The Rotation: The world according to Kemba

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.

Kemba tweaks back, guides Hornets to win

By Dan Israeli (@danisraeli)

Few players have been more important to their team’s early season success than Kemba Walker has been to the Charlotte Hornets. The diminutive point guard has appeared to take his game to a new level, following a season of immense growth in 2015-16. Walker’s exploits in the pick-and-roll are placing him in a higher echelon of starting point guards in the league, who can beat opponents off-the-dribble in the paint, and from beyond the arc.

His current value on offense for Charlotte cannot be understated; Walker leads the Hornets with 25.3 points per game, the next closest teammate is Nicolas Batum with 13.6 points per game. That’s why something as minor as back tightness could put a real scare into the minds of Hornets fans. Walker exited Tuesday night’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves when he tweaked his back late in the first quarter, after opening the game with 12 points.

Read More: 2017 NBA Draft brings a fresh crop of center prospects

The injury was minor enough that Walker was able to return midway through the second quarter and pour in an additional 18 points, en-route to his third 30-point outing this season. Walker was only 2-3 from deep during the game, but illustrated his relentless ability to drive to the basket, tight back and all, as the Hornets put the Timberwolves out of commission with a 36-17 third quarter. Charlotte’s ability to come out strong in the third has been a driving force in their hot start, as they improved to 7-3 with the 115-108 victory.

Walker’s full line (30 points on 12-19 shooting, five rebounds, six assists, five steals, three turnovers) is indicative of the the type of player he has become. Of the same ilk as Stephen Curry and Damian Lillard, Walker is a scoring point guard that can orchestrate the offense and play off the ball due to his outside shooting prowess, which (small sample size alert) has him currently making 3.4 3s per game at a blistering 47 percent clip, both easily career highs.

And, like Curry and Lillard, Walker is very capable of distributing on offense, as well as being a good rebounder for his size who can pick pockets and jump passing lanes to rack up steal totals. While the 2-point shooting may seem unsustainable given his career track record, he is coming off career-highs last season (2.2 makes at 37.1 percent), which leads one to believe additional improvement can still be unlocked. Walker is simply gaining experience and confidence as a shooter, building on the dribble-drive skills that were always there coming out of UConn.

Can he keep this pace all season? Playing in the Eastern Conference, Walker seems confident enough to cement his status as one of the best point guards in the East, when you consider that Kyle Lowry, Kyrie Irving and Isaiah Thomas are his contemporaries. Walker, plain and simple, is on their level with his current play.

The issue is those players have partners in crime on offense that can pick them up when they’re down (i.e., shots not dropping) or, at the very least, take some of the pressure and defensive attention off. Walker does not have that right now; Batum has settled into a streaky offensive player dependent on the 3-ball who cannot consistently create his own shot.

While the Hornets are playing tremendous defense (tied for fourth in defensive efficiency), they know that the pressure and defensive attention will mount on Kemba, and that the hot 3-point shooting may regress to the mean. All of that, however, does nothing to dispute that Walker is a borderline top ten guard in the league right now and more deserving of his first All-Star nod than arguably anybody else.

My six favorite things about this Dwyane Wade lay-up

By Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh)

1. My favorite thing about this up-and-under reverse layup is the tight, rainbow arc the ball takes from Wade’s hand, up off the backboard, and down the rim. Geometry can be so beautiful and this organic curve is simply splendid.

2. The way Wade kicks out both legs at the apex of his jump, using everything he can to keep himself in the air long enough to reach the other side of the basket.

3. The tight spin Wade puts on the ball. It’s perfect enough to get the job done but it has just enough chaotic wobble to hold the tension until the shot is made.

4. Meyers Leonard’s angelic face, framed by those soft Farrah Fawcett curls, staring up at the heavens, wondering what sort of bargain he would need to make to be able to do what Wade just did.

5. Mason Plumlee flying through the frame, accomplishing nothing except forcing Wade to take make a highlight out of a simple layup. I love a good rim protector but the world needs traffic cones too.

6. The lack of celebration. Savvy veterans act like they’ve been there before, because they have.

Howard, Whiteside, and Millsap: Chairmen of the Board

By John Buhler (@buhler118)

The center position isn’t dead. It needs to be back on the All-Star Game ballot immediately, as the league suddenly appears to have an abundance of exceptional big men. Two of the NBA’s best centers were on display in South Beach on Tuesday night. Hassan Whiteside’s Miami Heat hosted their Southeast Division rival in Dwight Howard’s Atlanta Hawks.

This game was billed as a clash of the titans in the frontcourt with two of the best all-around rebounders in the Eastern Conference. Howard has been doing it for years and Whiteside has emerged over the last two years as devastating space-eater around the basket.

Listen: Now THAT’s a shocking upset

These two 7-footers were battling for every board for the first three quarters. Whiteside was leading Howard in the rebounding department, collecting 11 alone in the first half. However, Howard’s low-post prowess kept Atlanta in the game when the Hawks weren’t playing their best ball offensively.

Things got a bit more complicated for the Hawks in the third quarter, as Howard had to exit the game with a quad contusion. He essentially took a knee above the knee and the affected area started to swell. With Atlanta having to the play the second of a back-to-back at home against the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night, it was in Atlanta’s best interest to lose the battle in Miami to win the war in 2016-17.

While Whiteside would go on to clean up on the glass with 25 rebounds, Atlanta would draw defensive inspiration from another frontcourt source: All-Star power forward Paul Millsap.

Millsap is Atlanta’s best player and is one of the best power forwards in the NBA. Though he was an elite rebounder collegiately at Louisiana Tech, Millsap is an undersized power forward that has to scrap nightly to get 10 boards a game.

While Millsap only gathered six rebounds in the contest, his unrelenting effort to slow down Whiteside helped Atlanta win a road game against a rival 93-90 to improve to 8-2 on the year. Miami stumbled to the inverse of Atlanta at 2-8.

This mid-November game in the Southeast taught us a few things: Whiteside is an All-Star level player on a rebuilding Heat team. Miami isn’t playoff caliber, but will play tough defense for head coach Erik Spoelstra throughout 2016-17.

For Atlanta, we saw a brand of mental toughness that the Hawks haven’t displayed since their 19-game winning streak from January 2015. Atlanta had every reason to cave on the road against a rival in Miami and a ravenous rebounder in Whiteside once Howard hobbled out of the game.

Related Story: How one development opened up Kemba Walker's pick-and-roll game

Millsap was willing to take an absolute beating down low to offset Howard’s exodus. Not even a year ago, Millsap hated it when former Hawks center Al Horford would exit the paint to play a finesse brand of basketball to leave Millsap out to dry on the glass.

There’s no guarantee that Millsap would have agreed to challenge Whiteside head-on if Horford was still on the team. With Howard as his new frontcourt companion, Millsap didn’t need to be asked to rise to the challenge. He did it willingly. This has the makings of Mike Budenholzer’s toughest Hawks team to date. Atlanta found a way to win a game it shouldn’t have.