Happy holidays NBA fans!!
With the holiday season upon us, we thought it was fitting to spend a little bit of time reflecting on and celebrating the true meaning of Christmas: getting more stuff. And there’s no better way to get stuff than when you don’t do anything to earn it and don’t deserve it at all. There are two types of people in this world — naughty and nice. The “Nicest” teams in the league have all been blessed with big talents and personnel and are racking up wins faster than Santa eating cookies in your living room on Christmas Eve. As for the “Naughtiest” teams in the league, well… there might be a whole lot of coal in a whole lot of stockings. Still, they can dream, and we think we know what they might be asking Ol’ Saint Nick for this year:
Detroit Pistons: A Christmas Miracle
These are dark days in Detroit. The Pistons are, once again, among the worst teams in the league. And the future is… well, it could be worse. Detroit has some encouraging talent, headlined by former #1 overall pick Cade Cunningham. Cade had an excellent rookie campaign last year, finishing 3rd in Rookie of the Year voting on averages of 17/5/5. He improved on his play this season, but will be missing the rest of the year nursing a shin injury. Jaden Ivey, who Detroit picked 5th overall this past spring, has also been solid thus far. There are other young players in Detroit who could also develop, like Isaiah Stewart and Saddiq Bey. Detroit even picked up Marvin Bagley III’s contract this offseason and has gotten 13 PPG out of him. Believe it or not, Bagley is still just 23 and could become an excellent player. The Pistons are hesitantly navigating the rebuild, but not failing entirely. Shutting down Cade for the year was a smart move; no need to risk further injury rushing him back. And it looks like they could be moving veteran scorer Bojan Bogdanović in the near future as well. Giving him $20 million was a strange move, but turning him into picks isn’t. Detroit has invested a lot in their young core, but it’s no secret they’ll be waiting a long time for those checks to cash.
Houston Rockets: The Nets’ Destruction
Make no mistake – the Rockets are rebuilding. It’s hard to look at this team and its construction and conclude that this organization has any aspirations of winning in the near future. Following the failures (and successes, in fairness) of the James Harden Era, Houston nuked the roster and committed to starting over. So far, as far as rebuilds go, they’ve done pretty much everything right. The team got rid of big talent/big contract players like Harden and John Wall to give their young core more time and touches. They’re also hoarding picks — Brooklyn paid a king’s ransom in return for James Harden, contributing to a pile of draft picks totaling 11 selections for Houston in the next 3 years. Since winning would actually be a bad thing for this team due to the desire for good draft picks, the only thing that would make life better for Houston is if Brooklyn struggled. Since the Nets sent picks to Houston in the package for Harden, their performance will decide the placement of those picks. The worse Brooklyn plays, the better those picks are. Pay attention to the next Ben Simmons hater you find in an NBA forum — it could just be a Daryl Morey 2.0.
Orlando Magic: Baby’s First Athletic Trainer
Orlando, in a lot of ways, has maybe the brightest future of any team on this list. The Magic have done a great job acquiring a decent spread of young talent. Wendell Carter Jr is having a career year so far, Franz Wagner has improved off an excellent rookie crusade (in the few minutes he’s been healthy), Paolo Banchero is, in every way, very awesome, and Bol Bol is the perfect wacky sparkplug on both sides of the floor. Despite this, the Magic have one of the worst records in the league. Why? They just can’t get healthy and can’t plug their holes. Orlando has a point guard problem already, and it doesn’t help that all their options are dealing with injuries. Markelle Fultz is streaky and may never put it together at this point (and is hurt), Jalen Suggs has had his struggles (and is hurt), and Cole Anthony has struggled to get into his groove due to injuries (and is hu– oh wait, I already said that). Injuries are a common factor for a number of teams on this list, but Orlando feels like they should be the best team here when healthy. Or at least the most fun. Here’s to hoping they can conjure up a little Christmas magic and get back on track.
San Antonio Spurs: The Good Ol’ Days
San Antonio trading star Dejounte Murray to the Atlanta Hawks this summer was the equivalent of waiving a white flag on competitiveness for the near future. The Spurs weren’t exactly good the past few years, and, in fact, they haven’t been very good at all since their last playoff season with LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan. They’ve done a good job rebuilding since then, even though they haven’t been winning, because remember — the success of a rebuild isn’t measured on short term wins. It’s on picks and development. And between moving Murray, Aldridge, and DeRozan, San Antonio has 23 (!!) picks over the next six drafts. They’re collecting picks and giving their young guys big minutes, all things you want to be doing as a rebuilding team. It doesn’t really matter that much who’s currently here in San Antonio, but there are some neat talents hiding in the floorboards. Truthfully, the most notable member of the organization is still Gregg Popovich, who could retire from coaching after this season. He’s in the last year of his contract and no news of an extension has come out yet. But Pop has also said he likes the young guys that are here, so who knows? History would tell us San Antonio has or will soon draft another Hall of Famer, since they picked David Robinson, Tim Duncan, and Kawhi Leonard in consecutive basketball generations, so maybe he’ll stay for that. Wait, who’s the number 1 prospect in this draft class again? Victor Wembanyama? The most hyped prospect since LeBron? And San Antonio is the worst team in the West? Uh oh…
Charlotte Hornets: A Redo
Say what you will about the Charlotte Hornets, but they have had a downright rotten 2022, at least in the second half of the year. First they fired head coach James Borrego, despite extending him the previous year. This was followed by a whole bunch of smoke around names like Mike D’Antoni and Kenny Atkinson (who even agreed to coach but backed out later) only for the team to end up rehiring Steve Clifford, head coach from the mid-2010’s. Then they released Miles Bridges after a domestic violence charge in June. Then James Bouknight, their lottery pick last year, gets hurt and basically loses the whole offseason (sorry for the spoiler, but he would also get arrested for a DUI later in the summer). Then Montrezl Harrell got arrested on drug trafficking charges, although those charges would later be reduced to a misdemeanor. All this and I won’t even go into what happened with poor PJ Washington. It says a lot about this team that you can say all this and it doesn’t even begin to cover the team’s on court struggles, of which there are many. Charlotte just can’t catch a break. First they lose their leading scorer, Bridges, to his own terrible behavior. Steve Clifford doesn’t seem like he knows what he’s doing. Then have to release Harrell, despite the fact that he might not have been coming back anyway. Then LaMelo Ball is hurt. And Gordon Hayward is hurt. And Dennis Smith Jr. (yes, he’s here now) is hurt. Terry Rozier is actually not hurt, but, sadly, he sucks. All Charlotte can do is wait for their guys to get healthy stare longingly out the window thinking about what this season could have been. Last season, Charlotte won their most games since 2016 and the future was bright. Their core is still young, but other than that… pass the egg nog.
Honorable Mention – Washington Wizards: Mercy
As of the time of this writing, I felt it necessary to include the poor, poor Washington Wizards in on this list. An 8-6 start to the year has kept them out of this list of Bottom 5 teams, but not for long. As of December 13th, Washington has the suckiest situation in the league: losers of 7 straight and about to embark on a hilariously brutal five game Western road trip. They go to Denver, then LA for back-to-back against the Clippers and Lakers in the Crypto-Dome, then Phoenix, then Utah, and then Sacramento against the dreaded Beam Team in Beam Country. Their reward for this punishment? They return home for a back-to-back homestand against Philly and Phoenix. Oh, and good luck doing all this without Bradley Beal, sidelined with a bum hamstring. At least their road jerseys are mainly red, which should hide the blood stains. These teams are the naughtiest of the naughty, so they shouldn’t get their hopes up. I mean, you can’t fool Santa Claus. He checks the list twice. But they can do their best on their own. Regardless of what happens, all we can say is this: there’s always next year.
Written by Jeremy Stewart
