808s and Bold Takes Issue 23: Three NBA Contenders, Three Questions
Taking a look at each of the three true NBA contender's biggest question marks heading into the restart playoffs
(Photo by Edgar Chaparro on Unsplash)
What’s up, everyone, welcome to 808s and Bold Takes. Sports are officially back, as the MLB played its first regular-season games and the NBA played many scrimmages. There are serious questions about the return of sports, and to be honest, after Juan Soto tested positive, part of me wanted to say shut it down. And there’s still an argument that we should, and that these sports leagues should not be playing, partly because of the risks to their players and the resources they’re diverting from the outside world.
But if sports are going to restart in the pandemic, there are going to be a few positive tests and it’s going to be about making sure those don’t spread. We’ll see if the MLB’s safety protocols for the virus hold up, and if they don’t, then they will have to shut down the season no matter what. Let’s move away from baseball, though, onto the hardwood, because the NBA season is absolutely fascinating.
For the first time since 2017, there is real intrigue as to who will win the NBA title. There are many teams that believe this is their year, and while there are three teams that have clearly distinguished themselves, the field is more competitive than ever before.
With the NBA season about to resume, I wanted to go through the Top 3 Contenders and find out their biggest question heading into the playoffs. Quick caveat, obviously the biggest question for every team is “are they going to be healthy?” both in the traditional injury sense and of course, in this hellscape we live in, from COVID-19. Setting that aside, I wanted to find the most important/interesting question about each team.
The 3 teams I picked were based on the Vegas odds to win the title. Those would be in the order Vegas gave—I’m emphasizing Vegas so angry fans of teams don’t come into my DMs and mentions and get mad as to why the teams are in the order they are. Blame Vegas, baby, Vegas.
Let’s do this.
Team: Los Angeles Lakers
Question: What the bleep are they going to when LeBron rests?
The bad part about basketball is that your superstar can’t play the entire game. No matter how great they are, there’ll be stretches where they need to sit down and grab a sip of water, which, in LeBron’s case, seems to come straight from the fountain of de-aging. Side note: Mr. James, LeBron sir, good God man you’ve got grey in your beard and no real hair left yet you dunk like you’re 21 again... whatever you have, please give it to me, as I would also like to never be old.
Okay, so LeBron has to sit down, but the benefit of having more than one star (what’s up, Anthony Davis) is that you can stagger the pair. Play LeBron and Davis together for the first 10 minutes of the game, sit LeBron for the next 6, then bring him back in as Davis rests for another 6 minutes. This way, you can always have one superstar on the court. Great! So then there are no worries when LeBron comes off the floor, right?
Wrong.
With LeBron and AD out there this season, the Lakers outscore teams by 10.3 points per possession. That’s spectacular, and that number doesn’t really change for LeBron when he plays without Davis. The reverse is not true. When Davis plays without LeBron, that +10.3 number craters to -3.2 points per 100 possessions.
Yikes…
Why is that? Is it Davis’s fault? Is he not a superstar after all? Is he the fraud everyone in Louisiana thinks he is? No, he’s an incredible basketball player. Let’s look at why he’s worse when he shoulders the load.
LeBron is the primary ball-handler when he plays, so the entire Lakers offense runs through him; it’s the benefit of being 6’9” with guard skills. AD doesn’t have that luxury; he can create for himself, but he isn’t going to run point, it just doesn’t work. Because of that, he’s a bit more reliant on LeBron than the other way around.
That issue wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad if the Lakers had better offensive guards; instead, Davis found himself playing with… oh god, Rajon Rondo. I’m so sorry, Mr. Davis. After LeBron, Rondo threw AD the most passes per game this year, and a lot of them probably looked like this.
The Lakers in general face a bit of a guard crunch. The aforementioned Rondo is out with a thumb injury and Avery Bradley has opted out of the bubble, so they’re going to rely either on Alex Caruso, Quinn Cook, or the recently signed Dion Waiters to handle the point guard responsibilities when LeBron sits so the team can tread water in the Davis-only minutes.
The good news is that the Washed King won’t be sitting much in the games that matter.
Team: Milwaukee Bucks
Question: Is there a Giannis stopper?
Giannis Antetokounmpo was the NBA’s MVP last year, in a season where he averaged 27.7 points and 12.5 rebounds. He was phenomenal, a true superstar. This season, he was even better.
He saw improvements in almost every statistical category. Points, rebounds, three-point percentage, net rating, everything was better this year than his MVP season a year ago. One stat that went down was the minutes he played per game, and that was because the Milwaukee Bucks ran through every single team they played and let Giannis rest en route to a league-best at 53-12. They outscored their opponents by 11.4 points per game, four points better than the second-best team.
Despite all this success, there are some real questions about Milwaukee. Last year, they got to the Eastern Conference Finals and went up 2-0 before losing four straight to the eventual champion Toronto Raptors.
Giannis didn’t necessarily crap the bed in those four losses, but he wasn’t great. Not a full log, but a slight stain, a little brown mark on the sheets that make you have to get new ones.
Not speaking from experience, of course...
The first two games of the series, the Greek Freak was dominant, but after that, he slowed down just enough. It’s because the Raptors unleashed their Giannis stopper: Kawhi Leonard.
Now, Leonard didn’t guard Giannis for a lot of the possessions, but they used him effectively and in high leverage moments to deter Antetokounmpo from dominating. In two of the losses, Antetokounmpo shot below 40%. Overall, according to NBA.com’s tracking data (a quick caveat that this data is not always perfect, but it gives a decent idea), Leonard guarded Giannis more than he did any other Bucks player. And in those minutes, Giannis shot just 35%.
Look at the level of defense here from Kawhi, staying in front of Giannis and somehow withstanding the brute force the Bucks superstar used against almost every other player to dominate.
Kawhi’s one of the five best perimeter defenders ever. He’s stonewalled LeBron and KD in the past, so it’s not fair to expect that level of defense from others, but I think there’s one name in the Eastern Conference that could be Giannis’s kryptonite this postseason.
Disclaimer that nobody’s going to stop Giannis entirely, it’s just about limiting him enough. Give me Bam Adebayo from the Miami Heat. To stop Giannis, you need a special blend of speed, strength, and length, and Adebayo has it. At 6’9” and 255lbs, Adebayo’s got the size, and his 7’1” wingspan gives him a shot against the Greek Freak. In his time guarding Giannis this year, he held him to 35% shooting.
Combining him with smart defenders like Jimmy Butler and Andre Iguodala on the Heat makes that team an incredibly intriguing matchup that could be the hardest one Milwaukee faces in the conference.
Team: Los Angeles Clippers
Question: What’s Playoff Paul George going to look like?
In theory, Paul George is the perfect second star. The most valuable player in basketball is the 3&D wing, who is anywhere between 6’7” to 6’10”, shoots well from behind the arc, defends multiple positions well, and doesn’t need the ball on offense to be effective.
How tall is Paul George? 6’8”, check that box off please. Does he shoot well from behind the arc? Yessir, to a tune of 38% on just over 6 attempts per game for his career. Defense? Oh my, Mr. George was named to the NBA’s All-Defensive teams four times in his career, including the first team just a year ago. And does he need the ball a lot? Let’s take a look. Most of his field-goal attempts (35%) come after zero dribbles, and 40% of his shots take less than two seconds.
George isn’t just a 3&D wing, he’s a star version of that positional archetype and the ideal complementary player. Watch this compilation of him taking catch-and-shoot threes, some open and some with a hand in his face.
In those four clips, you saw George run defenders off screens into open threes twice, fill the lane well in the corner in fastbreak, and develop good chemistry with Leonard by moving well to open space as Kawhi drove to the hoop and kicked it out.
This all sounds great, but the problem with George is that in the playoffs he’s... well, he’s not as good.
I think the narrative around Playoff P started around when he had this commercial.
If you’re too lazy to click, the commercial shows him making a buzzer-beater. The commercial aired in a playoff series George’s team lost, one in which he missed a couple potential game-winners.
Last year, his defining playoff moment was getting waved off the court by Damian Lillard, who hit a three right in his face. In his last four playoffs, he’s shot 44%, 41%, 39%, 46%, and 44%.
That’s not great for your star!
This year, he was dealing with a shoulder injury and although he played pretty well, he only shot 43% from the field. He’s going to have to be much better for the Clippers to make a run, but if he is, this is the best team in the league.
They have one of the league’s three capital-S Superstars in Kawhi Leonard, and throwing him on defense with George gives head coach Doc Rivers an abundance of options. They have the most versatility of teams in the league.
They can play big, throwing Ivica Zubac out as a 7-foot center. Or they’ll put Montrezz Harrell in as a 6’7” high-energy center. Shoot, take him out and put in JaMychal Green to stretch the floor. Or, take off the two superstars and go to a supercharged bench lineup with Lou Williams and Harrell that still outscored opponents by 16.3 points per 100 possessions.
They won the fourth-most games in the league despite not having Leonard for 12 games and George for 22. A matchup between them and the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals could be one of the best playoff series in recent memory.
If the NBA is able to pull all of this off, and by all of this I mean navigating a situation that quite literally seemed impossible to handle just a month ago, we’re in for some great basketball.
(All stats and video are from NBA.com and basketballreference.com)