
āSkinnyā Kyle LowryĀ has been lighting it up this season. This we could have expected somewhat ā based on his age, skill set, and prior seasons, I projected his Box Plus Minus (BPM) contributions to jump from +3.6 per 100 to +4.1 per 100 this year.Ā But with career highs in scoring, (21.1 points per 36) efficiency, (TS% of .587) block% (1.3), along with his 2nd-best ever Steal% (3.8), Kyle LowryĀ has trounced his projections with aĀ Box Plus Minus of +9.0. His Value Over Replacement Player (VORP)[1. This is BPMās measure of TOTAL contribution to a teamās Point Differential per 100 possessions] of 1.8 translates to about 4.9 Wins Above Replacement already in just 18 games, wedged between Curry/Westbrook and LeBron/Kawhi.
Hereās each teamās biggest gainers and losers by BPM minus my projection (minimum 200 minutes played)[2. Also note that for all these charts any rookie appearance is based on a BPM estimate via Kevin Ferriganās RAPM projections].

Believe it or not, there are a couple other players whose box-score contributions have exceeded my modelās projections more than Lowryās: Hassan Whiteside and Paul George. Paul Georgeās case is pretty easy: my model unfairly regressed him to the mean based on only 91 minutes played in 2014-2015[3. I am going to fix this next season]. Whitesideās is a little more based in reality: BPM saw a āmostly-defense playerā[4. And the box-score is extremely limited at doing even that] anchoringĀ theā¦uhā¦Ā 26th-best defense in the league. But currently allowing just 97.9 points per 100, Miami has taken a quantum leap to the 2nd-best defense in the league! Combine that with his NBA-leading (and mind-boggling) block percentage of 12.5%, and BPM feels a little more comfortable ādivvying outā points to Whiteside.
Hereās the full top 25:

Holy Tyler Johnson![5. My only NBA player that I can call aĀ friend-of-a-friend / acquaintance-of-an-acquaintance] Speaking of exclamationsā¦hereās the bottom 25.

We can expect players to regress to the mean somewhat, especially since my projections are for the end of the season numbers. So donāt be surprised if your least/most favorite player on this list trends a little toward the āProjectionā column. ButĀ we can easily eyeballĀ what players have under or over-performed early in the season by using BPM.