Has the NBA's play-in tournament worked to the Los Angeles Lakers' favor as it enters its second season of existence?
Last year, LeBron James famously said of the play-in tournament, "Whoever came up with that s--- needs to be fired." That came when the Lakers needed to play an extra game, beating the Golden State Warriors to advance to the playoffs as the seventh seed in 2021.
As ESPN's Zach Lowe has noted, the situation has flipped this year. The Lakers, now 4½ games back of the LA Clippers for eighth in the West, have a much better chance of reaching the playoffs through the play-in tournament than if it did not exist. With that in mind, this week's mailbag takes a look at what the play-in has meant for the Lakers.
Throughout the NBA season, I answer your questions about the latest, most interesting topics in basketball. You can tweet me directly at @kpelton, tweet your questions using the hashtag #peltonmailbag or email them to peltonmailbag@gmail.com.
In addition to the main question, this week's mailbag also answers your questions about players peaking in their very first NBA games and which star tends to sit out fourth quarters of blowout wins most frequently.
"Does LeBron have to issue a public apology and praise the play-in tournament?" -- Zach
To me, this is a two-pronged question: How much did the play-in tournament jeopardize the Lakers' playoff chances last year, and how much will it help now?
Let's start with 2021. In practice, the play-in cost the Lakers only a couple of days' rest, as they beat Golden State in the 7-8 game to advance to the playoffs as the seventh seed -- exactly the same as would have happened in a world with no play-in.
That said, LeBron was right to note the play-in tournament represented a risk for his team. Based on the lines for the Lakers-Warriors game as well as Golden State's subsequent home matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies for the eighth seed (and generously assuming about 2.5 points for home-court advantage despite capacity limits at the time) produces an estimate that the Lakers would be expected to finish seventh about 68% of the time, eighth about 27% of the time and miss out on the playoffs 5% of the time.
By contrast, this year's Lakers unambiguously benefit from the play-in. Projections using ESPN's Basketball Power Index (BPI) show the Lakers jumping up in the standings to finish seventh or eighth less than 1% of the time. In a world without the play-in, the Lakers would probably be close to shutting down James, a notion he firmly rejected after Tuesday's loss to the Dallas Mavericks.
The play-in gives the Lakers a pathway to the playoffs, particularly if they're able to get Anthony Davis back from a midfoot sprain in time for those must-win games. BPI suggests a 9% chance of the Lakers earning the eighth seed through the play-in.
Given the difference between finishing seventh and eighth last season would have been marginal -- the No. 2 seed Phoenix Suns ended up looking like a more difficult playoff opponent than the top-seeded Utah Jazz -- I think the Lakers would trade the smaller chance of missing the playoffs in 2021 because of the play-in for the opportunity to make them in 2022.
More broadly, this shows why teams shouldn't be overly concerned with how a rule change like the addition of the play-in tournament affects them in the moment. Eventually, odds are you'll end up in a variety of different positions to experience both the upside and the downside of such changes.
"Michael Carter-Williams had his career-high game score in his very first game. How many such instances have there been in the history of the NBA?"
-- @supra_dig (Lars L)
This question grew out of my tweet last week highlighting that James Harden has now had three of the top-10 debuts with a new team since 1983-84 by John Hollinger's game score metric. Philadelphia 76ers fans buzzing about Harden's performance noted another Sixer on the list: Carter-Williams, the only player in the group whose debut with a new team was his NBA debut. As Lars pointed out, it also was Carter-Williams' best game to date by game score.
Naturally, that doesn't happen very often. Even if we look at players who have played at least 50 career games, just six have peaked in terms of game score in their debut:
For the most part, this list is filled with journeymen who happened to have a strong debut. Dupree and Hawkins both debuted midseason on 10-day contracts, while McCaskill didn't play until the fifth game of his rookie season. That leaves three players (Carter-Williams, Gordon Giricek and Eddie Lee Wilkins) to accomplish the feat in the opening game of their rookie season and play at least 200 career games. It was less surprising that Giricek (who scored 29 points on 10-of-13 shooting) peaked early. He was already 25 when he arrived as a draft-and-stash. Wilkins, who made the New York Knicks as a sixth-round pick, had 24 and 10 off the bench in his first game.
Carter-Williams is truly in a category of his own as a lottery pick (No. 11 in 2013) who was 22 at the time of his debut, where he started and flirted with a triple-double (22 points, 12 assists, 9 steals and 7 rebounds with just one turnover and 4-of-6 3-point shooting). Carter-Williams wasn't nearly that good his entire Rookie of the Year campaign, but his shoulder injury after the season creates a bit of a "what-if."
Technically, Carter-Williams could still beat that 34.7 game score as an active player. He's only 30. However, he hadn't played all season because of ankle surgery when the Orlando Magic waived him last month to make room for deadline trades.
"Miami sat Jimmy Butler in the fourth quarter against Chicago on Monday night because of a comfortable lead or the game seemingly in control. I've been watching a lot of Heat games and it seems that this happens a number of times for their All-Star. He's got to lead the league in this weird category, right?"
-- Filip
If we look at players who have missed the most fourth quarters of games they've played, the list is dominated by starters who don't always finish games. The Warriors' Kevon Looney laps the field with 34 such games, followed by the Clippers' Ivica Zubac with 26. Limiting to a minimum of 30 MPG to address those part-time players, Butler jumps to third with 12 behind the Clippers' Reggie Jackson and the Houston Rockets' Christian Wood (14 apiece).
Of course, Jackson and Wood aren't necessarily representative of the situation you're describing. In fact, the lowly Rockets are just 2-12 in games where Wood doesn't play the fourth quarter. Typically, they're on the wrong end of the blowout. So as a last cut, I looked at only games where a player doesn't play the fourth quarter and his team wins by double-digits.
By that measure, Butler is tied for No. 1 in the league with the Boston Celtics' Marcus Smart and the Warriors' Andrew Wiggins at eight each. The Suns' Devin Booker and the Denver Nuggets duo of Nikola Jokic and Aaron Gordon have seven apiece. So Butler is at the top of the league, but not all by himself.