Entirely too early NBA statistical analysis in its entirety...

[AbeVigodaLive]

1. Tale of Two Centers

Center 1) 16.3 ppg / 7.0 reb / 62.8% fg / 50% 3fg ... 29.8 PER... recently signed MINIMUM contract.
vs.
Center 2) 16.4 ppg / 9.2 reb / 42.6% fg / 45% 3fg ... 15.4 PER... recently signed MAXIMUM contract.

Who are these guys?



(2) is Karl Anthony Towns. And the other one is... wait for it... Javale McGee. WHAT?!?!?!




2. Zach LaVine = Tim Duncan.

Tim Duncan may have been the most consistent NBA player ever. For the first 12+ years of his career... he'd post the same stats. Night after night. Year after year. Zach LaVine is doing that now. Even better...

He's scored... 30, 33, 34, 32 points.

He's scoring almost the exact amount every night... and he's yet to take more than 22 shots to get there. He even won a game yesterday with his defense. WHAT?!?!?!




3. It's a miracle. I'm healed!

Oft-injured and routinely babied with kid gloves, Joel Embiid currently leads the NBA in minutes played.




4. Nobody misses (Eddy) Curry

Dwight Powell, PF for Dallas has made 35 of the 45 shots he's taken this year. His PER is 38.9. His TS% is .814. Steph Curry is at .729, but it's only good for 8th. Conversely, Eddy Curry led the league in TS% (.607) 15 years ago.




5. Fitting out.

Kevin Love is shooting 32.3%. He just had his "best" shooting game yesterday... he made 4 buckets.

[kekgeek]

Great post

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Good stuff Abe.

McGee has been a monster since he joined Golden State. It looks like that trend has continued with LAL.

[TAFKASP]

Great post, one of the best in this forum's history I would say!

[AbeVigodaLive]

It aint no joke.

McGee with 21 points last night on 10 - 16 fg. So he's now averaging MORE ppg than Towns.

AND...

KAT has taken more than 16 shots only once in his past 10 games. (17 shots on Wednesday)... nor has he made 10 buckets in any of those games.



_________________

They are who we thought they are?

Ricky Rubio is shooting 21.9% after shooting above 40% for two straight seasons. He has made 1 (or fewer) shots in 3 of the first 4 games.



________________

They're NOT who we thought they are. They're actually Baron Davis!

Paul George is shooting 36.7%. Meh. Big deal right? Look closer.

He's shot below 50% in 31 of his past 33 games... including 22 straight games at one point. But don't worry... nobody will notice as long as he keeps playing with Russell Westbrook. Smart man. https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/10/26/18026132/russell-westbrook-thunder-winless



______________

Imagine this guy with a jump shot.

Blake Griffin shot 4 - 5 on three pointers last night. He's made 15 out of 23 on the season (65.2%). Too bad everybody was right about this guy and he doesn't have enough range.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I am enjoying this thread immensely...keep it up, Abe!

[Monster]

Do we have a max slot for Abe?!?! Dude is killing it right now.

[thedoper]

Looks like Ricky turned the corner again. Thanks Abe.

[MikkeMan]

Some tidbits for this nice thread that Abe started.

Could Wolves just go and hire Dallas shooting coach?

DeAndre Jordan has hit 26/30 of his free throws. In all fairness his improvement in free throw shooting started already in last season while he was still Clipper and hit career high 58% of his free throws. Still probability that 58% free throw shooter hits 26/30 of his free throws is around 1.5%.

He has also already 19 assists in six games (got almost triple double in his last game) that is more than he had total in 4th season after playing 66 games and almost 1800 minutes.

Coaching matters after all??

Milwaukee is currently ranked 2nd in 3P attempts share of all field goal attempts after finishing 25th last season. They replaced Terry, Maker and Sterling with Lopez, Ilyasova and DiVincenzo in their rotation which has some effect for their shooting but all other 6 rotation are same than last year and are now just shooting more three pointers.

Players matter too??

Cleveland is currently ranked dead last in same 3P attempts category after finishing 5th and 2nd in last two seasons. They are last even tough all their best three pointer shooters from last season are still in their roster. (Korver, Love, Smith, Clarkson and Osman all shot three pointers better percentage than LeBron with higher amount of attempts per 36 minutes last year). Obviously now they won't have LeBron driving and passing ball to open player when double teamed, which has dramatic effect for three point shot attempts volume.

Which team has modern offense?

Golden State and Minnesota have currently almost identical amount of three point attempts per game. Golden State is ranked currently 20th and Minnesota 21st in three point attempts per game.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Good stuff Mikkeman!

I think teams have adjusted their defense to guard Golden State very aggressively on the perimeter, which has reduced their reliance on 3's. This trend started last year. However, what makes them the best team in the world is that Durant, Curry, and Klay are pure shooters from any distance. So when they get run off the 3 point line and have to step in to take an open18-footer, they are still hitting a high percentage. You do that to someone like Trevor Ariza and he will brick that 18-footer because he's not a pure shooter, just someone that has molded himself into a catch-and-shoot guy from 3 point land.