Zion Williamson, LaMelo Ball and a few more interesting factors on the NBA’s 5 worst teams

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With less than a month left in the 2024-25 regular season, most of the NBA-watching world’s attention is focused on the top of the standings: on the Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder finishing off their historic regular seasons, on the state of the MVP chase, on the race to secure home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs, and on which stars can lift their squads clear of the play-in tournament.

While those outcomes will likely remain up in the air until the season’s dying days, though, we do have a pretty clear picture of what’s going on at the bottom of the standings — the teams that have, for months now, been playing for ping-pong balls rather than postseason seeding.

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The Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards, Charlotte Hornets, New Orleans Pelicans and Brooklyn Nets own the NBA’s five worst records and net ratings. They are responsible for 10 of this season’s 14 longest losing streaks, led by a truly dismal Wizards team that has produced two separate 16-game skids en route to posting one of the worst point differentials in NBA history.

All five of these teams will likely have better than 40% odds of landing a top-four selection in the 2025 NBA Draft, and at least a 1-in-10 chance of picking first overall. That’s important, because there’s an awfully shiny pot of gold at the end of that particular rainbow — a 6-foot-9, 205-pound pterodactyl named Cooper Flagg.

While we wait for the draft lottery, though, the balance of the regular season can still have some value for this horrid handful of teams; even bad teams playing out the string feature some things worth keeping an eye on.

Let’s consider a few of them, running through the most interesting things — to me! — about the NBA’s five worst teams, starting with a big bounce-back in The Big Easy (all statistics as of Wednesday morning):

New Orleans Pelicans: Zion Williamson, reminding

Any hopes of New Orleans building on last season’s 49 wins and top-six net rating were scuttled about two weeks into the new campaign. That’s when Zion reinjured the…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/zion-williamson-lamelo-ball-and-a-few-more-interesting-factors-on-the-nbas-5-worst-teams-133647597.html

Author : Dan Devine

Publish date : 2025-03-20 13:36:00

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