New Orleans Pelicans
1 Alarming trend: The openess to blowing up the roster
It's amazing how much things have changed for the New Orleans Pelicans in a matter of a few months. Just before the start of the season, the Pelicans could be considered a potential dark horse contender in the Western Conference after the moves they made during the summer. After an injury-derailed start to the season, all of that has now changed for New Orleans.
The Pelicans are now reportedly open and willing to trade nearly every player on their roster heading into the NBA Trade Deadline. That doesn't mean that they will certainly make a big move before the trade deadline but the fact that they're suddenly open to big changes makes me question their entire future moving forward.
New York Knicks
1 Alarming trend: Lack of depth in the frontcourt
On paper, the New York Knicks should be one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference and, after a slow start to the season, this is a team that has begun to look more and more dangerous as a group. However, there is still one concerning trend that the Knicks will have to deal with before it catches up with them.
It revolves around their continued lack of depth in the frontcourt. The Knicks don't have much, if any, depth behind Karl-Anthony Towns. And if it hadn't been for KAT's brilliance to begin the season, New York would be in such a worse place than they currently are. However, I do believe the Knicks must figure out their depth issues before it catches up with them.
Oklahoma City Thunder
1 Alarming trend: Alex Caruso's continued inefficiency on offense
During the offseason, one of the bigger moves made by the Oklahoma City Thunder involved the team trading Josh Giddey to the Chicago Bulls in exchange for Alex Caruso. Even though Caruso has helped the team evolve on the defensive end of the floor with even more versatility, he still has not begun to click on the offensive end of the floor.
Caruso is averaging just six points on 38 percent shooting from the field and 26 percent shooting from 3-point range. I'd imagine that at some point in the playoffs, the Thunder are going to need Caruso to step up in a big way and I'm not sure he'll be able to if he continues to perform with this level of inefficiency on the offensive end of the floor.