With the 2014-15 NBA season set to begin, I wanted to toss out a few bold predictions for the first month of the season. None of the following predicitons are necessarily likely, but they are probably more likely than you think.
1. The Lakers will go 4-11 to start the season.
The Lakers will probably win more than 33% of their games this season but I don’t think they’ll win more than 33% of their first 15 games. The first month of their season is absolutely brutal. They begin with four games in five nights against four Western Conference playoff caliber teams. In total they’ll play four back-to-backs and 9 games against 2014 Western Conference playoff teams. Additionally, Nick Young is expected to miss the entire month of November and the team is already short on scoring. They’ll rely on Julius Randle a lot and the rookie will get a baptism by fire going up against Blake Griffin, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Zach Randolph (twice), and Anthony Davis in his first three weeks in the league.
The Lakers are also in the middle of one of the silliest experiments in basketball history, attempting to limit their 3-point attempts to 10-15 per game. This “ideology” that Byron Scott is preaching has been well documented, dissected and refuted but I’ll just add one small point that I haven’t seen discussed at length yet.
Rule changes effect shot location. In 2001 the league created the illegal defense rule, also known as defensive 3 seconds, which prevents defenses from camping out in the paint to protect the basket. In 2004 the league changed their hand-checking rule, which made it illegal for defenses to impede an offensive player by using their hands.
The combination of the two rule changes had a subtle but significant impact on the style of the league. On paper, it would seem that it would be easier for players to get by their defender and harder for help side defense to protect the basket. But there has been a chain reaction. Defenses didn’t just become weaker and softer, as any old school player will have you believe. They were forced to become smarter, faster, and more nuanced. Teams started to rely on overloading one side of the court as a way of sending early help-side. Teams started using dozens of different ways of defending the pick and roll and trapping in the post.
How rule changes effect shot selection
As the defenses have evolved so too have the offenses. And this is where 3’s come in. It takes a lot of work for a team to defend the paint in the modern NBA as teams are forced to cover a lot of ground. A good offense will force the defense to make a choice of protecting the rim or protecting the three. That’s what makes LeBron James the perfect player for this era. He is equally as talented at attacking the basket as he is at finding the open shooter if the defense collapses. He does individually what teams try to do collectively. Look at how dramatically shot selection changed beginning in 2001.
Graph via Seth Partnow – Nylon Calculus. In today’s NBA, the more 3’s you take, the more shots open up at the rim
Byron Scott’s strategy undermines that the league has changed. The Lakers have not replaced their 3’s with more shots at the rim. That very idea is fallacious. In the modern NBA, 3FGA improve shots at the rim. In the preseason, the Lakers have replaced 3’s with mid range jumpers, which has had the exact opposite effect that Scott intended.
2. The 3FGA rate in November will be lower than league average from the 2013-14 season
Other than Byron Scott, the rest of the league seems to notice the direction that the league is going. 3FGA have seen an incredibly steady incline since their introduction in 1980. At some point this line will flatten out and I think this first month might represent a small valley in an otherwise upward trend.
3 FGA have risen pretty steadily since their introduction to the league
The reason for this is a change in style for many of the top 3-point shooting teams. The Lakers, ranked 7th last year in 3FGA are obvious candidates to take fewer 3’s. The Warriors and Knicks, ranked 5th and 6th respectively, are also under new management and are likely candidates to take (slightly) fewer attempts. The Knicks have averaged 22.8 attempts per game in the preseason, down from 24.9 during the regular season last year. The Hawks, who ranked 2nd in 3FGA will get back Al Horford who averaged 14.5 FGA per game, only 0.4 of which were from 3. Even the addition of Chris Kaman in Portland will likely change the Trailblazer’s shot selection — since Kaman can be a chucker at times, and very rarely from beyond the arc. The season three-point field goal attempt rate might still end up higher than it was in 2014, but I think the month of November will see a noticeable dip.
3. The Trailblazers will have more starting lineups by November 30 than they had all of last year
This one is just a matter of probability. Portland had an incredible string of luck last year in regards to injuries. In 82 games, they only used two different starting lineups! Part of this is attributed to the fact that they have a clear cut best five players. But their core guys were very fortunate to avoid, not only major injuries, but even rolled ankles or strained hamstrings that cause players to hop out of the starting lineup. Some teams, the Spurs for example, like to expirement with lots of different combinations during the regular season even when they aren’t injured. Last season the Spurs employed 30 different starting lineups. But unlike San Antonio, who has a lot of guys who can replace starters with minimal drop off, the Trailblazers’ starting five is far and away the best starting combination of players. I’m just going with the law of averages and predicting that their luck runs out, at least in part, and that somebody suffers a rolled ankle or catches the flu.
4. The Hawks will lead the league in catch-and-shoot points per game by at least two full points.
The Hawks offense last season was built around catch and shoot opportunities
Last season they led the league by 1.2 points per game off of the catch-and-shoot and I expect the addition of Al Horford to bump that number up even higher. He was 2nd on the team behind Kyle Korver in catch-and-shoot ppg last season and under coach Mike Budenholzer, the Hawks seemed to have built their offense around getting these kinds of opportunities. Their closest competition will be Portland, who finished 2nd last season. The Knicks were the only other team within two points of the Hawks in catch-and-shoot points per game but I expect their new offense will make their identity much less consistent through the first month of the season.
5. Carmelo Anthony will shoot above 47.5%
It’s kind of shocking that Carmelo has only shot better than 47.5% three times in his career, most recently in 2008! But that is a product of his shot selection as much as anything. For the Nuggets, Carmelo’s 3-point attempt rate was around 12%. That means only 12 out of every 100 FGAs was from beyond the arc. However, over the last two seasons Carmelo has taken over ¼ of his FGA from three.
Shot Charts via Austin Clemens – Nylon Calculus.
I expect that his role on the new look Knicks will more likely mirror the Denver version than the Knicks version under Mike D’Antoni and Mike Woodson. At the very least, I expect it to be a blend of the two. The triangle will have him catching the ball in the post more frequently and will (hopefully) force Carmelo to make quicker decisions, rather than allow him to get suckered into long, slow developing isolations that were a staple under Woodson.
6. On the flip side, Kobe will shoot the lowest FG% of his career
I don’t want to pick on the Lakers again but Kobe is going to have to carry a huge load for them in the first month of the season and the sheer amount of games they will play will test his lift. In the preseason, Kobe appeared to have trouble elevating on his shots. It’s possible that Bryant improves as the season goes along and he gets back into game shape but I think the combination of back-to-backs and the likelihood that the Lakers will be playing from behind a lot will force Bryant into an inefficient first month.
7. No player will score 50+ points
The basketball gods will mock me when Kobe goes for 50 points on opening night on 60% shooting in a win against the Rockets and three of my predictions will be ruined. It’s entirely possible that this happens and trust me, no one will be happier than me. I want to see greatness. I root for it. But I don’t think 50 points is happening before November 30th. In the last 10 years, there have been 71 50-point scorers. Only five have come in October or November. It might just be a statistical anomaly but I’ll roll with it and say that the trend continues and that we don’t see anyone get to 50. Especially since one of the most capable 50 point scorers, Kevin Durant, will likely miss the entire month. However, Terrence Ross and Corey Brewer are fully healthy so who knows?
8. A team will score 145 points
It happened only once last season when the Rockets beat the Lakers 145-130. Both teams were fast paced, 3-point shooting teams with average to below average defenses. So it is quite a stretch to predict that it will happen in just the first month of the 2014-15 season. But there are some very potent offenses this season, and some equally incompetent defenses. Philadelphia will be an all time awful team who last year played at a breakneck pace. They will face Houston (twice), San Antonio, Dallas, Portland and Phoenix in November, all teams that are capable of putting up 145 points against a team that is openly trying to allow teams to score points on them.
9. Jusuf Nurkic will lead all rookies in Rebounds per game
This prediction is perhaps the most bold one on the list. JaVale McGee was expected to come into training camp and compete with Timofey Mozgov for the starting role, but has instead found himself competing for backup minutes with the 280 lb Bosnian Bear. Brian Shaw has gone out of his way to praise Nurkic during the preseason and has even tentatively placed him 2nd on the depth chart behind Mozgov. The reason this prediction is unlikely, however, has nothing to do with Nurkic’s ability to grab rebounds – he was 1st in the preseason in rebounds per 48 minutes with a Dennis Rodman-esque 22.9! Rather, Shaw would be unwise to keep McGee on the bench when he is slated to make over $11 million this season. At the very least, McGee will become a trade asset and Shaw is likely to play him even if he prefers Nurkic since benching McGee would tank his trade value. However, if Nurkic is given the opportunity, the one thing I am confident he can do at an elite level is grab boards.
