Hardwood Paroxysm Presents: The NBA’s bounce back years
Every year, someone is having a bad time of it. Injuries, sulking, poor conditioning or simple bad luck, they simply aren’t getting it done. Looking at this as a glass half-full, there is never a better time to rebound and have a great season. This week, the writers of the Hardwood Paroxysm Basketball Network take their picks of players, coaches, executives and concepts which will have these kinds of bounce back years.
Kevin Love as a Franchise Player
By Dan Lewis (@minutemandan) – Hardwood Paroxysm
Last season was a rough season for Kevin Love. While the 3-time All-Star power forward was able to play 77 games and over 2,500 minutes, it was a down year for the former Timberwolves player. Rumors about free agency, thinly-veiled tweets about chemistry, the burden of expectations, and a diminished role in the offense all weighed down upon his shoulders.
In a smarmy letter posted on The Players Tribune, the following quote is attributed to Kevin Love. “We’re all on the same page and we’re all in. We have unfinished business and now it’s time to get back to work.” He returned to Cleveland with a cool 5-year, $113 million contract in hand and the vision to chase down his dreams.
Kevin Love doesn’t have to be the best player on a bad team anymore. He can be the third option some nights, and he knows now that it can culminate in the opportunity to play for a championship. If LeBron and Kyrie want to get a night off, Love can take over, but being the primary option on a playoff contender doesn’t need to be his destiny.
With the distractions of last season behind him, he’s free to focus on basketball, recovering from shoulder surgery, learning the playbook, and improving himself as a player. Love only attempted 21.3 percent of his field goal attempts near the rim, with a career high 41.2 percent of his attempts coming from the 3-point line, and as such, posted a career-low mark for offensive rebounds. If the plan is to draw him away from the basket and remove his offensive rebounding talent from the equation, that’s fine, and Love will be more comfortable with his role on the team.
It won’t be easy, but Love always finds a way.
Lance Stephenson
by Danny Leroux (@DannyLeroux) – Hardwood Paroxysm
Players can bounce back for a variety of reasons but the simplest other than injury comes when they had an abnormally bad season the year before.
Lance Stephenson unquestionably fits in that group.
In his final two years as a Pacer, Born Ready made 35.2 and 33 percent of his three pointers. That dropped to an almost inconceivable 17.1% with the Hornets in 2014-15. In fact, Stephenson was the second least efficient player in the entire NBA on spot-ups among individuals with 100 or more spot-up possessions.
Some of the improvement will come from different surroundings. Whether Stephenson plays with starters or reserves, the Clippers have enough offensive talent to put him lower on the food chain. That plus having Doc Rivers as a coach could aid Stevenson’s shot selection issues.
The circumstances themselves also provide plenty of motivation for improvement. After a long, awkward free agency in 2014, Stephenson agreed to a contract with the Hornets for two guaranteed seasons and a third year team option worth approximately $9.4 million. That gives Stephenson ten more months to convince Doc to pick up his option and/or improve his league-wide profile. Being a part of a successful team can change a player’s reputation quickly but it also provides a very real opportunity to cement a negative perception at a most inopportune time.
Having a strong financial incentive should be enough but I keep on circling back to the basic truth that Lance Stephenson is a better basketball player than his 2014-15 season would indicate. That may not be the most ringing endorsement but getting back even close to normal stands as a legitimate bounce-back season.
Alec Burks
by Kevin Yeung (@KevinHFY) — Hardwood Paroxysm
When Alec Burks inked his $42 million, four year contract extension with the Utah Jazz last October, it was one of the first deals to be struck after news of the NBA’s new TV deal had broke. The idea of a $100 million salary cap soon to come was still settling in, and at the time, Burks’ contract seemed a bit on the high end.
Flash forward a season and that contract looks like a downright bargain, but what we know about Burks has only changed slightly – a shoulder injury robbed him of all but 27 games last season. He looked like an improved playmaker and shooter in those games, but the fact that he got better at age 23 is no surprise. The real question is how good will he get?
This year, the injury bug hit a Jazz youngster again. A torn ACL might cost Dante Exum the entire 2015-16 season, a sure blow for a rising team that some have tabbed them for playoff-ready as soon as now. The Jazz will seek a stopgap at point guard, but the names they’ve been connected to so far – Garrett Temple, Mario Chalmers – haven’t been lead ball-handler types. With Gordon Hayward on their team, they don’t need a shot-caller running point, but secondary offense will have to come from somewhere.
That is where Burks comes in. He could be the make-or-break X factor for the Jazz. We don’t know exactly what he’ll look like in his return from injury, but if any player on the Jazz has the requisite skillset to operate as a quasi-point guard next to Hayward, it’s going to be Burks. Ball-handling spice is hard to come by in the NBA, but he has it: an explosive driving game, with enough of the peripheral stuff to build promise.
Where Burks belongs among the promising young core of Hayward, Derrick Favors, Rudy Gobert, Rodney Hood and Exum is unclear for now, but he’ll have every chance to show us this season. His skillset should be a fun bag of tools for Quin Snyder to explore over a full season, and with any luck, Burks may yet emerge as the number two guy in Utah’s offense.
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