Shattering expectations

How all 30 teams are performing compared to preseason projections

In 1993, several Blazers were accused of having sex with two 16-year-old girls who spent the night in their Salt Lake City hotel room. The Blazers were exonerated because, amazingly, that wasn’t against the law.

But the incident left a creepy vibe over a feelgood team. I remember, at the time, my dad said something like “that kind of thing can really tear a team apart.”

When he said that, the Blazers had been to the Finals two out of three years and had a lot of gas left in the tank. It would be seven years before the Blazers won another playoff series; all of the stars from 1993 were long gone when the Blazers next made a deep playoff run.

Please understand, I am not saying that proved my dad right. But what he said echoes. These non-basketball things can tear a team apart.

When someone close to you does something effed up, one concern is that authorities will drop the hammer. Another concern is that they won’t, and then we’ll all have to resort to how we see ourselves. It doesn’t always work out.

This season began with a hailstorm of evidence from Pablo Torre that there were backroom deals between the Clippers billionaire Steve Ballmer and star Kawhi Leonard. Then there were feds came after some people very close to head coach Ty Lue. And now that we’re a quarter of the way into the season, the Clippers lead the league in underperforming. They were projected to win 46.5 out of 82 games, but so far have won five of their first 21. (And they’re not tanking; the Thunder control the Clippers’ pick.)

I have no idea how that might work. Is Lue livid at Ballmer for mucking up what was supposed to be a top contender? Are other players jealous they didn’t get the Kawhi treatment? We know that NBA’s law firm is sniffing around, asking people to sit for interviews. Are the feds doing that too? There are so many ways different Clippers might feel betrayed.

James Harden has been acting like he’s living in a secret crisis. Everything is very grave, there are problems everywhere, but he can’t give a single specific.

And then in the middle of the night, Chris Paul is no longer a Clipper.

Something is broken in the Clippers. Some of it is regular basketball stuff. Their top three–Kawhi Leonard, Harden, and Ivica Zubac–have been fantastic when healthy. But the Clippers’ filled out their roster with the second (Chris Paul), ninth (Brook Lopez), and twelfth (Nicolas Batum) oldest players in the NBA; they’ve all been underwhelming. Bradley Beal was another bet on a past-his-prime competitor and he’s out for the season with a hip injury. The youngest players on the roster are not that young, and have been abysmal anyway. So that’s a problem.

But also we underrate belief, trust, and love. Is it smart to give these people everything you’ve got? Or do you hold back a little, to stay healthy for a better a situation, with more trust? Love is a defining aspect of success in the special forces. And if you’re learning through the media about this CBA violation or that federal investigation … it can’t help the love.

David and I just went through every team, to see how they’re doing compared to preseason expectations. The Clippers lead the league in disappointment.

David looks under the hood of every team that’s wildly different from projections.