The halfway point of the season has come and gone, so let’s see how teams have done on their midterms with a midseason grades edition of the NBA Tier List.
A+
The Bucks once again are the only team deserving of an A+ grade. They have last season’s MVP in Giannis Antetokounmpo, who looks to be running away with the award yet again, a net rating that’s approaching historically great levels and, on top of those things, have essentially already wrapped up the No. 1 seed in the East, holding an eight-game advantage over No. 2 seed Miami.
Milwaukee’s been unstoppable from the get-go and there looks to be no slowing this train — at least in the regular season — at the midway point.
A- to A
Each of these seven clubs are proud honour roll members at the halfway point of the season.
Based on what we were seeing from the quarter-mark, the only team we should consider a real surprise here is the Utah Jazz, who had difficulty finding their groove near the beginning of the season but certainly have found it now.
And another sort-of-surprise would be the Toronto Raptors, who many expected to falter after a rough December that saw them sustain many injuries. However, Toronto managed to weather the storm and have now won seven of their last 10, including four in a row with a roster finally fully healthy — right up to their key personnel. Expect big things from the Raptors in the second half if they can keep the injury bug away.
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B- to B+
This grouping is mostly made up of underachievers to this point in the season, most notably the Boston Celtics and Houston Rockets.
However, the better stories here are centred around the teams that appear to be playing above and beyond their talent level in the Thunder and, especially, the Grizzlies.
Memphis has won eight of their last 10 games, including a seven-game win streak that saw rookie sensation Ja Morant put himself firmly on the map as a potential superstar in the league. During that seven-game streak, last year’s No. 2 overall pick averaged 19.3 points, 9.0 assists and 1.3 steals while shooting a ridiculous 59.1 per cent from the field. The kid looks like the real deal, and the Grizzlies have been flourishing lately directly due to his brilliance.
C- to C+
The New Orleans Pelicans will finally get Zion Williamson into their lineup Wednesday, something that could help them vault up a very crowded middle-bottom area of the Western Conference standings as teams try to chase down No. 8 seed Memphis.
It’ll be interesting to see if the No. 1 overall pick can have the kind of immediate impact Morant has had in Memphis.
With that said, while the Pelicans have a lot of hope, the same can’t be said for the rest of this bunch. Sure, they aren’t outright horrible, but they also aren’t great, either — the perfect example of this being the Trail Blazers requiring Damian Lillard’s 61-point masterpiece to beat the lowly Warriors on Monday night.
Going for 60 or more in a game is always a marvel to witness, but in this instance, a game that needed overtime for Portland to beat a 10–35 team, the feat’s impact was diminished.
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D to D+
All of these teams have been disappointments in some way, but none more so than the Brooklyn Nets.
Brooklyn has lost 11 of its last 13 games, including four-straight, with no end in sight to its downward spiral.
No, Kevin Durant hasn’t been able to play all season, but even without him this was still supposed to be a team with the talent to compete for a top-four or five seed in the East, and now it finds itself presently out of the playoff picture.
The Nets have had to deal with their fair share of injuries, including to their other prized free agent acquisition, Kyrie Irving, but so has a team like the Raptors and they’ve managed to figure it out.
Brooklyn hasn’t, and now with Irving publicly calling his teammates out – again – things could be taking an ugly turn for the Nets in the second half.
D-
All four of these teams have been awful in the first half of the season, but at least it would appear they make an effort to do some good things from time to time, which is just enough to consider them for a classic pity pass on their exam.
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F
Lastly — quite literally — we have these class clowns who may not even make it to 15 wins on the season by the time it’s all said and done.
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