Five lineups we can’t wait to see next NBA season
The NBA is going to look incredibly different next season. While there wasn’t much movement from the biggest names in free agency this summer, there was enough elsewhere to make for some intriguing lineup changes in 2017-18.
There are plenty to choose from when it comes to which lineups in particular will stand out from the crowd, but there are a couple of things worth keeping in mind when evaluating them. The first is that lineups hoping to compete with the best of the best need to be able to play both ends of the floor at a high level. History says teams with a top-10 offense and top-10 defense have the best chances of winning a title, and it holds true for the last seven champions. Being able to trot out as many two-way lineups as possible is a good place to start.
The second thing to keep in mind is where the NBA is trending. As Abhijit Brahme of Nylon Calculus recently broke down, the league has seen a sharp incline in “Pace and Space” and a sharp decline in every other style of play since 1996, most notably “Paint Proficiency” and “Mid-Range Mania.” It generally means that teams are making more of an effort to get out on the break more and shoot 3-pointers while relying less on traditional big men and shots inside the perimeter. Doing more of the latter and less of the former doesn’t leave much room for success in today’s NBA.
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We can’t forget about entertainment value, either. Put those three factors together and you get competitive lineups that are worthy of your attention. It’s why we can’t wait to see the following five in action next season.
Thunder: Russell Westbrook, Andre Roberson, Paul George, Patrick Patterson and Steven Adams
The Thunder’s starting five for most of last season wasn’t bad. According to NBA.com, they outscored teams by 3.5 points per 100 possessions with the combination of a horrible offense (101.3 points per 100 possessions) and the most efficient defense in the league (97.8 points per 100 possessions).
To no surprise, most of the Thunder’s success was because of Westbrook. They were 10.5 points per 100 possessions better offensively with him on the floor thanks to his ability to single-handedly carry them with his scoring and playmaking. That’s incredible considering their starting lineup had a spacing rating of 13.3 percent using Nicholas Sciria’s calculations. Replace Victor Oladipo with Paul George (who averaged 1.14 points per spot-up possession last season) and Domantas Sabonis with Patrick Patterson (who averaged 1.07 points per spot-up possession last season), however, and that number jumps to a much more respectable 50.0 percent.
More room for Westbrook to operate in the halfcourt should obviously help him be a more efficient scorer and passer. If he was able to put up the numbers he did on one of the worst 3-point shooting teams in the NBA, pairing him with two elite positional shooters should make up for the non-shooting of Roberson and Adams in ways they couldn’t last season. Even though it still isn’t perfect — the starting five for the Warriors had a spacing rating of 98.3 percent — it should help them average a lot more than 101.3 points per 100 possessions.
That unit should be just as good defensively as well seeing as George and Patterson are a defensive upgrade over Oladipo and Sabonis.
76ers: Markelle Fultz, J.J. Redick, Robert Covington, Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid
Before injuries limited him to 31 games, there was a legitimate All-Star case to be made for Joel Embiid. The 76ers were only 17-28 when he was sidelined with another knee injury, but they went from being outscored by 7.9 points per 100 possessions with him on the bench to outscoring teams by 3.2 points per 100 possessions with him on the court. He helped lineups featuring the likes of Ersan Ilyasova, Nik Stauskas, Sergio Rodriguez and Gerald Henderson outscore teams over a decent sample size, which bodes well for his future as the centerpiece of a franchise.
Provided Embiid can stay healthy for a good portion of next season, replacing those players with a promising rookie point guard in Markelle Fultz, one of the best shooters in the NBA in J.J. Redick, a 3-and-D wing in Robert Covington and a playmaking forward in Ben Simmons should help them compete with anyone when they are on the floor together. While Simmons hasn’t proven the ability to space the floor, everyone else in the lineup can comfortably step out to the 3-point line. Embiid also gives them a legitimate post presence after he lead the league in post points per game as a rookie, so they won’t have many weaknesses for defenses to exploit.
Whether or not it’s enough for them to compete for a spot to be in the playoffs remains to be seen. It’s still a young core and the combination of Fultz and Simmons have yet to play in an NBA game. If last season was only a teaser of what is to come, though, Embiid can cover up a lot of those blemishes by himself. As long as he’s healthy, the 76ers should be in business.
Warriors: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Nick Young, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green
The reason the “Death Lineup” has been successful over the years is because it features five playmakers who can make 3-pointers on offense and then switch every assignment on defense. In theory, it doesn’t have a single weakness. The only hope defenses have in stopping them is by abandoning Andre Iguodala or Draymond Green on the perimeter to send an additional defender at Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant, yet Iguodala and Green have both made around 35.0 percent of their 3-point attempts since the Warriors became contenders. As many teams have come to learn, leaving them wide open doesn’t usually work out well for them.
The signing of Nick Young has the potential to make that lineup even more dynamic on offense. According to NBA.com, Young ranked in the 83.3 percentile with 1.14 points per spot-up possession last season. Put him alongside Thompson (88.1 percentile with 1.17 points per spot-up possession), Durant (94.7 percentile with 1.26 points per spot-up possession) and Curry (97.2 percentile with 1.33 points per spot-up possession), and the Warriors can basically put four of the best spot-up shooters in the NBA on the floor at the same time.
The Warriors lose some playmaking and defensive versatility by replacing Iguodala with Young, but teams won’t be able to ignore Young as much on the perimeter because he’s an elite shooter. Put it this way: With Young in the lineup, their spacing rating goes from an already incredible 98.3 percent to an absolutely unstoppable 100 percent. The difference isn’t much, but it will make them harder to defend.
Even if we don’t see it much in the NBA Finals — the spacing Young provides won’t likely be worth keeping Iguodala on the bench against whichever team emerges from the East — it has all the makings of a lineup that will steamroll its way through the regular season, especially if Young can continue to play defense at a high-ish level.
Rockets: Chris Paul, James Harden, Trevor Ariza, P.J. Tucker, Luc Mbah a Moute
Speaking of small lineups, the Rockets have one that could rival Golden State’s. While it’s unconventional compared to the others on this list — P.J. Tucker and Luc Mbah a Moute are small forwards by nature and they’d be asked to play power forward and center in this situation — Chris Paul and James Harden can give them more than enough playmaking for it to work offensively.
Plus, despite not being known for their shooting, Tucker and Mbah a Moute are coming off seasons in which they actually made 3-pointers at a decent rate. According to NBA.com, Tucker made 39.3 percent of his open 3-pointers and 38.5 percent of his wide open 3-pointers. Mbah a Moute was practically identical: 39.1 percent of his open 3-pointers and 41.1 percent of his wide open 3-pointers. Teams like the Warriors will still help off of them to throw an additional defender at Paul and Harden, but they should be good enough from the perimeter to make them pay by playing five-out. (Their spacing rating, for what it’s worth, is 85.0 percent.)
If that’s the case, it could be a scary lineup given their defensive potential. In addition to Tucker and Mbah a Moute being comfortable guarding every position on the floor, Paul and Trevor Ariza are versatile backcourt defenders who aren’t afraid of switching. Harden’s defense might still be a problem, but he’s shown signs of being a competent defender in the past when he’s locked in. With less of a burden to carry offensively, perhaps this sort of lineup that can get him to compete defensively.
Clippers: Patrick Beverley, Lou Williams, Danilo Gallinari, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan
The success of the Clippers next season depends almost entirely on the health of their star players. Once one of the best power forwards in the league, injuries have limited Blake Griffin to 163 out of a possible 246 regular season games over the last three seasons. It doesn’t help that he could be out until December with a toe injury. It’s a similar case with Danilo Gallinari, who played in a total of 289 games out of a possible 476 games with the Nuggets between 2011 and 2017. He, too, will be coming off of a noteworthy injury heading into training camp.
If Griffin and Gallinari can stay healthy, the Clippers have the potential to make some noise in the Western Conference. A lineup revolving around them with Patrick Beverley, Lou Williams and DeAndre Jordan, for example, gives them an exciting combination of defensive-minded players and ones who can complement the playmaking of Griffin — Beverley, Williams and Gallinari can all space the floor out to the perimeter at a high rate and there aren’t many players who can play above the rim like Jordan. It’s similar to the setup the Rockets had with James Harden last season, only with a 6-foot-10 power forward running the show rather than a 6-foot-5 shooting guard.
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The spacing rating of that lineup sits at 71.6 percent. Again, not perfect when compared to other lineups across the league, but versatile enough for them to wreak havoc. We’ve been waiting patiently for Doc Rivers to fully unleash Griffin at point, and it’s lineups like this that can put him in positions to succeed.
Assuming, of course, that they can stay healthy.