One team is 4-12 and just got its asses handed to them. One team is 3-12 and merely got a firm pat on the bottom to continue its eight-game losing streak. One team probably had a worse Thanksgiving than you after having a rough time down in Florida. They're all off to rough starts early in this basketball season. But only one can be The Worst Basketball Team in New York Today.
CANDIDATE NO. 1: THE KNICKS
Perhaps there's no other team that lives the phrase, "You live and die by the jump shot," more than the New York Knicks. The easy goat for this latest Knicks loss would be the 6'8" Carmelo Anthony opting to shoot a potential game-winning fadeaway jumper against the 6'4" Randy Foye and getting blocked. But like most of the preceeding seven losses that came during this losing streak, you have to look at percentages. Shooting a low 27.3 percent (6-of-22) from beyond-the-arc isn't going to help much. You're also hearing J.R. Smith's name a lot too during this eight-game losing streak, and most of the time it isn't in a positive sense. After averaging 18.1 points per game last season, Swish (you're also hearing that nickname less and less come to think about it) is averaging 11.7 and shot 38.5 percent in the 97-95 loss to the Nuggets. Bottom line: The shots aren't falling and the Knicks are dying slowly.
CANDIDATE NO. 2: THE NETS
Meanwhile, the Nets spent their time in Houston getting worked. Brooklyn found itself at the end of another lopsided defeated. Unfortunately, in addition to the misfortune of being the Nets, Chandler Parsons was on fire from three-point range after starting the season 0-for-8. Not only was he 6-for-6 tonight, the Rockets led the Nets 80-48 in the third quarter before putting them down 114-95. This is just a few days after Brooklyn was losing 27 points to the Lakers. This is the team that's supposed to be 2013-14 contenders?
CANDIDATE NO. 3: SIENA COLLEGE
There weren't too many Division-I schools playing with it being Thanksgiving week and all, but Siena happened to be one of the few. Siena College spent its Holiday taking some Ls down in Orlando, FL for the Old Spice Classic. Siena would've been straight if they captured a fraction of the awesomeness of those commercials in its on-court performance. It didn't, however, and lost 87-60 to Memphis on Thanksgiving and 78-66 to Saint Joseph's a day after. Well, at least the players get to come home to leftovers.
THE WORST TEAM IN NEW YORK TODAY IS...
The Nets. The Knicks haven't won a game since Nov. 13, but last night New York was just a play or two away from upsetting the Nuggets. The Nets barely won against an average at best Toronto Raptors team, and it's troubling to see Brooklyn be down by more than 25 in two consecutive games. It's too frequent of a worry to see if Brooklyn can even compete. On a related note, how sorry is the state of New York professional basketball if we're comparing losses?
