We have reached the quarter-pole of the NBA season, the mystical 20-game threshold that lets us know—definitively and irrefutably!—that the bad teams really are this bad, the good teams really are this good, and the hopeless really are that hopeless. The sorting-out process has taken shape.
To be sure, things can still change in the 60 or so games to come. (Also, for what it’s worth, six teams had yet to hit the 20-game mark as of Sunday.) But 20 games is a solid sample size, and the proverbial measuring stick that coaches and GMs cite every season as the time to take stock: of what’s working and what isn’t, of who fits and who doesn’t, and whether they’re heading for the playoffs or the lottery.