Random Early Season Observations
Sparks from Ben Simmons, the antiquated Bulls, and other detritus.
The 2023-24 NBA season is off and running, Season Umpteen of The Real Housewives of James Harden is on mid-season hiatus, and Victor Wembanyama may be the second coming. The first week of the season has coincided with a busy time for From The Logo, so the best I can offer up for now are some random observations.
Chris Duarte, Wing Stopper?
Last season’s Sacramento Kings had the best offense in league history, with a 119.1 offensive rating.1 Unfortunately, their defense was worse than all but five other teams. As has been the case since dinosaurs roamed the earth, Sacramento needs to tighten up its defense.
It’s early days yet, but the Kings seem to be turning to offseason acquisition Chris Duarte as one of their premier wing stoppers this season. In Sacramento’s loss to the Golden State Warriors on October 27th, no player spent as much time guarding Steph Curry as Duarte per NBA matchup stats. When it came to crunch time in the fourth quarter, the Kings matched Duarte’s minutes up perfectly with Curry’s. Duarte was right up in Steph’s jersey, staying within arm’s length…
…picking him up full court and forcing turnovers…
…and fighting over a screen to force Steph into a tough, rainbow step back.
Look, let’s not get carried away: Steph still scored on Duarte and found a way to juice the Warriors offense to a win. But that as much a testament to the otherworldliness of Wardell Stephen Curry as anything else. Under the circumstances, Duarte held up well and his face guarding of Steph, preventing the ball from getting to the hot hand down the stretch, played a significant role in keying the Kings’ late comeback attempt.
Duarte also spent chunks of time on Lebron James in the Kings’ win over the Los Angeles Lakers. I’ll be watching to see how much the Kings try him on the league’s other scoring engines.
What Is Anthony Davis’ Role On Offense?
Following the Lakers’ season opener, Charles Barkley took Anthony Davis to task for the latter’s passivity on offense. The criticism of AD may be overblown, but there are times when it isn’t clear if AD himself knows what his role is within the Lakers offense. Take the possession below: after hanging out in the corner (a spot from which he barely shoots), Davis ambles inward and makes a (very) half-hearted attempt to screen D’Angelo Russell’s man.
I don’t even know what to make of this pick-and-roll with Russell:
It looks like AD is going to pop out with his man dropping back, but then he sleepwalks into a kinda-sorta-not-really roll towards the rim. It isn’t like AD isn’t an effective roll man; last season, nobody helped their team score more than AD’s 1.28 points per possession as the roll man, per NBA Advanced Stats.2 What might the Lakers offense be like if AD supercharged more of those possessions with a hard roll to the rim?
The Quaint Chicago Bulls
On October 30th, the Chicago Players’ Only Meeting Bulls beat the Indiana Pacers 112-105 despite attempting only 17 three pointers. Last season, the team with the fewest three point attempts still managed to get up nearly 29 of those every game.
That team? The Bulls.
Chicago was also bottom of the league in three point attempts in the 2021-22 season. I kind of dig it. Diversity is the spice of life and all that. Of course, that the Bulls won owes something to the Pacers shooting 10/42 on open and wide open threes, but we won’t dwell on that.
Ben Simmons Has The Nets Running
Ben Simmons may not be back back, but he has looked much better over the first three games than he has in a couple of years. Peak Ben Simmons was an All NBA defender and a three-point generating freight train on offense.
Simmons has the Nets running, especially evident in Brooklyn’s wire-to-wire win over the Charlotte Hornets on 10/30. Early on, Simmons found Spencer Dinwiddie for a full court touchdown pass.
Watch that clip again and you will notice Simmons telling Dinwiddie to leak out even as LaMelo Ball’s shot is in the air. Wes Unseld would have been proud of that outlet pass.
Healthy Philly Simmons was unparalleled in generating quality three point looks for his teammates. He has started doing that with the Nets. Here, he drives hard into the paint and draws Dorian Finney-Smith’s man with him, creating a wide open look that DFS cans:
And again, Simmons runs the floor hard and draws LaMelo Ball’s help into the paint before kicking out to a wide open Dinwiddie in the corner.
Notice the amount of time left on the shot clock in the previous two clips. The Nets, behind Simmons, are pushing the ball off of opponent misses. We are very much in small sample size territory, but through three games, PBP Stats has Brooklyn leading the league in three point attempts within eight seconds of an opponent miss. Per Cleaning the Glass, the Nets rank fifth in the league in the frequency with which they turn live ball rebounds into transition opportunities. Simmons is at the heart of this charge; also per CTG, the Nets see an 18 percentage point spike in transition frequency off of rebounds when Simmons is on the floor. That is by far the largest mark on the Nets and close to leading the league.
While Cam Thomas has juiced the Nets’ half court offense in the early going, Brooklyn is likely going to struggle putting points on the board in the half court. Following the departures of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden, there just isn’t that much high level shot creation on the roster. One way to ameliorate that is by getting out in the open floor. These are positive signs from Simmons.
Quick reminder: Offensive rating is a measure of how many points are scored per 100 possessions. Normalizing for possessions played helps adjust for the fact that some teams (Golden State, say) play at a faster pace than others (Miami, say), and thus allow for more possessions in a game.
Minimum of 3 such possessions per game.