Nylon Calculus: Anthony Davis, Porzingis, and All-Star picks

January is a tough month to cover. We’re far enough into the season we know where teams and players stand, and we’re on the verge of the all-star weekend and the spectacle of the trade deadline, which some seasons can topple NBA kingdoms. The deals come so quickly and sometimes without warning that it feels like every morning we’re greeted by some Mad Libs NBA mutation with the news.

And yet for all the fun of surprising transactions on the horizon, there’s one looming decision that’s overtaking the NBA news-sphere. With that, let’s take a look back at the last month in basketball and obsess about Anthony Davis…

The Anthony Davis trade potential debacle

Earlier last week on the Jan. 28, Anthony Davis announced that he would not be re-signing with the New Orleans Pelicans. This is not entirely surprising as his frustration has been building for a long time, and it has led to an explosion of rumors and trade talk. So far, I would urge some patience for NBA fans because it appears the Pelicans are not in a rush — and that’s probably smart. Davis is an enormous talent, and there’s still another year on his contract. The haul to net Davis should be marvelous. How often do you get a young MVP-caliber player on the market like this? But no trade proposal so far has been strong enough.

Here’s the problem with the heavy Lakers trade talk coverage: unless New Orleans heavily values Brandon Ingram and/or Lonzo Ball, the Lakers have no great assets. They don’t have any other trade pieces another franchise would perceive as a future star and they have no high-value draft assets either — their best draft picks are future ones if you don’t think the franchise is headed in the wrong way, which would actually be an interesting gamble because you’re gifting them your own star. Would you want to trade an MVP-level player who’s still young for a package headlined by Brandon Ingram? In the abstract, it’s easy to find a handful of teams that could field better offers, and they can even wait to trade Davis in the summer.

Looking at the myriad of trade proposals out there for the Lakers, there are ones that include Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, their own first-round pick, Kyle Kuzma, and others, as well as more elaborate trades with a third party to route a draft pick to New Orleans. Is that worth a top-tier player? Lonzo Ball has been fine in many aspects for his age, but he still can’t score effectively even with a reduced role next to LeBron James and there’s no certainty he’ll be an All-Star. Ingram, to my eyes, has not progressed much at all from last season. Dreams of him being the next Kevin Durant are just a bit unfounded; he’s still under 70 percent on his free throws. Also, I definitely agree that the Pelicans would need to land both Ball and Ingram here.

But what matters here is how the Pelicans view those assets. Reportedly, they do view Ball as someone with star potential, and it’s possible they have a rosy outlook for Ingram too. For all my hand-wringing about the package that could be created by the Lakers compared to others, it all comes down to what the organization believes. It’s just that I’d be surprised if no other team can top that offer, even with a positive view of Ball, especially because the Pelicans are being patient with offers.

The other major issue is Davis’ control in this process because of the risk of his free agency after the trade, which has heavily damaged the prospects of a trade to Boston, for example. And if Davis doesn’t want to go to Boston, it’s unlikely he’ll be okay with a lottery-bound team outside the major markets. That gives leverage to Los Angeles because it greatly reduces the offers they’d get from other teams, and it kills the notion of his value in the “abstract” — that abstract and our love of trade value discussions are so often pointless.

However, here’s my real issue with New Orleans and their trade market: the best case scenario is that they get back a draft pick, or a young player, who eventually develops into an MVP-level player … like Anthony Davis. They’ve already had Davis, and they showed they could not create a good team around him. The problem is organizational, not with Davis. They can draft Zion Williamson and still squander even his talent. Remember how entranced we were with Davis as a college prospect. The Pelicans need to think long and hard about what went wrong because flipping the cards over for new players won’t solve everything.

I don’t know what will happen with Anthony Davis. But I imagine the Pelicans will be patient, and the latest report has the Lakers pulling out of the trade talks because of increased demands. I don’t know what the Lakers think they have that’s so valuable — perception is everything, and in Laker land, Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram are viewed as future stars. But this is a potential trade for a monumentally gifted 25-year-old. The trade package needs to level entire mountains.

Prep for Hamidou Diallo at the dunk contest

Dunk contests are often the refuge of bit players who are still making their way up the NBA food chain, and Hamidou Diallo is another in that long line of role players. Few people know him now, but there’s a chance he’ll find his moment of fame during the contest. As you can see in the video below, at the time he had the second highest vertical jump in NBA combine history at 44.5inches. You can see some of his dunks here. He’s a powerful, quick dunker, and let’s hope he finds the creativity for the contest.

The Porzingis gambit

Most NBA trades, even near the trade deadline, are fairly boring and exist to balance out ledgers or take flyers on potential starters. But sometimes a star gets traded and we all get excited, and even rarer still, sometimes that trade is legitimately shocking. Kristaps Porzingis was that trade, getting flipped with Trey Burke, Courtney Lee, and Tim Hardway Jr. for DeAndre Jordan, Wesley Matthews, Dennis Smith Jr., and two future first-round picks. At first glance, getting a 7-foot-3 unicorn all-star center at the ripe age of 23-years-old for a package headlined by Dennis Smith Jr. and future picks seems like a steal, but the more you dig into it, the more balanced it seems.

First of all, the obvious point is that Porzingis is coming off a major injury, a torn ACL that occurred a little over a year ago. Based on previous incidents, prognosticators are somewhat optimistic about his future because of his age, the development of medical techniques in the recent years, and the fact that two of his greatest assets — his shooting and size — should not be greatly impacted. Regardless, the injury adds significant risk, and at the very least would make a potential suit worry that a future injury, or injuries, are now possible for the big man.

Since Dennis Smith Jr. was basically being flipped for Tim Hardaway Jr. — hard to argue Smith is such a great prospect that he’s worth Porzingis — the meat of the trade involves the two draft picks. As Kevin Pelton pointed out, it’s rare that a team dumps two first-round draft picks. The 2021 pick will be unprotected and the 2023 will have a No. 1 – 10 protection. Based on how well Dallas is doing right now with a very young Luka Doncic and without Porzingis, it’s reasonable to assume the unprotected pick won’t end up high in the lottery, but that’s still an alarming risk. Draft picks are highly valuable, especially unprotected ones — those have almost gone extinct.

Then here’s the other factor: New York cleared an immense amount of cap space with Lee and Hardaway gone, as well as Porzingis’ cap hold. That gives them the possibility of signing two max contract players this summer — and there’s a lot of excitement over the free agent crop this summer. Finally, once you throw in Porzingis’ dissatisfaction with the Knicks, you get a franchise rushing to move forward and pulling the “yes” lever once they see multiple draft picks and takers for big contracts.

Dallas made the obvious move here and I don’t have to explain much. One question I have is, why did they leave the 2021 pick completely unprotected? They may have the confidence they’ll be good during that season, but it’s a risk. But that’s the type of risk that needs to occur to gain valuable players. Otherwise, a dozen other teams could make better deals. Maybe details will change in the coming days, but would New York have been unwilling to make the trade if the number one pick was protected?

Secondly, Porzingis secretly has one of the largest discrepancies between the conventional wisdom of his value and what some advanced metrics show. During his all-star season of 2018, his BPM, the popular metric at basketball-reference, was a negative-0.7. However, RPM, which factors in on-court impact, at +2.6 overall or ninth among listed power forwards. Another adjusted plus-minus metric, without any box-score stats, also saw him as a positive influence, but again nothing substantial.

What’s going on here? There are few players like Porzingis in modern history — a high-scoring, shot-blocking center — and a stat like BPM was trained on that modern data. Once you move into on-court impact numbers, he does look better. But it’s often tough for defenders, or players in general, especially ones reliant on others to help them create, to exude star-making plus-minus numbers on poor teams. He was a prolific shot-blocker on a poor defense, and whether or not the poor defense was his fault meant it was tough for metrics to pin him as a good defender. Additionally, I’d say his shot selection was an issue in 2018, partly because he had so little help. He was good at the rim and above average behind the 3-point arc, but too many of his shots were in that dreaded mid-range where you have to be a shooting artisan to be efficient. Hopefully, that will change.

As you can see with the Porzingis trade and the Anthony Davis kerfuffle, perception defines NBA dealings. New York believes its cap space is highly valuable, so losing Porzingis is worth clearing the books. And Dallas believes it can convince the giant unicorn to stay and become a bigger star, even after his comments about opting for the qualifying offer and entering free agency early in Texas. Whether or not he’ll be worth all this trouble will be seen soon enough on the court, and I can’t wait to see him in a new coaching environment and around different teammates. He’s a truly unique player whose advanced stats may require a bigger sample of games.

Been a long time, Cousins

There was one more storyline I wanted to quickly cover for January: DeMarcus Cousins is back, and the Warriors are ferocious yet again. For all the worry about how the supposedly temperamental star would fit in Golden State, he’s fit beautifully so far, and it’s understandable why. This is not some static brute; he’s a highly skilled big man who can hurt other teams in many ways. He does bulldoze to the bucket, giving the team a new dimension, but he’s also a good passer, he has range out to the 3-point, he rebounds with ferocity, he grabs steals, and he draws fouls at an alarming rate, which just means it’s that much easier for maestros Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson to get some free shots at the line.

Look at what Cousins did to the Indiana Pacers a few days ago. The clip below begins with a bounce pass from the top of the key. The team is already a well-connected offensive machine; another plus passer isn’t fair. He’s enough of a shooter he won’t be ignored from the outside either, but it’s his presence inside that could make the Warriors even more unbeatable. Going small to combat the Warriors means not only will Cousins have an advantage posting up, but he could also have a feast on the boards. He won’t need the ball thrown to him to succeed if he can feast on offensive rebounds. He’s not rebounding much there right now but look for that wrinkle in the future. It’s difficult to keep him out from under the basket.

All-star picks

It’s that time again … I’m going to fill out an imaginary ballot post hoc, and we can all pretend this matters. However, to justify this, I’ll boot up my HBox metric and blend it with a few popular ones to see how the advanced metrics rank guys. From there we can dig into evidence of value and dissect why the numbers love some stars and, alternatively, why they’re misleading for others. Remember, the stats aren’t the absolute truth, but they are a large swath of the evidence.

Eastern Conference

Let’s get the obvious one out of the way: Giannis Antetokounmpo is a starter. His efficiency is up, his assists are up, his rebounds are up, and even his usage rate is up a hair. His team is leading the eastern conference, and he’s clearly the reason why. We’ll get to his MVP discussion later in the season.

Who’s next? Well, let’s turn to the blended metric and pick out the obvious names. Kyrie Irving, Joel Embiid, and Ben Simmons are near the top of the list, and so are their teams. Embiid has been healthy, and Simmons has been a terror on both ends. Yes, the team has been much better with Embiid on the court as Ben’s on-off splits are uninspiring — but one-year on-off stats are very noisy. He’s an efficient creator who warps opposing defenses who still aren’t quite sure how to cover him, and he’s a plus on defense as well. The east is shallow enough that when you’re an elite creator, even if you’re near average on defense you’re a shoo-in. Speaking of elite creators, Kyrie Irving is having arguably his best season yet, and while I would hesitate to call him average on defense even now I doubt I can find a guard to take over him.

Table: Metric blend of top Eastern Conference players

*Value is the average of the metrics multiplied by their minutes played (and divided by 3000 to scale the number.) This more closely approximates All-Star voting than simple replacement level stats.

Let’s move to Kawhi Leonard, who should be another obvious pick but with some reservations. Firstly, he has missed a few games. I would also listen to critiques on this post-2018-Spurs malaise — I would not call him the same caliber defender he years earlier, but part of that stems from his offensive responsibilities. The Raptors have also been a deep, balanced team for a while and they were able to churn out high win totals before him, but this is clearly a down season for Kyle Lowry and Leonard has the track record of an All-Star (meaning, his valuable play on the court is not an aberration and could even improve.) He’s in.

The next obvious case is Kemba Walker, who’s been the rock for the Hornets for a few years. Only my metric wasn’t too high on him. It was probably because of his lack of rebounding, but he has a long track record of value. He’s in, so let’s turn to a forward who’s showing up high in the numbers ranking: Blake Griffin. For his first full year with the Detroit Pistons, Griffin is working hard to justify his massive contract with an efficient, high-usage season where he’s showcasing his well-developed skill set. Interestingly, he’s almost completely excised long 2-point jump shots, and now over a third of his shots are from behind the arc and he’s converting a decent percentage of them.

Now I gotta tackle the second-highest rated Eastern Conference player, and it’s a surprise: Nikola Vucevic. This dude is killing the court and the stat-sheet, a sizable improvement on last season, and I can’t think of many precedents. We don’t often see players break through at age 28, but his game based around his skill might explain some of that. Also, I think people are over-hyping his 3-point game. He’s only taking like three a game and percentages are notoriously volatile in single-season samples. What’s really driving his efficiency is the fact that he’s hitting 74 percent of his shots at the rim, and he’s over 50 percent in that awkward 3-to-10 foot range. That’s impressive. Combine that with his improvement as a passer, a defender, a floor-spacer, and his always stout work on the boards, and you can see how this guy is popping up in every advanced metric. It’s real, it’s spectacular, and it makes him an All-Star.

Now let’s hit two bulldog point guards next to each other on the ranking: Eric Bledsoe and Kyle Lowry. I’ve written so much about Lowry over the years I don’t want to repeat myself, and even in a year where he’s missed time and slipped offensively, he’s still an All-Star. His defense is still on point; he’s still taking charges and being a menace who plays bigger than his height. Bledsoe is similar, and he’s finally having a healthy season for a great team. He’s not shooting well from outside, but it’s so tough to keep him out of the lane he’s still very valuable. In fact, he’s hitting 75 percent of his shots at the rim (that’s a true mini-LeBron James stat.) With his plus defense, he’s a selection as well.

(The pick of Khris Middleton over Eric Bledsoe in the real game surprises me a bit because Bledsoe is clearly more of a creator and a wreaker of havoc for their offense, and it’s tough to say he’s a significantly worse defender.)

For final two picks, let me apologize to Pascal Siakam, whose RPM is being aided by an anomalously high raw plus-minus that didn’t hold up last season, as well as Domantas Sabonis, who as a reserve just doesn’t hold the same value as other stars. I’ll take Victor Oladipo, who’s likely being underrated by RPM and other plus-minus metrics in Indiana because of collinearity issues. He’s missed games, but I’ll track his track record over, say, Sabonis. For the final pick let’s go with Jimmy Butler, who’s not a star in the locker room but is just enough of one for the Eastern Conference. (And for Oladipo’s injury replacement let’s try Marcus Smart because let’s have chaos reign even if that 3-point percentage is a one-year anomaly.)

Starters

Kyrie Irving

Kyle Lowry

Ben Simmons

Giannis Antetokounmpo

Joel Embiid

Bench

Kemba Walker

Eric Bledsoe

Kawhi Leonard

Blake Griffin

Nikola Vucevic

Victor Oladipo (inj)

Jimmy Butler

Marcus Smart (replacement)

Dwyane Wade (farewell tour)

Western Conference

I’ll try to be briefer here, and it’s easy at first because there are so many no-brainer picks: James Harden, Nikola Jokic, Anthony Davis, Paul George, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and LeBron James are all going or we might as well cancel the silly thing. That’s six, so let’s find another set of six — that’s some advanced analytics there.

First of all, Rudy Gobert, oddly a snub in the actual all-star selection process, absolutely deserves a spot. The dude is hitting 65 percent of his shots on the floor, he’s getting to the line, he’s shooting fairly often for a center, and he’s a superb wall of a screen-setter as well — not to mention he’s a walking Defensive Player of the Year candidate. Utah is good, and every level-headed person and metric believes they’re good because of him. He’s in.

Now let’s hit two offensive-minded players: Damian Lillard and Karl-Anthony Towns. Lillard, for one, is (likely) at the peak of his career, and he has a consistent track record of value. His defensive problems, while real, are sometimes overstated. He does try to compete, like taking charges, and he’s never there to completely unravel the defense. He just can’t cover elite players and has a weakness for screens. Towns, meanwhile, is an offensive wunderkind who could stumble into a 50-40-90 season one year, and you can say with a straight face he’s the best scoring center since Shaquille O’Neal. Minnesota’s offense is great because of him.

Looking at the table below with the top ranked players by the blended metric, the highest player I haven’t yet selected is Russell Westbrook. As poor as his season his been, even impact measures like RPM still value him. My own metric, HBox, is liable to overrate him as much as anything due to his historic combination of assists and rebounds with scoring. But I’ll also refer to the track record argument: he’s likely to improve and I don’t need to punish a player severely for a downturn after a long history of value.

Table: Metric blend of top Western Conference players

*Value is the average of the metrics multiplied by their minutes played (and divided by 3000 to scale the number.) This more closely approximates All-Star voting than simple replacement level stats.

Now there’s one spot left, and I just need to choose from Jrue Holiday, Marc Gasol, Paul Millsap, Mike Conley, DeAndre Jordan (now in New York), Jusuf Nurkic and his surprisingly good stats, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green’s ghost, LaMarcus Aldridge whose blend value rating was 0.7, Luka Doncic, and others. Nurkic’s case is bewildering by the numbers. He’s not even seen as the second star in Portland, his BPM has risen from a high of 0.3 to 5.3 this season, and yet … not much has changed. He’s been more efficient overall, getting to the line more and hitting a higher proportion of your free throws, and he is netting more assists. While I’d agree he’s having a very good season, I’d rather wait at least one full year of his stats holding like this before anointing him a star because it’s so different than what his stats have shown before.

From my view, this comes down to three guys: Luka Doncic, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Jrue Holiday. Doncic is a phenom, and his defensive problems are overstated — he’s a tremendous rebounder. Aldridge is having another fine season like last year, and I know the “All-Star representation” camp will want him there because the Spurs supposedly deserve one; but the Spurs are good because they’re balanced and well-coached. Holiday deserves the last slot. The team isn’t as bad as their record suggests — they’re outscoring opponents right now — and he’s their offensive fulcrum, despite Davis’ tremendous skills. About a third of Holiday’s shots are assisted, while their other scorers frequently rely on his passing. He’s also a plus defender, and he’s played heavy minutes this season. He deserves the selection, but I can see a case for a half dozen others.

And heck, let’s just take any Eastern Conference injury replacement from the west. Call it a trade deadline special. Let Luka play!

Starters

Stephen Curry

James Harden

Paul George

Kevin Durant

Anthony Davis

Bench

Nikola Jokic

LeBron James

Rudy Gobert

Russell Westbrook

Damian Lillard

Karl-Anthony Towns

Jrue Holiday

Dirk Nowitzki (farewell tour)

Luka Doncic (hidden in a mascot outfit)