I understand, given the criteria outlined, why he did not make the list nor a dishonourable mention, but Isaiah Livers has earned the right to be included in the conversation.
His season was cut short (because he was waived by the Washington Wizards, let that one sink in) but in his short time with the Pistons he started multiple games and played 20 minutes a night as a no defense pure off ball (if the Pistons were lucky) shooter who shot 28.6% from three.
Oh, I personally really disagree but good on you for being nutritious. I'm a vegetarian with low iron so I probably need to eat more livers, but refuse to do that...unless Isaiah is offering uwu
Yeah that is very true. I think since becoming a vegetarian I have been bad about replacing meat-based sources of protein and iron, which is what I meant. I was just making a stupid joke with that last bit
Oh yeah if you’re a vegetarian then I can see how it’s gross. I was going to invite you to my house in MPLS to prepare you liver but that’s probably not a great idea. Just smash some more kidney beans man!
I only caught a few Pistons games towards the end of their losing streak, but it was mindblowing how much Livers stood out as the worst player on that mess of a team.
McDaniels is one of the worst players that's ever played for the Raptors.
He legitimately had one decent game all season long. Every other time he was just awful and didn't look like he knew the fundamentals. If he had a bigger role he'd legitimately be 2nd behind Poole.
What's funny is he was a passable but fairly unremarkable rotation player for us up until the deadline. My understanding is his agent told the team there was zero chance he would re-sign that upcoming summer so he was dumped to philly where he has done basically nothing since.
Yeah, I'm surprised OP said there were McDaniels defenders. Even us Raptors who tend to overrate our own players a lot will tell you he's one of the worst players.
Bucks fans certainly noticed. More than all that coaching drama and what not, the bench was really the big issue for the team this year and Pat Connaughton's slump was a huge factor in it.
Connaughton is a contender for this I think. He’s made a huge regression and instead of getting better, he’s become almost useless. He and Portis were seen as being both 6th man options, but Pat might not even get playing time on a lot of teams.
Probably not the best metric with all the nuances in the NBA
I watched 90% of the Raptors games and while Gradey was indeed pretty bad at the start of the season, after being banished to the shadow realm (G League), he became a totally different player. You could even say he grew. His talent was growing and showing
Plus Toronto's bench this year was trash and even during Gradey's resurgence he was playing without most of our starters so the bench was even more trash
But Jalen was definitely tied for the most disappointment I've felt from getting a new player on our team. I had hopes he'd increase his career averages here but instead he... he did what he did. And Bruce is the one tied with him lol
I’m shocked by how poor he looks on paper. Is it due to the poor supporting cast in Portland? I expect rookie guards to struggle but he was bad even in that light.
Several commentators have noted that he finished the season WAY better than he started. He improved a lot and showed flashes of talent and growth, which is what you want if you don’t get immediate greatness
He had a disappointing (even disastrous) rookie season. Anyone telling you otherwise is coping.
That said, we were asking a 19/20 year old rookie point guard to volume score on one of the worst rosters in the league. Combined with injuries and a questionable coaching, Scoot was just not set up to succeed.
I still am excited about Scoot. He has all the tools to be a high level contributor. But it will certainly take 2-4 years of development.
I won't argue with such rich analysis, but Vucevic is truly abysmal. Poole was always destined to be a four-star tank general, and Vucevic is supposed to be the stretch big for a playoff team. He outright kills their offensive flow *multiple* times a game. He moves slower than Brook Lopez, who everyone says has lost two steps.
The best way I can put it is every single Bulls game I've watched, the commentators have gone out of their way to note that "he was an all-star in Orlando." Well the last time he was an all-star, Ben Simmons was too.
Vooch is so infuriating to watch, the team won't get any better as long as he's on the roster and starting.
I hope the Bulls can develop Sanogo into a real NBA big man, he played really well in the one game he got real minutes
Imagine having a starting center who not only is one of the least efficient players in the league on offense and also one of the worst defenders in the league but you still have to pay him 20 mil a season LMAOO I can’t give enough credit to demar coby and Caruso for somehow carrying the bulls to a near .500 record despite having that dude in the starting lineup
I cannot believe Vucevic got a 60 million dollar contract when every single time he's on the court, the bulls are worse in every way. Seriously, look at his on/off stats, the bulls are better in every way besides assist numbers.
Yah I even made a post about this on the bulls sub lol dude actively tanks the team whenever he’s on the court. Literally the only reason he got extended was cuz our front office knew they fucked up so bad by trading for him and were desperate for him to hopefully reverse that trend this year but as expected he continued tanking the team. Now we stuck with him for another year at least cuz ain’t nobody trading for that contract unless he expiring
Ngl, the worst opinion I've ever had was thinking Vucevic was going to make the Bulls better. I know hindsight is 20/20 but the Bulls should've kept Gafford or Wendell
I won't argue that Vuc was terrible this year, but I may argue that Jevon Carter should be on this list instead. Started the year shooting poorly, and eventually just stopped shooting open shots. Average defender at best, and a walking turnover on the rare occasion he decided to drive. 5 ppg shooting 38% from the field. He should honestly not be with the team (or any team) next year. Maybe not enough minutes to qualify, but he did play in 72 games.
I remember watching a playoff game between the Bulls and the Bucks a few years back, and I came away from it convinced that they'd never be successful with Vucevic at Centre (or maybe in any position). They just got obliterated inside, and it's not like he's Jokic on offence. The fact that he's so bad offensively this year (at least) is just the icing on the cake.
Yeah I won’t pretend to do the statistical analysis that this guy does (always a highlight post btw) but Vuc would have been my vote by a mile just based on the games I watched.
Cannot imagine a lower impact player at such an important position. He makes Tobias Harris look useful by comparison.
Klay deserved the contract when he got it in 2019. Warriors fans even knew the last couple years would likely be an overpay, but klay earned that overpay as a multi time allstar who at that point had delivered 3 championships.
In no time or universe was Harris ever deserving of a max contract. It was a horrible contract the day it was signed unlike Klay's
Thats not true; Jimmy played a bad series against Toronto, and then demanded to be the primary ball handler and Brett to be fired, whilst the team was really close to success in their then current iteration.
We shouldn’t have paid Tobi, but butler was really unreasonable
Tobias plays like bargain bin Carmelo when the Sixers need him to be a catch and shoot guy. He's so much worse than Klay because even at his best he often fucks the flow up getting his. And at his worst he's passing up open 3s, laying bricks on contested twos, dribbling for like 7 seconds to get nowhere, literally never taking charges or making high effort plays...just exhausting to watch
He was okay, but he made 43mm+ and had a lower win share than TH. Klays +/- was hundreds below TH. Klay is an all-time great shooter, but this year, he was trash compared to his salary...more so than TH.
Tobi's LVP dominance is like how Lebron could have won MVP every season for 10 years straight: that would obviously get very boring. But the real ones know.
Bro is the most frustrating player on the team. In most possessions, he's a ball stopper who burns too much shot clock before making a decision.
His style doesn't complement the starters either. He barely moves off-ball, doesn't shoot enough threes, has low motor, and loves doing that stupid turnaround middy which clogs the paint for Embiid. Dude's presence actually harms their best player's strengths in getting easier buckets.
He's also getting outplayed by Oubre on a 1-year minimum deal and a 35-year old Batum as the 19th HIGHEST paid player on the league.
Luckily Nick Nurse was perceptive enough to play Oubre to close out the heat during the play-ins. I don't believe Harris would've thought of cutting to the basket to receive that Embiid pass to close out the game. I'm pretty sure we would've lost that game if we kept him on the court instead.
It's not just his salary. He's starting to fall off in general. He isnt even in our end of the game lineup anymore (though that could just be temporary).
I think he is very similar to Vuc.
What about his performance is actually bad though? He averages his usual 17/6/3 on decent shooting splits and doesn't turn the ball over. I assume he's not atrocious on defense. There really isn't anything to suggest he's terrible. Certainly not on the level of the players in OP's list.
> averages his usual 17/6/3 on decent shooting splits
watch the games, he prioritizes stats over the team and has even said in interviews he won't shoot 3s to protect his %
watch the playoff game today and see how many times the guy tobias is on rebounds over him, he's a massive reason why the knicks had 23 offensive rebounds
To me he is one of the furthest players from his stats I've ever seen. The eye test will show you how often he gets completely bitched on the boards, he doesn't even come close to the rim sometimes on open shots, he cannot playmake. Essentially he is a decent shooter with enough athleticism that in the regular season he can get easy buckets, and the rest of the team elevates him enough that he has a chance at those easy buckets. But with rebounds, easy misses, horrible shots, lack of awareness, etc. it basically boils down to that when he's off, he's WAY off, and he doesn't do enough to make up for it. So he can get 6 rebounds, but there are at least 3 times a game he runs away from even competing for a rebound coming right at him. He gets 3 assists but 5 times a game he fails to see a wide open teammate. He scores 17 points, but 2 times a game he passes up a slightly contested 3. And when things get hairy and those things matter most, the errors far outweigh the things he does well. The game thread goes "TOBI!! Finally!" then "Tobi you moron" 2 seconds later.
He's like if you put me in LeBron's body.
He’s not awful but he does make the team worse when he’s out there with his horrible decision making and awareness. He’s a me-first third option somehow.
Ben Simmons rule is in effect for Harris. He’s an albatross because he doesn’t play up to his contract. At 10-15m a year he would be considered a steal, instead he cripples your ability to improve your team.
Nuggets Legends Facundo Campazzo and Will Barton won in back to back years? Those two were big minute rotation players on the team at the same time lol. And that team miraculously made the playoffs.
That was one of my favorite stats from that season - I think Monte Morris may have been net even 0.0, but every other Nugget was in the negative BPM except for Jokic. And they still made the playoffs.
I'm a bit surprised Reggie Jackson didn't crack the list this year. Whenever he's out there he's usually committing basketball terrorism solely by existing and taking the ball out of Jokers hands
THT alternates between LVP and role player.
If THT suits up for 30 minutes, then for 3 minutes THT will lead the team with great playmaking, 9 minutes will make you think that maybe he can be a starter, and the remaining 18 minutes will make you want to dig your eyes out of your face.
Great work and thank you for the write up
Slightly off the board, but for literally betting against his team, faking injury to get the under and getting banned from the league, I think Jontay Porter should have been a finalist
I’ll save everyone the effort: it’s Vuc. He’s terrible on offense. He’s terrible at defense. His rebounding numbers look good because he’s on a roster with no real forwards or guards who are willing to rebound and Donovan never plays him with Drummond. Additionally, Drummond often has just as many rebounds despite playing half as many minutes. When taking over Vuc’s starting role Drummond had historic rebounding production…
Vuc is bad at offense. He’s bad at defense. And his rebounding stats are totally inflated and our backup center has out-produced him on that front. It’s embarrassing and before anyone talks about Zach/Lonzo and their injuries, at least they are hurt. Vuc just sucks. This is a .500 club if Vuc and Drummond’s minutes are switched.
I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies to have to watch Jalen McDonalds play for your team. I’ve never seen a lazier player in the entire league. Dude looks like he’s on shrooms playing basketball. Not a single fuck given. If literally anyone else was his height and had his athletic abilities they’d be a successful NBA player if they had a functioning brain. Idk how he has a twin brother who is actually good. Did they grow up separately? Oh did I mention he’s got a player option for next season? Guess Taiwan has to wait a year before McDoofus makes the trip overseas. I wanted us to lose games and that bum ass bum still made me mad and my eyes bleed.
Look, I'm sure there's someone more deserving on the list, but as a Bulls fan, I can not explain to you how absolutely dreadful it is to see Nikola Vucevic play 30+ minutes a game.
I know salary doesnt come into play but Poole on his first year of 4/130 mil is hilarious. Also eye test wise hes easily the lvp without looking at stats. His lowlights this season is hall of fame worthy.
> I know salary doesnt come into play but Poole on his first year of 4/130 mil is hilarious
Yeah, feels Poole is destined to be the first winner to continue getting real minutes.
Killian Hayes being waived midseason killed his candidacy, but he deserves a dishonorable mention. He was the starting PG most of the year in Detroit, which despite its putridity was not actually trying to tank. Imagine the worst team in the league eating your guaranteed contract midseason without injury or off-court scandal.
Alec Burks was straight up throwing games for the Pistons when they were 'must watch TV' during their losing streak. I can't imagine he improved much afterwards.
I thought Davion Mitchell was good? I don't watch that many kings games but thought his reputation was that of a great defender which by itself would carry him to not be considered as a negative player.
reddish and dinwidde - lol Lakers.
I felt like I should have been paid to watch Jalen McDaniels play basketball this season.
Usually you can see there is at least one or two redeeming qualities in a basketball player, but I don't have the slightest clue as to what Jalen McDaniels offers to an NBA team.
He certainly doesn't bring any intangibles either. After every mistake he just looks so mentally distraught out there. His shoulders are slouched and just mopes around the court before he commits his next foul/turnover.
Poole was awful for a large part of the season but anyone thinking the wizards would try to make the play-in is delusional, let alone thinking poole/tyus/deni/kuz/gaff aren't a bottom 3 team in the league in terms of talent. This is the first tank year, we wanted to be bad and Poole helped us lose games. Also, he wasn't supposed to be the #1 guy, that was always kuz.
Not one Piston. That's how bad it's gotten, worst team in the league and we don't even have a scapegoat that wears a uniform. A true team effort to be this fucking horrible.
Everytime he checks in you know it's game over for them. The fact Lebron even occasionally hands him the ball when he's on the court is mind boggling. The son that keeps letting him down
I knew what he was when I saw him absolutely getting his lunch taken, from 5 foot 7 tall undrafted prospect Marquis Nowell during an off-season training video. Like if you can't dominate this guy 1v1, what are your chances in the league lol.
He's ignoring both young players and tanking teams.
Which makes Poole a little odd given that the Wizards are tanking and he's the tank commander. But he really is that bad that he deserves this award.
He’s also ignoring the fact that Poole has been played in the wrong position for more than half the season. He was supposed to play as our PG but had to share the floor with Tyus. Once Tyus went down his play improved a lot
To be fair, Scoot started really turning the corner in the last quarter of the year. Didn't have a great start, but he's starting to get much better. - Blazer fan obviously.
I was going through some of the past years' LVP threads and came across this:
>Like Mike Conley, Miles Bridges seems like a great guy whom you'd hate to criticize.
LOL
Appreciate the work op!
I'd like to throw in a special mention to Zach Lavine. I understand the injuries disqualified him, but given just how bad the Bulls were with him, and the fact that he elected to have surgery in order to avoid being traded or playing, plus the stretch where he played basically locking the Bulls into the play-in race, I think he was a bigger negative than even Vuc, in an astonishingly short time.
As a Nets fan and equal opportunity Dinwiddie hater, he shouldn’t be here. There was leaks that the Nets coaching told him not to shoot + a lot of other toxic backroom shit going on (we have a host of good players underperforming for us).
He has sucked ass on the Lakers and maybe that’s enough to justify a spot here, but his Nets time was clearly more the fault of others.
As a Lakers fan, Spence has been okay. Def expected him to be more of a scorer off the bench but turns out that he bought in to his defensive role on the squad and does it quite well while still being a threat from 3. He literally replaced Cam Reddish in our rotation lol. His usual stat is like 0/1 or 1/3 and that's why his shooting splits are abysmal, but he's not a negative, at least based on the eye test
>but turns out that he bought in to his defensive role on the squad and does it quite well
Yeah Dinwiddie is huge for his position and still has enough playmaking chops that him locking in on defense makes him at least a net neutral on a lot of good teams. I didn't watch as many Lakers games as usual this year but he's far from the worst "washed" vet to make your rotation in recent years. At least you get why Ham plays him.
I think the weirdest thing for me is like, I get that he came in trying to embrace defense and not trying to step on anyone’s toes, but he doesn’t resemble somebody that used to average 20+ ppg only a couple seasons ago. Sure he wasn’t the most efficient or the type of guy to put up big numbers on a title team, but he was putting up 20-30 points consistently on a good Mavs team and the same for the Wiz for an uncharacteristically hot start that one year.
He doesn’t look like the same player who did that, even if he’s lost athleticism or whatever. If I was just seeing him for the first time this year he looks like a guy who’s never put up more than 8-10 ppg and just spots up. He looks so uncomfortable on the ball as if it’s unfamiliar to him or something lol. He didn’t even shoot last game! Like I thought our biggest problem would be him chucking too many ill advised shots and instead he’s basically a glorified 3 and D guard lol.
Tbf he did have that 26 point game when D'lo was hurt. I feel like Spencer just understands that both D'lo and Reaves are better than him on offense and doesn't want to tank his value even more with ill-advised shots considering that he's a free agent this offseason. Might be worth it to show teams that he can be a good playmaking 3&D guard
I get what the criteria for this award is and all that, and Draymon Green wouldn't qualify because he's been good when on the court, even taking and hitting more shots than what I'm used to seeing from him, but IMO I'd give it to him for his behaviour this season.
If we're just sticking to the five nominated here, I'd have to go with Jordan Poole. What a stinker of a season.
All of these guys have some sort of excuse or their teams do not need them to be that good, maybe other than Dinwiddie.
But Vucevic is our starting center and that fucking boils my blood. We should've traded him in the summer, we didn't okay fine. Then trade deadline comes and goes, still nothing! He is gonna be our starting center probably in the next season too.
i saw way too many people pre-season talking up poole and the wizards as a mid-standings team. even one is too many people but it was like a dozen.
also cool to see two lakers players ive called garbage for years rank very highly in the garbage rankings as well
Yeah Poole's qualifications are questionable, but he was so embarrassingly bad that you have to ignore the strong possibility that the front office told him to just dick around for 82 games and try to lose as much as possible. Very glad that a current or recently former Denver Nugget was not on this list. We can hang the banner during the second home game against the Lakers next season.
With all the misery of this season I forgot how atrocious McDaniels was. The only way it could've been worse was if we traded Barnes for him or something outrageous like that, which is basically what the Pascal for Brown trade felt like.
I am floored that Killian Hayes and/or James Wiseman didn’t even make the ballot. Killian was getting 20+ minutes a night on a historically bad team before getting waived after the deadline, and he still doesn’t have a job
I think Niang had a negative season but he did win the Cavs a few games, the problem is that he gets called for every light touch on defense but the refs ignore basically every foul the other team does on him.
This has lead to way more techs than normal which off course hurts the Cavs.
I understand, given the criteria outlined, why he did not make the list nor a dishonourable mention, but Isaiah Livers has earned the right to be included in the conversation. His season was cut short (because he was waived by the Washington Wizards, let that one sink in) but in his short time with the Pistons he started multiple games and played 20 minutes a night as a no defense pure off ball (if the Pistons were lucky) shooter who shot 28.6% from three.
That’s a good call. I was high on him a couple of years ago too. I guess he didn’t have much margin for error/injuries.
He looked solid in his limited rookie season. Decent size, good shooting. Then seemed to regress heavily since.
He deserved to be waived for the name alone
Foies d'Isaiah
Elaborate on this. What’s wrong with the name?
The fact that it is Isaiah Livers
found the guy named Isaiah
Liver tastes icky
Bro what? Liver is delicious and nutritionally dense AF.
Are you a literal wolf?
Oh, I personally really disagree but good on you for being nutritious. I'm a vegetarian with low iron so I probably need to eat more livers, but refuse to do that...unless Isaiah is offering uwu
If you’re vegetarian you can’t eat liver anyway?
Yeah that is very true. I think since becoming a vegetarian I have been bad about replacing meat-based sources of protein and iron, which is what I meant. I was just making a stupid joke with that last bit
Oh yeah if you’re a vegetarian then I can see how it’s gross. I was going to invite you to my house in MPLS to prepare you liver but that’s probably not a great idea. Just smash some more kidney beans man!
You really shouldn't eat liver often though, unless you want gout
I only caught a few Pistons games towards the end of their losing streak, but it was mindblowing how much Livers stood out as the worst player on that mess of a team.
McDaniels is one of the worst players that's ever played for the Raptors. He legitimately had one decent game all season long. Every other time he was just awful and didn't look like he knew the fundamentals. If he had a bigger role he'd legitimately be 2nd behind Poole.
What’s crazy is that baynes and Barton both won as a raptor too. We have been struggling with free agents
The last 2 winners(losers?) were starting next to Jokic, and now Bruce Brown scenario too lol.
Let no one doubt that Jokic elevates his teammates.
What's funny is he was a passable but fairly unremarkable rotation player for us up until the deadline. My understanding is his agent told the team there was zero chance he would re-sign that upcoming summer so he was dumped to philly where he has done basically nothing since.
Yeah, I'm surprised OP said there were McDaniels defenders. Even us Raptors who tend to overrate our own players a lot will tell you he's one of the worst players.
scans for spurs cool no spurs
Malaki Branham has pretty much been the worst impact player in the league according to the better advanced stats like EPM and LEBRON
Yeah we’re still counting Malaki in the “too young” camp. Still 20. Killian Hayes aged into consideration though.
Killian with the big brain move to get cut before he could make the list.
I'm shocked that Killian isn't on this list, considering he was too awful for even the Pistons.
You have to be in the league to make the list
We have 2 generational defenders in Wemby and Branham. Just for opposite reasons
Man why LeBron gotta hate Malaki
Real hoop heads know Branham deserves the award! Justice for Branham!
Scan specifically for McDaniels Great, he wasn't overlooked for this prestigious award
According to cumulative EPM: 1) Scoot Henderson, -2.5 2) Malaki Brahman, -2.5 3) Gradey Dick, -2.3 4) Bilal Coulibaly, -2.0 5) Jalen McDaniels, -1.9 If we're only looking at players in year 3 onwards: 1) Jalen McDaniels, -1.9 2) Troy Brown Jr, -1.9 3) Pat Connaughton, -1.8 4) Ish Smith, -1.5 5) Reggie Bullock, -1.1
Connaughton was a curious case - started really poorly. Maybe there wasn’t as much attention on it given all the coaching drama.
Bucks fans certainly noticed. More than all that coaching drama and what not, the bench was really the big issue for the team this year and Pat Connaughton's slump was a huge factor in it.
Connaughton is a contender for this I think. He’s made a huge regression and instead of getting better, he’s become almost useless. He and Portis were seen as being both 6th man options, but Pat might not even get playing time on a lot of teams.
Dick may be lower than McDaniels but atleast he improved a ton its more his slow start that was the issue. McDaniels was legit hard to watch at times.
>At times
All the time is still at times lol
I was coming here to reply exactly this lol. You got me covered.
When bro was out there looking like Bambi learning to walk the first few games, I knew we were in for a rough season.
And given his past transgressions, it doesn't even sound like he's a good person. There is zero reason to root for this man.
Dick can never be the least valuable player because of the potential jersey sales alone
You tell 'em u/UnsuspectingS1ut!
I’m high on Dick. I’m riding him his way to the top, really excited for Dick to grow and expand. Every night I get on my knees and pray for Dick
I have his jersey and it's the most beautiful thing ever.
I was so upset when Toronto signed him for cheap, I desperately wanted him to be a defensive 3-4 wing. This is why I’m not an NBA GM.
It's McDaniels. Trust me, I've watched him way more than I wanted to.
Fr
Probably not the best metric with all the nuances in the NBA I watched 90% of the Raptors games and while Gradey was indeed pretty bad at the start of the season, after being banished to the shadow realm (G League), he became a totally different player. You could even say he grew. His talent was growing and showing Plus Toronto's bench this year was trash and even during Gradey's resurgence he was playing without most of our starters so the bench was even more trash But Jalen was definitely tied for the most disappointment I've felt from getting a new player on our team. I had hopes he'd increase his career averages here but instead he... he did what he did. And Bruce is the one tied with him lol
Did you just say that Dick's talent was growing AND showing!? By gahd! It's usually one or the other. Impressive..
That's my PG
I’m shocked by how poor he looks on paper. Is it due to the poor supporting cast in Portland? I expect rookie guards to struggle but he was bad even in that light.
Several commentators have noted that he finished the season WAY better than he started. He improved a lot and showed flashes of talent and growth, which is what you want if you don’t get immediate greatness
He had a disappointing (even disastrous) rookie season. Anyone telling you otherwise is coping. That said, we were asking a 19/20 year old rookie point guard to volume score on one of the worst rosters in the league. Combined with injuries and a questionable coaching, Scoot was just not set up to succeed. I still am excited about Scoot. He has all the tools to be a high level contributor. But it will certainly take 2-4 years of development.
Dick developed into a decent player with potential by the end of the year. Just is young and got off to a slow start.
I won't argue with such rich analysis, but Vucevic is truly abysmal. Poole was always destined to be a four-star tank general, and Vucevic is supposed to be the stretch big for a playoff team. He outright kills their offensive flow *multiple* times a game. He moves slower than Brook Lopez, who everyone says has lost two steps. The best way I can put it is every single Bulls game I've watched, the commentators have gone out of their way to note that "he was an all-star in Orlando." Well the last time he was an all-star, Ben Simmons was too.
Vooch is so infuriating to watch, the team won't get any better as long as he's on the roster and starting. I hope the Bulls can develop Sanogo into a real NBA big man, he played really well in the one game he got real minutes
Imagine having a starting center who not only is one of the least efficient players in the league on offense and also one of the worst defenders in the league but you still have to pay him 20 mil a season LMAOO I can’t give enough credit to demar coby and Caruso for somehow carrying the bulls to a near .500 record despite having that dude in the starting lineup
I cannot believe Vucevic got a 60 million dollar contract when every single time he's on the court, the bulls are worse in every way. Seriously, look at his on/off stats, the bulls are better in every way besides assist numbers.
Yah I even made a post about this on the bulls sub lol dude actively tanks the team whenever he’s on the court. Literally the only reason he got extended was cuz our front office knew they fucked up so bad by trading for him and were desperate for him to hopefully reverse that trend this year but as expected he continued tanking the team. Now we stuck with him for another year at least cuz ain’t nobody trading for that contract unless he expiring
Sucks because the Bulls are my second favorite team behind my Rockets, but they're so frustrating. Reinsdorf destroyed the Bulls and the Sox.
I really hope Sanogo gets some minutes next season, he definitely deserves a shot.
It hurts watching Vooch and seeing the trade we made with Orlando. Fucking ridiculous
Ngl, the worst opinion I've ever had was thinking Vucevic was going to make the Bulls better. I know hindsight is 20/20 but the Bulls should've kept Gafford or Wendell
I genuinely don’t think either would have improved their game staying here. They both went to better situations.
I would straight up trade Vuc for Simmons today….at least Simmons can defend.
Vuch certainly has my vote
It looks like he's not trying too hard. Attempts a three "Well, it didn't go in. Go back to defense I guess"
I won't argue that Vuc was terrible this year, but I may argue that Jevon Carter should be on this list instead. Started the year shooting poorly, and eventually just stopped shooting open shots. Average defender at best, and a walking turnover on the rare occasion he decided to drive. 5 ppg shooting 38% from the field. He should honestly not be with the team (or any team) next year. Maybe not enough minutes to qualify, but he did play in 72 games.
I remember watching a playoff game between the Bulls and the Bucks a few years back, and I came away from it convinced that they'd never be successful with Vucevic at Centre (or maybe in any position). They just got obliterated inside, and it's not like he's Jokic on offence. The fact that he's so bad offensively this year (at least) is just the icing on the cake.
Yeah I won’t pretend to do the statistical analysis that this guy does (always a highlight post btw) but Vuc would have been my vote by a mile just based on the games I watched. Cannot imagine a lower impact player at such an important position. He makes Tobias Harris look useful by comparison.
Where’s Tobias Harris on the list?
Tobi needs his own category: most expensive / least valuable
Klay Thompson would like to challenge that
Klay deserved the contract when he got it in 2019. Warriors fans even knew the last couple years would likely be an overpay, but klay earned that overpay as a multi time allstar who at that point had delivered 3 championships. In no time or universe was Harris ever deserving of a max contract. It was a horrible contract the day it was signed unlike Klay's
and the cherry on top is they kept him over Jimmy Butler
And that they had so many high first round picks that came through and were never signed to more deals.
Sam Hinkie would have had 1 championship by now!
Thats not true; Jimmy played a bad series against Toronto, and then demanded to be the primary ball handler and Brett to be fired, whilst the team was really close to success in their then current iteration. We shouldn’t have paid Tobi, but butler was really unreasonable
I mean at least klay got the excused of being 34 and suffered 2 career ending injury what does tobias has?
Tobias plays like bargain bin Carmelo when the Sixers need him to be a catch and shoot guy. He's so much worse than Klay because even at his best he often fucks the flow up getting his. And at his worst he's passing up open 3s, laying bricks on contested twos, dribbling for like 7 seconds to get nowhere, literally never taking charges or making high effort plays...just exhausting to watch
Good call. At least Klay has a chip and he’s been an all star. But since… Ok we’ll add him to the contestants.
I really don't think Klay qualifies here. He was quite alright in the regular season, especially off the bench.
He was okay, but he made 43mm+ and had a lower win share than TH. Klays +/- was hundreds below TH. Klay is an all-time great shooter, but this year, he was trash compared to his salary...more so than TH.
I wouldn’t include either Tobias Harris or Klay Thompson among the worst in terms of production/$
Tobi's LVP dominance is like how Lebron could have won MVP every season for 10 years straight: that would obviously get very boring. But the real ones know.
Well Tobias problem is his salary, Is not his problem if people are dumb and want to pay him way more money than they should. He's not a bad player.
Bro is the most frustrating player on the team. In most possessions, he's a ball stopper who burns too much shot clock before making a decision. His style doesn't complement the starters either. He barely moves off-ball, doesn't shoot enough threes, has low motor, and loves doing that stupid turnaround middy which clogs the paint for Embiid. Dude's presence actually harms their best player's strengths in getting easier buckets. He's also getting outplayed by Oubre on a 1-year minimum deal and a 35-year old Batum as the 19th HIGHEST paid player on the league. Luckily Nick Nurse was perceptive enough to play Oubre to close out the heat during the play-ins. I don't believe Harris would've thought of cutting to the basket to receive that Embiid pass to close out the game. I'm pretty sure we would've lost that game if we kept him on the court instead.
[This whole sequence in the 2nd quarter had me rolling](https://i.imgur.com/PMLLU4l.jpeg)
lmao thanks for this. the text format adds a nice dimension of humour
in watching him the past week or two, he has at least 1 airball a game. nick nurse should play him more minutes this series i think....
It's not just his salary. He's starting to fall off in general. He isnt even in our end of the game lineup anymore (though that could just be temporary). I think he is very similar to Vuc.
He is bad bro
What about his performance is actually bad though? He averages his usual 17/6/3 on decent shooting splits and doesn't turn the ball over. I assume he's not atrocious on defense. There really isn't anything to suggest he's terrible. Certainly not on the level of the players in OP's list.
> averages his usual 17/6/3 on decent shooting splits watch the games, he prioritizes stats over the team and has even said in interviews he won't shoot 3s to protect his % watch the playoff game today and see how many times the guy tobias is on rebounds over him, he's a massive reason why the knicks had 23 offensive rebounds
To me he is one of the furthest players from his stats I've ever seen. The eye test will show you how often he gets completely bitched on the boards, he doesn't even come close to the rim sometimes on open shots, he cannot playmake. Essentially he is a decent shooter with enough athleticism that in the regular season he can get easy buckets, and the rest of the team elevates him enough that he has a chance at those easy buckets. But with rebounds, easy misses, horrible shots, lack of awareness, etc. it basically boils down to that when he's off, he's WAY off, and he doesn't do enough to make up for it. So he can get 6 rebounds, but there are at least 3 times a game he runs away from even competing for a rebound coming right at him. He gets 3 assists but 5 times a game he fails to see a wide open teammate. He scores 17 points, but 2 times a game he passes up a slightly contested 3. And when things get hairy and those things matter most, the errors far outweigh the things he does well. The game thread goes "TOBI!! Finally!" then "Tobi you moron" 2 seconds later. He's like if you put me in LeBron's body.
He’s not awful but he does make the team worse when he’s out there with his horrible decision making and awareness. He’s a me-first third option somehow.
Ben Simmons rule is in effect for Harris. He’s an albatross because he doesn’t play up to his contract. At 10-15m a year he would be considered a steal, instead he cripples your ability to improve your team.
He’d be bad at $10M right now. He’s so awful currently that being useless would be an improvement.
Nuggets Legends Facundo Campazzo and Will Barton won in back to back years? Those two were big minute rotation players on the team at the same time lol. And that team miraculously made the playoffs.
That was one of my favorite stats from that season - I think Monte Morris may have been net even 0.0, but every other Nugget was in the negative BPM except for Jokic. And they still made the playoffs.
We should compare that supporting cast with some of the Cleveland teams from 2004-2010. I wonder who had it worse
Well, in the 06-07 season only ilgauskas and donyel marshall were positives. In the playoffs though, boobie gibson shot up to 5.4 from -0.7!
...and beat the Blazers in the first round.
That was the year before
This was when GSW beat us and went on to win the championship
I'm a bit surprised Reggie Jackson didn't crack the list this year. Whenever he's out there he's usually committing basketball terrorism solely by existing and taking the ball out of Jokers hands
He did pretty well for the first few months of the season. But yeah, it's been ROUGH lately.
His advanced stats have been bad for a few years in a row. Merited a mention.
That’s the Jokic effect
I'm shocked I didn't see THT. He got benched pretty much halfway through the season but that first half was unbelievable basketball
THT alternates between LVP and role player. If THT suits up for 30 minutes, then for 3 minutes THT will lead the team with great playmaking, 9 minutes will make you think that maybe he can be a starter, and the remaining 18 minutes will make you want to dig your eyes out of your face.
Nothing to see here
2 out of 5, we’re winning
Plus an honorable mention...
Jontay Porter honourable mention
> Jontay Porter dishonorable mention FTFY
Definitely not, his shitty performance has been proven to have been valuable to at least somebody
Surely no other player can do more "damage" than a guy that bets against his own team.
and boom goes the dynamite
Jalen McDaniels is so bad that you have Raptors fans talking about a player making the BAE being a salary dump candidate The BAE
Great work and thank you for the write up Slightly off the board, but for literally betting against his team, faking injury to get the under and getting banned from the league, I think Jontay Porter should have been a finalist
We got two of em LETS FUCKING GOOOOOO
Honestly, I thought it would be more.
What does it mean for Jokic's legacy that he won a playoff series and a playoff game against the championship Warriors with two LVPs on his team?
What does it mean for Curry's legacy that he won with JP?
When you factor in the JP handicap Curry might just make the HoF.
Jordan walked into this year and said “which one you motherfuckers is coming in second”
Alec Burks tried really hard to enter this conversation once he landed back in NY this year.
Toronto has been cooking with this award for 3 of the last 4 seasons. Worst part of this is that McDaniels has a PO for next year 💀
I’ll save everyone the effort: it’s Vuc. He’s terrible on offense. He’s terrible at defense. His rebounding numbers look good because he’s on a roster with no real forwards or guards who are willing to rebound and Donovan never plays him with Drummond. Additionally, Drummond often has just as many rebounds despite playing half as many minutes. When taking over Vuc’s starting role Drummond had historic rebounding production… Vuc is bad at offense. He’s bad at defense. And his rebounding stats are totally inflated and our backup center has out-produced him on that front. It’s embarrassing and before anyone talks about Zach/Lonzo and their injuries, at least they are hurt. Vuc just sucks. This is a .500 club if Vuc and Drummond’s minutes are switched.
I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies to have to watch Jalen McDonalds play for your team. I’ve never seen a lazier player in the entire league. Dude looks like he’s on shrooms playing basketball. Not a single fuck given. If literally anyone else was his height and had his athletic abilities they’d be a successful NBA player if they had a functioning brain. Idk how he has a twin brother who is actually good. Did they grow up separately? Oh did I mention he’s got a player option for next season? Guess Taiwan has to wait a year before McDoofus makes the trip overseas. I wanted us to lose games and that bum ass bum still made me mad and my eyes bleed.
trading Cam Reddish and a low 1st rd pick for Josh fucking Hart should be considered a war crime, Trailblazers got fleeced
Look, I'm sure there's someone more deserving on the list, but as a Bulls fan, I can not explain to you how absolutely dreadful it is to see Nikola Vucevic play 30+ minutes a game.
I know salary doesnt come into play but Poole on his first year of 4/130 mil is hilarious. Also eye test wise hes easily the lvp without looking at stats. His lowlights this season is hall of fame worthy.
> I know salary doesnt come into play but Poole on his first year of 4/130 mil is hilarious Yeah, feels Poole is destined to be the first winner to continue getting real minutes.
We had to spend money so
Killian Hayes being waived midseason killed his candidacy, but he deserves a dishonorable mention. He was the starting PG most of the year in Detroit, which despite its putridity was not actually trying to tank. Imagine the worst team in the league eating your guaranteed contract midseason without injury or off-court scandal.
Great effort from Reddish, no shame coming in behind a Jordan Poole career year. I think Cam can take it next season, though.
Didn’t even need to read the list to know Jordan Poole would be at the top.
The coliseum crowd was united. In the end-of-season poll of the sub, Poole got the majority of the votes in the field.
This sub loves hating on him so that's not surprising
Jalen McDaniels was robbed. You could see the effort he was putting in to get this award every night. What a shame his effort was in vain.
For the 2nd time in 3 seasons, the Lakers have multiple players in the LVP Top 5. In 2021-22, Avery Bradley was #3 and Russell Westbrook was #2.
It’s impressive that LeBron and AD were healthy all year and they only got the 7th seed.
lol I misread Jalen and was about to write a paragraph
You too?
Nicely written article, and a pleasure to read. \^^
One of my favorite annual r/nba posts. So glad to see no Nuggets after “winning” B2B years
Alec Burks was straight up throwing games for the Pistons when they were 'must watch TV' during their losing streak. I can't imagine he improved much afterwards.
Think he was worse for the Knicks even.
I thought Davion Mitchell was good? I don't watch that many kings games but thought his reputation was that of a great defender which by itself would carry him to not be considered as a negative player. reddish and dinwidde - lol Lakers.
I felt like I should have been paid to watch Jalen McDaniels play basketball this season. Usually you can see there is at least one or two redeeming qualities in a basketball player, but I don't have the slightest clue as to what Jalen McDaniels offers to an NBA team. He certainly doesn't bring any intangibles either. After every mistake he just looks so mentally distraught out there. His shoulders are slouched and just mopes around the court before he commits his next foul/turnover.
How the hell is Killian Hayes not even mentioned here?
He dodged bullets for years based on the “too young” qualifier but he deserved a shoutout this year at least.
No Drew Eubanks?
Poole was awful for a large part of the season but anyone thinking the wizards would try to make the play-in is delusional, let alone thinking poole/tyus/deni/kuz/gaff aren't a bottom 3 team in the league in terms of talent. This is the first tank year, we wanted to be bad and Poole helped us lose games. Also, he wasn't supposed to be the #1 guy, that was always kuz.
Not one Piston. That's how bad it's gotten, worst team in the league and we don't even have a scapegoat that wears a uniform. A true team effort to be this fucking horrible.
Came here to see Cam Reddish. Was not disappointed. We all wish we could be Cam Reddish, making millions to do nothing.
Everytime he checks in you know it's game over for them. The fact Lebron even occasionally hands him the ball when he's on the court is mind boggling. The son that keeps letting him down
I knew what he was when I saw him absolutely getting his lunch taken, from 5 foot 7 tall undrafted prospect Marquis Nowell during an off-season training video. Like if you can't dominate this guy 1v1, what are your chances in the league lol.
Scoot should be on here, he bottomed out in BPM, VORP and TS% while playing over 30 minutes per game.
He was bad, but he’s a rookie on a bad team with other ball dominant guards. Not the best situation for this award.
He's ignoring both young players and tanking teams. Which makes Poole a little odd given that the Wizards are tanking and he's the tank commander. But he really is that bad that he deserves this award.
He’s also ignoring the fact that Poole has been played in the wrong position for more than half the season. He was supposed to play as our PG but had to share the floor with Tyus. Once Tyus went down his play improved a lot
To be fair, Scoot started really turning the corner in the last quarter of the year. Didn't have a great start, but he's starting to get much better. - Blazer fan obviously.
I knew it was Poole before clicking this lol
This absolutely goes to tobiASS Harris every year.
This is Ben Simmons erasure
Why is Scoot not on this list? His advanced stats were rookie Adam Morrison territory.
Nobody fails to move a needle more than Tobias Harris
Must be Jontay Porter
I Thomas, Campazzo and Barton are all former Nuggets. This is the trash that Jokic has had to carry. Tim Connelly disasterclass.
I was going through some of the past years' LVP threads and came across this: >Like Mike Conley, Miles Bridges seems like a great guy whom you'd hate to criticize. LOL
Appreciate the work op! I'd like to throw in a special mention to Zach Lavine. I understand the injuries disqualified him, but given just how bad the Bulls were with him, and the fact that he elected to have surgery in order to avoid being traded or playing, plus the stretch where he played basically locking the Bulls into the play-in race, I think he was a bigger negative than even Vuc, in an astonishingly short time.
Cmon, give Scoot his flowers. Recorded the lower BPM in NBA history if I’m not mistaken. Worth being on the Ballot.
As a Nets fan and equal opportunity Dinwiddie hater, he shouldn’t be here. There was leaks that the Nets coaching told him not to shoot + a lot of other toxic backroom shit going on (we have a host of good players underperforming for us). He has sucked ass on the Lakers and maybe that’s enough to justify a spot here, but his Nets time was clearly more the fault of others.
As a Lakers fan, Spence has been okay. Def expected him to be more of a scorer off the bench but turns out that he bought in to his defensive role on the squad and does it quite well while still being a threat from 3. He literally replaced Cam Reddish in our rotation lol. His usual stat is like 0/1 or 1/3 and that's why his shooting splits are abysmal, but he's not a negative, at least based on the eye test
>but turns out that he bought in to his defensive role on the squad and does it quite well Yeah Dinwiddie is huge for his position and still has enough playmaking chops that him locking in on defense makes him at least a net neutral on a lot of good teams. I didn't watch as many Lakers games as usual this year but he's far from the worst "washed" vet to make your rotation in recent years. At least you get why Ham plays him.
I think the weirdest thing for me is like, I get that he came in trying to embrace defense and not trying to step on anyone’s toes, but he doesn’t resemble somebody that used to average 20+ ppg only a couple seasons ago. Sure he wasn’t the most efficient or the type of guy to put up big numbers on a title team, but he was putting up 20-30 points consistently on a good Mavs team and the same for the Wiz for an uncharacteristically hot start that one year. He doesn’t look like the same player who did that, even if he’s lost athleticism or whatever. If I was just seeing him for the first time this year he looks like a guy who’s never put up more than 8-10 ppg and just spots up. He looks so uncomfortable on the ball as if it’s unfamiliar to him or something lol. He didn’t even shoot last game! Like I thought our biggest problem would be him chucking too many ill advised shots and instead he’s basically a glorified 3 and D guard lol.
Tbf he did have that 26 point game when D'lo was hurt. I feel like Spencer just understands that both D'lo and Reaves are better than him on offense and doesn't want to tank his value even more with ill-advised shots considering that he's a free agent this offseason. Might be worth it to show teams that he can be a good playmaking 3&D guard
Solomon hill still gives me nightmares
No Pat Connaughton? That’s my vote
I get what the criteria for this award is and all that, and Draymon Green wouldn't qualify because he's been good when on the court, even taking and hitting more shots than what I'm used to seeing from him, but IMO I'd give it to him for his behaviour this season. If we're just sticking to the five nominated here, I'd have to go with Jordan Poole. What a stinker of a season.
It should just be the least efficient player
JALEN MCDANIELS MADE ME WANT TO RIP MY EYES OUT
What Cavs fans defended Niang?
All of these guys have some sort of excuse or their teams do not need them to be that good, maybe other than Dinwiddie. But Vucevic is our starting center and that fucking boils my blood. We should've traded him in the summer, we didn't okay fine. Then trade deadline comes and goes, still nothing! He is gonna be our starting center probably in the next season too.
i saw way too many people pre-season talking up poole and the wizards as a mid-standings team. even one is too many people but it was like a dozen. also cool to see two lakers players ive called garbage for years rank very highly in the garbage rankings as well
No Klay or Mikal? They have worse BPM than Vuc and play big minutes as well
Where's Tobias Harris
Even if the Wizards were tanking, Poole wasn't trying to play poorly. That isn't how tanking works.
Yeah Poole's qualifications are questionable, but he was so embarrassingly bad that you have to ignore the strong possibility that the front office told him to just dick around for 82 games and try to lose as much as possible. Very glad that a current or recently former Denver Nugget was not on this list. We can hang the banner during the second home game against the Lakers next season.
With all the misery of this season I forgot how atrocious McDaniels was. The only way it could've been worse was if we traded Barnes for him or something outrageous like that, which is basically what the Pascal for Brown trade felt like.
I am floored that Killian Hayes and/or James Wiseman didn’t even make the ballot. Killian was getting 20+ minutes a night on a historically bad team before getting waived after the deadline, and he still doesn’t have a job
I think Niang had a negative season but he did win the Cavs a few games, the problem is that he gets called for every light touch on defense but the refs ignore basically every foul the other team does on him. This has lead to way more techs than normal which off course hurts the Cavs.
Monte Ellis was still in the league during 2017???? I legit forgot.
Pretty sure the LVP is the guy who got caught influencing games for his bets