Meet the tier busters

Four teams are way off from preseason expectations.

Good morning. Let's basketball.

In early October, before the regular season began, I sorted the 30 teams into five tiers per conference with this scheme:

• Tier 1: Major Contenders (4 in the West, 2 in the East)
• Tier 2: Minor Contenders (2 in the West, 3 in the East)
• Tier 3: Playoff Mix (4 in the West, 5 in the East)
• Tier 4: Play-In Mix (4 in the West, 3 in the East)
• Tier 5: Tank Time (1 in the West, 2 in the East)

Here's the East column. Here's the West column.

We're just about at the quarter-mark of the season, and we've learned a lot. Many teams remain in their same tiers: the only Major Contender I'm questioning is the Cavaliers, but we have evidence of them being a strong team and they could very well clean it up as they get more consistently healthy (assuming they do). Two of the three teams in the Tank Time tier were obvious and spot-on, with only the Jazz elevating to the Play-In Mix. Some teams are one tier off. The Lakers, for instance, a Minor Contender in my preseason assessment, are probably a Major Contender. (For the sake of intrigue I'm going through the season believing that the Thunder are fallible despite evidence to the contrary.) The Spurs, a Playoff Mix team previously, are probably now a Minor Contender. The Sixers and Bucks are definitely one tier too high (they are not Minor Contenders, but are in the Playoff Mix), the Pistons are one tier too low (they are at least a Minor Contender now).

Let's focus instead on the four teams that are at least two tiers away from where they started the preseason. Either I was way wrong, or the team is performing far differently than common expectation, or both.