Please welcome our newest contributor, Yale! He knows a lot about basketball. Look for more musings on the NBA and the college game from Yale and Aaron throughout the season.
Early returns: Two guys who all the stat guys loved going in the draft, Dejuan Blair and Ty Lawson, have been playing real well. Blair, as we all know, fell to the 2nd round in an unbelievable lapse of judgement by 29 other teams. I don’t how know how many times people need to see to realize that rebounding always translates from college to pros, and if nothing else, Blair was going to be a beast on the boards. And what do you know, he has a rebounding pct% so far that would lead the league if he had enough minutes played. And something that might actually count as surprising, he’s shown a crafty ability to finish around the hoop effectively despite his relative lack of height. His defense still needs a lot of work, but with time, he should improve. Lawson is another shorty who was doubted, and fell to the Nuggets. The thing is, if you watched him play in college, you knew it wouldn’t be an issue on offense. He made up for his lack of height with his unbelievable body control and strength. There wasn’t a better point guard in college last year in finishing around the rim. His season last year was astronomically efficient, and it’s not a big surprise he’s picked up almost exactly where he left off, shooting over 55% from the field, 50% from 3 point land, and rarely turning it over.
Weak draft? No: Staying on the topic of rookies, it looks like talk of 2009 being a weak draft year may have been premature. There are contributors from all over the draft board, from the top of the draft to 2nd rounders like Blair, Chase Budinger, and Jonas Jerebko. The point guard depth is especially phenomenal, with Evans, Flynn, Curry, Jennings, Lawson, and Teague all showing great promise to start their careers and a guy like Rubio stashed overseas. One player who hasn’t gotten much press, but is definitely someone to watch out for is Omri Casspi, the first Israeli in the NBA. One of those guys that seems to be all over the floor making any plays he can. He’s a silky smooth shooter so far, too, and it will be exciting to see his progress.
Big shooters: The top five players in three point attempts this year are all 6′8” or taller.
They can do bad all by themselves:The Nets are legitimate contenders to the 72-73 Sixers throne of least wins in a season with 9. Their offense is abysmally bad, with just absolutely no structure and Courtney Lee doesn’t look to be anymore than a solid role player. The team has some nice young pieces with Brook Lopez, Devin Harris, Terrance Williams, CDR, and Lee, but they don’t seem to fit well together. Giving up Ryan Anderson, who’s flourishing in Orlando, in the Carter trade hurts, too.
The Big Clog?: The top 3 5-man units in minutes played for the Cavaliers that don’t involve Shaq have played a combined 51 minutes so far this season for a cumulative plus/minus of +41. That means, over the course of a 48-minute game, the average of those 3 lineups will outscore the other team by 38 points. It’s a small sample size, but we can say so far, those are astronomically excellent numbers. On the other hand, the top 3 5-man units that include Shaq have played a combined 113.7 minutes so far this season for a cumulative plus/minus of +2. That means, over the course of a 48-minute game, the average of those 3 lineups will outscore the other team by less than one point. Now, I don’t want to make any snap judgments on whether a certain new player on the Cavs might actually be hindering their success or not, but I’m just saying. I’m just saying.
Bombers: The Magic and Knicks both lead the league in percentage of field goal attempts from beyond the arc, clocking in at 33.5%!!! Surely, this will be one statistical race everyone will be eagerly tracking throughout the year!!
Playing in the shallow end: The Hornets should be renamed to the Chris Paul, David West, and Emeka Okafors, cause no one else on that team is worth a damn. No other team in the NBA has worse players outside their top 3. I’m sure all the New Orleans residents are just giddy about attending their Hornets games to see NBA studs like Hilton Armstrong, Darius Songaila, Bobby Brown, and Devin Brown play significant minutes and fill up the stat sheet! In related news, Chris Paul is really really really really good.
Statheads at it again:The Rockets are going to be an interesting team to follow all year. So far, they’ve been a surprisingly good offensive team, with structured offensive sets and quick ball movement to create good looks. I suppose it helps when you are shooting 40% from three-ball land, which likely won’t continue. The team is like when you made all those crazy custom teams in NBA2K. Hey, let’s make a team with all guys under 6′2”. Or a team with only guys over 6′10”. Or a team with all players with the last name Johnson and named it “Johnsons and Balls”. The only difference is, this is a team with all really good role players. Are they going to be good? Are they going to suck? Are they going to be somewhere in the middle? Who will create shots?!?! Who knows!??! Let’s try it!! This is, of course, ignoring the obvious logical fallacy that anyone would want to make a custom team of role players in a basketball video game.
Watching Hornets-Suns now, might do a write-up later. What happened to James Posey?
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He’s not really any different of a player than he was a couple years ago, but after winning two championships, he got overvalued. He’ll play pretty tough defense and hit open 3’s, but you can’t really expect anything more and personally, I didn’t think his defense was as good as it was touted. He’s also 33 now, so a decline is expected.
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Yeah, I think you’re right. That game featured almost an entire half of garbage time, and he barely even got on the court. Could just be an especially steep decline.