NBA players love to say the season is a marathon, not a sprint. Of course, it’s not really a marathon either, since most marathons don’t involve hoops and basketballs, but you get the picture.
About a fifth of the season is complete, which is plenty of time to start paying attention to some emerging trends. Some of those trends are good, some are bad. All are surprising in their own ways.
We took a look around the league to find five of the most pleasant surprises and five of the worst disappointments thus far. The criteria was that these couldn’t be things most informed observers saw coming, at least not to this extent. So while Indiana and Portland’s benches are vastly improved, contributing to their hot starts, they can’t qualify because anyone could tell that would be the case based on the teams’ offseason moves.
Also, keep in mind that this is just a fun list for you to peruse while trying to avoid interacting with your family this week. Anything is better than having another awkward conversation with Uncle Joe, right?
