Throughout the season, we're checking in on which big NBA topics are real or not.
In this edition: Is Chris Paul more important to his team than Stephen Curry? And who is the Defensive Player of the Year?
Buy or sell: Chris Paul is more important to the Rockets than Stephen Curry is to the Warriors
The Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets just got their starting point guards back this weekend. And both teams welcomed them back with open arms. The Warriors went 5-6 in the 11 games that Steph Curry missed with a strained groin, while the Rockets went 0-3 in the three games that Chris Paul missed with a sore left leg.
So which team missed their PG more? And who is more valuable to their given team?
Curry might seem like the clear choice, as some consider him a favorite to win his third NBA MVP award this season. Curry ranks in the top five by player efficiency rating at 27.77, well ahead of Paul's PER of 19.9 (56th). Curry is on an astounding pace when healthy, averaging 42.8 points per 100 possessions while making 54.1 percent of his 2-point shots, a whopping 49.2 percent from behind the arc and 92.3 percent from the line. Meanwhile, Paul's per-100 stats are down 3.0 points and 0.7 assists compared to last season, while his turnovers have ticked up by 1.0 per-100 and his 56.0 true shooting percentage is his lowest mark since 2006-07.
Match Curry's individual numbers with the Warriors' dynasty continuing to drop games in Curry's absence and he seems the obvious choice. But it has to be mentioned that the vast majority of the time Curry has missed overlapped with Draymond Green being out (toe). Thus, the Warriors' recent woes can't be solely attributed to Curry, as Green typically has his own MVP-level impact on the Dubs' fortunes. Plus, the Warriors feature an MVP in Kevin Durant and another all-history shooter in Klay Thompson.
The Rockets were the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference last season after posting the NBA's best record (65-17) and highest average scoring margin (plus-8.5). Their struggles out the gate this season have caught everyone's eye, raising questions of whether the departures of Trevor Ariza and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute were too much for them to recover from.
However, closer examination shows that the majority of Houston's struggles can be attributed to Paul's slide and absences. In the games Paul has missed, the Rockets are 0-5 with an average scoring margin of minus-9.4. In their other 16 games, they are 11-6 with an average margin of plus-3.3. But the trends strongly suggest that the Rockets (with Paul) are improving rapidly after a very slow start. They have won 10 of their past 13 games that Paul has played in with a scoring margin of plus-7.8, numbers very reminiscent of the win rate and scoring margin that propelled them to the top of the West last season. Interesting.
Paul's importance to the Rockets is easy to understand, as the entire Mike D'Antoni offense is built around having smart, skilled on-ball decision makers surrounded by shooters who can create and exploit offensive mismatches. Though James Harden is a worthy MVP, Paul is still the best floor general on the team, the best decision-maker and creator for teammates and also the best midrange operator on a team that otherwise primarily shoots 3-pointers or layups.
When Paul is out, the Rockets' offense gets more one-dimensional around Harden with more limited finishers needing him to create the offense. Paul's presence, then, guarantees that the Rockets always have redundant MVP-caliber lead guards running the D'Antoni system as well as a shooter on the court that the defense has to respect as a secondary creator. When it's working well, it makes the team seem close to unbeatable. But when Paul is absent, the team's holes are easier to exploit.
While it can be argued and well-supported that Curry might be the better player overall, I buy that Paul is more valuable to the Rockets than Curry is to the Warriors.
Buy or sell: Robert Covington will be the Defensive Player of the Year this season
Covington has been one of the best defensive players in the NBA for the past few seasons, but he has largely flown under the public radar.
Not anymore.
Covington and Dario Saric were the main players that the Minnesota Timberwolves received back in the Jimmy Butler trade, with Saric as perhaps the better known of the two. But Covington has come in and seemingly changed the culture in Minnesota. He has sprouted defense where once there was none on a team featuring Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.
Consider: During the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons, the Timberwolves' defensive rating during the minutes that Kevin Garnett played was 99.4 points allowed per 100 possessions, marks that would have been the best in the NBA. The problem is that Garnett only played a total of 654 minutes for the Wolves across those two seasons, just before he retired. During the rest of Minnesota's 7,283 minutes, the team played poorly enough to finish with the 30th and 28th defenses, respectively.
What has changed this season? Let's break it down further:
First 14 games, pre-Covington: opponents scored 116.9 points per game on 49.1 percent shooting
First eight games with Covington: opponents score 97.6 points per game on 42.1 percent shooting
That's a huge difference. Is it plausible that Covington could make that large of a difference? Yes, for a few reasons.
First, this is a Tom Thibodeau defense, which means that it's all about making smart, aggressive help decisions that allow the perimeter defenders to press scorers because they know that they'll have help if they get beat. One defensive anchor can be the linchpin who makes it all work. Both Garnett with the Celtics and Joakim Noah with the Bulls won the DPOY this way. Historically, defensive anchors have typically been big men. But in today's NBA, Covington has the length, athleticism and mobility to have the disruptive capacity that used to be solely the purview of the big. Plus, he has help.
Taj Gibson is a strong defensive forward in his own right, and he pairs with Covington to give the Timberwolves a 1-2 defensive swarm in the central part of the court. Both are excellent at helping, switching and blowing up pick-and-rolls. This disrupts the bread-and-butter of most offenses. Improved defensive rotations matched with Covington's infectious enthusiasm at the defensive end -- where effort seemed to be lacking before the trade -- have the Timberwolves playing their best team defense since Garnett retired.
Covington finished fourth in the NBA in defensive real plus-minus (DRPM) for the 2016-17 season, third in 2017-18 and currently sits second in 2018-19 with a score just 0.04 behind leader Marc Gasol. His defensive impact is as large as any player in the league, and his presence is transforming the defense of the Timberwolves. If he continues to defend at this level, I absolutely would buy Covington as the 2018-19 Defensive Player of the Year.