One Bad Stat for Each Good NBA Team

How concerned am I?

Feb 27, 2024

No good team is without flaws (though I’ll be honest, Boston is close.) Today we’re going snorkeling for stats— bad ones! Let’s see what piles of trash lie underneath the pristine surfaces of the NBA’s best teams and how close I am to hitting the PANIC button for each.

Boston Celtics

Stat: 30th in forced turnovers

Wow it was difficult to dig up a negative stat for this team, and the stat I did find barely counts. But Boston is last in forced turnovers per game and 28th in opponent turnover percentage, so we’re gonna run with that. For reference, in 2021-22— when the team made a Finals run—it ranked 10th in forced turnovers. Last year it was 26th. An odd trend, but frankly…

Level of Concern: 0

The Celtics have the third-best defensive rating in the NBA. They’re sixth in allowed points in the paint, fifth in allowed fastbreak points, first in defensive rebounding, second in blocks.

They don’t get many steals. Whatever. It’s closer to a fluke than a concern. This team is 45-12 for a reason.

Minnesota Timberwolves

Stat: 22nd in clutch time Net Rating

I’m on record saying that Minnesota’s clutch time stats are a little overblown. But the deeper I dive, the more concerned I get because they’re ugly no matter how you chop it. Even if you slap chop it. Remember the Slap Chop guy? What a freak.

Level of Concern: 8

I’d be less concerned here if Minnesota was rough offensively down the stretch but still stifling defensively; that’s not the case. Minnesota’s defense also crumbles in cutch time (last five minutes of a game, within five points) ranking 20th in the league, down from first in non-clutch time. This is the best defense in the league for 43 minutes, but turns into the fuckin’ Nets when the game gets tight. That won’t get the job done in May and June. While I still believe in this team’s ability to make a deep run, this trend can’t continue if the Wolves want to break through.

Oklahoma City Thunder

Stat: 29th in REB%

Oklahoma City is good at pretty much everything but crashing the boards is one of the few areas they struggle in— and they struggle a lot. Maybe it’s because they’re so young. Kids these days don’t care about crashing the boards. Growing up, all I wanted to do was crash the boards.

Level of Concern: 5

This isn’t a non-factor because rebounding disparities can (and will) swing a playoff series, but OKC is so good in other “swing” stats (like turnover differential) that I’m not pushing the panic button. Yet.

Cleveland Cavaliers

Stat: 30th in post-up points per game

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, even with Cleveland starting two centers because neither of them thrive in the low post. Jarrett Allen is a very good player with a limited offensive repertoire and Evan Mobley is supremely talented but still finding his footing as a creator on offense.

Level of Concern: 5.5

Hmm, this is an odd one. As always, the Cavs confound me. While I’m not concerned about this specific stat—it’s 2024 after all, who cares if you don’t score in the post—it does bring to mind a bigger problem with the Cavs, which is their lack of balance. They might just have too many guys who play too similar of roles. But still, the stats show they’re at least pretty good in most areas on both sides of the ball—and great in a few areas— so maybe I’m overanalyzing.

Denver Nuggets

Stat: 15th in 3PT%

Until they give me a reason to doubt them, I believe the Nuggets are the team to beat out West. Their drop-off in three-point shooting— both in percentage, which fell from fourth last year to 15th this year— and makes, which dropped from 18th to 26th— concerns me a tad.

Level of Concern: 4.5

My concern level for the Nuggets as a whole is currently at a two or three, but my concern regarding this stat is higher. Denver wasn’t a blistering shooting team last season, and I didn’t expect it to transform its identity into one after winning a championship. But falling 11 spots in three-point percentage is still notable and something worth keeping an eye on.

Milwaukee Bucks

Stat: 17th in defensive rating

This is slowly, slowly creeping up, but it’s almost March so we’re running out of time for Milwaukee to crack the top half of the league.

Level of Concern: 6

I’ll be honest; diving into the stats made me feel weirdly more confident in the Bucks; they’re better at a lot of things than I realized. But I’m still ranking this pretty high because I don’t think anyone on this team is a high-level defender outside of its two large men down low and its backup point guard sometimes. You can probably win a title with an average defense in 2024. Can this team reach average?

Los Angeles Clippers

Stat: 30th in total passes made

This one is obvious; the Clips’ three best players are all most effective with the ball in their hands, causing the ball to stick a little. But a sticky ball (a what?) is fine when those three players are stunningly effective when they have the ball in their hands, evidenced by the fourth-best offensive rating in the NBA.

Level of Concern: 3

There exists a world where, in the postseason, this jumps to a 10/10. I see it in my mind’s eye as we speak; James Harden starts holding the ball too long, Paul George pitches a tent and camps in the corner, and opposing teams throw multiple bodies at Kawhi Leonard whenever he touches the ball. But that hasn’t happened yet. But it could! But it hasn’t. Hence my lack of concern.

New Orleans Pelicans

Stat: 28th in clutch time Net Rating

If you were a fan of Timberwolves Woes in Clutch Time, just wait until you hear about the New Orleans Pelicans! With a net rating of -17.7 in clutch time, the Pels are ahead of just Detroit and Washington, two of the worst basketball teams ever assembled.

Level of Concern: 7.5

This stat concerns me but doesn’t overwhelm me with panic; the Pels have played 75 minutes of clutch time basketball, which is the fifth-fewest in the league. Being that bad in 75 minutes is concerning in its own right, but I don’t think wide conclusions can be made about this team’s ability to close games because of how rarely it actually plays in them.

Phoenix Suns

Stat: 26th in TOV%

Phoenix is playing better recently but it still, too often, looks like a collection of good players playing basketball than a basketball team playing basketball. Does that make any sense?

Level of Concern: 8

God I know it’s so obvious to say this but these MF’s decided that not having a point guard on the roster was a fine strategy and now it’s coming back to bite them like we all knew it would. No shit you’re turning the ball over! You have 15 guards and forwards! No sympathy from me.

well now I hope the Suns go 0-82 for eternity

New York Knicks

Stat: 19th in TS%

The validity of true shooting will be debated for years to come, but I think it can (mostly) be used as a solid benchmark for shooting efficiency. New York being in the bottom ten is a bit of a surprise.

Level of Concern: 3.5

At the risk of sounding like a real hooper… I know this offense is good. I’ve watched it. I don’t need an efficiency stat to know the Knicks can score pretty fuckin’ well via multiple methods.

Sacramento Kings

Stat: 13th in offensive rating

If you think it odd that Sacramento’s “bad stat” is being an above average offense, I get it. But when you consider the Kings were number one in offensive rating last season, a middling offense seems less passable.

Level of Concern: 8.5

Sacramento cannot afford to be an average offensive team. It just doesn’t have the facilities to be anything more than average, so being average on offense just makes this team… average. Domantas Sabonis is playing out of his mind right now (8.4 assists!) and De’Aaron Fox is as good as usual so I’m not fully out on the Kings, but the other guys have been a bit flat for long stretches of the season.

What I’m Listening to: Mono No Aware

More ambient, woohoo!

One More Thing: Aaron Bushnell (warning, suicide)

Maybe I’m not qualified to write about this, but pretending it didn’t happen is worse so fuck it.

I don’t know if Aaron Bushnell is heroic or brave for what he did. Actually, that’s not true. He gave his life, ultimately, in hopes he would save the lives of others. That’s the bravest action you can take as a human. Eventually, I’ll come around to believing that fully. But for the time being I can’t be anything but crushed— for the dead 25-year-old who undoubtedly felt more pain in his soul than we should ever feel, then felt more physical pain in his waning minutes than any of us should experience— and by everything that led to this. Everything that made Bushnell’s self-immolation in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC (understandably) seem like a rational course of action. Everything that led to a law enforcement officer pointing a gun at a man who just set himself on fire instead of trying to help (that happened, though it sounds almost too bleakly representative of the United States to be true.) And by everything that will continue on, business as usual, because as we know from this country’s history, the killing machine isn’t going to stop killing because one of its own died.

A single death is a tragedy, but eggs make omelets
Statistics how he look at war casualties
Killin' is one thing, what sticks is how casually

-billy woods

This isn’t the first time I’m feeling the weight of Israel’s genocide on the Palestinian people; every picture of a maimed child or hospital turned to dust sinks my stomach deeper into itself. But right now, about a full day after Bushnell’s self-immolation, is the first time I’ve fully felt the weight of the US’s all-inclusive effort to assist Israel’s decimation of the Palestinian state and subsequent minimization of those efforts in the US public eye.

Of course, I’m aware of the contributions of the United States to this ongoing genocide. In all likelihood, the slaughter of Palestinians couldn’t happen without the help of the United States government. But Bushnell’s horrifyingly noble act of defiance is what finally numbed me to the reality that our country is making possible the daily massacre of regular fucking people.

As Bushnell’s story becomes more widespread, we’ll hear reports of his mental state deteriorating, and his words will be dismissed as the crazed final utterances of a man whose mind had abandoned him long before he perished. That will never be true.

“My name is Aaron Bushnell. I am an active duty member of the United States Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it's not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal. Free Palestine.”

That is not the ranting of a man whose mind has deteriorated. Those are the clearheaded final words of a man who couldn’t live with knowing that his country, the one he signed up to fight for, is attempting to wipe out the men, women, children, animals, trees, art, and memories of a nation that aims only to exist.

RIP Aaron Bushnell. Free Palestine. I love you all. Talk to you soon. Be well, please.