projected to be better than one of the four worst teams in the Western Conference.
Four of the Pelicans' five most-used lineups are registering a positive net rating, so there's that. But they still don't have a top-15 offense or defense, and lineups that feature Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday have, by and large, fallen back down to earth.
Rajon Rondo
The Chicago Bulls are pumping in more points per 100 possessions with Rajon Rondo on the floor, but to say the point guard is validating himself as a quality pickup would be a stretch.
Rondo is shooting under 40 percent from the field, and his turnover rate is nearly six percentage points higher than his usage rate, which is gross. Many of the Bulls' best lineups that include Jimmy Butler and Dwyane Wade do not feature Rondo, and the defense sputters whenever he's on the court.
Smart people knew Rondo wouldn't have an immeasurably profound impact on the Bulls. But it didn't take a hopeless romantic to think he might be a more valuable contributor—or at least resist the urge to throw a towel at an assistant coach.
San Antonio Spurs' Pick-and-Roll Defense
We should have expected the San Antonio Spurs' pick-and-roll prevention to regress. Tony Parker is 34, Boris Diaw isn't there to make switches easier and with Tim Duncan retired, the Spurs don't have the rim protectors to allow their perimeter corps unconditional aggression.
There is nevertheless something unsettling about San Antonio dwelling inside the bottom 10 of points allowed per possession against pick-and-roll ball-handlers, and in the bottom four when defending divers.
No matter what the roster looked like, the assumption was always that the Spurs would figure it out because they're the Spurs. And though this glaring imperfection hasn't prevented them from deploying a top-three defense overall, it's enough to make you wonder whether this year's team is—gasp—made up of regular human beings rather than the normal mix of extraterrestrial superheroes.
7. Ian Mahinmi
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Ian Mahinmi's four-year, $64 million offseason deal felt like a risk for the Washington Wizards, albeit a reasonable one.
Mahinmi is on the wrong side of 30. He would be backing up Marcin Gortat, who turns 33 in February. Lineups that featured both bigs profiled as unsustainable: The spacing would be bad, and neither player is fit to chase opposing power forwards.
Almost one-third of the way through Washington's season, Mahinmi's contract has thus far been a total dud.
Injuries to both knees have limited him to one appearance. He missed the Wizards' first 14 games after having surgery to repair a torn left meniscus, returned to play 14 minutes on Nov. 26 and hasn't suited up since due to right knee soreness.
Shelling out a top-50 salary for a backup center is precarious territory, no matter the context. Mahinmi's saving grace—ergo, the reason he isn't considered a bigger bust—is the fact that he ranked 10th among centers in defensive points saved last year, according to NBA Math. He can help Washington and its bottom-10 defense.
He just needs to, you know, be healthy for more than 14 minutes first.
6. Washington Wizards Bench
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Though Mahinmi's absence contributes to Washington's unflattering bench play, the Wizards' second unit has been a special kind of awful without him—so bad that it's a separate bust.
Heading into Sunday, only the Dallas Mavericks and Philadelphia 76ers second-stringers had a lower net rating than the Wizards backups. Sharing ground with the two worst teams in the league is hardly comforting—particularly when the second unit has improved of late.
Washington owned the NBA's worst bench until seven games ago. And while the substitutes are suddenly second in offensive efficiency over those last seven outings, they're forfeiting a disastrous 116.4 points per 100 possessions during that time.
Kelly Oubre Jr. has looked better than Markieff Morris, but he's going through the league's concussion protocol. Andrew Nicholson cannot stay on the floor, and Tomas Satoransky's shooting hasn't translated to the NBA. Getting Mahinmi back would help slow the defensive hemorrhaging, but a backup platoon headlined by Marcus Thornton and Jason Smith, who is dealing with a hamstring injury, can only be so good in 2016.
Looking at Washington's personnel, perhaps we should've anticipated the degree to which the second unit would flop.
Then again, four of the Wizards' 12 most-used lineups include at least four non-starters. They're forcing the issue even in the face of failure, and it has mostly blown up in their face.
5. Chandler Parsons
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Chandler Parsons is the Memphis Grizzlies' Ian Mahinmi, only he costs $30 million more. You can see how he could help his new team, but rickety knees are keeping him on the shelf.
Parsons missed the Grizzlies' first six contests while recovering from meniscus surgery on his right knee. Then after shooting under 40 percent from the floor through six appearances, he suffered a bone bruise in his left knee and has been sidelined ever since.
This, in theory, should have torpedoed Memphis' season—especially after losing Mike Conley to a transverse process fracture in his lower back.
Fortunately for the Grizzlies, their train keeps chugging along. Troy Daniels is providing stellar minutes on the wing, and Marc Gasol, as ESPN.com's Zach Lowe wrote, remains an underrated lifeline:
"During Conley's absence, Memphis has blitzed teams by almost 15 points per 100 possessions with Gasol on the floor -- and wilted into a D-League outfit when he sits, per NBA.com. His calculating, careful game holds up well in crunch time, and the Grizzlies, for what feels like the seventh straight season, are squeezing out wins in almost every close game.
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It helps, too, that Conley returned to the lineup Friday far ahead of schedule. Even if Memphis, with its negative net rating, isn't built to make postseason noise, it's scrappy enough to cover for Parsons' absence with improbable, feel-good crunch-time victories.
To date, though, Parsons has been a $94 million sinkhole. His potential fit as a floor-spacing forward upon his return is the lone silver lining that tapers his bust status.
4. Brandon Knight
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Part of me wants to give Brandon Knight a pass. The Phoenix Suns aren't good, and head coach Earl Watson relegated him to the second unit, where the team's talent is far more inexperienced.
At the same time, Knight has been bad—like, really bad.
Never mind the career-worst field-goal percentage, scoring average and assist output. We could live with those dips if Knight was having a positive impact elsewhere. But he's not.
No one on the Suns has a worse net rating. Phoenix's shooting efficiency plummets by nearly four percentage points when he's in the game. The coup de grace? Knight has the NBA's worst plus/minus by a 38-point margin (minus-224).
This isn't something the jilted point guard can blame on his role, as Kory Miller wrote for Valley of the Suns ahead of Phoenix's Dec. 15 loss to the San Antonio Spurs:
"The rest of the bench unit isn't nearly as bad as Knight. [Jared] Dudley (-32), [Leandro] Barbosa (-19) and even PJ Tucker (-57) aren't anywhere close to Knight. The Sun closest to Knight is [Alex] Len at -135, and that’s still over 30% better than Knight! The rookies aren't anywhere close either, [Marquese] Chriss is the closest at -85. [Tyler] Ulis (+10) and [Dragan] Bender (-5) actually have decent +/- numbers for the Suns' record this season.
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Other tams may still be willing to trade for the four years and $56.5 million remaining on Knight's deal, but his lousy play puts the Suns in a no-win situation. Either they sell low on someone who once cost them a top-five-protected pick, or they hold on to a point guard they don't need, one who has been one of the league's least valuable so far.
3. Joakim Noah
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Forking over a top-45 salary to an aging big who mans your best player's best position, only to have him gradually flame out of the starting lineup, is never a good idea.
That brings us to Joakim Noah, the $72.6 million investment the New York Knicks are running out of reasons to play. Head coach Jeff Hornacek isn't ready to pull him out of the starting lineup yet, per the New York Post's Marc Berman, but says it's "something we have to keep our eye on."
Kyle O'Quinn is averaging more minutes than Noah since the start of December, and rookie Willy Hernangomez isn't far behind. Kristaps Porzingis, Hernangomez and O'Quinn are each racking up more win shares per 48 minutes than Noah as well.
Some numbers won't support Noah's demise in full—he is second on the Knicks in defensive points saved, according to NBA Math. But there's a ton of noise here: Most of Noah's minutes come beside Porzingis (85.6 percent), so he doesn't have to spend as much time defending in space. He gets to camp out around the rim and is always tasked with guarding the less mobile of enemy bigs.
Even that job description has proved to be a stretch. Noah is allowing opponents to shoot 56.5 percent around the basket—a bottom-four mark among players challenging at least five such looks per game—and New York's cruddy defense deteriorates further whenever he's on the floor.
There's no arguing Noah's emotional value. He is vocal and beyond supportive of his running mates. But intangibles will never be enough on their own to justify a $72.6 million commitment.
2. Minnesota Timberwolves Defense
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Specifics are important when trashing the Minnesota Timberwolves' 2016-17 campaign.
It's concerning that they are on track to win fewer games than they did last year with an identical and supposedly burgeoning nucleus. But as the NBA's youngest squad, the Timberwolves never should have been tethered to playoff-or-bust aspirations. Their core, while promising on paper, needs time to develop.
Youth, however, isn't an excuse for Minnesota's defense—not when Tom Thibodeau, an architect of top-five fortresses, is stalking the sidelines.
The Timberwolves are 27th in defensive rating and are allowing more points per 100 possessions than they did in 2015-16. They give up the sixth-most open three-point attempts per game and rank 27th in rim protection. Basketball Twitter now goes through stretches where it doubts Karl-Anthony Towns. That's how bad the defense is—and it's even worse when Towns is on the court.
This isn't to say he's the problem. Help defense is a foreign concept to almost everyone on the roster, and Towns is often guilty of trying to do too much when playing within crappy defensive combinations.
Zach LaVine and Andrew Wiggins are the Timberwolves' two biggest culprits. Out of 443 players, they rank 443rd and 441st, respectively, in defensive points saved, according to NBA Math. It's hard to mask two of the league's worst individual defenders when they also lead the team in total minutes.
Thibodeau wouldn't have assumed control of an upstart franchise if he wasn't prepared to be patient. And it's not like this group projected as an immediate defensive terror.
But the Timberwolves were supposed to be better than this by now.
1. Portland Trail Blazers
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Everything is not OK with the Portland Trail Blazers.
"Man, it's OK to turn the ball over, it's OK to make mistakes," Damian Lillard told ESPN.com's Chris Haynes following a 135-90 loss to the Golden State Warriors, "but we have to play with some damn heart and compete out there."
Effort and execution should not be this big of an issue for a team with the league's third-highest payroll, behind only the Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Clippers. That should be enough to buy heart—and victories.
It's not that Portland is supposed to be a title contender. General manager Neil Olshey never slung that pipe dream over the summer. He paid to retain talent and made a $70 million bet on Evan Turner—an offseason aimed at maintaining, not substantially bettering, last year's 44-win pace.
But the Blazers aren't even doing that much.
They field the Association's worst defense and have the net rating (minus-2.7) of a 29- to 32-win team. If not for a weakened Western Conference middle class, they would be on the outside looking in at the postseason race.
Worse, there is no clear solution to Portland's woes—not internally anyway. Turner has the league's second-worst plus/minus and looks hopelessly out of place, and there isn't a big in the rotation who can space the floor, protect the rim and make passes off the bounce.
The Blazers have played through the third-toughest slate of games, so the schedule will get easier. Failing a trade, though, they are set up to finish this season as the biggest bust of all.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com. Salary commitments via Basketball Insiders. All information accurate leading into Dec. 18 games unless otherwise noted.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @danfavale.
