Two weeks into the 2021-22 NBA season, it's time to take stock of which surprising early results are legitimate and which might not be sustainable over the course of the league's first planned 82-game schedule in three years.
Already, there have been plenty of surprises, including the teams atop the Eastern Conference standings. With last year's four conference semifinalists in the East off to slow starts for a variety of reasons, three teams that missed the playoffs in 2020-21 are ahead of them, along with two more (the New York Knicks and Washington Wizards) that were quickly dispatched in the opening round.
Meanwhile, the LA Clippers are struggling without the injured Kawhi Leonard after reaching the Western Conference finals without him.
At the individual level, Miles Bridges is already making the Charlotte Hornets regret not agreeing to an extension with him before last month's deadline, while Harrison Barnes is a surprising newcomer in my wins above replacement player (WARP) leaderboard with Jimmy Butler an equally surprising leader.
The Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers have gotten contrasting production from longtime All-Stars playing smaller roles this season, Carmelo Anthony and Blake Griffin.
Let's dig deep into the numbers to assess what's real and what's not among early, unexpected results.
The Knicks and Bulls are back!
It has been a quarter-century since the Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks last met in the postseason (capping six matchups in an eight-year span), but Thursday's matchup between the 4-0 Bulls and 3-1 Knicks in New York had an early air of a playoff preview. Both Chicago and New York entered this season with high expectations after active offseasons and have exceeded them thus far.
Much was made of the Bulls' soft early schedule (their first four games were all against 2020 lottery teams), but after playing the Knicks and beating the previously undefeated Utah Jazz on Friday, their opponents rate about average overall, making Chicago's plus-8.7 point differential impressive. The Bulls entered Monday's play third in Basketball-Reference.com's simple rating system behind the Jazz and Miami Heat, with New York one spot behind.
Statistical projections suggested Chicago would struggle on defense after adding DeMar DeRozan, whose teams have typically defended much better with him on the bench, to a starting lineup with below-average rim protection from Nikola Vucevic. But the Bulls are sixth in defensive rating thus far, and fluky opponent shooting isn't a primary explanation. Chicago looks capable of sustaining an above-average defense.
As for the Knicks, their defense has slipped to 20th on a per-possession basis after ranking fourth in 2020-21. But New York has offset that regression with dramatic shooting improvement. New York leads the NBA by a wide margin with 16.6 3-pointers per game at a 41% clip. No, Kemba Walker (58%) and Derrick Rose (54%) are not going to keep making more than half their 3s, but the Knicks have done exactly what they hoped this summer by upgrading their offensive firepower.
Realistically, the Bulls and Knicks shouldn't yet be penciled into top-six spots in the East, but they've put themselves firmly in the mix if one or more of the East's favorites continue to stumble.
Are the Celtics just unlucky?
After a dreadful fourth quarter Monday against Chicago cost Boston a 14-point lead entering the final period, the Celtics dropped to 2-5 and 12th in the East. Given Boston has lost twice in overtime (winning a third OT game), the record could easily be better than .500, but the Celtics' point differential is an ugly minus-5.8 thanks in large part to a blowout loss to the Toronto Raptors.
Offensively, Boston surely will be fine when Jayson Tatum (27%) starts making 3s at something more like his usual clip (39% for his career). The Celtics' more troubling issues are at the defensive end, where they rank 27th. Although hot opponent shooting is a factor, the Celtics haven't been better than average in any of the four factors of defense and are dead last in opponent made free throw rate.
Oddly, Boston's big men are barely fouling at all. Starting center Robert Williams III has averaged just 2.1 fouls per 36 minutes and forward/center Al Horford 2.6. Every Celtics perimeter player is averaging at least 2.8 fouls per 36 minutes, a huge jump for Tatum, who averaged just 1.9 last season. Given the crackdown on foul-seeking behavior by offensive players, Boston's tendency to foul on the perimeter stands out and is costing the team valuable points.
The Celtics can easily right the ship but look most vulnerable to being knocked into the play-in tournament by one of the East's hot-starting surprises.
The Wizards winning without Westbrook
Although Washington turning Russell Westbrook's massive contract into several smaller ones in a megadeal that netted three starters (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Spencer Dinwiddie via sign-and-trade and Kyle Kuzma) plus key reserve Montrezl Harrell got solid reviews, the Wizards were still considered a play-in candidate at best entering the season. Yet, like the Bulls and Knicks, they are near the top of the East.
Dinwiddie has been outstanding as Westbrook's replacement, averaging 19.8 points and 5.6 assists while making 41% of his 3s, while Harrell (19.3 PPG, 10.2 RPG, 61% shooting) looks more like the Sixth Man Award winner we saw with the Clippers in 2019-20 than last season's version who got phased out of the Lakers' lineup.
This run looks a little less sustainable. Although Dinwiddie is an underrated catch-and-shoot threat, his 3-point shooting is out of line with his 32% career mark. And Washington has the fourth-largest difference between opponent shot quality, as measured by Second Spectrum's qSQ metric, and actual opponent shooting thus far -- suggesting the Wizards' defense won't likely stay a top-10 unit. Washington should stay in the play-in race thanks to depth but doesn't look like a legitimate contender.
Jimmy Butler for MVP?
Entering Monday's games, Butler's 1.8 WARP led the NBA in my metric:
Current leaderboard for my wins above replacement player (WARP) metric. pic.twitter.com/WWvH8uEnz2
— Kevin Pelton (@kpelton) November 1, 2021
Butler was also No. 1 in both win shares and value over replacement player from Basketball-Reference.com as well as FiveThirtyEight's WAR -- all of which made ESPN's Bobby Marks crow about his long-shot pick for MVP. (Butler wasn't one of the 12 contenders with odds of 25:1 or shorter at Caesars Sportsbook entering the season.)
Aside from a key uptick in steal rate (4.0 per 100 plays, nearly a third better than last season's career high of 3.1), there's nothing terribly fluky about Butler's performance in the Heat's dominant start. His offensive stats are similar to last season, when I had Butler on my All-NBA second-team ballot despite playing just 52 of 72 games in the regular season. Durability is the key limiting factor for Butler, who hasn't missed fewer than 15 games in a season since 2016-17 and has done so just twice in his career.
If Butler can stay healthy, he has a legitimate shot at the MVP and Miami should remain near the top of the East.
Barnes and Bridges in among stars
Two weeks is long enough for most of the NBA's hot starters to fade. Of the top 11 players in WARP entering Monday, eight have been All-Stars and 2019 No. 2 overall pick Ja Morant is no surprise. That leaves Barnes and Bridges as the two unexpected newcomers to the group.
In Barnes' case, shooting is a key factor. He's attempting 3-pointers 40% more frequently on a per-minute basis than last season and hitting them at a 45.5% clip. While Barnes has developed into a plus shooter, that's surely not sustainable. Already, Barnes went 1-for-8 on Halloween in his weakest game of the season. I also don't know what to make of Barnes increasing his offensive rebound rate by 125% from his 2020-21 mark, though playing power forward full time is certainly a factor.
Bridges, oddly, has dropped off a little from 3 after surging to 40% last season. His scoring average nearly doubling is a product of increased playing time (35.4 MPG as a full-time starter after playing 29.3 MPG primarily off the bench in 2019-20) and bumping his usage rate from 17% of Charlotte's plays to 25%. Predictably, Bridges' shots have gotten more difficult with the increased role, but he has offset that with slightly better shooting.
Odds are that Bridges won't get as many shots with Terry Rozier back in the lineup -- he had 19 points Sunday as Rozier returned after missing the previous four games due to an ankle sprain -- but he has earned more of them with his play.
The Clippers and Mavericks can't score?
In 2019-20, the Dallas Mavericks and the LA Clippers were first and second in offensive rating, with the Mavericks posting the most points per 100 possessions for any team on record. (Because offense was rising year-to-year until this season, seven teams beat that mark in 2020-21, including the Clippers.) Dallas dropped off a bit to eighth last season, while the Clippers cooled only to third.
Given that track record, it's shocking to see both the Mavericks and Clippers among the NBA's bottom five offenses this season along with the lottery-bound Detroit Pistons, Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Clippers stayed hot without Leonard in the playoffs by going small and putting shooting at all five positions. They haven't been able to do that as much this season and also simply aren't making shots. Luke Kennard (44%) and Paul George (41%) are the lone Clippers making better than a third of their 3-point attempts. Surely the shooting will come around to some extent, and getting Marcus Morris Sr. back after he has missed the past four games due to knee "maintenance" will help, but the Clippers suddenly look like they might be fighting for a play-in spot.
Similar issues have ailed the Mavericks, who have also struggled from 3-point range (31%, 26th in the league). Luka Doncic is shooting just 24% from beyond the arc, as is Kristaps Porzingis in the three games he played before experiencing back tightness. Dallas isn't getting noticeably worse shots than last season, so I wouldn't expect this to continue.
Blake and Melo: a tale of two vets
Both the Nets and Lakers filled out their top-heavy rosters with a bevy of minimum-salary players this summer, including some longtime stars. Brooklyn was assuredly glad to get Griffin back at that price after his strong playoff run for the Nets, but he's off to a dreadful start this season, shooting 29% and 2-of-17 from 3.
Griffin's shot chart looks good, as his attempts have come almost exclusively at the rim or from beyond the arc. They're just not going down. Among players with at least 25 shot attempts, only Jaden McDaniels has underperformed more as compared to what an average player would do on the same shots, according to Second Spectrum's qSQ metric.
Worse yet: Teammate Jevon Carter is third lowest in that category. If Griffin continues to struggle, Nets coach Steve Nash might have to turn more heavily to fellow former All-Star LaMarcus Aldridge at center.
By contrast, Anthony is thriving next to the Lakers' stars. He has cut out many of the midrange isolations and post-ups he still used last season coming off the bench for the Portland Trail Blazers to become primarily a 3-point marksman. A career-high 56% of Anthony's shot attempts have been 3s, which he's knocking down at a 52% clip.
Nobody is going to stay that hot from 3, but Anthony has emerged as a plus shooter late in his career, hitting 40% of his 3s in two seasons in Portland. As long as he stays in his role as a spot-up shooter, Anthony should complement the Lakers' big three well on offense.