NBA: Western Conference Madness
Recapping week one in the NBA’s slaughterhouse.
Paul Headley (@paulheadleyNBA on Twitter).
“You see, their morals, their code, it’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. I’ll show you. When the chips are down, these… these civilized people, they’ll eat each other. See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.” — Kawhi Leonard
Ok, Kawhi Leonard may not have uttered those words. But the 2019–20 western conference is shaping up every bit as anarchic and cutthroat as the Joker’s vision for Gotham in “The Dark Knight”.
Just LOOK at how many teams are in contention for a playoff spot this year. Memphis seems unlikely, they’re just too young. The Pelicans have struggled with Zion out with injury until at least late November (and Jrue Holiday ailing). The Kings are in a rut. Yet, virtually no one can be ruled out completely at this early stage, and it all makes for an insanely competitive and entertaining season.
Here are four things that have caught my eye in the western conference in week one.
Kristaps Porzingis: Back
Note: This section was all but completed before the Porzingis and Doncic decided to defecate all over the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night and had to be bailed out by a 61-point effort from their bench. The star-duo combined to shoot 7 for 26 and just 22 points. Inexplicable. Perhaps the pair decided to sample some of the local product and the effects were still lingering. Anyway, if that game is still fresh in your mind, the man who follows (me) didn’t know any better.
While the Dallas Mavericks as a whole have questions marks, Kristaps Porzingis and Luka Doncic are looking good together so far. Really good. The duo are putting up a combined 55.6 points per-game, despite the latter playing just 30.9 minutes per. Doncic is averaging 10.3 rebounds, 7.3 assists and 2.3 steals in addition to his scoring, Porzingis is rejecting 2.7 shots. It’s the type of all-around production associated only with the most elite pairings in NBA history.
At 7–3, opponents need a deck chair to effectively challenge Porzingis’ shot. Poor Brandon Ingram is 6-foot-9 with an enormous wingspan, and he’s still rendered helpless:
On defense, The Zinger might be the best rim-protector in the league when in position. He’s athletic, smart and capable of contesting a lot of shots while barely leaving his feet. Defensive rim-protection stats are noisy even with a solid sample size, but for what the hell. Here are Porzingis’ numbers over the first four games of the season, as well as his last season in New York:
2017–18: 5.2 attempts defended, 49.2 percent (1st among players with at least 5.0 shots defended)
2019–20: 6.8 attempts defended, 40.7 percent.
Here lies Mario Hezonja, King of New York:
Porzingis and Doncic have played 73 minutes together, outscoring opponents by 8.7 points per-100 possessions. Though the pair haven’t assisted each other as much as you’d think, their versatility forces defenses to make some really difficult choices, particularly when Luka has the ball. Having two guys who are huge at their position and can both create a shot is handy.
I love this pairing in a playoff setting.
Reality Bites
I may be setting myself up for some serious egg-on-face, but I doubt it. The Warriors won’t stop trying to make the playoffs, but the sooner their fanbase accepts the reality that this is a lost year, the better.
Ridiculous as it might sound after just three games, one of which was a blow-out victory over a Pelicans’ squad playing without Jrue Holiday and Derrick Favors, the Warriors seem doomed to mediocrity at best in 2019–20.
They just don’t have enough guys, and precious little room to improve in the short-term. Steph Curry is a transcendent star burdened with a roster than even the GOAT’s themselves would struggle to lift. Guys like Marquese Chriss and Glenn Robinson III are tenth men on most teams, not guys starting games.
Whether you believe coach Steve Kerr should consider adjusting his approach depends on how you view the season. The collective basketball IQ of this team just isn’t enough to run Kerr’s egalitarian offense, but I’m not sure the long-term health of Steph and the team is served by running a million high-screen-rolls a game and amping Curry’s usage up to Harden levels.
The play seems obvious. Survive this gap-fill season. Roll into next year with a healthy core of Steph, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, plus whatever depth and picks you can flip D’Angelo Russell for. Russell just doesn’t make sense for this team, and he’s just not as good as many seem to believe. The point guard, acquired from Brooklyn as Kevin Durant departed the Bay, sports a 45.7 effective field-goal percentage thus far, and is a team worse minus 35.7 in 87 minutes. A back-court of two slight guards who both need a certain amount of hiding on defense is hardly the stuff of championships.
Still, there are a few teams (the Timberwolves, for example) who will be desperate enough to give up some real pieces for him. The only real question should be when.
I believe in this core. Steph-Klay-Dray-Looney plus NBA caliber rotation pieces is still a contender in 2020–2021. The absolute worst case scenario would be to wear Curry out. Why risk serious injury for a shot at the eighth seed and an eventual ass-kicking?
The Phoenix Suns: Not Terrible
“I don’t believe the world’s a particularly beautiful place, but I do believe in redemption.” Colum McCann
Steve Nash fled the desert for LA back in the summer of 2012. The San Antonio Spurs and LA Lakers aside, the Suns had arguably been the most consistently good team in the league for the previous two decades, reaching the playoffs in all but three seasons dating back to 1989. They were also fun. From the Kevin Johnson-Charles Barkley Finals’ team to the seven-seconds-or-less beasts lead by Nash and Amar’e Stoudemire.
Most of the last decade has been a shit-show I’d rather not labor over, but the seeds of something better are sprouting.
Four games is not a sufficient sample-size to claim a resurrection has occurred, but the Phoenix Suns finally seem to be competent again. The Kings were served up a 124–95 thumping. The championship favorite Clippers were taken down on the second of a back-to-back for Phoenix, just 24 hours after the Nuggets clung on to defeat the Suns in overtime. To round off the week, a highly competitive game against the Utah Jazz.
The Suns sit at 2–2, but it very easily could have been 4–0. The Kings are stumbling, but the Nuggets, Jazz and Clippers are three teams most analysts expect to see in the top-5 seeds in the west. All with Ricky Rubio missing the game against the Clippers and DeAndre Ayton sucking up a 25-game suspension for violating the league’s substance abuse policy.
A lot of the credit is owed to new coach Monty Williams. Really, the team just replaced a bunch of bad players with good ones. Never underestimate the power of a team full of clever basketball players, defenders and solid screeners:
Oh, and players who can catch a basketball (looking at you, Marquese Chriss).
Though franchise cornerstone Devin Booker still has has his warts (fouling Donovan Mitchell with 0.4 seconds left to gift victory to the Jazz, for example), thoughts that the shooting guard is incapable of fitting into a winning basketball situation look fairly silly. Booker is almost over-passing at times, eager to prove his reputation as a selfish stat-stuffer on a bad team is unwarranted. On defense, he’s more focused play-to-play, and his effort is much better.
Suns’ fans will be the first to say: This season could still go awry in a hurry. A decade and a half of Robert Sarver tends to engender such negativity.
Dejounte Flurry
Ok, serious caveat: two of the San Antonio Spurs have come via the New York Knicks and the Washington Wizards, neither of which should really qualify as NBA teams. That said, Dejounte Murray has looked really good after missing all of last season with a torn ACL, coming back as explosive as ever.
Murray averaged 18.5 points, 9.0 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 2.5 steals per-game over his first two contests, shooting a robust 60 percent from the field. Murray followed up two great scoring nights with a 7 point, 8 assist, 7 rebound night (with a steal and a block) against the Portland Trailblazers. Murray did so while under a strict 24 per-night minutes restriction.
Murray gives the Spurs exactly what they need; a guy to push the ball in transition and break defenders down from the perimeter in the half-court. Dynamism is a valuable commodity, and Murray has it in spades.
The Spurs have been one of the slowest teams in the league relative to their opposition for the majority of the Gregg Poppovich era, only really speeding things up during the beautiful game Spurs of the early 2010s. Poppovich is a pragmatist. While he might mourn the loss of beautiful basketball, the reality is plain and simple: pace and threes win in the modern NBA.
Murray is a perfect engine for fast-break basketball. The former Washington point guard is looking to push the ball every chance he gets, and he’s finishing like a beast at the rim (17 for 23 shooting inside five feet, 73.9 percent, through three games). Give him a running start and he’ll ram the ball down your throat:
Defensively, Murray still looks like an all-NBA defender (he was on the second team in 2017–18). The Spurs have posted a team best 101.3 defensive-rating with Murray on the floor, jumping to 111.2 when he sits. He’s averaging 2.0 steals per-game and might be the best point guard defender in the league this season.
There’s still just one catch with Dejounte Murray: his jumper. Murray is just 1 for 10 on shots outside five-feet, essentially making him a smaller Ben Simmons with less play-making flair. That’s still a great player, but the Spurs ceiling will be decided by Murray’s ability to take and make jump-shots.
That’s all for this week. My thoughts on the eastern conference will be available here next Wednesday morning.
All stats courtesy of basketball-reference and NBA Stats and info.
