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Home - NBA's biggest surprises and disappointments … so far



  NBA's biggest surprises and disappointments … so far



November 20, 2017

Disappointing Sunrises

Can you guess who I am going to say is the 2017-18 season's biggest disappointment thus far in the season? You guessed it, the Cleveland Cavaliers. It is supposed to be a simple two-horse race for the #1 spot in the Eastern Conference but the Cavs had spent the first portion of the season outside of the east's top-ten.

Sure, they have climbed back up to number four with a 9-7 record, but that is only thanks to a four-game win streak … they were just 5-7 dropping games to Eastern Conference bottom feeders like the Atlanta Hawks.

Lebron and crew just haven’t been meshing as a unit … but it looks like they are starting to come together, even without Isaiah Thomas. But that brings up another question: if they continue gelling, will the addition of the newly added Thomas throw a wrench back in the mix? Each game lost for adjustments puts Cleveland another game behind the red-hot Celtics.

The real disappointment is Bulls are also a horrible mess and complete disappointment. I expected them to be around 10th or 11th in the East … not a three-win season as we approach December.

Surprising Sunrises

The Celtics are doing exactly what I figured they would do … pretty much just manhandle the Eastern Conference competition. I really felt that the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, Toronto Raptors and Washington Wizards would top the East. But the Pistons … now they are surprising. They opened up the season as +12500 to win the title in 2018. That's 125 to 1! Talk about poor expectations.

Since then, the Pistons have moved down to +6600. This drop in price is due to their 11-5 record and second-place seat in the East. Not only are the Pistons winning, but they have been coving the spread like mad as well (11-4-1 for 73.3%). We'll have to keep an eye on Bovada to check up on the probability-based value of teams like the Pistons.

Disappointing Sunsets

Is it a 'Mello curse' … or is it just bad luck that wherever Carmelo goes making it to .500 becomes the goal? The Oklahoma City Thunder are probably the most disappointing team in the league right now. It's not even wholly because they are massively under-achieving on the public expectation … but they aren't even any fun to watch. At least last season, we got to watch Westbrook take 700 shots a game on his way the MVP.

Now it's like the Thunder chemistry seems completely dead.The race for the playoffs is definitely a long-distance run … but the Thunder need to find themselves quickly or they will be battling it out just to get a berth.

Surprising Sunsets

Who would have thought that the T-wolves would be playing this well? The franchise is definitely headed in the right direction, but I didn’t quite think that the improvements would be so drastically apparent so quickly. Not only are the Minnesota Timberwolves outpacing the Trail Blazers and the Nuggets to sit on the North West Divisions first-chair, they are outpacing the most of the Western Conference, sitting comfortably in third. Not only are they winning, but doing so by double-digits on many a night.

Can the Timberwolves keep this up and keep teams like the Blazers and Spurs at bay? That is yet to be seen, but Minnesota is a fairly young team (with the exception of the ancient, Jamal Crawford.) It is going to be a battle but the Blazers tend to hit a slump that sets them back around two-thirds to three-fourths of the way through the season. If the Wolves stay healthy they have a solid shot at entering the post-season with at the #3 seed.






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