We suck right now.
We are 10-14 since the all-star break (0.417 Win%), We have the 21st ranked offense during that time and the 25th ranked defense. Our overall net rating is 23rd. That makes us one of the worst teams in the NBA over 30% of an entire season.
The teams that have been worse than us post all star break are: Detroit, Portland, Utah, Memphis, Washington, Charlotte and Toronto. That’s our current level.
[This chart](https://i.imgur.com/Zb7EUdD.png) shows our offensive and defensive ranking month by month, as well as our net ranking and win %.
In November and December, our offense was roughly bottom 10, but our defense was roughly top 10. Overall it was still good enough to win about 60% of our games, a similar pace to last year.
In January and (the first half of) February it all clicked and we were one of the best offensive and defensive teams in the NBA (helped in part by a soft schedule).
Post all-star break, our offense has regressed to roughly where it was at the beginning of the season, which wouldn’t be as much of a problem if our defense had held up. If we had this patch of poor offense, but our defense had still been top 10, we can project that we would be 50-27 right now, have the 2 seed practically locked up, and everyone would be feeling pretty good heading into the playoffs.
Instead our defense has been downright terrible, the first time in the past 4 years where our defense has been worse than our offense, and the scorelines are ugly as a result.
[This chart](https://i.imgur.com/mfodpFW.png) shows our rolling 10 game offensive rating and defensive rating. The Jan/early Feb period obviously stands out as an anomaly, but the thing I really want to draw attention to is our defensive rating from about the 40 game mark onwards. It has slowly been getting worse and worse, with no sign of improvement.
Even the offense looks like its finally starting to improve after a bit of a slump (especially with Mitchell finding his way back), but the defense continually getting worse is nullifying this and we are still losing games.
I’ll also throw in Kirk Goldsberry’s [Efficiency Landscape](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJ1ybPKWUAAAFH3?format=jpg&name=large) which shows us in the bottom left with the rest of the cellar dwellers.
I was hoping that the poor defense was just a lack of effort and as we fought for playoffs seeding this would improve again, but it looks like this isn’t the case.
With only 5 games left in the regular season to figure it out, we are currently staring down the barrel of another first round exit (regardless of who we play) unless something drastically changes.
by fiftyshadesofcray
2 Comments
drastic improvement is the appropriate phrase.
Missing Okoro and Wade is hurting the defense