As usual, let's look at three players who look a little different than what we thought they'd be and ask: Is this sustainable? Or, if the pattern is bad: Is this reversible?
So far this season, we've looked at 36 different players with every team NBA team accounted for. At this point, we'll start to double back on some players featured early in the season if recent news warrants it. We have two such players today in the Chicago Bulls' Derrick Rose and the Cleveland Cavaliers' Kevin Love, joined by red-hot Brooklyn Nets center Brook Lopez.
Derrick Rose, Chicago Bulls
What's up?
Rose has been more assertive of late, leading a certain segment of the Chicago fan base to declare any suggestion he should be traded as blasphemous. "Have you seen him lately?!" is a frequent rhetorical question I get.
Rose is six weeks further removed from the eye problem that sidelined him during the preseason and while he has had a couple of subsequent maladies since, they've been more nagging than severe. If we give Rose an injury pass for the horrific start to his season, then these past six weeks should be a more telling glimpse.
Why is this happening?
We'll look at Rose's performance dating back to Dec. 16, the date the linked story was published. Since then, Rose has averaged 17.8 points on 44.3 percent shooting and 3.5 assists. The Bulls have gone 7-13 with Rose in the lineup, and 4-0 in the games he has missed over that span. Over those 24 games, Chicago has had just four games in which the following things have happened: Rose has played, the Bulls have won and Rose had a plus-minus greater than zero.
Is this a thing?
It seems apparent that Rose has focused on scoring in an attempt to ramp up his game. You have to start somewhere, and it's likely that this has happened with the blessing of head coach Fred Hoiberg and Rose's teammates, such as Jimmy Butler, who frequently say something along the lines of, "We just need him to be aggressive."
Through Dec. 14, Rose averaged 15.9 shot attempts and 6.1 assists per 36 minutes. Since then, he has been at 19.0 shots and 4.1 assists. It's a pretty obvious shift, and the result is a scoring average that has gone up by just shy of five points. He's not producing anything like his peak numbers though, often struggling to put up even one point per shot attempt, as he's not hitting 3-pointers or getting to the line.
Verdict?
Rose's best weapon at this point is his floater and he has used it well. The rest of his game remains a shadow of what it was, and it's hard for me to see his increased scoring average as an indicator of an upward trajectory. I hope I'm wrong about that, by the way. But until we see Rose not only scoring but getting looks for his teammates and, most importantly, helping his team outscore opponents, we can't say he has turned any kind of a corner. Maybe it'll happen eventually, but for this season anyway, I suspect this is as good as it's going to get.
Kevin Love, Cleveland Cavaliers
What's up?
The narrative: Love has become more involved in the Cleveland offense since Tyronn Lue replaced Dave Blatt as the Cavaliers' head coach. You've probably heard about this. My RSS feed has about 18 headlines on the topic right now, so this must be a thing, right? Let's try to stick to our usual purpose here, which is to decide if this recent trend is real and, if so, sustainable.
Why is this happening?
The main thing to understand is that in the aggregate, Love hasn't been used more by Lue. He has, however, played better. According to basketball-reference.com, Love's usage rate under Blatt was 23.3 percent; for Lue it has been 22.6. However his field-goal percentage has soared from 41.3 to 49.4. On a per-minute basis, Love is taking more shots -- about one per 36 minutes -- under Lue, but that is best explained by a turnover rate that has dropped to nil. He's also taking slightly more 3-pointers and fewer foul shots -- all inverse of the kind of indicators you'd expect from a guy playing closer to the basket. Along those lines: Love also grabbed more offensive boards, and more rebounds overall, under Blatt.
That's not to say that Lue's pledge to have Love play more power basketball is empty rhetoric. We're talking six games here, during the middle of the season, and installing that kind of shift is a process. Getting Love a better sampling of touches is a great idea, but he's still not going to leap over LeBron James and Kyrie Irving in Cleveland's offensive hierarchy. So while changing things up for Love might be an area of focus for Lue, during the tiny six-game sample we have since the coaching change, the bottom line is status quo.
Is this a thing?
In the last section we talked results. Let's talk a little more about process here and look at Love's distribution of touches before and after the coaching change, as captured by the SportVu tracking data at NBA.com/stats.
These numbers are on a per-36-minute basis. Bottom line is Love is getting more elbow touches, fewer in the post and fewer in the paint overall. The elbow touches are important -- Love is such a skilled player that not only can he score from there, but he's a fine passer. (Something not yet reflected in his assist totals.)
Nevertheless, these are not stark numbers. The biggest change for Love under his new coach has been that he has shot the ball better, with an unsustainable 17-for-25 showing in his past six games in the paint and/or restricted area.
Verdict?
As mentioned, this is going to be a process. However, my feeling is that we have to remember the pecking order (1. James, 2. Irving, 3. Love) and the fact that under Blatt, the Cavs had a top-five offense. In other words, it was working just fine. The play calls might change under Lue, but the player combinations are the same. Love will prove to be largely the same player for Lue as he has been since coming to Cleveland. Not for nothing, that's a really good player.
Brook Lopez, Brooklyn Nets
What's up?
In most respects, this has been a disastrous season for the Brooklyn Nets, who have the worst roster in the league if you're talking about future value, no general manager and no permanent coach. Have I left anything out? It hasn't all been dismal, however. Brook Lopez is having a terrific season, averaging 20.7 points on 50.1 percent shooting. Best of all, he has been healthy, playing in all of Brooklyn's first 49 games and averaging more minutes per contest than he has in five years. He has already broken his four-year cycle of one healthy season followed by an injury-ravaged campaign. And while Brooklyn's season continues to sink, Lopez seems to keep getting better. Over his past five games, he has put up 26.4 points, 9.4 boards, 2.4 blocks and shot 57.1 percent. The Nets haven't made a lot of good decisions in recent years but keeping Lopez in the fold looks like a great one.
Why is this happening?
Lopez has one of the most fascinating game logs in the NBA this season. He has been positive in raw plus-minus 18 times so far on a team that has won just 12 times overall. That suggests that if the Nets had better talent around Lopez, he'd be a worthy cornerstone. Admittedly, this is just a jumping off point when looking at player value.
The other part of this is to consider just how reliant a team is on a player who is a supposed cornerstone. How often do they win even despite being outscored during the minutes their franchise player is on the floor? In Brooklyn's case, it's never. The Nets have been outscored with Lopez on the court 29 times this season. They have gone 1-28 in those games.
Is this a thing?
The Nets aren't really incentivized to lose since they don't own their own first-round pick. But no matter how hard they ride Lopez, they aren't mounting a push for the playoffs. Nevertheless, it's apparent that for Brooklyn to have any chance in a given game, it's almost certainly going to be because of Lopez. With an interim coach in place looking to impress, Lopez's recent surge might continue.
Verdict?
Well actually ... Sanity has to intrude at some point, right? Hopefully someone will step in, note Lopez's injury history and the millions of dollars left on his contract, and decide that down the stretch it might be better to ease up on the throttle. Until that happens, expect the big numbers for Lopez to continue.