In theory, both of these teams are a bad matchup for each other. Minnesota’s potential offensive struggles should cancel out with Denver’s potential struggles on defense. But in practice, the Nuggets have had no answer for the Timberwolves athletic wings on both sides of the ball. This has been made worse by the fact that the Timberwolves defense has won the battle against the Nuggets top ranked offense through four games. Time will tell if they can win one more game without Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo, but so far, they have matched up better against Denver, than Denver has against them. Likewise, many other playoff teams have found a recipe for success.

Who’s Brunson Guarding?

If you’ve watched the Knicks vs Hawks series, it’s no secret that Atlanta wants to make Jalen Brunson guard as much as possible. This isn’t a new strategy against the Knicks but it has helped the Hawks win game two and three. The Knicks strategy is to keep Brunson matched up on Dyson Daniels who is only an 18% 3pt shooter. Through four games, this has went as expected for both sides.

When the Knicks get a favorable matchup, their defense has been good. But when they don’t, they have been torched by the Hawks. CJ McCollum in Game 2 and Nickeil Alexander-Walker in Game 3 had great performances. Jalen Johnson and Gabe Vincent have also had success. This may not be the only point of contention for New York. But as long as their playoff run continues, it will be a discussion.

Orlando’s Height Advantage

The 8th seeded Magic have taken two of the first three games against the Pistons. The Pistons are a physical team and that is part of the reason that they had a top three defense in regular season. Their defense has played well in this series but the size of Orlando has given them trouble on offense. Many of Detroit’s role players have struggled and the Magic’s wings are a big reason why.

If we look at the height difference for each matchup on every team1, the Magic have by far the biggest advantage of all playoff teams. For any matchup at any given time in this series, the the Pistons are nearly an inch shorter on average on offense compared to Orlando’s defenders.

The Magic are lead by two 6’ 10” wings in Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. In addition to those two, they have an array of great defenders like Jalen Suggs and Wendell Carter Jr. While this has been true all season, Orlando is an 8th seed because they haven’t played like this for most of the season. The main thing that has changed is their matchup.

At times, the Pistons offense can slow and become very reliant on Cade Cunningham. That has been even more apparent in this series with their lack of size. Most of their key players have faced bigger defenders against Orlando than in the regular season. Notably, players like Tobias Harris and Daniss Jenkins. Tobias Harris, who operates a lot in the post doesn’t have the advantage of a smaller defender.

Foreshadowing Future Matchups

The Spurs overcame a 15+ point deficit in each of their last two games to take a 3-1 lead over the Trail Blazers. San Antonio is clearly the better team but Portland showed something that will certainly come up again later in the playoffs. Instead of only using an athletic but undersized wing in Toumani Camara or even Jerami Grant to guard Victor Wembanyama, they put Jrue Holiday (who is a foot shorter) on him for significant minutes.

They started this in Game 2 but Wembanyama only played 12 minutes before leaving with a concussion that caused him to miss Game 3. In Game 4, they employed this strategy for the whole game. Holiday guarded him more than any Blazer in Game 4

It may not have stopped Wembanyama, but in small sample sizes this season, some teams have had success with playing guards on him. If the Spurs want to win the west, they’ll probably have to go through the Thunder. The Thunder had success guarding Jokic with Alex Caruso in Game 7 last year.

In a potential Thunder vs Spurs conference finals matchup, it’s not a matter of if but when the Thunder use Lu Dort and Caruso to guard Wembanyama. San Antonio can find answers and they have all year. But this is a matchup that can make or break a game, and possibly a series.

Some people will tell you that it’s because a team’s star player either rose to the occasion or “choked” in the moment. Other’s will tell you it’s because of a team’s weakest link. Owen Phillis wrote a great article about how a team’s success is more impacted by it’s weakest link than many realize. Essentially if a player is too valuable to their team to bench but too much of a liability to play, it will be detrimental to their team’s success. Think of a player who keeps getting hunted in pick and rolls or a bad shooter who the other team can leave open. If their team cannot find a solution to their weakness, it will cost them during the series.

While I mostly agree with the weak link theory, it’s not a one size fits all representation of every matchup. It is possible that a team’s best player(s) can be the difference for better or worse. Like most things, the truth usually lies somewhere in between two extremes. I’ll present both sides of this argument for each series and let you decide who will win the matchup. We’ll only look at player’s with significant minutes and games played1 using net points. These are (mostly) players that a team can least afford to bench and still win.

Pistons vs Magic

Best Player(s): Cade Cunningham is the best player in this series but Orlando has the defenders to make things difficult for him and the Pistons offense.

Weak Link: Anthony Black. Orlando’s offensive struggles have been evident all year and will likely be even more obvious against a great Pistons bench.

Cavaliers vs Raptors

Best Player(s): The Cavs have the two best player’s in this series with Donovan Mitchell and James Harden and probably the best backcourt in the eastern conference.

Weak Link: Jamal Shead may be the backup to Immanuel Quickley but he has not been a great 3pt shooter. The Raptors as a team do not have a lot of 3pt shooting and this can allow Cleveland to crowd the spacing for Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram.

Knicks vs Hawks

Best Player(s): Jalen Brunson is the best player in this series. He raises the Knicks ceiling higher than the anyone on the Hawks.

Weak Link: Jalen Brunson is the best player but he is also the worst defender in this series. Last year, the Pacers had success attaching both him and Karl Anthony Towns on defense. The Hawks may not have enough high end offensive talent on the perimeter to make the pay but expect them to try.

Celtics vs 76ers

Best Player(s): Jaylen Brown has shown he can thrive in a bigger role with Jayson Tatum out. Based on the last 8 years of them playing together, there’s no reason to believe he will be worse with Tatum back in the lineup.

Weak Link: With Joel Embiid out for at least the start of this series, Adem Bona and Andre Drummond (both not pictured here) will likely be the 76ers primary centers. Expect the Celtics to have success targeting them on defense with their guards and wings.

Thunder vs Suns

Best Player(s): Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the best player in this series but last season’s series against the Grizzlies showed us how dominant the Thunder can be when SGA is having an off night.

Weak Link: The Suns may find themselves in a similar situation that the Rockets did last year with Jalen Green. They need his offensive playmaking but they also need him to play good defense. It’s almost a guarantee that the Thunder will hunt him defensively when he is on the floor.

Lakers vs Rockets

Best Player(s): Kevin Durant. Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves will likely miss most of all of this series and if they do return, they won’t be 100%. That leaves Kevin Durant as the player who the Rockets have relied on for better or for worse this season. They usually ask him to bail them out of bad offensive possessions, which has happened more than they would like.

Weak Link: Marcus Smart. With Dončić and Reaves out, there is a greater offensive burden for everyone on the Lakers supporting cast. The Lakers need his defense but at a time like this, they need him to step up offensively just as much.

Nuggets vs Timberwolves

Best Player(s): Nikola Jokić. This is the biggest offense vs defense series in the first round. The Nuggets have the best player and historically, Jokić has had success against one of the best defenders in the last decade in Rudy Gobert.

Weak Link: This matchup is such a yin and yang between strengths and weaknesses that I could go many directions with this. The Nuggets lack great perimeter defenders to contain the wings for Minnesota. On the other hand, the Timberwolves are in need of a true point guard for their offense. However, Ayo Dosunmu may need to take on a bigger role in that spot which depending on how he plays, may favor Denver.

Spurs vs Trail Blazers

Best Player(s): Victor Wembanyama. I don’t need a graph to tell you who the best player in this series is.

Weak Link: Scoot Henderson. The Blazers have a plethora of great defenders to challenge the Spurs. The problem for Portland is that the Spurs can do the same to them. Despite the rise of Deni Avdija, the Blazers do not have enough secondary playmaking to keep up with San Antonio.

While everyone has their own MVP criteria, one thing we can agree on is that the entire season matters. Games played in November should hold just as much weight as games played in March. But we all know this is hard to do in practice. It’s easier to remember someone’s performance from 5 days ago than 5 months ago. However, keeping the big picture in mind is a better way to judge a player’s performance and not get caught up in the moment.

The same thing applies when evaluating teams. At the beginning of the season, I wrote about how we know much less than we think we do about how good each team is. 20 games is just a quarter of the season, but it feels like a long time during the year.

Now that we’re at the end of the season, I would argue that we know more than we think we do about how good each team is. At least, in terms of predicting future playoff success. This is because we tend to put more weight on recent play than season long performance. If we take the weighted average of each team’s last 20 games (Net Rating)1, we can see how teams are playing heading into the playoffs.

Teams like the Hornets, Hawks, and Clippers are seen as playoff teams than nobody wants to play because they’re “Hot” at the right time. That may be a bit optimistic. This is not to say that we should ignore improvement over the course of the season. The Clippers and Hornets are clearly much better now than they were in December, and their improvement should be taken into account. However, there’s usually not much drastic change at the end of the season. We’re at the point where “you are who you are.” If a team had a weakness for most of the season, it usually doesn’t just go away in one week. Just like we shouldn’t over react to the beginning of the season, we shouldn’t over react to the end of the season.

The San Antonio Spurs have been the best team in basketball since the trade deadline, but there is a reason (outside of their lack of experience) than the Thunder are still big favorites in the West. The Thunder have been the best team for the whole season, despite their mid-season slump. While it’s always great to be playing your best basketball, the reality is that it doesn’t affect your playoff success at all. For teams that made deep playoff runs (conference finals or later), there is not a meaningful association between playoff success and how well they finished the regular season.

The only difference between peaking early or late is the time it occurs. For every team like the 2004 Pistons and 1997 Jazz who finished strong, there’s the 2005 Spurs and 2001 76ers who didn’t. All these teams made deep playoffs runs. The Playoffs have a lot of unpredictability, but the best team wins more often in a 7 game series. After this Sunday, we will have had 82 games to determine how good each team is.

One counter argument to this is last year’s Indiana Pacers. While injuries during the regular season may have caused some people to underestimate them, they were able to “flip the switch” in the playoffs. However, for every team like last year’s Pacers, there are another 15 teams that don’t “flip the switch.” Unlikely change is not impossible, it’s just unlikely.

Ahead of Schedule

Of all the teams that have surpassed expectations this season, the two biggest have been the Pistons and Spurs. After being one of the worst teams in the league in 2024, the Pistons made the playoffs last season. This year they have the number 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. The Spurs are just as impressive. They hadn’t made the playoffs since 2019. Their preseason expectations were higher than Detroit because of the talent on their roster, but few saw them as a championship contender this season.

Their offense can give them trouble at times, especially their lack of shooting. But, their defense raises this team’s floor enough to put them with the NBA’s elites. The Spurs were expected to be this good in a year or two, not this season. One of the biggest criticisms has been their lack of experience. Of their top players, only Harrison Barnes and Luke Kornet have a lot of playoff experience. There is a long standing belief that teams have to struggle in the playoffs before they break through. The Spurs are ahead of schedule, but that should not disqualify them from being a championship contender this season.

We know they are a good team without Victor Wembanyama and a dominant team with him in the lineup. It’s just that it’s extremely rare for a team to win a championship after a rise as fast as San Antonio’s. The only comparable teams are 1977 Trail Blazers and the 2008 Celtics. Although Boston traded for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett in the same offseason to spark their turnaround.

Most teams do contend for at least a year before they break through to win a championship. Even the 2015 Warriors who took the league by storm were a competitive playoff team in 2013 and 2014. The idea of “Championship DNA” may be overstated, but history does support it. Only time will tell how ready the Spurs really are.

With that said, winning a championship requires a certain amount of luck (in addition to being a good team). Bart Torvik estimates than chances of each team winning the championship each season. Just least year, no team had a probability over 23%. Florida won with just an 11.6% chance (worse than a dice roll). Depending on who you ask, unlikely and lucky may or may not mean the same thing. But playing great against 6 great teams in a row is unlikely for even the best teams in the country1. When trying to achieve something improbable, there is little margin for error. Ideally a team will get hot at the right time to go on a run. But even teams that go on a run have off nights.

You Can’t (completely) control how well you shoot

Teams that shoot better win over 81% of the time2. Shooting is obviously important to winning, but some of it is out of a team’s control. Of course, teams can do things to take better quality shots and get better looks, but that doesn’t guarantee than they will go in. It’s hard to separate good play from luck, but every good performance has both. There is not one team that has had complete and total agency over their fate. In a single game, a cold shooting night (or a hot shooting night from their opponent) can happen to anyone.

There are countless examples of a team losing because they went cold one game. Only North Caroling in 2017 won a championship without consistently shooting well. It makes sense to expect a team to need 6 straight good shooting games to win the tournament.

However, even championship teams have bad shooting games in the tournament. Their bad shooting games just happened to coincide with a worse shooting game from their opponent. The only team on this list to shoot noticeably worse than their opponent and still win was Virginia against Perdue in 2019.3

If we define a “bad” shooting game as at least 1 standard deviation below a teams normal eFG%, 8 of the last 10 champions have had at least one bad shooting game in the tournament.4 Only UConn in their most recent championships had a run without any. 4 of the 10 teams had multiple bad shooting games and North Carolina had 3.

Part of getting lucky is avoiding bad games. Part of getting lucky is your opponent having a bad game. For every team that wins it all, there are dozens who lose because they went cold, their opponent was hot, or both. That’s why the tournament is a “Loser Machine.” But the other part is finding a way to win when you are not shooting the ball well. Shooting is important, but it is not the only thing that matters.

How the Final 4 Teams have performed

Michigan has been the most dominant team in the tournament so far. Arizona and Illinois have also put together impressive wins. But the most surprising team is UConn. It’s not surprising than they’re in the Final 4, but how they got there is.

In 16 total games for the Final 4 teams, the winner shot worse in 2 of them. UConn was on the winning side of both of those games. They overcame a 19 point deficit against Duke in their Elite 8 matchup to reach the Final 4. What makes this impressive is that they didn’t just start shooting the ball much better and Duke didn’t just start shooting the ball much worse. This is usually what leads to most comebacks. UConn turned this game around with turnovers.

UConn won the turnover battle 8 to 1 in the second half of the game. Many will point to Duke’s turnover with 6 seconds left that lead to the game winning shot. However, to give up a 19 point lead, there are dozens of plays that have to go wrong. That play is no more costly than the 7 turnovers they had before it in the second half. As Duke kept turning the ball over, and UConn played a clean game. It left the door open for a comeback. And on the last game in March, it left the door open for madness:

Before Tuesday, there have only been 15 70+ point performances since 1946. Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 points seems like a mythical number to fans. There’s a 19 point gap between him and the second (now third) highest scoring game by Kobe Bryant in 2006. While 100 seems impossible, just passing 81 feels like a huge mountain to climb. And Bam Adebayo was not at the top of the list of players who you would predict to surpass 81 points.

Adebayo averages under 20 points/game on the season and had not scored more than 32 points in a game before Tuesday. Except for Wilt Chamberlain in 1962 and 1963, any game over 70 points is a massive outlier for any player. Bam Adebayo scoring 83 points was much further from even his best performances than the other players on this list.

Bam was not just unlikely to score 83 points compared to other all time great scoring seasons. He was unlikely to score 83 points compared to current players. We can estimate each players probability of scoring 83 or more points using z-scores. A z-score simply standardizes how far away from a players average points/game their performance was1. The higher z-score, the more unlikely the occurrence. For Bam, scoring over 25 points (a z-score of 1) has just a 15.9% chance of occurring, and scoring over 40 points (a z-score of 3) has just a 0.13% chance. Based on this method, there are 42 players who were more likely to score 83 points than Bam Adebayo. Although, everyone’s chance of scoring 83 points are exceptionally small.

The probability is so small that the odds are reported as near zero2 numbers. Of course, this approach is not perfect. It doesn’t account for the Miami Heat missing their two top scorers (Tyler Herro and Norman Powell), or the Wizards having the second worst ranked defense in the NBA. It also favors scoring inconsistently over scoring volume which is why a player like Kevin Durant is at 40. But it does reminds us of a few things:

1. Everyone in the NBA is very good (obviously). A lot more than just the top 10-15 scorers are capable of scoring a lot of points.

2. It’s hard to comprehend ridiculously small probabilities. A player might have a higher chance at a historic game, but it’s still a very small chance.

3. Circumstances might just affect high scoring nights more than a player being “hot” at the right time.

Under the right circumstances, there are a lot of NBA players who can score over 80, and maybe over 100 points. However, there is a reason that there have only been 3 games with 80 or more points in almost 80 years. The perfect set of circumstances almost never occurs.

When Everything Goes Right

For a player to have a historic scoring night, they need three things to go in their favor. Two of these three are out of the player’s control.

1. They need to get and stay hot (somewhat in their control)

2. They need to play the right opponent, usually a bad one (not in their control)

3. The game needs to be close enough fro them to stay in the game (not in their control)

The first thing is obvious. A player has to have a hot start and maintain that through out the game. This is easier said than done, especially with substitutions. Bam had 31 points in the first quarter. While he only had 12 points in the second quarter, he had 40 points in the second half.

After than, a player needs to play a bad opponent. This is not a must, but almost all of the best scoring games are against bad defensive teams. The 29 win Knicks were missing two of their centers when Wilt scored 100 points. The 2006 Raptors had the second worse ranked defense when Kobe scored 81. Even if the opponent is not bad, they cannot start double teaming too early in the game. Bam not only got a bad defensive opponent, but he played them at a time when most tanking teams are trying to lose games. That is part of the reason why a lot of players have great games in March and April of the regular season. Tanking teams at this point of the season are worse than they were earlier in the season.

Lastly, the game has to be (reasonably) close for a coach to justify leaving their player in the game. Most potentially record breaking nights are cut short because the game is not close. Before Kobe scored 81 points in 2006, he scored 62 points through 3 quarters against the Mavericks earlier that season. He checked the first two boxes (maintain a hot start and face a bad defense). But since the Lakers were up by 34 points, he did not play in the fourth quarter.

While the Wizards were not with in 10 points of the Heat during the entire second half, the lead was cut down just enough in the early fourth quarter to at least justify keeping Bam Adebayo in the game.

Was the game close at the end of the 4th quarter? No. But by that point Bam was close enough to 81 points where Eric Spoelstra could at least make an argument for leaving him in the game to pass 81 points. There is no exact cutoff point where a coach has to pull his best players from the game. Many people will disagree about leaving him in the game, but that is usually the difference between a great game and a historic game. On that night everything lined up perfectly for an 83 point game.

We also know that great players make their teams better. This means putting the ball in their hands more than others. In the past decade, we have seen an increase in teams who make their best player their de facto point guard, regardless of position. Players like Giannis, Jokić, and even Lebron before that have more responsibilities than they would in previous eras. This means that teams have to find a balance for how much they play through their best player. A teams best play may be going to their best player, but their best strategy is not to use that every single possession.

When you watch a game, its easy to see who a team’s primary option is. Translating this into a comprehensible number is much harder than it seems. This impact has often been measured by Usage Rate. Usage rate is meant to estimate the percentage of plays a player uses when they are on the floor. But it only measures scoring, and turnovers. Players who we think of as high usage players who are not high volume scorers often have a much lower usage rate than the eye test would suggest. Tyrese Haliburton is a great example of this. Plays like this where he is involved in the main action but doesn’t shoot the ball underscore how much he is used in his team’s offense.

Haliburton’s usage was only 21% in the regular season and 21.9% during Indiana’s Finals run. While the Pacers offense was not as heliocentric as other teams, Haliburton was much more involved than the numbers would suggest. My main criticism of usage rate is that the main component of it is shooting. It may be impossible to capture every aspect of player involvement with just regular box score stats. But including something like passing can paint a better picture.

Involvement

It’s actually possible to derive each players involvement in an offense with modern tracking data. The problem is that in depth tracking data is not publicly available. So we’ll do the next best thing which is to add passing to the existing usage rate formula. We can use “potential assist” to approximate a player’s involvement when they are not shooting the ball. Potential assists are just assists + passes that would be an assist if the shot was made.

This gives a better estimate for what percentage of a teams possessions a player is involved in (at least the ending of the possession). Involvement% accounts for things that Usage Rate doesn’t. Players who have the ball in their hands more will naturally be more involved. It’s by no means an exhaustive measure. It doesn’t account for what happens before the ending of the possession or who the main player involved in the play is. While there is a bias towards guards, those players usually are more involved than bigs.

Last year, Haliburton’s Involvement% was 46% (31st) which is much higher than his 21% usage rate (117th). There are 15 players this season with an Involvement% over 50%1. It’s no surprise to see players like Luka, Jokić, and Giannis are near the top of the list. However, there are also players like Josh Giddey, Scoot Henderson, and T.J. McConnell who get a massive boost when factoring in their passing. McConnell jumps up 56 spots, from 72nd in usage to 16th in involvement.

Some teams have a good spread of involvement near the top of their roster while others have one or two players well above everyone else. Among the top teams in the league, the Pistons have a noticeable gap between their highest player, and second highest player. Cade Cunningham’s Involvement is almost 60% while everyone else on Detroit is under 40%.

Many people have questioned who on Detroit will step up when defenses focus on Cade. It is worth noting that teams have had success with a large gap between player 1 and player 2 (it’s just less common). Lebron James had a 60% Involvement rate in 2020 for the Lakers when he was their point guard for that season. Last year’s Thunder only had two players above 30% (Shai and Jalen Williams).

The last 3 Warriors Championship teams had two players with basically the same highest involvement percentage. While there’s no one win, most successful post season teams have diversity in how often their players are involved.

Gravity

While we cannot perfectly measure how involved each player in on offense, we do have a way to measure how much attention each player gets from the defense. The term “gravity” which has been popularized by Ben Taylor has been used to describe how much defensive attention each player receives. Players like Stephen Curry are known for pulling everyone’s attention towards them like a star does to planets.

This season, the NBA started tracking player gravity. While it is not the same as usage or involvement, gravity does show how much defensive attention every player on a team receives. This includes on and off the ball. There’s no one right way to measure how much each team relies on every player. But with the right tools, we can get a better approximation for how involved everyone is.

Here is the overall gravity for every team in the NBA. Bigger circles represent higher gravity. It’s important to note that there are a lot of prominent players missing like Stephen Curry and Giannis. But we can still see how balanced (Toronto Raptors) or unbalanced (LA Clippers) some teams are.

One thing that fans have pointed out is a “shooting tax” where players seem to shoot the ball worse on the Lakers than on their previous team. Fans point to players like Danny Green, Gabe Vincent, and Wesley Matthews for why players shoot the ball worse on the Lakers. Some have theorized that it is because of the big stage of Los Angeles or even the dark lighting in the Staples/Crypto.com Arena.1

Could this be Real? Yes. But when we look at players with a reasonable amount of 3PT attempts, there’s a good mix of players who preformed better and worse during their stint in LA.

There are players who shot the ball worse. There are also players like Rui Hachimura and Malik Monk who shot the ball better than on their previous team. There is no clear indicator that most players shoot the ball worse on the Lakers.

To get an idea of why a player’s number are up or down, it’s better to look at more than just static 3PT percentages. A player’s 3P% is very dynamic and one snapshot does not tell the full story.

The Big Picture

3PT shooting is one of the most volatile things in basketball. Despite this, small percent differences can differentiate a good shooter from a great shooter. A league average shooter is usually around 36%, while a 40% shooter is considered great. With 200 attempts, 8 more makes or misses can swing a percentage by 8%. It’s very easy for 8 out of 200 shots to go the other way. This is not to say that a players 3P% does not matter, but is usually isn’t a perfect representation of their true ability.

Take Danny Green for example. When he joined the Lakers in 2019, he was coming of a season where he shot 42.8% from 3 (regular and post season). His career 3P% was 40% at the time and he had the reputation of an elite shooter (had the Spurs held on in the 2013 finals, there is a good chance he wins finals MVP).

While it’s not unreasonable for him to shoot ~ 43% the next season, it’s more likely that he does regress back to his true percentage of around 40%. If you look at the career trajectory of Danny Green, he does tend to have long hot stretches followed by long cold (relatively) stretches.2

Starting from his final games with the Raptors in 2019, Green’s 3P% was trending downwards. Similar to how it did at the end of the 2017 and 2018 seasons. The difference is that it fell from a greater height and under the brightest of lights. Did he shoot the ball worse on the Lakers? Yes, but in the context of his career, it was just a normal regression to the mean.

Gabe Vincent is another player who saw their 3P% percentage drop on the Lakers. While he only shot 33.4% from 3 during the regular season in 2023, he shot 37.8% in the playoffs. That includes him shooting 51.6% in 6 games when the Heat upset the Celtics. This was the lasting image for fans before he signed with the Lakers. That make is surprising when he went through a bad shooting slump in LA.

While Vincent did have a much bigger regression than most other players, he did eventually improve his shooting to where it was in Miami. What made his regression seem worse to fans was that his 2023 playoff run made the expectations for him more optimistic than realistic.

That brings us to this season. The Lakers traded for Luke Kennard at the trade deadline. Kennard has shot ~ 40% or better (regular and post season) in each of his 9 seasons in the NBA.3 This is on a high volume of 4.3 attempts/game. Despite a decline towards the end of last year, Kennard is shooting a league best 49% from 3 this year.

Out of all players, he is the one who fans think will test the theory of a “shooting tax.” While maintaining a 3P% above 40% is difficult to do with a volume, Kennard has done that throughout his career. Although no player is “due” to regress towards the mean, don’t be surprised if his percentage slightly decreases. But a slight decrease from 49% is still well above league average.

Is there a “Shooting Tax”

The idea of the Lakers “shooting tax” is rooted in the feeling that the Lakers would play better if their new players preformed like they did on their old teams. We can test that by comparing how well the Lakers shot from 3 vs how well they would have shot if their new players shot the same percentage as the prior season.

For example, in 2020, Danny Green shot 159/442 (36%) from 3 with the Lakers. The season before he shot 42.8% from 3 with the Raptors. When calculating the Lakers expected 3P% for 2020, his expected makes would be 189.09 (42.8% of 442). The Lakers expected 3P% would increase since we use the 189.09 instead of 159 when calculating the team’s make 3’s for the season. For players on the team the previous year and rookies4, their 3PM stays the same.

There are years that the Lakers shoot worse than expected like 2020, 2021, and even this season. But there are also years like 2014, 2023, and 2025 where the team shoots better than expected. The Lakers are not a team that always shoots much worse than expected like some may think. They have not been a consistently good 3PT shooting team for a while.

The league average 3P% is usually around 36%. The Lakers have only shot above 36% five times since 2006. The “shooting tax” is not a real thing, but just a combination of confirmation bias and putting too much weight into one seasons 3P%.

He currently averages 20.6 shots per game, so this is right at his average for the season. Without much extra thought, one may think that New York is better with him taking less shots (which has been true by the numbers this season). However, that can insinuate that Brunson’s shot attempts are THE cause of why the Knicks win or lose games. Or that Brunson has shot his team out of some games.

Many broadcast have a tendency to cherry-pick stats for the right moment. This may not be blatant cherry-picking like the infamous Thaddeus Young graphic since there are valuable insights within the numbers. The difference in wins when Jalen Brunson takes more or less shots that average is unusually high. Especially for someone who takes the 6th most shots/game in the league. Among each team’s leading scorer, the Knicks have the biggest difference in winning percentage in the NBA when their top scorer takes more/less than their average shots.

Only Nikola Jokić, Stephen Curry, and Anthony Edwards have similar splits this season. At this point in the season, it certainly means something, but probably not what you think. After all, wins are a team stat, not a player stat. The other four players on the court also matter.

Why the Difference?

While Jalen Brunson has taken more shots in losses than in wins his shooting has not been the main reason. He does tend to play better offensively in games with over 20 shot attempts, although the great offensive performance is probably what causes the extra shots. The biggest difference for him has been his defense in those games. If we look at wins, Brunson goes from a net negative (-1.8) to a net positive (+0.6) in the games with less shots.

Even when comparing losses (which isn’t ideal since there are only 2 losses with 20 or less FGA), Brunson has been much better on defense with 20 or less shot attempts. Could the extra shots on offense wear him down on defense? Yes. But we also see a similar decline for the Knicks team as a whole.

The Knicks as a team have played differently when Jalen Brunson takes more shots. Specifically, how well they have done everything outside of shooting the ball. When you remove how well a team shoots, three things (rebounding, turnovers, and free throws) can still explain about 60% of why a team wins or loses a game. We can assign teams a 3 factors score based on their rebounding percentage, free throw rate, and turnover rate.1 Since Brunson contributes more to scoring than the other three factors, we get a better idea of how the rest of his teammates have played.

From this, we see that the Knicks as a team have played better when Brunson takes less shots. Their average score in wins is 5.4% better when he takes 20 or less shots. But, this is more of a cause of his increased shot attempts and not the result of it. When the Knicks are not playing well, they have relied more on Brunson to turn the game around. While most players shoot worse with higher volume, Jalen Brunson has actually shot the ball better when he has been asked to take more shots.

James Harden to Cleveland

Since my last post about the Clippers turning around their season, they decided to finally hit the reset button. They traded James Harden to the Cavaliers and Ivica Zubac to the Pacers. The Clippers decided to get ahead of an inevitable rebuild rather than try for an unlikely run. This also says that the Cavaliers believe that James Harden can help lead then on a championship run.

After going out in the second round of last year’s playoffs despite having the number one seed, Cleveland has struggled this season in a relatively weak and wide open Eastern Conference. They hope that James Harden will be a better fit next to Donovan Mitchell than Darius Garland. If history is any indicator, it tells us that Harden tends to play his best right after he is traded. When he was traded to Brooklyn in 2021 and to Philadelphia in 2022, he immediately played much better than before the trade.

2021: Houston Rockets —> Brooklyn Nets

2022: Brooklyn Nets —> Philadelphia 76ers

That boost might be enough for the the Cavs to gain some ground in the standings. Despite this, there are skeptics who question the fit of two high volume guards in the same backcourt. But if Cleveland was willing to trade a 26 year old Darius Garland for a 36 year old James Harden, they believe he can put them over the top.

Fast forward just over a month later, and they are playing as good as any team in the league. The Clippers won 16 of their next 19 games since. They are currently 10th in the western conference with a great shot to at least make the play in tournament.

Despite their recent success, the Clippers are still trying to so something that is incredibly improbable. Since the NBA-ABA merger, only 13 teams have won 9 or less of their first 27 games and made the playoffs. Only the 1985 Cavaliers started as bad as they did (6-21) and made the playoffs.

7 of the 13 teams finished with less than 40 wins. The Clippers don’t have the benefit of an 11 team conference like the 1985 Cavs (or other teams in the 1980’s) did, but they do have the play-in tournament. The 2022 Pelicans finished 9th in the Western conference (36-46), but won both of their play-in games to make the playoffs. While LA probably won’t maintain the 69 win pace they have been on for the last 19 games, they have a chance to stay in the play in tournament range.

Why to Believe

The Clippers have been the best team in the NBA since December 20th. The biggest reason for is the play of Kawhi Leonard. After a slow start to the season and missing a 10 game stretch, Kawhi has been playing as good as any player during the Clippers winning streak. He has averaged 3.82 net points per game during the streak compared to 1.59 before the streak.

He, James Harden, and the rest of the Clippers have been playing great basketball for the last 19 games. Thats almost a quarter of the season. Bad teams can have good stretches, but when the stretch gets long enough, you have to consider that they are no longer a bad team. The Clippers may not be the best team in the NBA, but they are not the same team from the beginning of the season.

In addition to that, they have had more luck on their side recently. The Clippers franchise has such a track record of bad luck that it has become the expectation in may situations. In the First 27 games of the season, the Clippers opponents shot 42% on wide open three pointers against them. That was the 3rd highest in the league during that time period. Since then their opponents are shooting just 37% on those shots which is 10th lowest.

The change from 18 spots is a bigger positive swing that all but one team. Teams cannot do much to affect open three point shots from their opponent like other shots. This does not completely explain the great basketball they have been playing, but it shows that they have been on the good side of luck in recent weeks.

It is possible that their luck flips the other way during the rest of the season. Many people will point to James Harden wearing down over the season or Kawhi Leonard’s injury history coming back at a bad time for why this will not last. But for now, the critics have had to eat their words.

However, the differences in Strength of Schedule are greater in the beginning and middle of the season than at the end. At the end of last season, only 3 teams had a SOS1 above 0.8 or below -0.8. Through January 20, 6 teams have a SOS above 1 or below -1. Even through half of the season, many team have a noticeably different strength of schedule. If we break the league up into four quadrants2 like in college basketball, we can see what types of teams everyone has played and how they have performed. Here are the top 12 teams in the league by overall record.

Teams like the Spurs and Suns have played a lot more top teams than the Pistons and Raptors. We also see how teams have performed against each quadrant. Despite a dominant season, the Thunder have just 0.500 against Q1 teams. Many other teams are also below .500 in such games. The Spurs have been great in Q1 but below 0.500 in Q2.

These big regular season matchups are often seen as a litmus test for title contenders. The playoffs are made up of (mostly) Q1 and Q2 teams. In theory, success in these games should lead to success in the playoffs. Teams that struggle in these games are seen as “pretenders” and having inflated records by the media.

Does It Matter?

While it may seem like teams need to win these regular season battles to be prepared for the postseason, that has not always been the case. Many NBA champions have had a worse rank against other Q1 teams than their rank for overall win percentage. We’re using rank instead of win percentage to compare since most teams have a worse win percentage against Q1 teams.

Some of these are teams like the 2004 Pistons or 2006 Heat who did not have dominant regular seasons. However, 8 of these teams (who played worse against Q1) had a top 5 record in the league, with 4 having the best record. The 2014 Spurs were a dominant team in the regular season and playoffs. They went just 6-14 against Q1 teams that year.

This is not to say that these games do not matter. For one, teams ranked first in win percentage cannot improve that ranking for Q1. It does mean that winning these games is not a prerequisite for playoff success. It’s only the worst playoff teams that are more likely to have very poor records against Q1 teams in the regular season. But there is not a significant difference between a championship team and a conference finals team in terms of their performance against the top teams in the league.

This may sound like the regular season does not matter, but thats far from the case. The reality is that good teams win championships, and good teams play good basketball during the season. Struggling against top teams does not mean a team is not playing good against the other 75% of their schedule. It just means a team’s losses are more noisy than their wins. Each team’s season is a fluid story, and good teams learn more from tough losses than big wins.

OKC is clearly in a slump, but the panic meter should not be high. They have the best defense in the league by a significant margin1, will probably finish with the best record in the league, and will be overwhelming favorites by the time the playoffs start in April. There is no need to panic, but there should be some concern. The Thunder have posted some of their worst offensive performances of the season during their slump. Since the Spurs ended their 16 game win streak on December 13, OKC had a below average offensive performance in 8 of 13 games. Every team has bad nights, but they have happened far more frequently for the Thunder during that stretch.

Over Reliance on Shai?

When the Thunder were an up and coming team, the question was always which other players would step up on offense. Last year, they answered those questions with Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren having big offensive performances throughout the playoffs on the way to a championship. However, the constant has always been the reigning MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. For better or worse, he has always shouldered a lot of the offensive burden for OKC. The gap between him and the next closest teammate’s offensive contribution is as big as any team in the league.

By ESPN’s net points2, the gap between a teams top two offensive contributors is only comparable to the Denver Nuggets. However, the Thunder have no players contributing above +2 net points/game (outside of Shai) while the Nuggets have 2 (Murray +2.9, and Gordon +2.1). This will likely change over the season, but it is worth paying attention to. The problem is not if other players can step up, rather it is the consistency in which they do.

In the playoffs last season, the Nuggets had success mixing up their defense between zone and man. Despite Denver having an average defense, they slowed down the Thunder for enough games to force a game 7.

When a lot of the offensive production comes from one player, it is easier to scheme a game plan against that team. It becomes much harder to win in that player has an off night.

Free Throws

The Thunder may have a historic defense, but many opponents have complained that they get away with a lot of fouls. The Minnesota Timberwolves have been one of those opponents. Last season, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch called out the inconsistent officiating for the Thunder in Febuary.

On December 19th of this season, Finch was ejected early in a game against the Thunder for arguing about a series of no calls in the game. Whether in response to Finch, or by coincidence, fans have noticed that OKC has been getting a less favorable whistle since that game.

The Thunder had a +0.4% free throw attempt rate differential before the Timberwolves game. In the Minnesota game and 9 games after, their differential was -5.3%. That was before their +22.7% game against the Jazz on Wednesday. Free throw attempt rate does not capture all the fouls that were called (or not called), but it does show that the Thunder have been affected by less free throws.

Is this something that will affect the rest of the season for OKC?

Probably not, the Thunder will be fine. But the rest of the regular season will show if OKC does have something to worry about since this will certainly be a topic of conversation when the playoffs begin. They are on an inevitable collision course with either the Spurs or Nuggets in the Western Conference. That series will likely determine if the Thunder will become the first back to back champions since 2018.

Kevin Durant has always been one of the great midrange shooters and that usually results in his teams taking more midrange shots than the rest of the league1. This season is no different. Despite this, the midrange is not the reason why the Rockets have an effective offense. As a team, they have not shot the midrange well (bottom 10 in FG%) and despite shooting great from three, they attempt less three pointers than most teams.

Their offense goes against the grain of many modern trends. They shoot a lot of midrange shots and few threes, they do not play a true point guard2, and they play lineups with multiple non-shooting bigs. Offensively, Houston is outside the top 10 in 2 of the 4 important four factors3 (eFG% and Free throw rate), and bottom 3 in Turnover Percentage. Yet they have a top five offense. The main reason for the Rockets success is not their shooting or avoiding turnovers. It’s their offensive rebounding.

Houston grabs more offensive rebounds than any team in the NBA. They rebound 40.8% of all available offensive rebounds. They have a chance to set the record for the best offensive rebounding percentage in the play-by-play era (since 1996-97). The gap between them and Detroit (36.8%) who is second in offensive rebounding is a big as the gap between Detroit and Orlando who ranks eighth. Simply put, the Rockets generate more opportunities to score than any team in the league. Steven Adams (20.5%) and Clint Capela (19.7%) rank second and third in individual offensive rebounding percentage4. It is worth noting that offensive rebounds can be inflated by plays like this where Adams gets three offensive rebounds in one possession:

However, these are extra scoring opportunities that most teams are not getting. There are two main ways to generate more scoring opportunities: forcing turnovers and grabbing offensive rebounds. Without the benefit a great turnover differential, the Rockets are still top 5 in scoring opportunity differential5 per game. When you account for Houston playing at the third slowest pace in the league, these extra scoring opportunities can make a difference.

It should be noted that simply generating more scoring opportunities does not guarantee success. What you do with those opportunities just as important. The Nuggets are 23rd in scoring opportunities differential but have the leagues best offense and second best net rating. They make up for it by shooting the ball better than any team6.

There is no one right way to play as even good teams have their weaknesses. But, the Rockets will probably win a few more games than they should because of offensive rebounding.

1

Phoenix Suns with Kevin Durant on the court:

Injuries that have happened and are yet to happen are part of what make predicting the rest of the season difficult. They also make it hard to predict how rookies will be preforming at the end of the season. It’s rare for a rookie to instantly be the primary option on their team. The amount of opportunities they get in the early season has a lot to do with the situation around them. VJ Edgecombe is a perfect example of this. With Joel Embiid and Paul George injured to start the season, he had a lot of opportunities at the start of the season. He played so well that he became the betting favorite for rookie of the year after just one week.

Edgecombe’s situation is interesting because on one hand he plays with three high usage players in Embiid, George, and Maxey so his opportunities will be limited. On the other hand, two of those three (Embiid and George) have only played a combined 60 games last year and have well documented injury histories. Through three games, Edgecombe was on pace for more touches than any rookie in the last 13 years. Since Embiid and George came back from injury, his usage rate1 has come down. Here’s how he stacks up against the other top picks in his class. For comparison, the league average is usually around 20%.

It’s probably not a surprise that two of the biggest risers in Rookie of the Year odds (Kon Knueppel and Derik Queen) are also two of the biggest risers in usage rate in the early part of the season. Unlike other individual awards such as MVP and Defensive Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year is very independent of team successes. Knueppel and Queen have a good chance to make it a close race, despite not playing for good teams.

We are close to a point where some rookies start to see a spike in their usage. Not only have some players had time to prove that they are capable contributors, but some teams have realized and accepted that they won’t be contending this season. Because of this, many rookies will see a surge in their opportunities as some franchises prioritize player development more. This usually occurs after about a month or two in the season, when the numbers are less noisy. Looking at past Rookie of the Year winners, many of them see a spike in their usage2 after about 20-30 games.

The only players who saw decreases in their usage were Ja Morant and Scottie Barnes. It is worth noting that Morant still lead his team in usage rate by season’s end. The early season high was more due to backup point guard De’Anthony Melton being injured. Scottie Barnes on the other hand was on a 48 win playoff team and his usage was likely never going to exceed OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam. Most other Rookie of the Year winners do see a spike in their usage.

Player Comparisons

One player who has seem a spike in their usage rate is Derik Queen of the New Orleans Pelicans. He may be the one saving grace in what has been a disappointing season for a team that is currently last place in the Western Conference. However, even that has a catch. To draft Queen, the Pelicans gave up a 2026 unprotected pick to move up 10 spots to 13 in the draft. That pick currently has a 52% chance of being in the top four3 of what is looking like one of the best draft classes in years.

This decision was questioned on draft night as trading an unprotected first round pick to move up in the middle of the first round is by most views an huge overpay. At least for New Orleans, Queen has exceeded expectations which has provided hope for their future. His play has drawn comparisons to other great players, namely, Nikola Jokić.

Most player comparisons are far from realistic as there are so many nuances that differentiate most players. For Derik Queen, he is a relatively undersized center at 6’ 9” and does not post up as much as other bigs. However there are still noticeable similarities like his ball handling and passing ability which are uncommon for most centers. I try to stay away from comparisons, but his ability to create on offense is rare for big men.

The question about Queen coming into the draft was if his skills would translate over into the NBA where his size is less of an advantage. Through the first part of the season, he has given plenty of reason to believe that they will. However, comparing most players to Jokić is usually not a good idea. Like with most players who receive the “next Jordan” or “next Lebron” label, there is usually a large gap in efficiency between the two.

A closer play style comparison is probably Alperen Sengun, who has also been compared to Nikola Jokić himself. However like with Jokić, Sengun plays in the post much more than Derik Queen.

In the age of position-less basketball, it’s hard to box anyone into an archetype. Derik Queen is no different, and he is becoming a new unique star in the NBA.

OKC had made a living all season on winning the turnover battle (which is one of the four important factors to winning basketball games). They did this with a swarming and relentless defense that lead to a historic turnover margin. Many people (including me) will tell you that they got away with a lot of fouls in Game 7. But the reality is that there will always be more fouls than are actually called. The Thunder leaned all the way into their identity for Game 7, and it worked as they blew out the Nuggets on the way to their first championship.

When you get to deep into a playoff series, there are very few cards that each team has left to play. It’s hard to surprise someone after playing them for six straight games. Despite having little time defending Jokić in the first 6 games, Alex Caruso was the primary defender on him for 44% of the time in Game 7. His previous high was only 10% in Game 6.

This adjustment was such a curve ball that the Nuggets did not have time to make any meaningful adjustments. If Thunder coach Mark Daigneault does this earlier in the series, it’s probably not as effective later in the series. Since 2020, the Nuggets have scored over 150 points per. 100 possessions when Jokić is guarded by a smaller defender (6’ 7” or shorter). While OKC did have a historic defense, it is not a good strategy in the long run to play Jokić that way.

Back in the 2023 playoffs, the Lakers tried something that has gained popularity in recent years. They put a smaller defender (Rui Hachimura) on Jokić so that their shot blocker (Anthony Davis) could roam behind to help. After the third quarter in Game 1, Hachimura guarded Jokić. more than Davis in the series.

This worked because Davis could help off of an inconsistent 3pt shooter in Aaron Gordon1. Hachimura was able to keep Jokić out of the paint with a shot blocker behind him deterring the drive2.

This caught Denver off guard in Game 1 and almost lead to a Laker comeback. However, this wasn’t as effective for the rest of the series as the Nuggets would go on to sweep the Lakers.

What to take Away?

Nikola Jokić’s passing ability makes him such a hard player to double team. Schemes that work on other great players are usually ineffective against him since he has the ability to overcome many defensive schemes. Last week the Clippers tried to take away his passing ability by playing him straight up with Ivica Zubac and not sending any double teams. The result? Jokić scored 25 of his 55 points in a 14 point win.

A game plan to “make him score” might seem foolish against a player like Nikola Jokić, but his passing is probably more valuable than his scoring ability. This only works if you have a capable defender to guard him. Historically, Ivica Zubac has been a good defender against Nikola Jokić.

The Nuggets have been a worse offense and Jokić has shot the ball worse when Zubac was the primary defender. For comparison, the Denver had a 118.9 offensive rating and Jokić had an eFG% of 62.7% last season. Like with most all time greats, there isn’t a universal strategy that works. Instead, teams have to play the right card at the right time (and hope for some luck).

The book of Wemby

Since my last post about Victor Wembanyama, he went on an offensive slump for a few games. Wembanyama posted a negative offensive net points in the five games following his hot start to the season. ESPN’s net points is a descriptive metric that goes beyond the box score to asses credit and blame to each player on the court for every play.

Wemby has bounced back since then, but the game against the Suns added a page to the growing book on how to stop Victor Wembanyama. Rather that guarding him with 7” 0’ Mark Williams, Phoenix used guards and smaller forwards to guard him. This lead to easily his worst performance of the season. The only team to play him more with smaller defenders has been the Warriors. Draymond Green guarded Wembanyama for 51% of his time on offense, but the Warriors tend to play smaller lineups.

Like with Nikola Jokić, this strategy may seem counterintuitive. But pushing him off of his spot and speeding him up can have its benefits. This may have just been a bad game, but when used at the right time, it can throw a team off.

2

The Lakers also did something similar with Dwight Howard in 2020:

While the full extent of his offensive potential is yet to be realized, his defensive impact has been among the league’s best from his first game. He provides elite rim protection while also having the ability to guard in space, a rare combination that is perfect for the modern game. Wembanyama has already posted the two of the best seasons in block percentage1 and is on pace to post the highest ever this season. The only player who has consistency posted similar numbers is 7’ 7” Manute Bol.

As the Spurs continue to build their team, it will be interesting to see how good of a defense Wembanyama can anchor. San Antonio has not been afraid to experiment with his game over the last two seasons.2 Now that they have a roster that is ready to compete, they probably want to figure out just how good their defense can be. The Spurs rank second in defensive rating this season, only behind the Thunder. While it’s only been 6 games, they do have the pieces to be a good defensive team. Of course, all that starts with Wembanyama’s rim protection.

Good rim protectors can alter shots but great ones can deter shots. Shots at the rim have and will always be the most efficient shots in basketball. This is why players like Rudy Gobert will always have a high value in the NBA for their ability to take away those shots. Here is a hot spot chart (h/t Owen Phillips) showing where NBA teams are shooting against the Spurs with Wembanyama on the court vs. every other defense in the league.

You can think of this plot like on-off numbers for players. They are not a perfect representation of a players impact since it doesn’t account for the other 9 players on the court. However, Wemby’s defensive impact is greater than his four teammates due to his height. Players often pass up on shots to avoid challenging him near the rim. Good shots are often passed up for okay shots, and okay shots for bad shots.

This plot may not be surprising if you have watched a Spurs game this season, but this was not the case during the last two seasons. Teams actually attempted more shots at the rim than league average against San Antonio.3 The Spurs were 21st and 25th in defensive rating during his first two seasons.

This does not mean that he did not have a great defensive impact. Player’s defended by Wembanyama have shot well below league average during his career.4 Rather, the team defensive potential of the Spurs had not yet been fully realized. They currently rank second in least opponent shot attempts inside 5 feet this season.5 It’s early in the season, but taking away the best shots in the game is usually a recipe for a great defense. I say “usually” because there are exceptions. Take Ben Wallace for example:

In a stretch where he won 4 defensive player of the year awards in 5 seasons, his defensive hot spots are similar to Wemby’s in his first two seasons. However, Ben Wallace was was only 6’ 9”, and his height did not deter opponents the same way that other taller players did.

The Jazz were often known for funneling the ball towards Rudy Gobert and still gave up less shots at the basket because of his rim protection. Dwight Howard had a similar effect when he won 3 straight DPOY awards on Orlando.

Even before the 3pt revolution, players like Dikembe Mutombo, Alonzo Mourning, and Tim Duncan and David Robinson (on the court together) had a similar effect on opponents.

There is no one right way to play defense, but this season, we may be seeing the next evolution of the Spurs defense. A defense that is anchored by a combination of shot blocking, shot deterrence, and as Ben Taylor coined: the reverse block:

• Kevin Durant: Phoenix → Houston (What else needs to be said)

• Cooper Flagg → Dallas (Rookies are always a wildcard, but a no. 1 pick with this supporting cast is rare)

• Mike Brown: Sacramento → New York (The playoffs were clear that the Knicks offense needed an spark, Brown did just that in his first season with Sacramento)

• Desmond Bane: Memphis → Orlando (Orlando hasn’t been a good 3pt shooting team since the first Obama Administration.1 Bane easily fills a glaring weakness)

And some under the radar moves:

• Nickeil Alexander-Walker: Minnesota → Atlanta (Alexander-Walker outperformed any contract the Timberwolves could offer, now Minnesota is without a valuable piece as they still try to contend in a competitive western conference)

• Bruce Brown: New Orleans → Denver (Bruce Brown leaving in 2023 thinned out an already thin rotation, this helps to solidify their depth)

• Jay Huff: Memphis → Indiana (In what seems like a gap year for Indiana, they get to find out if they have a long term replacement for Myles Turner)

These changes create a lot of uncertainties heading into the season. We think that we have a good idea of who each team is, only for one signing to be a complete miss, or another signing to be the best move of the offseason. With that said, the first month of the season is usually filled with overreactions and conformation bias. Although some teams (like the Thunder last year) can be consistent for most of an 82 game season, many don’t. Some of this is due to trades or injuries (see the Lakers and Magic below).

It can also be from internal changes. When a coach discovers something that works, it can unlock something in their team. The Trail Blazers were a great example. They started the year as one of the worst teams in the league (by Net Rating2). However, they slowly made their way to a league average defense by the end of the season (their defense was top 8 after Jan. 1). This was done not by a major roster move, but the team improving throughout the season and finding something that works. It was enough for them to extend their coach Chauncey Billups. In November, Portland looked like they might have a chance to draft Cooper Flagg. By April, they looked like a team with a promising future (and an outside chance to draft Cooper Flagg), that’s despite finishing with a negative net rating.

When things Settle Down

The fog of October and November basketball was more apparent last season than usual. The Warriors started the season as good as any team in the league before plummeting towards mediocrity (they did get a second wind with the Jimmy Butler trade). The Pacers started slow with Tyrese Haliburton injured, but had a mid-season surge with his return and carried that all the way to the NBA Finals.

Then there are the Rockets and Thunder. Two teams than outperformed their most optimistic preseason predictions. Despite outside skepticism for most of the year on whether they were real contenders, they remained consistent and didn’t experience a drastically late season decline.

It’s easy to look at the big picture in March and April when we know how good everyone is. However, at the start of the season, there is way too much noise to know what is real and what is just randomness. The graph below shows each team’s cumulative net rating last season. The logos indicate when each team’s net rating has “converged”3 to their final rating. Once this happens, a team is at or close to how good they will be for the entirety of the season, i.e. they don’t take any major leaps or falls.4

This happens very early for some teams like the Celtics, Bucks, and Thunder. For others it doesn’t happen until March. Most teams did not converge until after January 1st. The Median convergence date last year was February 10th, meaning that half of the league was still playing better or worse by that point. For comparison, these are the distributions of convergence dates over the last 10 seasons. Higher areas indicate where more teams were in that date range.

The only season with later converge dates is the 2020-2021 season, which didn’t start until December 22nd (because the 2019-2020 season ended on October 11th). The median convergence date for all the other seasons (excluding 2021) is at or before mid-January. You have to go back to the 2011-2012 (which didn’t start until Christmas) to find a date after January 15. Last year was the first season that wasn’t affected by an NBA Lockout or Covid with a median date after January.

That’s not to say that this a significant trend that will continue this season, but it does give extra reason to be cautiously optimistic or pessimistic about early season results. Only time will tell if this continues. Just know that during these first two months, most teams are not playing at the level they will finish the season at.

Here is a great explanation by Daniel Li for why the Warriors were so effective during this stretch.

While the 3rd quarter Warriors were dominant, their standing among other historic teams makes them one of a kind. It’s part of the reason why there isn’t a great historical comparison for them.

How Good were they?

When looking at solely net rating1, the Warriors had three of the top 15 3rd quarter net ratings since the 1998 season. The 2016 Warriors ranked just outside the top 15 at 17th. The 2017 team (which was probably the best iteration of the Warriors) had a net rating of +23 in the 3rd quarter, far above any team in any quarter in this stretch.

While this was impressive, what separated the Warriors was their ability to improve in the 3rd quarter. After all, good teams are usually good in every quarter. The best 3rd quarter teams are usually the best teams in general2. What made the Warriors different was their ability to seemingly flip a switch after half time. They were top 5 in net rating improvement3 in the 3rd quarter for 6 out of 8 years from 2015 to 2022.

Highs and Lows

Every team has a general rotation that (barring injuries), they will stick to for most games. As a result, many teams are noticeably better or worse during certain times of the game. Looking at teams from last season, many of the best teams are best in the first and third quarters and many of the worst teams are best during the second and fourth quarters.

A lot of this has to do with rotations as teams usually play their best lineup at the beginning of each half. In the 4th quarter, many good teams tend to play worse (than the previous quarters) and many bad teams tend to play better. There are two explanations for this trend.

1. Garbage Time

2. Rubber band effects

Garbage time minutes are included in these numbers which almost certainly pushes every teams 4th quarter net ratings towards zero. This could also be explained by the rubber band theory, where teams that are leading tend to play worse and teams that are trailing tend to play better.

Below are the top 25 teams since 1998 (by net rating). While some teams have a clear peak in the 1st or 3rd quarter, the three Warriors teams on this list were always strong in the 3rd quarter. Their net ratings by quarter have always followed a different trend than most other great teams.

From 2015-2022, the Warriors have always seemed to be at or near their peak during the third quarter. The only exception was the 2020 season, where they were one of the worst teams in the league. They also have seemed to regress towards a net rating of 0 on the 4th quarter. This is in line with most other teams. The Warriors have not just been good during this stretch, they have been a their best.

What Teams are most similar to the Warriors?

While we have not seen a team eclipse the dominance of the 3rd quarter Warriors, we have seen some teams come close. Of all the great 3rd quarter teams, the 1999 Heat, 2014 Pacers, 1998 Jazz, 2013 Grizzlies, and 1998 Pacers stand out the most.

The 99’ Heat had a similar jump to the Warriors, however, they only played a 50 game season which makes it hard to tell how this would hold up over 82 games. The 14’ Pacers are an interesting case because while they were great in the 3rd quarter, they had a negative net rating in the 1st and 2nd quarter. The 13’ grizzlies also had a negative 1st quarter net rating, but their 2nd and 3rd quarter ratings were greater than 10.

The two teams that most closely mirror the 3rd quarter Warriors were the 98’ Jazz and 98’ Pacers. These were the two teams that came the closest to beating the late 90’s Bulls. Both of these teams have similar highs and lows as the great Warriors teams.

While 3rd quarter dominance is not the key to winning, it is definitely on peoples minds coming out of halftime.

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We can expect good teams to be good in the 3rd quarter simply because they are good teams. It’s no surprise that there is a strong correlation between net rating and 3rd quarter net rating.

You’ve probably been told this before. You’ve also probably been told how much of a problem this. Countless people have criticized how many threes are shot in today’s game. The corner three is the lynchpin to the three point revolution. Outside of layups and dunks, they are by far the most efficient shot in basketball.

Many people have proposed to make the corner three harder to shoot (by moving the line back in the corner) or even removing the shot all together. While many of these hypothetical proposals were not well received, they do reveal something deeper about what a lot of fans want and don’t want in the game.

People want to see offense, but not too much offense to the point that it feels like there is no defense being played. Like most sports, there is always an arms race between offense and defense. This push and pull often plays out naturally as the game evolves. However, in recent years, offenses have pulled much further ahead of defenses. This is why some fans want rule changes like this to be implemented. Would it help NBA defenses. Yes, but sometimes you should be careful what you wish for.

The best shot in basketball

Despite offenses becoming more efficient, offenses have not gotten drastically better at shooting most shots over the years. League efficiency has not changed much for most jump shots. Efficiency for layups and dunks has gotten better, but that is likely a byproduct of how much the three pointer has opened up the game. What teams have gotten better at is deciding what shots to take.

They have cut down on midrange shots to the point where it has become a lost art in todays game. There are still exceptions like Kevin Durant and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, but most players don’t shoot midranges as much because it’s not efficient for them to do so. Teams have swapped midranges for three pointers which are simply a much more efficient shot. Since the corner 3 is closer than above the break threes, it is the most efficient shot that is not at the rim.

In the last decade, offenses have pulled much further ahead than defenses. Not because they shoot the ball better, but because they shoot better shots. As a result, teams in the last 5 years have produced some of the most efficient offenses in NBA history. No rule change will stop teams from looking for the most efficient shots.

What if we eliminate corner 3’s?

If we wanted to help the defenses catch up, eliminating the corner three will certainty do that. Corner threes would instantly go from one of the most efficient shots to one of the least efficient shots in basketball. While looking at it in a vacuum may not be indicative of what this change would actually look like, there is no doubting the massive drop in efficiency that would result from this change.

There may be less threes taken, however, that doesn’t mean a resurrection of the midrange. This is because those shots will still be among the least efficient shots. Simply put, teams are not going to adapt a strategy that they know is worse just for aesthetic purposes. Unless the NBA decides to banish the three point line, the midrange will never be shot like it was 20 years ago.

What offenses will likely do is shoot more above the break threes and restricted area shots. Offenses would certainly get worse as defenses will have less three point area to guard and will be happy to conclude long twos in the corners.

What players will be effected?

What often gets lost in the discussion of three pointers is who shoot which types of shots. Corner threes have a bigger impact on the shot selection of role players than primary scoring options. This is for the simple reason that most teams do not want their best scorers to be standing in the corner all game. Below are the top 10 players last season in corner threes attempted/100 possessions.

Only two players had a usage percentage1 over 20%. Both of those players played under 20 minutes/game. This is much different than above the break threes. The top 10 leaders in this category were all first or second options on their respective teams. Outside of Malik Beasley (who scored the second most points for Detroit), everyone had a usage percentage over 25%.

While role players who can space the floor would still be important, their value would diminish since them standing in the corner does not put the same level of stress on a defense as it does with the corner 3. Having floor spacing will still be important to take advantage of the remaining three point area. However, floor spacers will see their value diminished because of the lack of three point area to space the floor.

What Should Change?

Eliminating the corner three may be an extreme measure, but there is some validity in wanting to help out defenses. Something as simple as stricter enforcement of illegal screens can help without sending NBA offenses into a nuclear winter. The NBA often “changes” the rules without actually changing the rules. Simply adjusting how things like a gather dribble and initiated contact are interpreted drastically change what we see called on the court.

Its no secret that most of these interpretations have gone in favor of the offense in recent years. A simple swing in the defenses favor is enough to let the evolution of the game handle the rest.

After all, we wouldn’t have moments like this without the corner 3.

One thing that is agreed upon is how much of an effect achilles tears can have on a player’s career. For many years, achilles tears were seen as a career ending injury, especially if it happens after a player has turned 30. Few players have ever returned close to their same pre-injury form. This is not to say that its impossible to come back from this injury. Kevin Durant is probably the best and most well know example of this. He tore his achilles at 30 years old. While he has only played over 65 games in one of his five seasons since, he has been one of the best players in the NBA during that stretch when he is on the floor.

Not quite 100%

Despite the improbable recovery from players like Durant, It is widely accepted that most players will not be 100% of the player that they were pre-injury. Even with modern medicine, the injury has a huge effect on a players athleticism. It has such an effect that players who do return often have to change their game. Kevin Durant even talked about how hard it is to shoot deep three pointers after the injury.

Whether or not a player is effective when they return has a lot to do with how they adapt their game. Now lets take a look at some notable players who tore their Achilles and how they fared after the injury.

Kevin Durant

Kevin Durant is one of a handful of players in the modern NBA to shoot midrange shots and get away with it. Meaning he’s great at it, historically great. Just this past season he shot 53% from the midrange which is the best out of players with at least 1.5 attempts/game. This gave fans a lot of hope since his game is not entirely dependent on athleticism.

He has continued to take a high volume of his shots from the midrange after his injury in the 2019 finals. His play style has allowed him to be one of the best players in the game despite an achilles injury in his 30’s.

What has changed for KD has been how often he shoots at the rim. While he still shoots a lot of short midrange shots, he has drove to the rim much less than before his injury. He has reduced such shot attempts by about half since the injury.

Klay Thompson

Klay Thompson tore his ACL in the same series Kevin Durant tore his achilles. He then proceeded to tear his achilles the next year in a workout. Back to back ACL and achilles injuries are devastating. However, there was some hope since Klay’s best ability (his shooting) does not rely much on his athleticism. We had also seen Kevin Durant come back from his achilles injury and play well around that same time period. As shown below, the majority of his shots were above the break threes and mid ranges. That continued after the injuries.

When Klay Thompson returned from injury, he drastically increased his volume of three pointers. In return, he decreased the amount of mid range shots and shots at the rim.

Demarcus Cousins

Demarcus Cousins is similar to Klay Thompson in that he suffered multiple major injuries. First he tore his achilles in 2018 on the Pelicans. When he came back in 2019 with the Warriors, he played 20 regular season games before a quad injury in the 2019 finals (all the Warriors bad luck in the 2010’s happened in a 2 month span). He would then miss the entire 2020 season with a torn ACL that happened in a workout.

Despite the torn achilles, Cousin’s game did not drastically change when he returned with the Warriors in 2019.

What Demarcus Cousins did change was how many midranges he took. While he did take significantly less after the three injuries, this was already starting to decline before his achilles injury. This is likely due to many teams starting to shoot less midrange shots around that time. He was also more of a role player when he returned from injury. His reduced role contributed to a different play style.

Rudy Gay

Rudy Gay tore his achilles in 2017 when he was 30 years old. While he was not a primary scorer like he was earlier in his career, he did not make many drastic changes to his game. However, like most players who suffered the injury, he did not drive to the rim as much as he did before.

Rudy Gay did not see a drastic decline in his play despite the achilles injury. Interestingly, the projection of his career looks unaffected by most metrics1. While he did make changes to his game, many of these were due to the decreasing role at the end of his career.

Kobe Bryant

Before Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant was probably the most well known achilles injury, and an unfortunate example of it derailing a player’s career. His career would take a sharp decline after the injury, essentially ending his prime. Like Kevin Durant, Kobe continued to take a lot of mid range shots. However, it was clear that his athleticism was not the same.

Kobe would attack the basket much less in his last three seasons where he only played 6, 35, and 66 games. While Kobe had not shown obvious signs of slowing down before his injury, he was 34 at the time of the injury. It was inevitable for him to slow down at some point.

What to expect from current players?

One advantage players like Jayson Tatum (27) and Tyrese Halliburton (25) have over other players on this list is their youth. They are younger than many players who had their career’s derailed by the injury were. However, this does not mean that their athleticism will not be effected.

Many players who tear their achilles learn to change and adapt their game. Usually this means attacking the basket less. This does not make a player inherently worse, but it does take away an important part of their game. Applying pressure in the paint opens up opportunities for other parts of someone’s game, and opportunities for their teammates.

The unfortunate reality is that no player has come back as 100% of their pre-injury self. Even for players like Kevin Durant who was over 90% of his pre-injury self. But if it can be done, now is the most likely time.

improbable ≠ impossible

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DARKO (DMP) projection for Rudy Gay:

Making predictions is hard, but its even harder with the inherent randomness and uncertainty that comes with 6 months of an NBA season. Weather a team is dealing with injuries, players are underperforming, or there’s a roster overhaul at the trade deadline, there are plenty of things that can go wrong. Sometimes the best luck is avoiding bad luck.

Although people like to claim that the regular season doesn’t matter, it it less of a forgone conclusion that you may think. Even the best prediction methods tend to vastly miss how well or poor certain teams seasons will play out.

How Good are our predictions?

One of the bast ways to gauge the sentiment about a team in any particular moment are betting odds. Since 2000, 53% of teams have finished within 6 games of their preseason win total1. While that might not seem very high, it’s important to remember all the unpredictable events that happen from October to April. Injuries, trades, resting players, and close games that could go either way can easily swing a teams record by a few games in either direction. Achieving a high prediction accuracy is nearly impossible without the benefit of hindsight.

In most cases, these differences in Actual Wins vs Predicted Wins can be seen as how much a team over or under achieved. There are young teams like the Pistons who were projected to be bad and seemingly came out of nowhere. While they had potential because of their youth and developing players, they were coming off of a season that featured a 28 game losing streak. Simply being average would have been an overachievement. On the other hand, teams like the Thunder and Cavaliers were projected to be good teams and turned out to be dominant teams.

Teams above the red line won more games than they were expected to while teams below the line won less games than expected. There are some major deviations in the positive direction like the Cavaliers and Clippers. There are even bigger underachievers like the Mavericks and Pelicans2.

For many teams that underachieved, it’s not hard to see how injuries played a big part in it. The teams with the three most wins missed due to player absences were the Mavericks, 76ers, and Pelicans according to BBall-Index’s WAR Missed metric. It’s no surprise that all of these teams significantly underperformed their preseason predictions. Most underperforming teams were simply not putting the same lineups on the floor that we expected them to before the season started. Injuries matter, but they are not the only determining factor. The Thunder still managed to win 68 games, despite the 4th most wins missed last season.

Who will Over Perform this Season?

Since 2000, there have been 3.5 teams each year that significantly over perform their preseason expectations by 10+ games. However, not all of these teams are the same. For example, the 2013 Rockets (their first season with James Harden) outperformed their preseason expectations by 13.5 games. But, they were only projected at 31.5 wins. Meanwhile the 2016 Warriors also outperformed their projection by 13.5 games. However, they were projected to win 59.5 games (the highest in the league that season).

The Rockets were projected to be a rebuilding team while the Warriors were the championship favorites. While we mostly think of overachievers as teams like the 2013 Rockets, they can be any type of team (contending or rebuilding).

Now lets look at what types of teams typically over perform. Not every team fits perfectly into each category. For consistency I will define the each teams projection as follows:

Championship Contender: Top 3 projected win total in league

Playoff Contender: Projected Wins > 50

Playoff Team: 42 < Projected Wins ≤ 50

Play In Team: 35 < Projected Wins ≤ 42

Rebuilding Team: Projected Wins ≤ 35

While many overachieving teams are teams with low expectations, almost half of them are play in teams or lower seeded playoff teams. Since there are on average 3.5 overachieving teams each season, we can expect ~ 1-2 rebuilding teams (ex. 2025 Pistons), ~ 1 playoff team (ex. 2025 Cavaliers), ~ 1 play in team, and ~ 0-1 team that is either a playoff contender or a championship contender (ex. 2025 OKC). These numbers can obviously vary in any given season. There could be 6 overachieving teams one year and only 1 the next year.

For underachieving teams, there are 3.9 such teams (teams that win 10+ games less than their preseason projection) each year. Teams that underperform consist of more expected playoff teams than the overachievers and much less rebuilding teams. The. amount of playoff and championship contenders remain mostly the same. We can expect ~ 1 rebuilding team, ~ 1 play in team, ~ 1-2 playoff teams, and ~ 0-1 teams that are a playoff or championship contender to underperform each year.

With that information, here are the projections for every team in this upcoming season. While no team is guaranteed to significantly deviate from their preseason projection, its almost certain that a couple teams will.

Does the Regular Season matter?

Lastly we can look at the regular season performances of teams that went on to win the championship. Some may argue the the regular season doesn’t matter and great teams can just “flip a switch” in the playoffs. However only 4 of the last 23 champions (in a full season) were noticeably under their preseason projection. Keep in mind that all of those 4 teams were projected to win over 50 games3. Only the 2006 Heat (who missed Shaq for 23 games) had a truly underwhelming regular season.

This is by no means a definitive analysis, but most championship teams do not simply coast to a mediocre regular season and magically turn it on in the playoffs.

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Top 6 teams that overachieved and underachieved: