The Most Disappointing Teams From The 2019-20 Season

Yesterday I listed some of the most surprising teams from the 2019-20 season. Now we are doing the opposite by finding some of the disappointing teams from the 2019-20 season.

Philadelphia 76ers

This is the year! Everybody always says this is about the 76ers. The 76ers always have a bright outlook going into any season since the 2017 season. But something just doesn’t work. Sometimes it’s roster talent or coaching difficulties or chemistry issues. One of them or a combination of both

Well this season, the 76ers have had some serious problems. This season the 76ers decided to choose Tobias Harris over Jimmy Butler. They also signed Al Horford and acquired Josh Richardson. So on paper, this team was one of the best in the Eastern Conference. But something didn’t work. The problem with Embiid and Simmons was continuing. Simmons was less effective when Embiid was on the floor because of bad spacing. There was bad spacing in general for the 76ers because of a lack of perimeter shooters. Embiid is having a bad year, relatively. He is averaging fewer points, fewer rebounds, and fewer blocks. Simmons has been more effective when Embiid is not playing or off the floor.

Tobias Harris has been pretty disappointing this season. He is averaging 19.4 points and 6.8 rebounds. He is shooting 47.2% from the field and 36.2% from 3. While this ok, there was a stretch where he was pretty quiet. But he had turned into a solid scorer. But, Butler was the 76ers finisher and clutch scorer. Harris has not been that replacement. So the 76ers have had difficulties scoring late in the 4th quarter.

Josh Richardson has been solid by averaging 13.8 points but he has been injured for lots of the season.

But perhaps the biggest disappointment of the season has been Al Horford. He just never fit in and has not been as good as he was on the Celtics. He is averaging 12.0 points and 6.9 rebounds while shooting 44.2% from the field and 33.7% from 3. He just never fit in, and he would be much more effective off the bench. But he is 34 and his best days might be behind him.

The 76ers have been dysfunctional from the start. They are one of the best home teams in the league with a record of 29-2, but on the road, they are one of the worst with a record 10-24. Some days the 76ers are one of the best teams in the league, and on other nights they are mediocre at best. With this time off, many believe the 76ers will come back strong. I don’t personally believe this but we will just have to wait and see what happens when the NBA season returns in Orlando.

Portland Trail Blazers

Yes, this is my favorite team. I would like to make excuses into why we were bad this season, but we were pretty disappointing this season. Let’s get this over with. Last season the Blazers were the surprise team in the Western Conference. They again had a great regular season, but people were skeptical if this would result in playoff success. Well, it did. After dismantling the Thunder in 5 games, they won a hard-fought series with Denver in 7 games. They got swept in the Conference Finals, but the future was bright.

But, the Blazers have been having money problems since 2016 when they paid Evan Turner and CJ McCollum among others. Now they would have to make choices on how to spend the limited money that they had. They ended up losing key players like Al-Farouq Aminu and Mo Harkless who were the best defensive players on the team. They lost the 3-PT shooter in Seth Curry. They lost big men in Enes Kanter and Myers Leonard.

So the Blazers roster was looking a lot different going into the 2019-20 season. But many still expected the Blazers to be a playoff team in the West. Well, this season for Portland was a disaster. The roster was different, but they had far too many injuries. They were already without Jusuf Nurkic who had been injured since March of 2019. They lost Zach Collins for the year in just the 3rd game with a shoulder injury. Rodney Hood tore his Achilles. CJ McCollum missed some time, Dame missed some time. Lots of their key guys were in and out of the lineup. And yet, the Blazers are just 3 1/2 games out of the playoffs which is a miracle.

So while you might throw this season out, there is no denying that the Blazers under-performed this season, no matter the circumstances.

Utah Jazz

After being a solid team in the West for a few years, the Jazz went all in. They already had great players like Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, but the Jazz felt like they needed something new. So they added veteran PG Mike Conley from Memphis in a move that tried to improve the offensive firepower of the team. They also added Bojan Bogdanovic who was a great scorer in Indiana. The Jazz were now contenders in the West and many expected them to be a dark horse in the Western Conference.

But, the Jazz just did not work from the start. They started the season a solid 12-8 by the start of December. But the Jazz were a very streaky team. They had a 10 game win streak in the middle of January, but that was followed by a 5 game losing streak shortly thereafter. The Jazz would have stretches of great basketball, and at other times they were dysfunctional.

Newly added PG Mike Conley was very disappointing for the Jazz. Instead of being that great scorer that they wanted. In the 2018-19 season, Conley averaged 21.1 points and 6.4 assists with Memphis. This season he has been reduced to just 13.8 points. Instead of being the starter, Conley has been off the bench for the Jazz for most of the season.

The best lineup for the Jazz all season was Bogdanovic, Gobert, Ingles, Mitchell, and Royce O’Neale. So the Conley experiment did not work as expected.

And with Bojan Bogdanovic out for the season, the Jazz have no chance at making a deep playoff run when the NBA season resumes, so it’s back to the drawing board for the Jazz.

What did you guys think of these teams? Were all of these teams disappointing this season? Are there any other teams you would add? Leave all of your comments down below.

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