This week's edition features 11 (!) things, including another leap from Jaylen Brown, Luka Doncic's post-ups and the New Orleans Pelicans trying to balance winning and development.
1. Jaylen Brown's fancy footwork
Could Brown make the All-Star and All-NBA teams -- and win Most Improved Player? He's averaging 27 points, up from 20 last season, and shooting 52% -- including 44% from deep. His Player Efficiency Rating has jumped nine points!
It's obvious how much work Brown puts into the nuances -- breaking down moves piece by piece, mastering each sub-move. His footwork is mesmerizing.
What an incredible series of dribble tricks, feints, half-spins, and changes in pace to open an acre of space for that step-back.
Watch Brown dance Zach LaVine out of his shoes, and come within a few inches of conjuring the rarest of buckets -- an up-and-under triple:
Brown is generating a ton of mid-rangers at the cost of 3s and shots at the rim. The Boston Celtics don't want him veering too far in that direction, but Brown is emerging as a second crunch-time mid-range assassin alongside Jayson Tatum. Brown has hit 55% of his long 2s, per Cleaning The Glass.
Brown has used the same craft to take a mini-leap as a playmaker. He's gotten good at keeping defenders on his hip, probing the defense, and seeing what options open. When appropriate, he's getting off the ball earlier -- making simple passes that keep the machine moving.
In June 2018, I wrote how Brown's statistical and playmaking profile through two seasons bore an uncanny resemblance to that of a young Kawhi Leonard. I cautioned then -- and would do so now -- that the odds were against Brown growing into an all-time two-way talent on Leonard's level. But I wrote that Brown developing into something like 90% of Leonard was on the table.
The parallels have continued since, with Brown gradually soaking up more pick-and-roll duty -- at about the same rate Leonard did -- and exploding as a scorer. In Year 5, Brown is a lock to make his first All-Star team -- just as Leonard did in his fifth season.
Year 5 Brown does not equal Year 5 Leonard. Leonard in that season finished No. 2 in MVP voting and won his second consecutive Defensive Player of the Year award. He was already a Finals MVP.
Brown is a very good defender, but peak Leonard was an absolute destroyer. Brown is not the best MVP candidate on his own team.
But Brown continues to annihilate external expectations. He is turning into exactly the player Boston hoped he could be -- and maybe more.
2. Luka Doncic, embracing a mean streak
I've been thinking about this play from the Dallas Mavericks' opener since it drew me out of my seat in real time:
Doncic dabbled in post-ups last season, but rarely displayed that kind of shoulder-checking brutality. We have seen more glimpses since:
That last bump knocks Sterling Brown back a few feet. Brown rushes to reengage Doncic, and leans hard against him. Doncic feels it, and spins off Brown for that silky banker.
Doncic is posting up more this season, and Dallas has scored 1.15 points per possession anytime Doncic shoots from the block or passes to a teammate who fires -- a mark that would have ranked in the top 10 last season, per Second Spectrum. He has drawn shooting fouls on 15% of post-ups, a monster number.
Post-ups might seem a luxury for one of the league's pick-and-roll geniuses, but to win at the highest levels, you need every tool. Even LeBron James didn't win it all until he developed a post game. It would give the Mavericks another means of neutralizing switches, and hunting mismatches. Put four shooters around Doncic -- the Mavs' setup with Kristaps Porzingis at center -- and doubling Doncic on the block is death.
After a cold start, Doncic has reasserted himself in an MVP race featuring at least eight serious candidates: Doncic (assuming the Mavs start winning now that their team is mostly back), Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, James, Leonard, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard. Looming at the edges: Stephen Curry, Paul George, Anthony Davis, and maybe a couple of others.
This could be one of those fun seasons where the vote is close between two, three, even four candidates. Incredibly, it's possible Antetokounmpo -- two-time defending MVP -- would finish fifth or perhaps not even make the five-man ballot if voting happened today.
3. The Joe Ingles, "Hey, you're tall!" pass
Umm, so, literally everyone in the league-leading Utah Jazz rotation is playing well. Five Jazz men are shooting at least 39% from deep, and that doesn't include Utah's best shooter -- Bojan Bogdanovic, finding his stroke after a wrist injury.
Ingles leads the way at 45%, and he's working pick-and-roll magic with both Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors. The whole league knows Ingles wants to pass; he has shot on only 29% of his pick-and-rolls, one of the league's lowest such shares, per Second Spectrum.
It has barely mattered that every defense plays Ingles for the pass. He tries passes others may not dare. Ingles understands the simple power of a height advantage, and will lob to Favors and Gobert when they have smaller guys on them -- even when they are not really open:
Utah has scored 1.21 points per possession on any trip featuring an Ingles pick-and-roll, 18th among 154 guys who have run at least 50 such plays, per Second Spectrum. (The top two: Ja Morant and Leonard.)
4. Russell Westbrook's lost handle
It's too early to proclaim this the end. Westbrook is not far removed from a 30-game, pre-bubble stretch in which he averaged 30 points on 51% shooting. He is recovering from both the coronavirus and two quadriceps injuries.
It has been hard for the Washington Wizards to gain rhythm given how virus protocols gutted their roster. Thomas Bryant's knee injury robbed Westbrook of his most explosive pick-and-roll partner.
But for years, executives within the league warned Westbrook might be one of those players -- reliant on athleticism, without a reliable jumper -- who falls off fast. What we have seen in Washington is either the beginning of that accelerated drop-off, or a blip of severe underperformance.
Every Westbrook stat is down, save perhaps the most alarming: turnovers. Westbrook is coughing up a ghastly 5.2 per game, putting him on pace for the fourth recorded five-plus-turnovers season in league history. (Westbrook has one of the prior three, along with James Harden and DeMarcus Cousins.)
An astonishing number have been unforced. Westbrook seems to have lost control of his handle, almost as if he has the yips. He is regularly bonking the ball off various extremities:
Defenders are just reaching in and swiping it:
And the passes. My god, the passes. Unable to get to the basket, Westbrook resorts to impossible thread-the-needle jobs that either end up out of bounds or in the hands of opponents.
Only 27% of Westbrook's shots have come at the rim, the lowest share of his career, per Cleaning The Glass. Westbrook is shooting 31% on 2s outside the restricted area.
None of this has deterred him. Westbrook leads all players with 15.7 isolations per 100 possessions, according to Second Spectrum. Those isos are producing 0.725 points on average -- 98th among 110 guys who have recorded at least 20 isolations.
Opponents have outscored the Wizards by 17 points per 100 possessions in 98 minutes Westbrook has played without Bradley Beal, per NBA.com. The Wiz offense in those minutes has burped up 87.8 points per 100 possessions. Perspective: the Minnesota Timberwolves' league-worst offense averages about 104.
An uptick will come. But Washington has so far lost the Westbrook-John Wall trade handily, something I did not expect. If the Wiz can't right the ship, they have to consider trading Beal.
5. Yuta Watanabe and the art of the closeout
This won't last if Watanabe can't make baskets. For his career, Watanabe is 12-of-43 on 3s and 28-of-78 on 2s. You don't stay in the NBA with numbers like that.
But Watanabe and Stanley Johnson defend like all hell, and have helped a thin Toronto Raptors team stay afloat amid nicks to Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam, and OG Anunoby. Terence Davis' recent play suggests both could lose rotations spots -- or at least minutes -- when the Raps get their full roster back, but even so, die-hards will remember how Watanabe and Johnson helped the Raptors dig out from a 2-8 hole.
If you enjoy textbook closeouts, you will like Watanabe:
That last one is a beauty.
Watanabe always seems to pop up in the right place at the right time, cutting and making extra passes. He holds his own across three positions on defense, and he's been a voracious rebounder. He just knows how to play.
6. The ageless Patty Mills
Thought experiment: What if the San Antonio Spurs started their reserves and brought their starters off the bench? Would their current bench quake against opposing starters? Would their starters blitz opposing benches? Would it even matter? Does anything matter anymore?
For the gazillionth consecutive season, San Antonio's bench is killing it. You half expert Marco Belinelli to stomp out a cigarette, check himself into the game, and curl around some pindowns. For the second straight season, the Spurs are losing the minutes LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan play together -- only this time, the carnage is worse: minus-48 in 318 minutes. (This is much more on Aldridge than DeRozan, who is having a fine season.)
Meanwhile, Mills keeps buzzing -- and proving he's more than a low-minutes spot-up shooter. He's logging 25.7 minutes per game, tied for his career high. Mills is running 30 pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions, double his rate last season, per Second Spectrum.
He's getting to the rim more, fooling defenders with hesitation dribbles and by bolting away from picks:
He'll crisscross in front of his screener, forcing switches. Mills is attacking those mismatches, dusting bigs and stepping back for 3s. He is launching 2.8 pull-up 3s per game, by far a career high. He has good two-man chemistry with Aldridge, Jakob Poeltl, Rudy Gay -- and probably the Coyote, too, assuming the Coyote is wearing pants and has his eyes on straight.
Oh: Mills is shooting 61% on long 2s, and never turns the ball over.
Mills has long been one of the NBA's beloved teammates. He's reminding us that he's also one of the great backups of his era.
7. Houston's island of misfit toys
For a half-decade, you knew what you were getting with the Houston Rockets: a lot of James Harden dribbling, too many free throws, and secondary stuff from whichever superstar was in Harden's good graces that season.
Houston is now left with a mish-mash of role players acquired to optimize a superstar who sulked his way to Brooklyn; cast-offs snared on the cheap; and high-wattage veterans who came in emergency trades with no connection to each other. This roster is a placeholder, killing time.
The Rockets are the only team yet to play the same five-man lineup in at least six games. Victor Oladipo and John Wall have played two games together. Houston doesn't have a ton of shooting, allowing defenses to wall off the paint. The offense can understandably take on a disjointed "your turn, my turn" cadence.
But the misfit-toy Rockets are kinda fun! Wall has appeared in only 10 games, but in every one, he shows flashes of vintage Wall -- one of the most incandescent players of the last decade: screaming end-to-end rushes, in-and-out dribbles executed at full speed, lefty quick-dunks, and visionary passes to corner shooters. (Wall's passing was always underappreciated.)
DeMarcus Cousins tapped into every veteran trick to rise from the dead for 47 points and 28 rebounds over consecutive wins this week. Will it keep up? Eh. Cousins is shooting just 34%, and can barely jump or move on defense after injuries ravaged him. But he is ultra-skilled, and really smart, and it would be nice to see old Boogie.
While Christian Wood was out, the Rockets sometimes went super-small -- with the bouncy and fearless Jae'Sean Tate moonlighting at center. Sterling Brown is making shots, and David Nwaba flies around like wild -- recording two steals and one block per 36 minutes. Houston has the league's No. 1 defense since the Harden deal. The schedule hasn't tested them, but Stephen Silas has these guys grinding.
Wood returned Thursday, and feasted -- floaters, rim-runs, long jumpers. Houston can play fast, potent lineups with three or even four of Wood, Wall, Oladipo, and Eric Gordon on the floor.
This team is NBA Mad Libs in the flesh, and I'm (as the kids say) here for it.
8. Zion Williamson and Jaxson Hayes together
The New Orleans Pelicans are finding out how hard it is to win today and build for tomorrow. They have plummeted to 24th in defense, and are getting shredded when Zion Williamson and Jaxson Hayes share the floor.
Williamson's issues are well-documented. Hayes is all over the place, but rarely in the right place:
You know something has gone horribly wrong when Utah's minivan revs up to dunk. Williamson should be able to dissuade Georges Niang from launching a 3 and wall off his drive. I have no idea what Hayes is doing. You can see Nickeil Alexander-Walker point twice for Hayes to rotate: Dude, where the hell are you?
Opponents have scored 121 points per 100 possessions against New Orleans with Williamson and Hayes on the floor -- worse than Sacramento's historically putrid defense. Good-ish news: It is mostly the result of hot opponent shooting, meaning the other fundamentals of New Orleans' defense in those minutes are fine. Bad news: opponents are shooting 78% at the rim (!) with Hayes and Williamson playing, and jacking tons of 3s, per Cleaning the Glass.
This is not all on the two young bigs. JJ Redick has appeared in 90% of the Hayes-Williamson minutes, Alexander-Walker in about half. Neither is helping much on defense.
New Orleans has enough guards and wings to play Williamson at center much more. Those lineups have no hope on defense, but they pour in points. It's worth trying if the Hayes-Williamson pairing brings the liabilities of playing two interior bigs (bad spacing) without the main benefit (stingy defense).
But that would stall Hayes' development, which gets back to conflicted priorities baked into this roster. Straddling today and tomorrow isn't on its face bad. It's often the right strategy. It's just hard to win on both timetables.
9. When the Clippers push
Only three teams play at a slower pace than the LA Clippers, but Tyronn Lue and his staff are nudging this laborious group to run after misses -- particularly when they spot even a teensy advantage:
George sees Isaiah Roby lurch for that rebound, and turns on the jets. Too many teams forfeit those edges. They either don't see them, or don't act with urgency to exploit them. The Clips can be casual like that. Contrast that with the Los Angeles Lakers: whenever James sees Davis contest an opponent 3-pointer, he looks right away for the touchdown pass to Davis leaking out.
Every big picture indicator screams that the Clippers are a legit contender -- that the only real weakness in their Finals dossier is playing in the same conference as the Lakers.
One flaw looms: The Clippers generate few free throws and shots at the rim. It hasn't hurt yet, because they are scorching from everywhere. But they could use more easy buckets against elite defenses, and leveraging chances like this is one way to get them.
10. Not holding your breath when players fall out of bounds
We found one thing about the pandemic that doesn't suck: no longer panicking that players might get hurt crashing into courtside fans, photographers, chairs, broadcast tables, and other boundary detritus!
This is (hopefully) temporary. The money fans pay to sit courtside filters to everyone in and around the NBA. Those photographers produce gorgeous images. Courtside collisions rarely result in major injuries.
But players are the league, and it's nice that they are (for now) a bit safer.
11. Bam goin' ham
Fifty-one players have run at least 50 isolations, per Second Spectrum. No. 4 in efficiency (and No. 1 before Thursday's action): Bam freaking Adebayo, raining mid-range hellfire -- step-backs, fadeaways, pull-ups going either direction -- and obliterating any wing unfortunate enough to enter his orbit:
Adebayo has drawn fouls on 10% of his isos, one of the fattest marks in the league. He's a bully.
The Heat have scored almost 1.3 points per possession when Adebayo shoots out of an isolation, or dishes to a teammate who launches, per Second Spectrum. Ludicrous. Adebayo has drained a Nowitzkian 52% of his long 2s, and if you have watched what remains of the Heat, you know those have been tough shots.
That number will fall some. But this is why I said before the season on the Lowe Post podcast I would not put a ceiling on Adebayo: I knew his jumper was about to blow up, and how it would open driving lanes and late-clock options for Miami. Adebayo will get cleaner pick-and-pop looks with Tyler Herro back and Jimmy Butler coming.
The 6-12 Heat have a big hill to climb to escape play-in purgatory. We understood the coronavirus would upend at least one contender's season. The Heat are that team so far. But they have time, and an ascendant superstar in Adebayo.