NBA Games of the Week: Team names only

Still so early into the NBA season, these games of the week are based off the relationship between team names only.

The NBA season is still so young. The league’s hypershift toward high-sample analytics like per possession and pace has put the league on a crash course toward MLB-type measurement. Baseball is able to use sabermetrics and numbers to determine more definitive outcomes for a couple reasons. The first, unlike the NBA and other spots, the number of variables within a baseball play are limited. A pitcher throws to a batter who reacts and then it resets. The second, and that’s where the NBA fits, is they have huge numbers in their samples that formulate their data.

Like baseball, early counts for stats that have become staples in the NBA are misleading. That’s not to say we can’t take certain pieces of information at value now. The Wolves will still be bad on defense and Giannis Antetokounmpo will still continue his assault on the league with inconsistent help. But, it’s almost pointless to create a games of the week thread around anything basketball-stats related until we have more information, as ESPN’s Zach Lowe pointed out:

So, for this the third edition of the games of the week, we’re focusing on matchups between teams whose monikers (not cities) have some sort of relationship. For example, they don’t face each other this week, but the Orlando Magic vs. Washington Wizards. Wizards use magic, and that’s how it’s going to go from here. (My all-time, would-be favorite: Bucks vs. Timberwolves. I could spend 800 words on the relationship between the Starks and Baratheons.) Think of this piece as something out of the Shea Serrano School of Sportswriting. This is the most important thing I have ever written.