The Rotation: A funny thing happened on the way to the Garden
The NBA regular season is a freight train that waits for no one. With multiple games nearly every single night, it can be difficult to keep up. As a solution, we humbly offer The Rotation — a daily recap series sharing three big stories from the previous night, one focused on a player, one focused on a single play, one focused on the big picture.
Otto drives the bus for Washington
By Chris Stone (@cstonehoops)
Forecasting player development is an imperfect science. In the NBA, it is too often viewed as an incremental process in which a prospect enters the league from either college or overseas and then slowly improves to reach his potential before hitting a peak. Many times, the idea of a player making a leap is limited to early in said player’s career, with many pundits proffering that prospects grow leaps and bounds between their first and second seasons as they adapt to the speed and physicality of the NBA, but aren’t capable of doing so down the line.
Given what we know about declining careers — that drop-offs are more often precipitous rather than incremental — we should be more open to the idea of exponential growth among young players even ones who are closer in age to their theoretical peak. Based on a small sample size to open the 2016-17 season, Washington’s Otto Porter may be following such a trajectory.
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Porter is already 23-years old, which feels ancient when describing the development curve of young players, but he appears to be in the midst of fulfilling some of the potential that made him the third overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft. On Wednesday night, the 6-foot-8 forward delivered the best performance of his still evolving career. In a 118-93 win over Boston, Porter scored a career-high 34 points on 19 shots and grabbed 14 rebounds, including seven offensive boards. His ability to be a complimentary player on a team where John Wall dominates the ball was on full display as Porter often found himself in open space or near the ball in order to make a contributing play.
Through his first six games (excluding Wednesday’s win), Porter has improved his true shooting percentage from 56.4 to 62.7 despite shooting a putrid 23.5 percent from three. That improvement can be traced rather directly to the 23-year old’s shot selection. Porter’s three point rate is down 10 percent in his fourth season while he’s increased the proportion of his field goal attempts from inside 10 feet from 31.8 to 41.3 percent. As a result, his two-point percentage has reached a likely unsustainable, but still impressive 69.6 percent to help him become an efficient third scoring option for the Wizards.
It’s not all sunshine and roses, though. Most of Porter’s advanced statistics suggest that he’s having a similar or even worse season this year than he did last season. Most of those fluctuations are based on poor defensive box score numbers, but Porter added three blocks and three steals to his stat line in the win over the Celtics by using his 7-foot-1 wingspan to disrupt dribbles and help protect the rim.
If Porter’s defense normalizes while he maintains his efficient ways on offense under new head coach Scott Brooks then we could be witnessing a player’s breakout in his fourth season in the league. Although he may never fulfill the expectations that befall most third overall picks, Porter can be a valuable role player on a playoff roster, something he showed on Wednesday with a flash of brilliance that reminded us that not everything has to be so incremental.
Zach LaVine: One man fast break
By Jaylyn Cook (@yasiin_jay42)
Zach LaVine is really fast. He is also very good at dunking, in case you haven’t seen or heard anything about that. Combine those things and the budding Minnesota Timberwolves stand-out becomes a threat on both the hardwood and in the air. Wednesday in Orlando, LaVine gave the Magic a crash course in his duality on both sides of the court.
As his dunk contest rival Aaron Gordon inbounded the ball, LaVine pounced and snatched it out of the air. Streaking down the court all by himself, he levitates and gives the audience a preview of what may come if he participates again in the Slam Dunk Contest.
Can we talk about how quickly LaVine got to the Timberwolves’ basket? It’s like everyone else on the court froze in time while he kept moving — similar to The Flash when he’s really feeling himself. That footwork will continue to come in handy for Tom Thibodeau’s offensive scheme (what little of it there already is) by providing the necessary bursts of energy needed to convert after a strong defensive play.
LaVine is already one of the top-tier athletes in the NBA. His explosiveness and ability to navigate the floor is is the future of the game. Yes, basketball is already fast enough, but the further emphasis on isolation plays and up-tempo play-calling requires the necessary amount of agility and stamina to keep up with the times.
These young guns know that. They like to run, gun, and finish strongly whenever possible. While only in his third year in the Association, LaVine has shown that he’s going to be one of the better ones at doing those things (and much more) on a regular basis. He finished Wednesday night with 37 points, and seven threes — both career highs.
From here on, the sky will continue to be the limit for LaVine. That is, until he ends up in the stratosphere trying to dunk in-game.
A funny thing happened on the way to the Garden
By Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh)
The two New York NBA franchises were supposed to be headed in opposite directions this season. The New York Knicks had Kristaps Porzingis and Carmelo Anthony. They added steely veterans like Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose. The rebuilt their supporting cast with Brandon Jennings and Courtney Lee. This was a team in the rise with playoff stars in their eyes.
The Brooklyn Nets were assumed to be at the bottom of the barrel. Jeremy Lin, Brook Lopez, and Bojan Bogdanovic were the only clear rotation players, the rest of the roster was filled in with cast-off veterans and long-shot gambles. This was a team headed down a rough road as they muddled through a hamstrung rebuilding process until the Boston Celtics’ relinquished their hold on the Nets’ draft futures.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the Garden.
Last night the Knicks and Nets met for the first time this season and, although the Knicks came away with a 14-point win, the space between these two teams is not nearly as wide as it appeared to be before the season started.
The Nets led by five at the half and ultimately fumbled the game away in the second half. The Knicks flexed with their superior talent, Anthony and Porzingis got hot, Willy Hernangomez had himself a game, and the win was theirs. But even with their loss last night, the Brooklyn Nets still have a better point differential than the Knicks. Brooklyn’s offense has been slightly better than New York’s to this point, and their defenses have been equally stinky.
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The challenges for New York (as usual) appear to be about fit, chemistry, and style. Their roster has far more to it than Brooklyn’s, but the gears have been endlessly grinding through the first few weeks of the season. The Knicks may ultimately be better, but they haven’t figured out how to do it yet. The Nets, on the other hand, seem to have already figured out how to touch their ceiling. They’re shooting 3-pointers like it’s going out of style (it isn’t) and getting solid contributions from players you wouldn’t believe even if I told you (Justin Hamilton scored 21 points last night).
Right now, it doesn’t look like either of these teams is headed for the playoffs. The Knicks have problems to solve. The Nets just get to keep playing their hardest and hoping for the best.
Funny how different paths can take you to the same place.