Ranking the NBA's Most Disappointing Stars This Season
Achieving stardom at the NBA level is at once a blessing and curse.
Benefits do indeed outweigh the potential negatives. Lucrative contracts and household recognition are great for personal brands and lifestyles, and they usually imply a certain staying power. Players aren't well-compensated and maxed out or universally acknowledged absent extensive sample sizes teeming with brilliance.
Still, with stardom comes lofty expectations; and with lofty expectations come scrutiny magnified umpteen times over. There is no flying under the radar, particularly when you're not performing up to snuff. Fans, analysts and blogsters are typically willing to excuse injuries and singular off-years, but they're less forgiving of stark declines, longstanding ruts or absences that are seemingly manageable—that reek of self-sabotage or stubbornness.
Just so we're clear: This excludes anyone who has seen their year derailed by injuries or issues beyond their control. Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Jamal Murray, Bradley Beal, et al. cannot be painted as underachievers when their lack of availability isn't readily solvable.
This exercise is instead for established or should-be stars who have missed the mark because of issues we can't quite ignore, rationalize or excuse.
Notable Exclusions
1 of 5
Ben Simmons
None of us are obligated to endorse Simmons' original trade request, which came with four guaranteed years left on his current contract, or how he went about removing himself from Philadelphia. The entire situation was a disappointment. But Simmons wasn't alone in creating it.
Much more importantly, though, issues of mental health are not for us to adjudicate or mock. They are serious, and anyone who admits to dealing with them deserves, at the absolute bare minimum, benefit of the doubt.
Using Simmons' eventual debut for the Brooklyn Nets as proof of false pretense is, quite literally, not it. Changes of scenery can be a lifeline. And by the way: Simmons has yet to suit up for Brooklyn as he deals with a back injury. This is not a cut-and-dried matter, even if you have overarching concerns about players forcing trades so early into new contracts.
Zion Williamson
Zion has missed the entire season to date with an injured right foot, which automatically removes him from consideration. But the context of his absence is disappointing, both for its lack of transparency and what it might, possibly, potentially imply about his future.
How did Zion go from declaring he'd be ready for opening night to remaining sidelined into March and beyond? Does it actually matter that he's rehabbing away from the New Orleans Pelicans? (Related: It doesn't.) Or that he didn't immediately reach out to the newly acquired CJ McCollum? Is he really, as former Pelicans teammate and current ESPN analyst JJ Redick outlined, disengaged from the franchise?
Are we unfairly overanalyzing the health, conditioning, profound leadership qualities and entire future of a 21-year-old who declared he wanted to be in New Orleans this past September? Or is it more unfair he hasn't said anything similar, or at all, in the months since?
This entire situation is complicated—a disappointment unto itself. Unless proven otherwise, though, it's a colossal letdown because Zion is fun to watch and a transcendent talent and this Pelicans squad has the trappings to be special with him, not because he has irredeemably failed or prematurely given up on the organization.
4. James Harden
2 of 5
James Harden looks like an entirely refreshed player through his first couple of appearances with the Philadelphia 76ers. It's amazing what just a couple of weeks off can do for a tight left hamstring, isn't it?
Far be it from me to question the validity of a player's injury. Harden has dealt with hamstring issues in the past. This is a thing.
But his rapid descent into disenchantment with the Brooklyn Nets was also a thing. He played like someone checked out and shopping for places to live in the greater Philadelphia area long before he shut it down. His disengagement reached critical mass in Brooklyn's Feb. 2 loss to the Sacramento Kings, during which he tallied just four points on 11 shots and gave less than zero defensive effort through 37 minutes. It is no coincidence that ended up being the last game he played as a member of the Nets.
Kyrie Irving's own glaring dearth of self-awareness and conditional commitment to Brooklyn's season offer Harden cover for the circumstances under which he forced his way to the Sixers. He orchestrated his initial move to the Nets so he could put the finishing touches on an all-time Big Three that, through injuries and voluntary absences, devolved into something like a Big 1.5 or whatever.
That doesn't excuse Harden's season in its entirety. This is the second team he's bailed on in as many years, and even at his most interested, he was not delivering the consistent efficiency that has long anchored his top-five-player case.
Harden is already meeting expectations in Philly. That won't change. We've seen this movie before. But that's also the problem.
3. Russell Westbrook
3 of 5
Skepticism was the consensus when the Los Angeles Lakers obliterated their depth to acquire Russell Westbrook over the offseason. Few could see the logic beyond a predilection for landing splashy names and the possibility his arrival might elevate the team's ceiling during the minutes and games LeBron James spent watching from the sideline.
Expectations for Westbrook also just needed to be adjusted in general. He is playing out his age-33 season with a skill set predicated largely on raw explosion and monopolizing offensive possessions. Among everyone who has amassed at least 10,000 career minutes, Michael Jordan is the only player in league history with a higher usage rate.
Loosely, and kindly, translated: Westbrook's brand of stardom isn't built to last into his mid-30s. It is tenuous in a vacuum, and joining a Lakers squad that never profiled as a clean fit only exacerbated its fragility.
Recalibrate expectations to account for caveats galore, including the fact it's not Westbrook's fault Los Angeles gave up so much to get him, and...and...and, well, his season remains a monumental letdown.
Westbrook has seen his true shooting percentage tumble off last year's crummy mark despite increasing the frequency with which he's shooting at the rim. His finishing around the hoop is flirting with career lows, he's a more severe non-threat from mid-range and long distance, and his turnover rate is so high it's actually rock bottom. There's no need to discuss his defense, because that would presuppose he plays it with any semblance of consistency.
Worst of all, the entire premise of his arrival has proven to be a sham. The Lakers are getting outscored by 4.9 points per 100 possessions when he plays without LeBron—and that mark actually deteriorates when he's joined by Anthony Davis. Regardless of how low your expectations were for Russ this season, the reality of his performance is crappier for wear.
2. Julius Randle
4 of 5
Perking up over the past couple of weeks does not spare Julius Randle from this limelight. Even if you viewed his impact last year as anomalous (fair!), he still bagged a justifiable second-team All-NBA selection as well as a four-year, $117 max extension hardly anyone pushed back against in the moment.
Bracing for regression should have been—and, to some extent, probably was—the default. But few were prepared for a drop-off this all-encompassing.
Last year's detonation was fueled in large part by otherworldly outside shot-making, and Randle's efficiency from the perimeter has imploded. His effective field-goal percentage on jumpers has plummeted by nine points (from 50.4 to 41.4), while his three-point clip has plunged from 41.1 percent to 30.1 percent.
Randle, to his credit, is reaching the rim more frequently. But his finishing at the basket remains decidedly below average, largely thanks to puzzling takeoff points and overall shot selection in traffic. Any and all defensive improvement he showed last season is gone, especially away from the ball.
Reasonable minds understood Randle never projected as a sustainable No. 1 on a really good team. This season, though, is evidence of a player much worse than a potential No. 2...or even No. 3. And while the real version of Randle likely lies somewhere in between last year and this one, he remains best suited in a role that calls for a degree of agency over the offense he nowhere deserves, and that inherently limits the upside of his own team.
1. Kyrie Irving
5 of 5
Kyrie Irving went full Kyrie Irving following Brooklyn's Feb. 12 victory over the Chicago Bulls, one of the rare instances in which he's actually played this season. When asked about New York City's COVID-19 vaccine mandates and whether he feels guilty for missing so many games, he quintupled-down on his martyrdom campaign (via Dave Early of Liberty Ballers):
"Don't bring any personal emotions in here. Come on now. Come on now. Come on now, puppeteers...Play your media games with somebody else, bro. Please. I understand there's a lot going on in the world, and I'm here as a human being just like you. Please respect my boundaries. That's all I'm asking. There's no guilt that I feel. I'm the only player that has to deal with this in New York City, because I play there. If I was anywhere else, in another city, then it probably wouldn't be the same circumstances."
Multiple things can be true, as they are here.
There are absolutely levels of inconsistency to the New York City directives that prevent Kyrie from playing in home games yet allow unvaccinated players from rival teams to suit up in Brooklyn. And though Kyrie's "stance" on this matter is reportedly less anti-vaccine and more about the idea of the mandates themselves, his absences are undeserving of sympathy. He has the ability to play in every game for the Nets and has opted against it, and in doing so, he has arguably upended the team's season more than Kevin Durant's sprained left MCL or James Harden's change of heart.
Think what you will of Harden's exit specifically. But do we really think it was unavoidable? The Nets wouldn't be trying to climb out of play-in territory if Kyrie doesn't miss 75 percent of their season. That's a testament to the on-court value he provides just as much as it is a mega-eyeroll at his faux-intellectualism. It would be great to see him play, all the time, in every game for which he's healthy enough, just like it would've been great to see what Brooklyn's Big Three looks like in the postseason if and when it reached full strength.
Portraying Kyrie's self-prescribed unavailability as anything other than a gargantuan disappointment, and the biggest the NBA has seen this season, is disingenuous. The Nets have gone from championship formalities to an unraveled powerhouse on the brink of something much worse, and it's hard to imagine their situation degenerates this thoroughly, or at all, if Kyrie would've just chosen to be a full-time member of the team.
Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference, Stathead or Cleaning the Glass and accurate entering Tuesday's games. Salary information via Spotrac.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale), and listen to his Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by NBA Math's Adam Fromal.
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