Five big questions about random NBA stats
We have questions about the NBA. Luckily, we also have answers. Some of them might be useful. A few might even turn out to be right. This is Five Big Questions and this week we touch on randomness around the league.
Stephen Curry has led the league in 3-pointers made in every season since 2012-13, but James Harden is on pace to do so this season. Will Curry catch him and keep his streak going or will Harden be the 3-point king in 2017-18?
Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh): It’s going to be close. Curry is still out and the Warriors could be careful with his minutes when he returns (and across the rest of a regular season with pretty low stakes for them). It seems like Harden has actually been taking more 3s since Chris Paul returned and he’s certainly going to be motivated to both try and catch the Warriors in the standings and keep up his individual MVP pace.
Paul Centopani (@PCentopani): Harden’s already in the lead and ankle injuries can be tricky. The Warriors have no reason to rush Curry back. They need him fully healthy for the playoffs, not to win on a random Wednesday against Dallas in January. I think Curry misses more time than originally expected and Harden takes this year’s 3-point crown.
Bryan Toporek (@btoporek): Heading into Thursday, Harden has 30 more 3-pointers than Curry despite the Rockets having played one fewer game than the Warriors. He hit at least four treys in all but one of his past eight games, including a whopping eight against the Brooklyn Nets on Nov. 27. With Curry’s timetable to return still up in the air and Houston having nine more games through the month of December, Harden may open too large of a lead for Curry to overcome once he makes his way back from his ankle injury.
Chazz Scogna (@chazzscogna): Harden averages more 3-point attempts per game and is shooting a better percentage than Curry. Unless Curry starts making eight a night on 15 attempts when he comes back, the numbers just don’t add up to Harden losing the lead.
Ben Ladner (@bladner_): Right now, I’m inclined to believe Harden won’t relinquish the lead, barring injury or a massive slump. Curry is going to be out at least a few more games, and with Harden hitting at a ridiculous rate, Curry would have to go into 2016 Curry mode to catch him. Still, he is Steph Curry, so I wouldn’t put it past him.
It’s LeBron’s 15th NBA season and he somehow looks better than ever. He’s averaging 28.2 points, 9.0 assists (career best), 8.2 rebounds and 1.1 blocks (career best) while shooting 58.3 percent from the floor (career best) and 42.2 percent from 3 (career best). What the hell is going on here?
Levy: It’s not magic or robotics. It’s once-in-a-generation physical gifts matched with outlier skill refinement and an indestructible will. LeBron James is the greatest athlete of my lifetime, full stop.
Centopani: Can you tell me with 100% certainty LeBron’s not a magical robot? I dunno, I’m still skeptical.
Toporek: He adjusted his shooting motion in the offseason due to elbow pain, according to ESPN.com’s Dave McMenamin, and the results speak for themselves. With a jump shot he now trusts, LeBron is somehow even more unstoppable than he was before.
Two other factors likely played in, too: 1) The Cavs went through their typical two-week swoon early this year, so LeBron decided to put an end to that narrative by exerting himself more than he typically does this early in the season, and 2) This whole year may be an “eff you” to Kyrie Irving for demanding a trade. Basically: “Oh, you wanted to get away from me, one of the best players in league history? Well, here’s what you’re missing, chump.”
Scogna: I’m with Ian. He’s the greatest athlete I’ve ever seen. Measure him against the basketball greats as long as you want, but as a human being, he’s almost not.
As an aside, I can’t stop thinking about Paul’s robot question. I’m a literature nerd, and something about Robot LeBron doesn’t fit. To be created by mere humans doesn’t carry enough mythology. In a thousand years, when humans will be starting over as nomads, the name LeBron James has to ascend into the pantheon of heroes like Hercules or Achilles, so future generations will understand just how unique he was. The myth goes LeBron James once slayed the greatest collection of Warriors the world had ever seen with nothing but his bare hands and his last life.
Ladner: His 3-point shooting has been the difference. We fantasized about how unstoppable LeBron would be with a jumpshot earlier in his career, and now we’re seeing it. He could already get to the rim at will, but now does it more easily than ever because defenses have to respect him from all over the floor. It also helps that his athleticism has yet to significantly decline and he’s surrounded by shooters at pretty much all times. As soon as the Bald LeBron workout video came out on Instagram, I became confident that he’d have another dominant season, but I wasn’t expecting this. The ease with which he dominates, especially at this age, is unprecedented.
The NBA record for triple doubles by a rookie is five by Alvan Adams (1975-76). Ben Simmons already has three and he’s only played 26 games so far. That record is as good as broken, right?
Levy: Simmons should shatter it. Heck, Lonzo Ball will probably get there too.
Centopani: As the resident triple-double doyen, I’ll up the ante: Simmons breaks the record by the All-Star Game (which he will be partaking in).
Toporek: If he stays healthy, absolutely. But since he’s a Philadelphia athlete, he’s going to suffer some heartbreaking injury at the worst possible moment and probably fall short of the record. (I’m definitely not still scarred by Carson Wentz. Nope. Not at all.)
Scogna: Simmons will break it, but Ladner’s right; I’m so over triple-doubles. They were a fun stat last year during Westbrook’s run, but now it’s so tired.
Ladner: It is, but I’m pretty tired of talking about triple-double records at this point. They’ve become so common that they can no longer be taken at face value anymore, and too many people act like triple-doubles are the end-all, be-all of basketball excellence.
Andrew Wiggins is still just 22-years-old, but in year four of his career his shooting has been atrocious. Is this simply an early season aberration or are there signs of long-lasting issues here?
Levy: There have been signs of long-lasting issues for essentially his entire career. His defensive impact is average at best and he offers almost nothing in the passing, rebounding, and turnover-forcing departments. He is a scorer and not a particularly efficient one. His ceiling is probably something like DeMar DeRozan’s at this point and asking him to be impactful without the ball just doesn’t seem like it’s in the cards.
Centopani: Yeah….I don’t know how much of an aberration it is. His FG%, 3P%, and eFG% are all pretty much in line with his first three seasons. That said, he is only 22. When I was 22 I was definitely less efficient at stuff than I am now. Why can’t Andrew Wiggins follow that path too and become a more efficient scorer? I believe in you, Andrew.
Toporek: It isn’t as though he was a particularly efficient shooter prior to this season. He knocked down 32.9 percent of his triples over his first three years combined. The hope was that Jimmy Butler’s presence would allow him to feast off easier looks (and devote more attention to non-scoring tasks such as rebounding, defense and playmaking), but that has yet to come to fruition. Instead, Wiggins sometimes looks lost now that Butler is absorbing more of the No. 1 scoring wing role. There’s still time for this partnership to blossom, but the early returns are undeniably disappointing.
Scogna: I’m just asking here: It’s his fourth year in the league. He’s missed one game in his career. At what point do we start thinking he is who he is?
Ladner: Yeah, it hasn’t been great. That Wiggins hasn’t been able to hit 3s consistently even with Minnesota’s added playmaking is concerning. He’s taking over three catch-and-shoot 3-pointers per game and hitting less than 28 percent of them. Throw in his blah defense and it’s unclear exactly what he’s giving you on a night-to-night basis.
Donovan Mitchell leads the 2017 NBA Draft class in scoring at 17.3 points a night for the Utah Jazz (he’s their leading scorer already), but is he even in the top-3 in terms of the best prospects from the draft?
Levy: He clearly wasn’t one of the top three prospects, but there’s a big difference between a player as a prospect (hypothetical) and their NBA reality, as we’re reminded every year. With his rapid offensive development and his established defensive abilities it’s not a stretch to say he could turn out to be one of the three best players from this class.
Centopani: Let me start by saying I love Donovan Mitchell. Not sure why so many teams passed on him, but he fell into the perfect situation for him to thrive. If we’re asking if he’s been one of the best three rookies so far this year, the answer is yes. If the question is, “does he have a top-3 upside of all the rookies?” Then the answer is probably no. If he did, he would have been picked much earlier. BUT, I think it’s clear he should have been drafted in the 6-10 range instead of 13.
Toporek: Shout-out to my The NBA Podcast co-host, Morten Jensen, who has been singing Mitchell’s praises since prior to the draft. While I mocked him incessantly at the time, Mort repeatedly asked why Mitchell wasn’t being considered in the tier with Lonzo Ball and De’Aaron Fox, and, well… six months later, that’s a perfectly valid question. I don’t know whether he’ll finish his career as a top-three prospect from his class—I still believe, Markelle Fultz!—I don’t think there’s any argument that he’ll go down as one of the steals from the 2017 draft. Remember when the Pistons took Luke Kennard over him? Yeesh.
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Scogna: Mitchell is a great vehicle to remind everyone of the ebb and flow of an NBA season. A great stretch could vault a player into the top three or in two weeks he could fall out of the top 10. It’s how it happens. It’s be a while until the hierarchy of this class is solidified, but, for now, enjoy it.
Ladner: It probably isn’t as likely that Mitchell becomes a transcendent player as it is for some of his other 2017 draftees. But while his upside might not be as high, the downside is substantially less catastrophic. Mitchell will probably be a really good player for eight years or so, and while he might not be a Hall of Famer, it’s really unlikely he completely busts.