Hardwood Paroxysm presents: Early season NBA overreactions

The NBA season is but three days old. At this point, we barely know anything about what will happen throughout the rest of the year. Of course, that won’t keep the Hardwood Paroxysm crew from completely overreacting to what we’ve seen so far. Some of them may hold some water, some may not, but rest assured: These takes are scalding hot.

Austin Peters (apete1993): Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum will lead the Blazers to the 8th Seed

The Portland Trailblazers absolutely ROASTED the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday night. It wasn’t even a contest from the moment the game tipped off. CJ McCollum was going crazy, pouring in 37 points on 14-22 from the field, including 6-9 from three (!!!). Damian Lillard finished with 21 points and 11 assists, Ed Davis finished with 12 and 11 rebounds, and Meyers Leonard was +29 with 12 and 8. They were making the Pelicans look like a joke on the defensive end; Dame and CJ were running circles around the New Orleans guards. Combine that with the plethora of heat checks from their little scoring guards, and Portland might have to be might favorite league pass team for this season.

It wasn’t just that this team dominated, it was the way they dominated. Their offensive spacing was pristine, and coach Terry Stotts had this team executing everything perfectly, despite all of the roster turnover. I understand that New Orleans is going through a defensive rebuild of their own with a new coaching staff and all the injuries, but Portland ran them off the floor. Defensively, the Blazers kept the same conservative scheme and packed the paint to keep Ish Smith out of the lane and make life difficult for Anthony Davis. They even threw in some switching 1-4 at times, something this team is capable of doing now that they have athletic bigs like Ed Davis, Noah Vonleh, and Mason Plumlee.

This team had great coaching, pieces that fit together, and an exciting, fun superstar in Damian Lillard. Watch out for Rip City.

Trevor Magnotti (@IllegalScreens): Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, not Andre Drummond, is the Pistons’ Most Improved Player candidate

The Detroit Pistons are 2-0 in a surprising start to the NBA season, blowing out the Atlanta Hawks on opening night before winning a tight contest against everyone’s playoff dark horse darling Utah Jazz on Wednesday. No one was very sure what to make of Stan Van Gundy’s squad going into the season, except for the expectation that Andre Drummond should make a huge leap this year. So far, the Pistons are surpassing most reasonable expectations, but it’s not Drummond who has been most impressive in making that happen. It’s been Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

Drummond’s been very good, mind you, posting 18 and 19 on opening night and 18/10 against the Jazz, all while shooting *gasp* 67 percent from the free throw line. But Drummond’s had a lot of space in which to work in the lane, and it’s been KCP providing that spacing by looking like a totally different player than we’ve seen to this point. KCP has been a career 34 percent three-point shooter to this point, and while he’s got a decent handle, he hasn’t been able to show it much. Through two games, he’s looked much better at both, hitting 6-12 threes, attacking the rim as the lead guard in bench lineups next to Steve Blake (Perhaps my favorite lineup the Pistons have used so far), and even looking very capable of trailing three-point shooters around screens, which he’s definitely been tested on in stints guarding Gordon Hayward and Kyle Korver. KCP is leading the Pistons in scoring at 18.5 points per game, is their best three-point shooter, and is doing this on a sub-20 percent usage.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope might be the most improved player on a team that includes Andre Drummond. Heck, he might be the most improved player in the league if he keeps this up.

Daniel Rowell (@danieljrowell): Forest Hill Hoopla

In the 4th grade at the Forest Hill Park CYO cross-country meet, an unfortunately placed cone sent the lead pack of the Great Cleveland Area’s amateur fun-milers on a 5K trek uphill to Lakeview Cemetery. I however, more of a slow and steady paced “back-of-the-pack” runner, arrived to the intersection just a few minutes later to find the cone corrected. I opted to take a left. A few thousand feet later I found myself in the unusual circumstance of placing amongst the top ten finishers, an eighth place ribbon to be exact. I leapt into my parents arms and hoisted the ribbon amongst tearful and tired fun-runners having run two miles too long.

Today is just the fourth day of the NBA 2015-16 season, my favorite time of year when single game performances meet the empty database on NBA.com/Stats. The site is a blank canvas, waiting for its first brush stroke.

A time when Ricky Rubio can be featured alongside Enes Kanter on the site’s leaderboards as the league’s best in Assists and Rebounds (14 and 16 per game respectively).

John Wall, a point guard, currently leads the league with five blocks. Andrew Bogut is a perfect six for six from the field. And rookie Justise Winslow has an effective field goal percentage of 125.

Ricky, Enes, John, Andrew, Justice – You may have 81 participation ribbons hanging on from your bookcase by the season’s end. Or you may finish with 1312 rebounds, 1148 assists, 410 blocks, and a true shooting percentage that redefines the denominator we all must rise above.  But today, when small sample sizes meets SAP-powered databases, you are the frontrunners. Leap for joy my friends and let the Forest Hill Hoopla begin.

Jacob Rosen (@WFNYJacob): Derrick Williams will have a career renaissance with the Knicks

The 2011 Draft is such a weird draft, man. There are so many good NBA players — Kawhi Leonard at 15! Jimmy Butler at 30! Isaiah Thomas at 60! — who were picked far later in reality four-and-a-half years ago than they would be in fake re-draft scenarios today. You could essentially have a decent lottery of just the non-lottery players! Which means that there are a bunch of lottery guys who didn’t deserve to go that high, in hindsight. The usual poster boy for the weirdness of the 2011 Draft is none other than new New York Knicks forward Derrick Williams.

At the time, the debate seemed to be that it would be either Kyrie Irving or Williams for Cleveland’s No. 1 pick. Williams was sensational as a sophomore at Arizona, lest we forget. He averaged 19.5 points, 8.3 rebounds, and was incredibly efficient offensively. His size, scoring efficiency and usage hadn’t really been seen since Kevin Durant’s one year at Texas. But in four NBA seasons, the former No. 2 pick has been pretty much the definition of mediocre, wrapped in inflated contracts and lofty expectations.

Before this year, he has averaged 9.3 points and 4.3 rebounds on average efficiency in 22.4 minutes per game. His usage rate is 19.9 percent, just shy of the 20 percent average, and symbolic of his mediocrity. Yet, for some odd reason, the Knicks then offered him a two-year $10 million deal, with the second year as a player option.

But, there’s one reality where maybe the Knicks saw something in Williams, who is still only 24 years old. He scored 24 points and grabbed seven rebounds in 21 minutes off the bench in the opener! That’s a damn good game. He led the league with a 44.0 usage rate for a brief moment! The Knicks scored 122 points, without Arron Afflalo, and with Carmelo Anthony only scoring 11!

Be still, my beating heart, maybe this is really the year for New York sports. Lord knows they’ve suffered so much. The Mets are in the World Series and the Knicks may have an absolute steal in 24-year-old Derrick Williams, who still has a lot to prove. But if he hits his sky-high upside from a few years ago, the Knicks could suddenly be quite good.

Kaveh Jam (@KavehsRoom): The Bulls are Historically Great on Defense

Tom Thibodeau left and took the pesky defense by which this Chicago Bulls team was predicated on – at least that’s what we were told. In reality, these Bulls are still defensive behemoths. You’re not scoring in the paint with Jimmy Butler in your jersey or Pau Gasol’s tree limbs flinging shots back at the rim.

It’s too easy and probably unfair to use the final moments of the opening game against the Cavaliers as Exhibit A – a play where LeBron James sprung to the basket and had his driving layup sent away by Gasol (his sixth block of the game). LeBron didn’t quite turn the corner like LeBron does; but even so, a game-saving block is something worthy of acknowledgment. For a Fred Hoiberg system touted for its offensive ability, it’s easy to lose sight that this has the makings of a premier NBA defense.

After holding LeBron and the Eastern Conference favorites to 40 percent shooting in the opener, they suffocated the Brooklyn Nets to 42 percent shooting and their entire starting five to a ridiculous +/- of -17. The Bulls have moved incredibly well on defense and positioned themselves in spots that cut off driving angles. Potential seams and gaps are quickly sealed.

Most of their defensive abilities are byproducts of the pieces they employ. Butler should be a first-team NBA defender every year for the next twelve seasons. Gasol, Joakim Noah, and Taj Gibson are all defense-first big men that play a vexing-style of defending – the kind that frustrates you into uncharacteristic turnovers or lifting a floater an extra four or five inches to make it just uncomfortable enough to begin playing beyond your means.

This is not yet considering Tony Snell, a premium wing-defender in a league obsessed with wiry two-way athletes. Snell moves laterally so effortlessly while possessing the length to distract a step-back jumper and this makes him indispensable in the Bulls defensive scheme. These Bulls finished ninth in defensive efficiency last season, a slip from previous years. But Hoiberg didn’t leave a loaded Iowa State roster to lead a one-dimensional, middling NBA team. And with these kind of pieces Chicago will be a historically great defense.

Bryan Toporek (@btoporek): The Denver Nuggets are a top-four lock in the West

Heading into the season, the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets appeared to be locks for the top five spots in the Western Conference playoff bracket. While plucky upstarts like the New Orleans Pelicans and Utah Jazz could threaten the status quo, those five squads appeared far and away above any other in the brutal West.

That is, of course, until the Denver Nuggets overthrew the status quo by smashing the Rockets in Houston on Wednesday in both teams’ season opener. Sure, the Rockets were without just about all of their big men — Dwight Howard was suspended for the opener, while Donatas Motiejunas continues to work his way back after undergoing back surgery in April — but Denver was likewise without two of its top rotation members, Wilson Chandler and Jusuf Nurkic.

Thanks to Denver’s new Big Three, the absence of Chandler and Nurkic mattered not. Rookie point guard Emmanuel Mudiay nearly triple-doubled in his NBA debut; granted, one of those three categories was turnovers (11). Despite the bevy of cough-ups, Mudiay finished with 17 points, nine dimes, five boards and three triples in a team-high 38 minutes, confirming that the Nuggets are now his team, for better or worse.

Meanwhile, Kenneth Faried looked like the explosive Team USA version of himself under new head coach Mike Malone, racking up 18 points (on 8-of-10 shooting), nine rebounds and three blocks (!) in 31 minutes. Malone has been talking up Faried for much of the preseason, and the Manimal made good on that high praise in Denver’s season opener, pouring dirt on his disappointing 2014-15 campaign under former head coach Brian Shaw.

The real story, though, was Danilo Gallinari. After a botched ACL repair cost him the entire 2013-14 season, it took Gallo much of the 2014-15 campaign for him to round into form. He hit the ground running this year, though, dropping a team-high 23 points (on 7-of-15 shooting), eight boards, three assists, three blocks, three treys and a steal in 36 minutes against Houston. Considering his post-All-Star-break splits last season — he averaged 18.6 points, 4.8 boards and 1.9 dimes in 31.2 minutes per game — the Rooster’s domination of Houston feels less like a small-sample-size anomaly and more like a sign of things to come.

With Gallinari playing like an All-Star, Faried embracing Malone’s system on both ends of the court and Mudiay quickly acclimating to running an NBA team, the Nuggets aren’t going to be the pushover many expected them to be coming into the year. Instead, based on how thoroughly they dominated Houston, they’ll find themselves in the thick of the Western Conference contenders once Chandler and Nurkic return to the court.

Jack Maloney (@jackhaveitall): DeMarcus Cousins will win the Three-Point Contest

DeMarcus Cousins has been the real deal ever since the day he was drafted. Honestly at this point in his career there aren’t too many ways that he could improve on the court. I mean, except shooting threes, but come on, that’s crazy, right?

Wrong.

Not only is Boogie just shooting threes, he’s scorching the nets from deep. This isn’t just another “hey this big man developed a three over the summer” experiment that ends after one and a half games. This is the real deal. Cousins went 4-5 the other night in the Kings’ opener against the Clippers, an 80 percent mark that puts him high above such “sharpshooters” as Stephen Curry and J.J. Redick.

Chumps.

Come this February at All-Star Weekend, Cousins will show the world this is no fluke when he dominates the Three-Point Contest. DeMarcus is already a King, and soon he’ll get his crown.

Chris Manning (@cwmwrites): The Cleveland Cavaliers don’t need Kyrie Irving

The Cleveland Cavaliers are the favorites to win the NBA title come June and perhaps rightfully so. The Cavs are just 1-1 so far, sure, but they dismantled the Grizzlies on Wednesday and did so without Kyrie Irving playing at all and without LeBron James doing a ton of heavy lifting.

At some point, Irving is going to return and that’s scary for the rest of the NBA. The Cavs running an offense where Irving, LeBron and Love are all working in sync is downright scary. But through two games, we’ve already learned that the Cavs don’t really need Irving to win. Mo Williams and Matthew Dellavedova fill in just fine at point guard and LeBron can handle distribution too.

As for the scoring, the Cavs can just give Love more touches and let him score. The Cavs, as that one game showed, don’t necessarily need Irving to win all the games they will play. Whenever Irving comes back, it’ll be a bonus.