Ranking the 3 saddest NBA teams of 2018

There are several NBA teams this year that have inadvertently made sad songs the background music for their gameplay. This sorrowful state has left many fans depressed with the current state of these teams in the league.

To decide the ranking of these sorrowful teams, a few criteria have been taken into consideration:

1. Team Record: i.e. more wins vs fewer wins.

2. Player injuries: the more severe the injuries and the number of player injuries, the sadder the team.

3. Roster utilization: this is based on how the potential of the roster is being utilized.

4. Team chemistry: this depends on how well a team functions as a unit and how much fun they seem to have while playing together.

5. The ownership a team shows: how able the team is in taking a loss well and showing ownership for the mistakes they have made.

On that note, here is a list of the 3 saddest NBA teams this year:

#3 Phoenix Suns

The Phoenix Suns have been consistently been awarded the title of worst defenders this season. They don't have particularly good offense, but their defense is just downright morose.

Their current record lies at rock bottom of the western conference table at 8-24. They haven't recovered since they lost to the Warriors by 46 points a while ago.

Unfortunately, this poor performance cannot even be credited to injury. They have had no more than three players who have succumbed to major injuries, and they're not even a part of the main five. One of those players had been Brandon Knight, but along with the franchise, Knight's career has been extremely sad as well.

Now if any team is doing so bad you would hope they at least stuck together to make things better, but that's not the case here. It is obvious that they don't hate each other, but gameplay would be so much easier within a team that tried to communicate and made effective use of it's not-too-shabby roster.

#2 Chicago Bulls

Chicago Bulls

Going into the year 2018, there were very low expectations from the Chicago Bulls. The Bulls hold the same position in the East that the Suns hold in the West. They have locked into this position with a current record of 7-25, and there seems to be no room for improvement.

In terms of injuries, the Bulls have quite a few players out. Zach LaVine will miss a great part of the season with his ligament injuries, and Bobby Portis will also be missing a substantial amount with his injured ankle. These injuries are legitimate, but it's still not a good enough reason for their poor performance.

Fortunately, the roster of the Bulls is young and by definition, young rosters usually lead to poor team performance. Now the extremely poor performance of the Bulls is inexplicable, but the hope is that they grow into the roster and learn to play to their strengths as a team.

LaVine, probably the best team scorer, is out due to an injury and there definitely are players that are being paid way too much to just sit on the bench. On the bright side, they don't seem to hate each other as a team, so that is definitely a plus.

Overall, watching this team is no fun whatsoever, and they don't even have someone who seems to be in position to be able to change things.

#1 New York Knicks

The New York Knicks

The New York Knicks are currently 14th in the eastern conference. There was a small glimmer of hope for things turning around early last month, but since then everything has been downhill.

The Knicks have been on a long losing streak, even losing more than 5 in a row which is actually unbelievable. Further, looking towards the schedule in the future, there seems to be little chance for redemption.

The Knicks need to take their constant losing streak from Thanksgiving seriously, and make some major changes. The most disgraceful part of their lack of cohesion is their defense. Their incompetency in this field is what loses them most points per game.

Now this could be countered by saying that their shooting is on an uphill climb, but that alone is nowhere near enough.

Further, the Knicks have no excuses in terms of their roster. They have not faced major injuries nor have they made any major roster changes. The team however still garners a decent audience, and perhaps this is their only redeeming quality.