Meet my NBA All-Disappointment Team: Paolo, Draymond, Trae and plenty of others

Call it the Great Southern Point Guard Malaise.

It’s amazing how much has changed in three years. Think back to the 2022 NBA All-Star Game: Three precocious young point guards — the Atlanta Hawks’ Trae Young, the Memphis Grizzlies’ Ja Morant and the Charlotte Hornets’ LaMelo Ball — made the squad and played on the same team in Cleveland.

Advertisement

In each case, the future for both player and team seemed bright, but fast forward to 2025, and that’s not the case. Young’s Hawks made the Eastern Conference finals in 2021, Ball’s Hornets won 43 games in 2022 and Morant’s Grizzlies were the second seed in the Western Conference in consecutive seasons. Unbelievably, none of the three have won a playoff series since 2022. This doesn’t look like the year the streak will end, with the Hawks and Grizzlies in Play-In territory and Ball’s Hornets again headed for the draft lottery.

Similarly, all three have seen their career trajectories go sideways, even if it’s happened more in slow motion than in one rapid swoon. Injuries have plagued all three, but unserious defense and stalled development trajectories are also to blame. Ball has been the topic of trade rumors and even a rumored trade demand; Young is a potential free agent this summer whose team has made no serious move toward extending his contract; Morant’s unreliability was a key factor in Memphis’ offseason reset, and he’s already been suspended by his own team this season.

There might be other individual players who have been more disappointing this season, but as a class, the Southern point guard trio has moved into a league of its own. As a result, those three top my All-Disappointment Team for 2025-26.

My squad is a list of players who have done the most to fall short of our hopes and expectations, however misplaced they might have been. While I focused more on significant players on big contracts, I sprinkled in a few middle-class guys and developmental cases as well.

We’re barely one-third of the way into an 82-game season. Things can and do change, and inevitably, some players will play themselves off this list. But as 2026 begins, here are the envelopes. (Stats as of Wednesday afternoon.)

Advertisement

Ja Morant

Morant has to be No. 1 on any list of the season’s biggest disappointments, with his continuously sporadic availability compounded by a marked decline in his level of play.

Morant has only played 18 games this season for the Memphis Grizzlies and has yet to play more than six consecutive games at any point since March 2023.