24 Sloppy Seconds

Season’s Greetings!

I am admittedly not the biggest “Christmas spirit” kind of guy, but there are two things about the holiday which excite me:

1. It’s one of the only days of the year where it’s perfectly acceptable for an adult to wear pajamas pretty much all day; and

2. Thirteen straight hours of guilt-free NBA basketball.

The main story lines of the day are pretty well-worn among us die-hards by now: Giannis is a freak, LeBron vs. the Warriors, Harden vs. Westbrook, the Boston-Philly rivalry is back, and so on. These narratives are gracious plenty for the throngs of casual fans who probably watch more NBA ball on Christmas Day than they do the rest of the season put together. But for us nerds, it’s nice to get a little something extra beyond the big, flashy gifts under the tree, so today we’ll be looking at the stocking stuffers: the little, novel accents to watch for tomorrow that will help round out your holiday viewing experience.

Let’s start with the matinee:

MILWAUKEE BUCKS AT NEW YORK KNICKS, 12 PM ET

Milwaukee’s Goofy-but-Effective Depth: Sure, Toronto has the better record (on account of having three more wins already in the bank) and Golden State’s Death Star is not yet fully operational, but there is an argument to be made Milwaukee has been the best team in the NBA through the first trimester or so of the season. The Bucks do a TON of things really well: they lead the league in point differential and net rating, are top-5 in both Offensive and Defensive Rating, shoot a ton from beyond the arc (2nd in 3PA) while being incredibly efficient inside of it (1st in 2P%), move the ball (5th in APG), clean the glass (1st in Total RPG), and defend effectively without fouling (1st in both opponents’ FG% allowed and FTA allowed).

Of course it all starts with Giannis’ alien gifts, but the new front office has done a tremendous job of working around some of the sins of the previous regime to surround the generational talent of the Greek Freak with oddly complementary pieces. Brook Lopez, stretch-5, is the unexpected avatar and  logical conclusion of the pace-and-space revolution. A full 70% of Lopez’s FG attempts come from outside the arc, and he is paradoxically averaging both a career high in Block% and a career low in Rebounding%. He essentially functions as a 7’1″ shooting guard on offense, but his size unlocks the full breadth of Giannis’ defensive versatility and all the kooky lineup combinations head coach Mike Budenholzer can dream up.

Malcolm Brogdon has transformed himself from Rookie-of-the-Year-by-Default into one of the league’s most efficient marksmen, with a scarcely believable 50/45/98 shooting split as a fourth option (alongside Giannis’ slightly higher-usage wingmen Khris Middleton and Eric Bledsoe). Brogdon is the perfect lineup spackle, switching seamlessly over three positions on both ends, protecting the ball, spacing the floor, and consistently making correct decisions. The bench is an island of misfit toys, but it works because their strengths (primarily some combination of outside shooting and defensive versatility) work well when paired with one or more of the primary creators from the first unit. Tony Snell, Ersan Ilyasova, and Pat Connaughton are limited players who don’t move the needle outside of this particular ecosystem, but their catch-and-shoot gravity as floor spacers opens up driving lanes for Giannis, and the whole thing becomes one vicious cycle. They’ve held on to enough draft picks to take swings on young guys Thon Maker, Donte DiVincenzo, D.J. Wilson, and Sterling Brown, all of whom have shown some promise in limited minutes. Recent addition George Hill remains a steady caretaker, even as he is clearly well into the back nine of his career and grossly overpaid.

Giannis remains the straw that stirs the drink in terms of the innovative, five-out offensive scheme and versatile defensive lineup combinations, but what we’re seeing in Milwaukee is tip-of-the-spear, avant garde basketball, and it’s working. Coach Bud and the gaggle of strange role players they’ve assembled deserve some shine beyond just basking in Giannis’ enormous glow.

OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER AT HOUSTON ROCKETS, 3 PM ET

Steven Adams, Hidden Superstar: For all the get-off-my-lawners out there who insist the game has gone soft and all the physical, interior big men have been hunted into extinction, I give you my beloved Dothraki son, Steven Adams. The 25-year-old Kiwi bruiser was rightly seen as a project when he was drafted out of the University of Pittsburgh in 2013, and despite the league’s stylistic changes over that time, Adams has continued to hone his craft, increasing his scoring and rebounding averages every season in the league while virtually never shooting the ball from outside of ten feet.

Now averaging 16-and-10 on 59% shooting for a 21-11 OKC team sitting pretty at 3rd in the West after an 0-4 start which feels like it was years ago, Adams has evolved into the perfect third option behind dark horse MVP candidate Paul George and noted triple-double hunter Russell Westbrook. He’s the last line of defense for the league’s 2nd-ranked outfit, a tenacious rebounder on both ends of the floor, and a brutal screen-setter and lob-crammer who also possesses surprising touch, footwork, and playmaking instincts on the offensive end. He’s clever and quick-witted with the media, and would absolutely be a high pick on the All-Dark Alley Team, AKA The Charles Oakley All-Stars. I just love everything about the guy, and you should too.

PHILADELPHIA 76ERS AT BOSTON CELTICS, 5:30 PM ET

Are the Celtics in Trouble Without…*adjusts glasses*…*squints*…Aron Baynes??: It’s a 2-for-1 today on takes about hulking, hirsute, Australasian centers who impact winning beyond their statistical production. Thirty-two-year-old Australian and man-bun enthusiast Aron Baynes is expected to miss 4-6 weeks after surgery to repair a broken bone in his left hand he suffered Wednesday in Boston’s puzzling loss to Phoenix. The loss of a backup center averaging 14.2 minutes and 5.5 points a night wouldn’t normally register as a crisis — particularly for a squad as deep as the Celtics — but both visually and statistically, Baynes seems to act as a sort of bellwether for this Boston team. When he plays 15+ minutes, the Celtics are 9-3. In all other games, including seven in which Baynes didn’t play, they are 10-10. The team is +11.3 points per 100 possessions when Baynes is on the floor, up from +4.6 without him. From an “eye test” standpoint, they just look more complete when he’s out there. Besides Horford (who Baynes primarily backs up anyway), they have few other guys on their ultra-talented roster who take pride in the grunt work — screening, blocking out, defending the post, and taking the occasional hard-but-necessary foul.

His absence may be felt heavily in the upcoming stretch of games, particularly given their opponent on Christmas. Horford and Baynes have combined to frustrate Sixers’ MVP candidate Joel Embiid in their meetings over the last two seasons, and with Baynes out and Horford just returning from a leg injury which cost him seven games, Embiid could have a field day against Boston’s undersized and undermanned frontcourt. Boston head coach Brad Stevens may have to go deeper into his bench, giving additional minutes to both Daniel Theis and Robert “Timelord” Williams. Theis is another competent pro who always gives high-effort minutes, but he lacks the size to keep Embiid from getting to the rim, and Williams, for all of the explosiveness he has shown in limited minutes thus far, remains a raw rookie with A LOT to learn about the NBA game. Stevens could try shifting Marcus Morris up to the 5 for stretches or giving some run to Guerschon Yabusele, though these units would likely hemorrhage points on defense, offsetting any gains realized on the offensive end. Either way, Embiid must be salivating at the opportunity to catch the Celtics’ frontcourt at less than full strength, so watch for him to come out aggressively in the early going tomorrow and try to get Horford in foul trouble.

LOS ANGELES LAKERS AT GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS, 8 PM ET

Should Defenses Ignore Draymond Green?: Draymond’s ability to put the ball in the basket appears to have completely abandoned him this season. In 31.0 minutes a night, he is attempting only 6.9 shots, scoring 7.3 points (easily his lowest since he became a full-time starter in 2014-15), and shooting a ghastly 23.9% from downtown. It hasn’t particularly slowed the champs down, as they’ve climbed back into their perch atop the West on the backs of three pretty good scorers you may have heard about. For his part, Green has expressed his usual self-confidence despite the prolonged slump, and his floor game remains as robust as ever (8.0 RPG, 6.7 APG, 1.8 SPG, 0.9 BPG), but for teams still searching for any weakness to exploit against the Dubs, giving Dray the Ben Wallace treatment unless and until he proves he deserves to be guarded again may be a sound strategy. Opposing defenses have typically been happy to concede open looks to Draymond as a release valve in lieu of the far worse alternatives Golden State’s machine presents, but it could be time to take things to the logical extreme. It would only add to the intrigue if the one to deploy the semi-disrespectful game plan were Lakers’ head coach (and erstwhile Warriors’ assistant coach/interim head coach) Luke Walton. Whether Dray goes 1-for-12 from deep in a loss, or he cans six triples and the Dubs run LA out of the gym, if nothing else, the post-game interviews would be appointment viewing.

PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS AT UTAH JAZZ, 10:30 PM ET

Can Utah Make the West Even More Crowded?: If you’ve made it through all the games up until this point, you will likely be delirious, so don’t think too deeply about the nightcap between an offensive-minded team who is probably not as good as its record (Portland) and a defensive-minded team who is probably better than its record (Utah). Enjoy the first quarter or so, fall into a deep, pleasant, eggnog-induced slumber, then wake up in the morning and check to see if a Utah win turned the West standings into even more of a clusterf*ck than they already were going into the day. You will have earned your shut-eye, intrepid NBA viewer.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and thanks for reading!

Top Photo Credit: Layne Murdoch via NBAE/Getty Images

I love a spirited NBA debate as much as anyone on the planet, but there is one point on which you will never convince me otherwise: in terms of the level of overall talent, the league has never been in a better place than it is right now.

Historically, eras are defined by the stars, and the pace-and-space era has no shortage of those, but one of the defining characteristics of the modern game has been the depth of talent throughout the league and how it has raised the overall level of play from possession to possession. We’ve seen pace, scoring, and offensive efficiency rise steadily over the last half-decade, for various reasons, but for all the explanations we can proffer, it’s hard to argue with the idea that the quality of play has improved, in part, because on average, each player is simply able to discharge his role and responsibilities at a higher level than in years past.

The NBA truism is depth is less important in the postseason as rotations shrink and stars take on added importance, and for the most part the theory holds water. But in the regular season, the evidence is mounting that depth is king. Take Denver, for example. The Nugs are currently atop the West and have won ten of their last twelve games, despite having an injury report which by itself would probably be the 6-seed in the East. The Clippers, Mavs, and Kings have also outperformed expectations owing largely to strong bench units.

In the East, most of the top squads have also gone the “spread the wealth” route. Toronto is the most obvious example, despite their recent three-game slide. They not only have a center-by-committee approach to the starting lineup — allowing head coach Nick Nurse to deploy Serge Ibaka, Jonas Valanciunas, or both as the matchups dictate — but they go 11-12 deep with productive NBA players, which has enabled MVP candidate Kawhi Leonard to rest on one leg of back-to-backs as he continues to recover from last season’s mysterious quad injury without the team missing a beat. Milwaukee, Boston, and Indiana have similarly surrounded their singular stars with a cornucopia of complementary talent.

This explosion of bench productivity has led to one of the deepest and most interesting Sixth Man of the Year races we’ve seen, perhaps ever, and it’s the focus of our breakdown today. I’ve identified a mind-boggling fourteen players with a legitimate claim to the award. The NBA’s only criteria for eligibility is the player comes off the bench more often than he starts, so we’ll stick with that, even though a few of these guys have either already moved into the starting lineup or may do so at some point, meaning they could eventually end up out of the running. To account for differences in minutes and try to get an apples-to-apples comparison of production, the stats you’ll see below are all per-36 minutes unless otherwise noted. I’ve broken the candidates down into three distinct tiers, so let’s get started.

[Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.]

TIER ONE: HONORABLE MENTIONS

MARVIN BAGLEY III, SACRAMENTO KINGS: Despite the Kings’ surprising start, Bagley has been viewed in some circles as a disappointment, but it really only holds true vis-a-vis Slovenian wunderkind Luka Doncic, whom Sacramento passed up to select Bagley at no.2 overall. In a universe where Luka (and to a lesser extent, DeAndre Ayton and Jaren Jackson, Jr.) didn’t exist, Bagley would be heavy in the running for Rookie of the Year, but instead, his contributions off the Kings’ bench (veteran Nemanja Bjelica has drawn every start at the 4 due to his superior floor-spacing ability) put him in the conversation here. He’s shooting almost 54% from the field despite the fact he goes to his left every single time and every defender knows it, and putting up nearly 20-and-10 on a per-36 basis. That’s pretty damn good for a 19-year-old! His defense and outside stroke still need work — even as both have been a tad better than advertised — and head coach Dave Joerger’s recent “Durant and Westbrook” comments (with regards to Bagley and ascendant second-year point guard De’Aaron Fox) don’t really help to frame the expectations properly, but the future remains bright for Bagley and the Kings. [Yes, that feels incredibly weird to say.]

JOSH HART, LOS ANGELES LAKERS: Hart’s stats look underwhelming, but he has been one of the most important factors in the Lakers moving beyond their getting-to-know-you phase and transitioning into a real threat in the West. His catch-and-shoot ability and defensive versatility make him both a great fit next to LeBron and Grade A lineup spackle, which probably explains why he has taken over the starting SG role for LA and is unlikely to relinquish it any time soon. Either way, he still warrants a mention.

MONTE MORRIS, DENVER NUGGETS: Morris was a guy I had my eye on out of college at Iowa State. He was a 4-year senior and never wowed anyone with his length or athleticism (hence why he was drafted at no. 51 by Denver in 2017), but every time I watched him, he just knew what he was doing. He always seemed to be under control, making correct decisions, and getting to his spots in a way that was underappreciated because the talent around him couldn’t quite make proper use of his skills. Morris didn’t get an opportunity in his rookie season, but with the rash of injuries Denver has suffered early this year, he has been thrust into the spotlight earlier than expected and thrived in his new role. He shoots when he should — and at elite percentages — keeps the ball moving, and hardly ever turns it over (currently 9th in the league in turnover percentage). He has become a calming influence on Denver’s youthful roster, and has caught the attention of the veterans and coaching staff alike. Guys like Morris hide in plain sight in the draft every year — Jalen Brunson, anyone? — and teams continue to overlook them. The moral of the story, as always: NBA teams are dumb. Anyway, it’s a shame a dude this good might not even crack the top-10 in the voting.

TIER TWO: ANY OTHER YEAR…

J.J. BAREA, DALLAS MAVERICKS: It is unclear if the passage of time applies to Barea in the same fashion it does to the rest of us mere mortals. He appears to be getting better with age — at 34 years old and listed at a generous 6’0″, Father Time should be having his way by now — and it certainly looks as though he could still be schooling punks in the pick-and-roll well into his mid-40’s if he were so inclined. His outside shooting is down so far and he remains the same defensive liability he’s always been, but offensively he’s aging like a fine wine, with career highs in PER, Win Shares per 48, Assist Percentage, and Usage Rate. He always seems to get some passing consideration in the Sixth Man race, and it speaks to the depth of this year’s class that he won’t sniff the award despite having the best season of his career.

MARCUS MORRIS, BOSTON CELTICS: Like Hart, Morris will probably fall out of the running eventually, as he has started the last 11 games for the suddenly-surging Celtics. In any case, he has been a breath of fresh air offensively for a team which has badly needed it, scoring with an efficiency we’ve never seen from him before (career highs in FG%, 3P%, FT%, PER, WS/48, eFG%, and TS%), so he deserves some love. And because the NBA isn’t weird at all, right around the time Marcus was moved into Boston’s starting lineup, his twin brother, Markieff, was re-energized by his move to the bench unit for Washington and could easily replace his brother in this conversation as the season progresses.

TERRENCE ROSS, ORLANDO MAGIC: An excellent example of my “depth of talent” argument from the intro. After being drafted 8th overall by Toronto in 2012, some might consider Ross’ career up until now a disappointment, which is both fair and unfair at once. He’s not a star and he never will be, so it could be argued he was a “waste” of the 8th pick, though if you recall from my Draft Slot NBA column, the 8th pick hasn’t exactly been a hotbed of talent over the last fifteen years. At the same time, Ross is what he is, which is useful: an athletic, versatile bench wing who can hit open shots and keep the ball moving without using a ton of possessions, turning it over, or costing his team much defensively, and at a reasonable-yet-tradeable cap figure. Teams need those guys! He won’t win the award, and it’s a shame he’s burning up his prime years for this lame Orlando franchise which can’t ever seem to figure out what it wants to be, but he still deserves some shine for his career year.

FRED VANVLEET, TORONTO RAPTORS: Like Monte Morris and Josh Hart above, VanVleet was also overlooked in the draft, and the stat sheet vastly undersells his impact on a winning team. He doesn’t do any one thing incredibly well, but he’s tough, smart, versatile, and consistently gives positive minutes to one of the league’s best and deepest bench units. He would represent an upgrade at the starting point guard spot for a number of teams. [As would Delon Wright, honestly; that’s how freaking stacked Toronto is.]

LOU WILLIAMS, LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS: Sweet Lou has seen a noticeable dip in minutes and shooting efficiency this season after he cruised to the Sixth Man award last season, but he remains one of the league’s elite microwave players. When dissecting how much of an outlier the ’18-’19 race is however, it’s more telling to look at Lou’s other Sixth Man victory, back in 2014-15. That year, playing for Toronto, Williams took home the hardware with per-36 numbers of 22.2/ 2.7/ 2.9 on 40/34/86 shooting, and the Raptors weren’t a particularly dominant team, winning 49 games. Efficiency has never been Lou’s calling card — and his defense has been equally shoddy throughout his career —  but seriously, would that stat line even get him in the top-10 this year? [Yeah, yeah, don’t talk to me about pace. He enjoys about four extra possessions per game compared to that Toronto team — minutes are identical, oddly enough — and he’s scoring 2.2 more ppg and dishing 2.4 more apg this season. If somebody could average that every four possessions, he’d be the greatest player the game’s ever seen and it wouldn’t be close.]

TIER THREE: THE CONTENDERS

SPENCER DINWIDDIE, BROOKLYN NETS: I was originally going to relegate Dinwiddie to Tier Two in deference to two-time winner (and reigning 6MOY) Lou Williams, but after his recent torrid stretch — combined with the Clippers’ current skid — Spencer gets the nod. In any case, Dinwiddie has been terrific. He was forced into a starting role for much of last season and showed off his playmaking chops as the lead distributor (9th in the league in Assist%) for an injured, cruddy Nets team. This year, with starter D’Angelo Russell healthy and showing some signs at long last, Dinwiddie has been able to come off the bench and display his scoring ability (17.5 ppg on 48/37/78 shooting in 28.8 minutes a night), including 24 ppg during the Nets’ improbable seven-game active win streak. He was recently rewarded with a 3-year/$34 million extension and has been a huge part of Brooklyn creeping back towards .500, just a half-game out of the eighth spot in the East. He’ll remain in the thick of the race if he and the team can continue their ascent,  but as good as he’s been, it’s tough to envision him surpassing all of the names we’re about to discuss.

DENNIS SCHRODER, OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER: He’s a tad overpaid, and his warts as a player are the same as they ever were in Atlanta, but for a sixth man, boy, you could do a lot worse. Sure, he’s padded his overall numbers a bit doing his best Westbrook impersonation during the games Brodie has missed with injury (18.1/ 5.3/ 5.7 in 33 mpg over 9 games as a starter this year), but he’s been impactful as the engine of the second unit and alongside Russ in dual-point guard looks as well. Any measure of delta on the scoreboard you want to use — plus/minus, on/off, net rating — all paint him as terrific. OKC has gone 20-6 since their cold-shooting 0-4 start, and they are 1st in Defensive Rating and 5th in Net Rating, so team success could certainly buoy his candidacy to a degree. It still probably won’t be enough to put him over the top, however, given all the other mouths to feed in the OKC pecking order and the rest of the contenders.

DERRICK ROSE, MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES: So perhaps I was a tad hasty in saying D-Rose should hang ’em up. Amazingly, the former MVP has found second (third? fourth? FIF?) life as an ultra-efficient bench spark plug, including an unsustainable 47% from downtown on 3.3 attempts per game. Whether or not the regression monster is coming for him, there was simply no way to predict this type of career renaissance based on how cooked he appeared the last couple seasons, especially last year. Did he fly to Germany to get the secret Kobe knee treatment in the offseason? We may never know. Regardless, and however you feel about Rose personally, good on him for not giving up and rediscovering his form by evolving as a player.

MONTREZL HARRELL, LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS: Harrell and the next guy on the list are essentially carbon copies of each other: per-minute and advanced metric monsters who have inarguably outplayed the more-heralded big men starting in front of them with a combination of effort, energy, and efficiency. Harrell pops off the screen when you watch him because he just plays so damn hard at all times, attacking the rim and drawing fouls with an almost unsettling ferocity. His minutes and productivity have both slipped during the Clips’ recent swoon (1-6 in their last seven games), but if he can return to form and overtake some of Marcin Gortat’s minutes, his numbers may end up being too gaudy for voters to overlook.

DOMANTAS SABONIS, INDIANA PACERS: Again, choosing between Harrell and Sabonis involves picking serious nits, but I’ll give Domas the edge based on his superior rebounding, scoring efficiency, and the overall polish of his game at a younger age. After being misused as a stretch-4 in OKC, Sabonis has found his niche on the interior in Indiana, and his impact on the surging Pacers has been enormous. He possesses the sky-high basketball IQ and playmaking instincts one would expect from the son of legendary big man Arvydas Sabonis, and he makes up for middling athleticism with exquisite positioning and a motor that never stops revving. This is somewhat anecdotal, and it’s unclear if his rate stats would hold up in a larger role, but when I watch Domas play, it feels like he’s always making plus plays, and it is impossible to forget he’s on the floor.

The front office will need to determine if Sabonis can fit long-term alongside recently extended big man Myles Turner (4-years/$72 million kicking in next season) in a twin towers-style lineup. Their minutes have mostly been staggered to this point (Sabonis has played only 167 of his 740 minutes with Turner in the lineup, and the two have a slight negative point differential in those minutes), which is untenable over the long haul for two core players. Turner may have already gotten his payday and is probably still the superior defensive player, but if Sabonis continues to improve and produce like an All-Star, it will be nearly impossible to convince fans and ownership he shouldn’t have a larger role on the team. In the meantime, let’s not forget how the Pacers got pilloried for the return in the Paul George trade, and less than 18 months later, that return includes an All-Star and Most Improved Player in Victor Oladipo and a superstar role player, possible future All-Star, and strong candidate for Sixth Man of the Year in Sabonis. Always remember: the collective NBA hive-mind knows nothing.

Sabonis has been fantastic, but I still can’t put him ahead of…

JULIUS RANDLE, NEW ORLEANS PELICANS: My choice for the award as 2018 winds down is another guy who is only a bench player by virtue of the positional logjam at the 4 in New Orleans. On most teams, a player as skilled as Randle would certainly be a starter, but the presence of Nikola Mirotic (and his cleaner fit alongside Anthony Davis in the starting lineup) has pushed the bulldozing former Kentucky big man to the second unit, where he has produced far beyond anyone else in the league. Randle has yet to develop an outside shot, but he does virtually everything else well offensively: an elite scorer in the restricted area (72% FG percentage), gets to the free throw line (8.1 attempts per-36 minutes, a career high), and very effective as both a scorer and distributor in transition. If his defense ever catches up with his offense, look out. The presence of Mirotic, along with the ’19-’20 player option in Randle’s below-market contract which he will almost certainly decline to become a free agent, have fueled speculation New Orleans might look to deal Randle prior to the trade deadline as part of a package to provide reinforcements for Anthony Davis as his potentially apocalyptic pre/free agency decision approaches in 2020. Any move would likely shift Randle into a starting role — he has already started 11 games, by the way — so it could throw his eligibility for the award into question, but assuming the status quo holds, it’s hard to argue with his credentials. Julius Randle is a bad man, and as things stand today, he should take home the trophy.

Top Photo Credit: Richard Shotwell/AP

The NBA’s imbalance of power between the conferences isn’t about the teams at the top. Sure, the West has Golden State, but after the champs, it could be argued in good faith the East has the league’s next five best teams in Toronto, Milwaukee, Philly, Boston, and Indiana. Rather, the difference in the conferences is most evident in the middle and bottom of the standings. In the West, there are fourteen solid teams competing for eight playoff spots, plus Phoenix. By contrast, the East is much more stratified, with five really good teams, four cover-your-eyes awful teams, and six other squads sandwiched in the middle, throwing rocks at each other all season for the “honor” of being on the receiving end of a first-round walloping. Today, depressing as it may be, let’s climb onto the dreaded treadmill of mediocrity to determine who will emerge victorious from the Eastern Conference slap fight for those final three playoff spots.

[All records and stats are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted, and are current through Wednesday’s games.]

BROOKLYN NETS (11-18, 11th in Conference): I almost chose not to include the Nets at all, as 11-18 is not normally the type of record associated with a team hanging around the periphery of the playoff race, but I suppose that’s why we’re here, right? Finally free of their indentured draft servitude to the Celtics, Brooklyn actually approached basic basketball competence to begin the season, going 6-7 over their first 13 games before rising star Caris LeVert suffered a gruesome right foot dislocation against Minnesota, an injury which miraculously turned out to be less catastrophic than it looked. Without their best player, the rudderless squad has been in free fall ever since, going 4-11 including the loss in which the injury occurred. LeVert’s rehab is reportedly progressing more quickly than expected, but it’s hard to imagine he’ll return to the court (and to form) in time to stanch the bleeding, even if the teams around them do little to separate themselves in the meantime.

Nets’ GM Sean Marks has done yeoman’s work in rebuilding the roster from the ground up following  Billy King’s execrable reign, but the renovation remains far from complete. In addition to snagging LeVert in 2016 in exchange for Thaddeus Young –who had no future value to Brooklyn anyway– Marks has unearthed several useful pieces through late draft picks and unorthodox personnel moves. Taking a flier on D’Angelo Russell for spare parts was exactly the sort of thing a team trapped in draft pick hell should do. DLo has started to show some signs of improvement as a player and a pro, even if he hasn’t been exactly the type of post-hype sleeper Nets’ fans may have been anticipating. He’s still a sieve on defense and an inefficient chucker at times, but for a team without a lot of other consistent offensive threats, 18.1/ 3.9/ 5.9 and 36% from three isn’t a complete disaster.

Spencer Dinwiddie has been a terrific low-cost find, and all things considered, is probably a superior player to Russell at this point. [Note: Dinwiddie dropped a career-high 39 points in a win over the Sixers on Wednesday night, and then agreed to a 3-year, $34 million extension with Brooklyn on Thursday. Bully for him.] Nondescript sharpshooter Joe Harris (44.9% from downtown on 5.1 attempts per game) has become an integral part of the rotation and is signed to a contract which is both affordable and eminently tradeable. Jarrett Allen and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson are both young, useful role players Marks acquired by sloughing off unnecessary vets to impatient teams willing to part with late-first round picks in exchange for immediate help. The jury is still out on dart throws Dzanan Musa and “Rowdy” Rodions Kurucs, who are the result of picks acquired as the tax Toronto paid for offloading DeMarre Carroll’s onerous contract into Brooklyn’s plentiful cap space. Ed Davis and Shabazz Napier are undeniably useful rotation players signed to bargain-basement deals, and would be far more valuable as contributors on competitive teams with real aspirations and/or depth issues rather than as cost-efficient roster chum in Brooklyn. The Nets’ one big miss is their baffling dedication to Allen Crabbe, who is shooting only 33% (including a double take-inducing 24% from inside the arc) over 26 minutes a night while pocketing an unfathomable total of $37 million between this year and next.

Even as all these chicken-shit-to-chicken-salad moves paint the picture of a competent front office — which obviously qualifies as a vast improvement over the previous regime — the devastation wrought by the LeVert injury demonstrates just how far this roster is from anything meaningful, and to a degree, what a waste it is to be hoarding all this useful, low-cost talent on a team that isn’t going anywhere. The irony of their situation is they finally have control of their own future draft picks, so in some ways, coming out of the competitive wilderness now is actually against the franchise’s long-term interests. A clean cap sheet combined with a purposeful tank (as opposed to the unintentionally horrific rosters they were saddled with before) might be the healthiest thing for the Nets, but the front office’s ability to exploit market inefficiencies has left the roster just a hair too robust to properly bottom out.

For this season, they are stuck in a mediocrity Catch-22: even if LeVert can return, they’ll probably be too far back to catch the other suitors for those last three playoff spots, and if he can’t, they still won’t be bad enough to fall behind the gaggle of truly crap-tastic squads (Cleveland, Chicago, Atlanta, and Phoenix) in the “Not Tryin’ for Zion” sweepstakes. The incremental progress is laudable, but given how low the depths were from which they began and the circumstances they’ve endured, a playoff berth still feels like a bridge too far.

Verdict: OUT

WASHINGTON WIZARDS (11-17, 10th in Conference): The Wiz have suffered a half-decade’s worth of tumult in this season’s first two months, and it shows no signs of slowing down. In retrospect, we probably should have seen it coming. A locker room already sporting shaky chemistry added the Dwightbola virus, Austin Rivers, and human bad luck charm Jeff Green. Scott Brooks and Ernie Grunfeld might be the worst head coach/GM combo in the league, and John Wall, who has come under some scrutiny lately for his, ahem, lack of hustle, showed up to Team USA practices over the summer looking like an overweight hobo. That things have gone even as “well” as they have this season is a testament to the baseline of talent they bring to bear and the continued evolution of Bradley Beal’s game.

The team’s deficiencies are manifold. They shoot the three poorly (27th in 3P%) and defend it even worse (29th in 3P% allowed, as admittedly noisy as this can be). They get out-rebounded by an absurd margin. Their frontcourt has gotten a legitimate lift from the promotion of Thomas Bryant to the starting center role, which tells you everything you need to know about how lacking the other options are. Wall is depressingly disengaged on defense, and it often appears the other players take a cue from their supposed “leader.” The Otto Porter problem is real: he has been marginalized to such a degree — and included in so many trade rumors — that he has gone from “third-best player on an Eastern contender” to “possibly toxic asset” faster than the duration of a typical Dwight Howard fart. Even with the team looking slightly more cohesive of late, the locker room could still fracture at any given moment.

It’s not all doom and gloom. Beal is a young, improving All-Star who would draw a monster package in return if the Wiz decided to pull the rip cord. Grunfeld smartly (two words which almost never go together) acted as the go-between in the recent Bucks-Cavs trade to acquire combo forward Sam Dekker for next-to-nothing. Dekker is a talented player who has yet to receive a real opportunity to thrive, so hopefully Brooks will throw him regular minutes to try and stabilize DC’s woeful frontcourt rotation. In limited minutes, this season’s first round pick, Troy Brown, Jr., has looked the part of a future NBA contributor. He has a bigger body than I anticipated, and his feel, stroke, and athleticism appear made to last. They may also have plucked a diamond in the rough with two-way player Devin Robinson, a long, lanky athlete who I really liked in his college days at Florida. Kelly Oubre continues to take on a larger role and add things to his game, despite how underwhelming he looks through the lenses of both traditional and advanced statistics. There is a universe where the Wiz sink towards the bottom of the standings and all of these youngsters get a chance to develop in a low-pressure environment, but given both the sorry state of the competition outside the East’s elite and Grunfeld’s perpetual inability to think beyond the status quo, it feels like a “blow it up” nerd’s pipe dream.

The frontcourt is a train wreck, and it’s unclear whether the continued absence of Dwight makes things better or worse. The roster is well past its expiration date as a group, their ceiling appears lower than ever, and a chemistry-induced implosion is always in play, but even with all these caveats, it’s tough to imagine a team with so much more pure talent than the other squads in their orbit falling into the lottery. My confidence in this prognostication couldn’t be much lower, but…

Verdict: IN

MIAMI HEAT (11-16, 9th in Conference): What a strange team. They do some important things well: 8th in 3P%, 11th in Defensive Rating, and 10th in Rebounding. Problem is, they are so horrendous from inside the arc (30th with a bullet) that it negates their competence from deep (also 30th in total FG%). Their starting center (Hassan Whiteside) has a 22.7 PER and leads the league in both blocks per game and rebounding percentage, yet his contract is an utter albatross, the team is better with him on the bench, and his backup (Bam Adebayo) may be slowly taking his job. The franchise’s cornerstone (Dwyane Wade) is on his farewell tour, yet for some reason is still leading the team in Usage Rate despite how clearly diminished he is. Rodney McGruder plays the second-most minutes per game on the team. They have no signature stars, yet are capped-out to a comical degree. It’s all bizarre.

The upshot: there is a lot of room for improvement relative to the competition. Goran Dragic and James “Bloodsport” Johnson, two of the team’s most important veterans, have played only 26 out of a possible 52 combined games. Dragic has had nagging injuries and has not played up to his usual standard when in the lineup, while Johnson continues to work his way back to form after offseason sports hernia surgery. Both players are trending toward the back nine of their respective careers but could offer a real boost in the second half if healthy. Adebayo has looked terrific, even if his archetype has become a bit passe in the modern game. Josh Richardson has evolved into an excellent two-way wing, and his contract is one of the very best in the league, although he would be far more efficient in a slightly less featured role. The rotation and hierarchy remain unsettled: eleven different players are averaging over twenty minutes a night, and everyone seems far too willing to defer to D-Wade as he takes his final lap around the league. This would be fine if the team wasn’t interested in being competitive, a la Kobe’s final season with the Lakers in 2016, but it’s a real organizational conundrum for a team vying for a playoff spot. It feels as though Justise Winslow has been written off multiple times already, but he is still just 22 years old and has shown some flashes of late. If he continues to progress, the 3-year/$39 million extension he signed just prior to the regular season could turn into a real bargain for a team stuck in luxury tax hell.

Head coach Erik Spoelstra is one of the best in the league at maximizing the talent on his roster. If he can get Dragic and Johnson healthy and productive, continue developing the young guns, and gradually convince Wade to take more of a backseat as part of an overall consolidation of the rotation, then it’s not hard to see the outline of a playoff team in South Beach. If nothing else, I trust their overall organizational competence waaaaaay more than our next group, which has to count for something.

Verdict: IN

ORLANDO MAGIC (12-15, 8th in Conference): There has been some groundswell for the “Hey, the Magic aren’t THAT bad!” narrative, but upon closer examination of their “surprising” start, it amounts to the soft bigotry of low expectations. This team is not good in any sense other than relative to their recent iterations. Their offense is a slog: 26th in scoring, 27th in Offensive Rating, 26th in pace, and dead-last in free throw rate. They protect the ball (4th-fewest turnovers), but otherwise, they don’t do anything particularly well on the offensive end. Everything revolves around versatile big man Nikola Vucevic who, to his credit, has developed into a legitimate All-Star (and it will be a travesty if he isn’t selected as a reserve this season).

The team has dropped three straight, including blowouts at the hands of Indiana and Dallas. Six of their fifteen losses have been by 20+ points, not exactly the hallmark of a playoff outfit. As good as Vucevic has been (20.6/ 11.5/ 3.7 with a 26.5 PER on 54/ 40/ 84 shooting splits), he is in the final year of his contract and is nearly guaranteed to leave for greener pastures next summer. Bouncy forward Aaron Gordon signed a lucrative extension prior to the season, but the deal was structured with an unusual descending salary structure. Offering (and accepting) such an eminently tradeable contract suggests neither Gordon nor the Magic are under any illusion about his long-term future with the organization. The next competitive Magic roster is meant to revolve around multi-skilled young bigs Mo Bamba and Jonathan Isaac, but that day remains many moons away. This places the front office in an awkward spot as it pertains to Vooch and Gordon: they find themselves trying to manage (and extract value from) a rapidly closing window, even though said window never actually opened in the first place.

Calling their guard and wing play “uninspired” is exceedingly generous. Veteran journeyman D.J. Augustin has been easily their most consistent backcourt creator. Evan Fournier remains a competent scorer for whom no opponent bothers to gameplan. Jonathon Simmons and Jerian Grant look to be playing their way out of the league. Terrence Ross is a nice player, but he should be the 8th/9th man on a good team, not wasting away as a good stats/bad team guy. For a team which has been drafting in the lottery for what feels like the entire millennium, there should be way more talent on-hand. This perpetual state of “what are they doing?” makes it hard to imagine they’ll cash in their chips with Vooch and Gordon at the appropriate time (read: ASAP) and instead just end up in the late lottery anyway next summer while losing Vucevic for nothing in free agency. It would certainly be on-brand.

The media seems to be in a rush to paint this season as the turning of a corner when what we’re really watching is nothing more than a slightly less depressing version of the same nonsense they’ve been trotting out for the last half-decade. I’m not falling for the sleight of hand this time.

Verdict: OUT

DETROIT PISTONS (13-13, 7th in Conference): If basketball is a game of runs, Detroit’s has been a season of runs. They won their first four, then dropped five in a row, then won nine of eleven, and are currently on a six-game losing streak. The 4-0 start was obvious fool’s gold, and their 9-13 record since then is likely a more accurate reflection of the true nature of the team, which puts them right square in the mix with all these other jokers. The schedule has been brutal during their six-game slide, and they’ve been dealing with some nagging injuries to their rotation of late, but these are night-to-night realities in the NBA. Their core three players (Blake Griffin, Andre Drummond, and Reggie Jackson) have played 77 of a possible 78 combined games. Blake is at the top of his game and putting up young Blake numbers (25.6/ 9.1/ 5.0) despite having to re-orient more to the perimeter, and yet the team is only sitting at .500 — with a negative point differential — because the rest of the roster, for lack of a better word, sucks.

The Pistons are middle-of-the-pack in terms of pace and Defensive Rating (13th and 12th, respectively), but they are struggling because they simply cannot put the ball in the hoop with any consistency. They are currently 24th in Offensive Rating, 29th in FG%, 28th in 3P%, and dead-last in Effective FG%. Blake has too much responsibility on his shoulders as a creator. Drummond is what he’s always been, Jackson is “fine” — that is to say, a guy who shouldn’t be the third option for a team with any sort of aspirations — and the rest of the rotation consists of limited offensive players who need to hit catch-and-shoot threes but for the most part don’t.

Unless fellow 22-year-olds Stanley Johnson and Luke Kennard take massive steps forward as the season wears on, the ceiling just isn’t very high for this roster. What’s worse, Detroit’s front office is more or less stuck with this core for the next two seasons: Griffin and Drummond’s contracts are probably immovable even if they wanted to, the electrifying combination of Jon Leuer, Langston Galloway, Ish Smith, and Glenn Robinson III will make an unforgivable $27 million combined this season, and the team is still on the hook for $5.3 million in dead money to Josh Freaking Smith this year AND next, which is the funniest damn thing I’ve read all day.

It feels like we’ve already seen the best of the Pistons. A team employing this version of Blake has a high floor, but it also relies on him (and Jackson) to stay healthy all year, neither of which have been winning bets in the past. And people get at me for my Dwayne Casey take, but I’m doubling down on it: he just isn’t that good of a coach. I’m not saying he’s Vinny Del Negro/Byron Scott-level horrendous, but I can’t be the only one thinking those who voted him Coach of the Year last year are feeling more than a slight twinge of buyer’s remorse, especially after the Raptors unceremoniously fired him immediately after the playoffs and then came out of the gates firing on all cylinders this season after replacing him with the guy who, by all accounts, was actually the architect of the team’s improvement last season in the first place. Again, I’m not trying to clown on Casey or say he’s bad; he just isn’t some sort of coaching savant who creates this massive win delta for his teams in the way he sometimes gets portrayed. Anyway, Detroit kinda stinks and things are probably going to get worse.

Verdict: OUT

CHARLOTTE HORNETS (14-13, 6th in Conference): I’ve written and spoken at length about Charlotte over the last week-plus, so we’ll keep this brief. Since the podcast taped, Charlotte has won three straight (over Denver, New York, and Detroit), two of them in close, crunch-time fashion. [Bet you can guess which one was a double-digit win.] The results are beginning to match the process, and their schedule is relatively soft over the remainder of the calendar year, so we should start to see them solidify their playoff position over the upcoming stretch of games. The roster still has plenty of warts, but so long as Kemba stays healthy, this is, at worst, the sixth seed in the East.

Verdict: IN