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It's common knowledge that the NBA's 82-game regular season is a grind. That's, of course, one way of looking at it, the other being that it's a chance for the teams to build good playing habits and a chance for the franchises to build a good culture.
As we kick into March, all of the 30 teams in the league have played at least 62 games. That's a decent sample size to start judging teams for their performances so far.
There's been a lot of conversation over the past week regarding changing the Playoff system, while, the battle for the Playoff spots in either Conference have been entertaining, to say the least. The results of each gameday impact the Conference standings.
A huge reason for the current state of the standings is the inconsistency of multiple teams. With such a huge part of the season under wraps, we rank the 5 most inconsistent teams so far:
Note: Teams with multiple key injuries have been left out.
#5 Oklahoma City Thunder
Paul George and Russell Westbrook
At the time of writing, the Oklahoma City Thunder have a record of 37-29 (.561). Every superteam has an adjustment phase and the Thunder were no different but even after they had found their groove they failed to capitalize and put up good team performances regularly.
At the end of November, through 20 games, the Thunder had gone 8-12. As December came, the team's superstars - Russell Westbrook, Paul George, and Carmelo Anthony - came to understand their roles and began to thrive in them. Westbrook led the charge, while Paul played the two-way threat and Anthony started taking a reduced number of shots, a majority of which were high percentage ones.
The turned their season around with a 12-5 record in December (6-game win streak) and a 10-4 outing in January (8-game win streak). At the end of January, they placed themselves in a strong position in the Conference (30-21) but things turned once again with Andre Roberson's injury on January 28th. Since his injury, the team has missed him dearly especially on the defensive end of the floor.
In February, the team went 6-6 with five of their wins only coming against the bottom-feeders like the Sacramento Kings, Memphis Grizzlies, Orlando Magic and the Dallas Mavericks. They've signed Corey Brewer after he was bought out by the Los Angeles Lakers at the deadline but that isn't really going to solve any of their problems.
At some point, they have to figure out how to play well without Roberson, as he is not slated to return this season. There is still a month left for the Playoffs and the Thunder need to establish a system (without Roberson) that they can thrive in.
#4 Washington Wizards
The Washington Wizards have been a tough puzzle to solve this season. At the beginning of the year, they had depth and talent but they got into the bad habit of playing down to their competition early on. Then, late in November, John Wall's left knee started bothering him and he was forced to sit out nine games til mid-Dec.
The Wizards played like a group of soldiers would without their (floor) general, going 4-5 in those nine games. But, what left analysts and pundits dumbfounded was that once Wall returned, the Wizards weren't particularly playing any better either. Before sitting down a second time because of his troubling knee in late January, Wall and the Wizards went 12-9, not being able to establish any consistency.
When Wall started sitting out games once again late in January, the rest of the Wizards responded much better this time. They've gone 10-6, with three of those losses only coming in the last three games. Wall is slated to return in the first week of April. It would be interesting to see how the team and Wall play together, just a week or 10 days before the Playoffs.
#3 Philadelphia 76ers
Given the circumstances, the Philadelphia 76ers have actually been great this season. The circumstances being that the team is very young and it's two superstars - Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid - are still relatively inexperienced with respect to carrying a squad on a nightly basis.
A huge reason for the team's record being around .500 is often their over-reliance on their two young stars. Philadelphia is 32-20 with Embiid playing but without him, they are 3-8 and in his absence, rookie Simmons hasn't been able to lead the team to victories single-handedly. To make matters worse, Simmons, after a hot start through October and November, had met the rookie wall and his numbers had experienced a clear dip in December.
The team has gotten consistent since the beginning of February (11-4) but for quite obvious reasons, they were up-and-down for the first three months of the regular season (24-24 after January).
#2 Detroit Pistons
It's difficult to corner what exactly is wrong with the Detroit Pistons this season. They started off well, winning 12 games of their first 20 to start the season but since then, it's been downhill. After the 12-8 start, they lost 23 of their next 35 games till the end of January when they acquired former All-Star Blake Griffin in a trade with the LA Clippers.
Post the trade, they did go on a short 5-game win streak. Everybody thought the trade had revived the Pistons' season but that streak was a preview to nothing. The team ended up losing 9 of their next 11 games to ensure they fall into the hole that they had just crawled out of.
Andre Drummond was deservedly named an All-Star but other than that, this season has been a disaster, to say the least, especially considering the talent they have on the squad. There's no doubt about the fact that Reggie Jackson's injury in late December was/is a huge reason for their recent dismal play but at the same time, on these one-offs, the team plays spectacular, playing like they aren't missing any key player.
#1 Milwaukee Bucks
A 34-30 record isn't too bad but it's disappointing if that's your record when you have one of the top 5 players in the league. Bucks' Giannis Antetokounmpo is definitely one of the top 5 players right now but the team has struggled to establish a deep and talented roster around him that wins on a consistent basis.
Their longest streaks this season, wins or losses, stands at four. The inconsistent form forced the management to fire Jason Kidd, the head coach, and right after the announcement, the team seemed to have found some momentum under interim head coach Joe Prunty.
After the firing, they won 9 of their next 11 games but then for some reason, they slipped once again, losing six of their next eight games. They've slipped from contending for home court in the Playoffs to battling for one of the bottom seeds in the East. But then again, seeds 3 to 8 are only covered by 4.5 games so one good winning run could still give them a high seed.
Guess the Lakers players!
