Points in the Paint 11.13.08: The Beginning...

Posted by Rob Bonnette on 11.13.2008

The season has begun!

Hello everyone and welcome another edition of Points in the Paint. And we're off! The season is underway and real games are finally being played. I could not be happier; this was my worst offseason ever in terms of keeping up with things and writing on them. To be blunt, I was awful. After going full bore for three seasons and two offseasons, I just couldn't come up with enough interesting things to talk about for another offseason. The NBA offseason just isn't as interesting as those in the NFL and MLB. A lot of it has to do with the way things are spaced out. You get the draft a week after the Finals end, and them some free agency in early July. Then you get nothing. Training camp is not the grand exercise that it is in football; the guys on the roster at beginning will almost all be there at the end. You have a few guys brought in as camp fodder, but if you already know how many guys are already under contract for your team you know who's not going to survive. Every team can dress twelve for a game and carry fifteen on their roster. Many teams go into camp with ten to fourteen guys already under contract, so that guy who was a good player in college but didn't get drafted probably won't be making the team. Without any rags-to-riches stories to report on, training camp and the preseason lose most of their luster. What makes NFL training camp worth reading about is the chance that a Wayne Chrebet or a Kurt Warner may be there, waiting to usurp some highly paid draft pick or free agent signee, or fill in for an injured star player. In the NBA, Wayne Chrebet wouldn't stand a chance other than as a midseason ten day contract type of player. The guys in front of him on the depth chart all have guaranteed contracts, and injuries just don't happen as frequently as they do in pro football. Chrebet would get cut in camp, go to the D League, and maybe resurface around the end of January. Not quite as fun to cover, huh?

But enough with all that. Let's talk about the action that's taken place so far. We've only had a handful of games, but there have been a few developments that are worthy of discussion. Namely, teams starting off way better than I expected. Now the season is long, so there's no guarantee that any of these developments will hold up, but they are striking enough to warrant some attention. Some shouldn't surprise us, given the circumstances, but others are beyond comprehension right now. Let's take a look:

Atlanta: To date, the Hawks are undefeated at 6-0. Now I was of the impression that they were headed for a big fall this season because they were an eight seed with a losing record that lost their only playoff game-worthy reserve in Josh Childress, replacing him with Flip Murray and Maurice Evans, while not adding anyone of note in the draft. So far, they're proving me wrong. How are they doing it? All their starters are playing as well as they did last season, and the two men they brought in to fill Childress' shoes are doing it well. Murray is averaging twelve points a game while Evans is chipping with eight every night. They're also playing good defense; their opponents are only shooting 40.4 percent from the field, 29.5 percent from three point range (those percentages just went up a little due to last night's game against the Bulls, who shot 44 percent from the field and 33 percent from three point land for the game). And they're outscoring them by nine points, 99 to 90. Can it hold up? I don't know; right now the whole is adding up to way more than the sum of the parts. The only player in the Hawks top seven who would be a guaranteed starter on all the other contenders is Joe Johnson; the rest of these guys don't measure up to their counterparts. But at the same time, if they continue to play defense like they've been doing they'll be in the game almost every night. A repeat playoff berth is probable, especially after you figure that the Wizards collapse due to the injury bug will open up a spot for somebody.

New York: Now I'm as shocked as anyone here. The Knicks are 4-3, which is much better than I thought they'd be at any point in the season. It's early of course, so the bottom could fall out really quick. I was skeptical because I saw way too many of the same type of player on the roster, and figured that there was no way coach Mike D'Antoni would be able to come up with a good rotation that could work. Well, so far Mike has managed to do that, mainly by doing something no one thought he'd have the guts to do: bench both Stephon Marbury and Eddy Curry. And by bench, I don't mean relegate to the second unit. He literally has slapped them with DNP-CDs for the entire season so far. Gone are the problems of overlap at the post and guard positions; D'Antoni now has a solid seven man rotation he's going with and it's worked pretty well so far. Second year man Wilson Chandler is pitching in with thirteen points and six rebounds per game, while swingman Quentin Richardson has enjoyed a career resurgence while returning to starting lineup and going for ten points and five rebounds nightly. New point guard Chris Duhon has played well, and holdovers Jamal Crawford, David Lee, and Zach Randolph have maintained their performance levels from last season. So we're all good now, right? Uhhh……..no. They're being outscored on average, 105 to 102, and outshot from the field 50.1 percent to 43.2 percent. That 50.1 percent number is especially troubling; you can't expect to win much when your opponents are hitting half the shots they put up. They're also being outrebounded by seven every night. So this looks like a mirage of sorts; they are better than last season, and should finish with a better record, but to expect them to finish above .500 or make the playoffs would be a bit much. (Update: they just their butts handed to them by the shorthanded Spurs; you can pretty much disregard everything I just said here.)

Phoenix: It looks like the Suns demise hasn't come like I suspected. They're 6-2 so far and well on their way to having a successful season. While they have slowed their pace, as we all suspected they would, they're still scoring over 100 points a night. And they are playing better defense like new coach Terry porter said they would; they're only giving up 98 points a game, as opposed to the 105 they gave up every night last season. Steve Nash's numbers are down, due possibly to the slower pace they're playing at now in addition to the fewer minutes he's playing this season, but he's still helping his teammates shoot high percentages by getting them the ball in the right spots (Shaq and Amare are both shooting over 60 percent from the floor, and Raja Bell is at 46 percent). The underlying theme for the season seems to be limiting the older guys minutes to save them for the stretch run and the playoffs; only Amare is playing anything close to heavy minutes at 38 per might. All the other starters (Nash, Shaq, Grant Hill, and Bell) are playing fewer minutes than last season, and Porter has even taken to giving Shaq nights off when he thinks it well help to preserve him. I think this has a chance at working; avoiding burnout is the key to any playoff success this team is going to have, and they're going to need to be as fresh as possible to deal with a seven game series against the Lakers, Hornets, Rockets, or Jazz. I figured they'd be in the playoffs as a low seed, but they just may have a shot at a five or six seed instead of seven or eight like I thought.

Next week, I'll move on to the disappointments; right now it looks like Portland will be topping off that list.

Who's better than Andrew Bynum?

One last item for this week. A few of you took issue with my high praise of Lakers center Andrew Bynum; I got comments stating that Tyson Chandler, Marcus Camby and Mehmet Okur were all better than Bynum. Well, as of right now….the comments are winning the argument. Bynum is playing 28 minutes a night and putting up nine points on 43 percent shooting and eight rebounds a game, all down from last season. Okur is going for fifteen points on 50 percent shooting and six rebounds in 36 minutes, Chandler is getting nine points and ten rebounds on 62 percent shooting in 34 minutes, and Camby is getting five points on 43 percent shooting to go along with eleven rebounds per game in 25 minutes per night (Camby is also playing power forward this season instead of center). So from a numbers standpoint, Okur and Chandler are definitely better while Camby is about even. So, given this statistical evidence do I stand by my previous assessment? Yes, I do! Why? Let me explain.

For one, Bynum is younger than all those guys. Camby is 34, Okur 29, and Chandler 26. OK, OK, Chandler's only 26, but when you consider where all four are with their skill sets vs. their age, you'll see my point. Bynum already has double-double ability, not just potential, at age 21; Chandler can't get ten points without Chris Paul feeding him and isn't likely to ever get there. You just don't make quantum leaps in your abilities after your mid-20s; some guys do have increases in numbers later on, but not because they actually developed new skills. So why the number dropoff from last year if he's such a talent? That's real easy. Last year he wasn't sharing the floor with Pau Gasol, a 20/10 man in his own right. Gasol got to town after he went down for the season. Having Gasol on the team along with a huge scorer in Kobe Bryant simply means fewer shots for everyone else. Gasol is too good offensively to be relegated to shooting open jumpers off of kick outs, so he's going to cut in on Bynum's action. Last year with no Gasol Bynum averaged 13 points and 10 rebounds a game. And then there's the point guard factor; you put Bynum with Chris Paul or Deron Williams or Steve Nash (or even an Andre Miller for that matter) and his numbers would go up. The Laker offense is driven by Kobe and Gasol, not the point guards, so there's no one out there making it a point to get Bynum the ball in the post for easy baskets like Paul does with Chandler and Williams with Carlos Boozer. Bynum's out there having to get his own. So I rest my case; I may not have swayed anyone, but that's all I've got really.

OK, that's it for this week. Next week I talk Allen Iverson, disappointments and second year players. Until then!