Power Rankings Update: Tier 6 (Part 2)
TIER 6: REBUILDING
In a typical year, I would be less kind and title this tier “tanking.” However, I don’t think that accurately describes the state of the majority of tier 6 teams this season. No question, each of these teams is playing for the future. However, each team in this tier either has legitimate building blocks already in place, established NBA players who can positively contribute to winning, or some combination of both. There will be real pathways for growth and development in tier 6 this season, and each of these teams has some reason for their fans to be excited to watch, even this year.
All that nicety out of the way, let’s be clear - come trade deadline season, tier 6 teams are in a race to the bottom of the league. Any veterans on expiring contracts who can fetch a decent return in trade should be moved, and players with any type of nagging injury should get a head start on the offseason. Nonetheless, through the meat of the year, there are plenty of reasons to watch tier 6. Rebuilds are hopeful, and young players in the NBA typically represent an entertaining roller coaster.
*For a refresher on the the layout of this power rankings update, click here
**All stats courtesy of basketballreference.com or NBA.com unless stated otherwise
CHARLOTTE HORNETS
Current Rotation:
Players in blue are signed to 2-Way contracts
*Denotes player is currently missing extended time due to injury/suspension/other*
Preseason Projections:
Projected 2023-24 Record: 29-53 (13th in East)
Projected 2023-24 Offensive Rating: 19th
Projected 2023-24 Defensive Rating: 27th
Projected 2023-24 Net Rating: 26th
Current Metrics:
Record: 9-31 (13th in East)
Offensive Rating: 27th
Defensive Rating: 29th
Net Rating: 30th
Team Overview: Remarkably Bad
In the preseason, it wouldn’t have been insane to look at Charlotte’s roster and think of them as a tier 5 team. As recently as 2021-22, the Hornets posted a top ten offense and a 43-win season with many of the same players.
Instead, Charlotte has been disgustingly awful this season: They have the worst net rating in the league in a season where the Detroit Pistons set the NBA record for consecutive losses. In fairness, the Hornets have been without their best player in LaMelo Ball for half of their games, which has completely sunk their offense. Now that Ball is back, this team should be slightly more competitive.
However, that’s far from a guarantee. Since the calendar flipped to December, Charlotte has a -14.3 net rating, which would be the third-worst in NBA history if extrapolated over a full season. The Hornets don’t do anything well, and there’s a good chance that the team is worse after the deadline if they can find takers for veterans like Terry Rozier and Gordon Hayward.
Where I Was Right: Taking the Under
I was almost fooled into buying into Charlotte and giving them a chance to hang around the play-in race. Fortunately, a further examination of the roster and some clarity into the mindset of the organization by how they handled Miles Bridges led me to take the under on Charlotte’s pre-season win total of 31.5.
Although the names might be similar to those on the 2021-22 team, players like Gordon Hayward and Cody Martin who were critical to that team’s success have been sapped by injuries. The depth that backed those guys up (Kelly Oubre and Jalen McDaniels) is no longer on the roster, and the Hornets have failed to replenish through the draft. Additionally, the complete failure to address backup point guard, despite Ball coming off a season in which he played just 36 games, has killed them. 35 year old Ish Smith had to be signed off the street just to get this team through the first month of the season.
Once the ball started rolling downhill with LaMelo’s injury, there was very little resistance, which makes sense given the state of the roster. The veterans on this team are most likely looking towards their next destination, and the young players are fighting to establish themselves and find their place in the league. Without an established cultural backbone to rely on, it’s hard for an organization to handle adversity well.
Where I Was Wrong: Belief in the Offense
In fairness, Charlotte has been significantly better when they’ve had Ball on the court. In his minutes, the Hornets’ offensive rating is 113.2: Not fantastic, but only slightly below league average. If Ball had not gotten hurt, it’s possible that Charlotte’s overall offensive output would be closer to the 19th overall ranking that I projected in the preseason.
However, I did not give enough credence to coaching. One of the main ways Charlotte posted a top ten offense two seasons ago was by playing small with P.J. Washington at center, which allowed them to space the floor at all five positions. This was a staple of previous head coach James Borrego’s philosophy, but not so for current head coach Steve Clifford. Clifford is a defensive-minded tactician, and he has been very reluctant to play without a traditional center on the court. As a result, the Hornets get up far fewer threes now then they did in their heyday: They rank 21st in 3PA per game this season, down from 6th in 2021-22.
Outlook Going Forward: Usher in a New Era
This is a bad basketball team that desperately needs to continue to add talent. Charlotte will have every chance to do that in the 2024 draft, as they are on their way to an early lottery selection. If they can hit on that pick, and if they can capably develop Miller, there’s a chance that the Hornets might have the beginnings of a winning core.
In a more macro sense, the real reason for hope for Hornets fans is the organizational transition that began in the summer of 2023. There’s no evidence that new owners Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall will successfully run the franchise, but they cannot possibly do worse than Michael Jordan did in his time at the helm. From top to bottom, this is a team that lags behind the league in basically every department, and the cultural revamp that Plotkin and Schnall will hopefully kick off this summer should do wonders.
That changing of the guard most likely starts with replacing both Clifford and GM Mitch Kupchak, holdovers from the Jordan era who always felt like lame ducks. These are two men with a wealth of experience who were understandable choices to captain the ship in this transitory season, but Charlotte needs new blood.
DETROIT PISTONS
Current Rotation:
Players in blue are signed to 2-Way contracts
*Denotes player is currently missing extended time due to injury/suspension/other*
Preseason Projections:
Projected 2023-24 Record: 24-58 (14th in East)
Projected 2023-24 Offensive Rating: 30th
Projected 2023-24 Defensive Rating: 29th
Projected 2023-24 Net Rating: 29th
Current Metrics:
Record: 4-38 (15th in East)
Offensive Rating: 26th
Defensive Rating: 30th
Net Rating: 29th
Team Overview: Historical Pursuits
There’s a lot of statistics that do a good job painting the picture of how rough things have been in Detroit this year, but there’s not really any need to go beyond this: The Pistons didn’t win a game for two full months, setting the NBA record for consecutive losses by losing 28 straight between October 28th and December 30th.
Nobody (outside of maybe Pistons’ management) expected this team to make a playoff push, but this also was not supposed to be an abject tank. Detroit surrounded Cade Cunningham and the rest of their young core with veterans like Monte Morris, Bojan Bogdanovic and Joe Harris, and they signed Monty Williams to a record-setting contract to take over as head coach. The goal was clearly to begin to establish a culture and a foundation for the years to come.
Instead, the organization feels as aimless as ever: Harris and Morris have been injured and/or ineffective, Cunningham has stagnated in his development, and Williams appears to have a tenuous grasp on the locker room. Detroit is hurtling towards another top draft pick, but other than the hope of a lottery pick gone right, it’s entirely unclear what their path towards relevance is.
Where I Was Right: Key Questions
In my preseason preview, I highlighted Cade Cunningham as the single biggest variable in determining the future in Detroit. The former #1 overall pick lost almost the entirety of his sophomore season in 2022-23 to injury, but he garnered a good deal of preseason hype after a reportedly excellent showing in World Cup training camp with USA basketball. Cunningham established as a rookie that he is a rock solid NBA player, but Detroit’s front office needed him to break out as a no-doubt All-Star and foundational building block in order to execute their vision.
The results for Cunningham this season have been mixed. He’s had to handle a tremendous load (30.2% usage) with very little support or positive infrastructure around him, and he’s done some things very well. He has a career-high 33.6% assist rate, and he’s upped his shooting percentage to career bests from both the field and the free throw line. However, he also turns the ball over on 15.3% of his possessions, and his true shooting is well below league average at 54.4%.
Cunningham’s been done no favors by his surroundings, so in some ways his ability to be even moderately competent is impressive. On the other hand, he hasn’t shown the type of transcendent ability required to win games or post eye-popping stats regardless of situation. Maybe that is too high a bar, but it’s becoming more and more clear that Cunningham is most likely a secondary or tertiary star on a playoff team than a true alpha.
Where I Was Wrong: Stability Under Monty
Monty Williams is a highly experienced NBA coach: He’s been in the league as an assistant since ‘05-06, and he had two stops as a head coach prior to taking the Detroit job. In his most recent tour in Phoenix, he authored an impressive turnaround, taking a young team with talent and raising both their floor and ceiling while helping Devin Booker ascend to superstardom.
There’s no question that Pistons’ owner Tom Gores envisioned a similar scenario playing out when he hired Williams over the summer. The job was straightforward: Restore respectability for the franchise, and put Cade Cunningham on the Booker plan. Unfortunately, Williams hasn’t had any sort of stabilizing effect in Detroit. He benched second year guard Jaden Ivey to start the season, which right away put him at odds with an important member of Detroit’s young core. He hasn’t been able to get through to Detroit’s veterans either, as Bogdanovic and Alec Burks have spent much of this year looking like they’d rather be playing anywhere else.
Williams had to be pulled out of quasi-retirement and incentivized with a monster contract just to take the Detroit job, and it certainly looks like he’s mailed it in to this point. If things don’t turn around, it’s a massive mistake of a hiring for the Pistons, and just another obstacle on their path out of this current mess.
Outlook Going Forward: Don’t Do Anything Rash
Most times when a team is clearly out of the playoff mix, they become obvious sellers at the trade deadline, looking to collect assets for their veteran pieces. To this point, the talk in Detroit has been just the opposite: They’ve been linked to additions like OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam, and they are reportedly retescant to make trades where talent is exiting the building.
It seems like a desperate attempt to save face, as nobody in the organization wants this to be the team that sets the all-time record for losses in a season. Additionally, General Manager Troy Weaver is also in a precarious position: He’s been at the helm for multiple seasons, and he probably won’t be around to lead the way through yet another rebuild.
However, this is where ownership must step in and cooler heads have to prevail. The optics from this season cannot be salvaged: Whether the team wins 8 games or 12, the fans are not going to remember 2023-24 fondly. Detroit needs to get what they can for their players that have even marginal trade value, and they need to play out the string with their young guys and hope for growth in the season’s second half.
WASHINGTON WIZARDS
Current Rotation:
Players in blue are signed to 2-Way contracts
*Denotes player is currently missing extended time due to injury/suspension/other*
Preseason Projections:
Projected 2023-24 Record: 22-60 (15th in East)
Projected 2023-24 Offensive Rating: 29th
Projected 2023-24 Defensive Rating: 30th
Projected 2023-24 Net Rating: 30th
Current Metrics:
Record: 7-35 (14th in East)
Offensive Rating: 25th
Defensive Rating: 28th
Net Rating: 27th
Team Overview: Full Speed Tank
It might surprise some that I have Washington ranked below Detroit, but the Wizards have been bad enough to warrant that disrespect. They may not have the league’s worst record in 2023-24, but in virtually any other NBA season this team most likely would.
This is a true tear down to the studs, which was desperately needed in Washington after years of hopelessly chasing the 8th seed. The Wizards have very little young talent to build around, nor do they have much in the way of established stars. They’ve been a rough watch basically from game 1, and there’s no reason to believe that won’t continue through to game 82
Where I Was Right: Defensive Ineptitude
Washington has actually slightly overperformed against my preseason projection on the defensive end, but they are awful nonetheless. It’s not a huge surprise given the personnel, but the Wizards struggle to do just about anything well when it comes to stopping opponent scoring.
Rebounding has been a major issue all year, as the Wizards rank dead last in defensive rebound rate. Their propensity to give up offensive rebounds is part of the reason why opponents get so many easy looks at the rim: Washington allows the third-most opponent field goal attempts from within the restricted area.
Of course, the perimeter defense plays a major role as well. They don’t exactly have many stoppers at the point of attack, but it’s still striking when I watch them how little effort Washington plays with. It does not reflect well on head coach Wes Unseld Jr., who has been dealt a raw hand but has also done little in the way of maximizing the talent he does have in order to prove he is the right man for the job.
Where I Was Wrong: Nowhere
Washington was probably the easiest team to predict in the preseason. This was a roster obviously devoid of talent, and an organization with a clear objective to lose. As such, there really weren’t that many alternate ways for this season to play out.
If Washington had recent lottery picks outside of Bilal Coulibaly, it might be a little discouraging that they have not shown more signs of life. They really don’t: 2022 #10 overall selection Johnny Davis never should have went that high, and 2021 #15 overall pick Corey Kispert is a low ceiling prospect who has developed into a solid role player. Coulibaly is the only selection that team President Michael Winger has made so far, so there needs to be a larger sample to judge the direction of the rebuild.
Outside of Jordan Poole, who is probably stuck on the roster due to both his poor play and his inflated contract, the Wizards’ veterans have largely played their part by remaining tradable. The plan for this season is being executed, just as most outside observers expected before the year.
Outlook Going Forward: Finish the Job
The Wizards have not been the NBA’s worst team so far this season, but they are trying their hardest to make up for lost time. Washington is uncompetitive on a nightly basis, and unlike some of their tier 6 counterparts, they appear to be just fine with losing as they understand that this year is purely about lottery positioning.
The few competent veterans that Washington does have on the roster (Tyus Jones, Daniel Gafford, Kyle Kuzma) appear to be squarely on the trade block, and it would be a surprise if at least two of those players are not moved. If and when those trades are executed, the Wizards are going to drop to a whole new level of bad. Jones’ steady hand is the only thing keeping Washington’s offense afloat, without his stellar assist to turnover ratio, I don’t see how this is not the worst scoring unit in the league.
Winger understands that his team needs to completely bottom out before they can start the slow climb back to competitiveness, and it appears he’s been given the latitude to orchestrate that vision. It’s going to continue to be painful for fans, but at least there is a plan in place that has bigger aspirations than the 8th seed.