Yesterday I wrote about the best games of the season to date. But what about the worst games of the season?
The discrepancy between the list of the worst games and the list of the least productive players is even larger than the one between their positive counterparts. Performances -- particularly bad performances, it seems -- are often unpredictable.
As with the previous list, these players may surprise you:
| Rank | Player | Date | Opponent | PoP | PoP48 |
| 1 | Derrick Rose | 10/29/2013 | MIA | -13.8 | -19.5 |
| 2 | Bradley Beal | 11/01/2013 | PHI | -13.2 | -18.0 |
| 3 | DeMar DeRozan | 10/30/2013 | BOS | -12.8 | -15.3 |
| 4 | Avery Bradley | 11/01/2013 | MIL | -11.5 | -17.3 |
| 5 | Derrick Rose | 11/02/2013 | PHI | -11.5 | -17.2 |
| 6 | J.R. Smith | 11/16/2013 | ATL | -11.2 | -15.0 |
| 7 | Rudy Gay | 11/01/2013 | ATL | -11.2 | -16.8 |
| 8 | Avery Bradley | 11/19/2013 | HOU | -11.0 | -19.6 |
| 9 | Raymond Felton | 11/14/2013 | HOU | -10.7 | -12.9 |
| 10 | John Lucas | 11/01/2013 | PHO | -10.7 | -16.6 |
| 11 | Jeff Taylor | 11/02/2013 | NOR | -10.5 | -21.1 |
| 12 | Jose Calderon | 11/01/2013 | HOU | -10.4 | -20.0 |
| 13 | Tyreke Evans | 11/01/2013 | ORL | -10.4 | -29.4 |
| 14 | Tony Parker | 11/15/2013 | UTH | -10.0 | -12.9 |
| 15 | Kelly Olynyk | 11/04/2013 | MEM | -9.9 | -19.7 |
| 16 | John Lucas | 11/13/2013 | NOR | -9.7 | -31.0 |
| 17 | Diante Garrett | 11/15/2013 | SAS | -9.5 | -26.8 |
| 18 | Brandon Jennings | 11/05/2013 | IND | -9.4 | -12.6 |
| 19 | Michael Carter-Williams | 11/04/2013 | GSW | -9.4 | -13.3 |
| 20 | Mo Williams | 10/30/2013 | PHO | -9.4 | -21.4 |
Note: table does not include games from November 20th.
On this list of the top 20 worst performances of the season, we have:
- An appearance from Michael Carter-Williams (#19), who also has the 3rd best game of the season.
- Two appearances from Derrick Rose (#1 and #5). There are also multiple appearances from Avery Bradley (#4 and #8) and John Lucas (#10 and #16).
- Three point guards -- Derrick Rose, Jose Calderon, and Tony Parker -- who have been quite productive in the past (and Calderon and Parker are still in the top 20 PGs for the season).
- Four teams with multiple culprits: Toronto (DeMar DeRozan and Rudy Gay), New York (J.R. Smith and Raymond Felton), Boston (Avery Bradley and Kelly Olynyk), Utah (John Lucas and Diante Garrett). Unsurprisingly, none of these fours teams have a winning percentage better than 37%, and three of them play in the same division! Maybe the Atlantic should take a one year vacation?
- Bench players as well as starters. Congratulations to John Lucas for making it onto this list with a game where he only played 15 minutes!
- Games against excellent teams, good teams, mediocre teams, and bad teams.
- Mostly guards. This because guards are more prone to combine a lot of missed shots with turnovers and aren't as likely to improve that by adding rebounds.
All told, only 6 of the top 20 least productive players on the season are on this list. And I should note that none of these games is as bad as any of our top games is good (if you reverse the sign on the PoP of these games, none of them would make on our list of the top 20). So as the season goes along, expect there to be many changes to this list -- even at the very top.