NBA halfway mark: Lots of parity, lots of points
The latest Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza features a progress report on the first half of the 2022-23 regular season
The NBA regular season is (essentially) 50 percent complete and, as always this time of year, there is much to discuss.
Trade talk, as we've been saying a lot around here lately, will soak up most of the oxygen for the next month.
All-Star starters and reserves will likewise be revealed in coming days.
Yet the story of the NBA's 77th season continues to be threefold: 1) Uncommon parity, especially in the Western Conference, that means all but two of the West's 15 teams have playoff life in an almighty jumble from No. 4 down to No. 13; 2) Really no team in either conference, as an offshoot of that parity, has emerged as a fear-inspiring championship favorite; 3) Individual scoring eruptions have tilted the game in favor of the offense to a degree we've never seen.
🏀 Six players are averaging at least 30 points per game: Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Golden State’s Stephen Curry, Dallas’ Luka Dončić, Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Boston’s Jayson Tatum. That has happened in only one other season (1961-62) ... and no other NBA season has ever featured more than three 30-points-per-game scorers.
🏀 Clutch find by Houston Rockets stat maven Sean McCloskey: An astounding 55 players — FIFTY-FIVE! — are averaging at least 20 points per game. The league's single-season record is 43 in 2020-21, followed by 40 last season. No previous season featured more than 35 20-points-per-game scorers before this three-season run.
🏀 Given that 493 different players had appeared in an NBA game this season entering Tuesday's play, that means 11.2% percent of the league is averaging at least 20 points per game.
🏀 There have been 92 40-point games already this season after the Knicks' Jalen Brunson rung up 44 points Monday night in a home loss to Milwaukee. There were 45 in December alone, according to my fellow Substacker Justin Kubatko. There were 119 total last season, per my pal Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press. The previous record for a month, via Kubatko, was 37 in December 1961. (When Wilt Chamberlain, in other words, was in his prime.)
How did we get here?
There's really not much mystery. Usage rates for go-to guys continue to rise — 14 stars entered Tuesday's play with a usage rate in the 30s — and there is more space than ever to go to work offensively thanks to the 34.3 3-pointers teams take on average (actually down from 35.2 per game last season) along with the NBA's determination to maximize freedom of movement with the way games are officiated.
The best players in the world have the ball constantly and, against so many switching defenses, often find themselves in isolation situations with little need to run designed offense. And most teams, as a general rule, are playing shooters over defenders more than ever before while also getting in less practice time than ever in the Load Management Era to work on defensive concepts.
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr recently pinpointed another culprit.
"Transition defense is at an all-time low in this league," Kerr said. "Every single night on League Pass, you see five guys standing there, somebody shoots, somebody runs long and everybody goes: 'Oh, the guy’s laying it up down there.'
“We do it. Every team does it. I think the game has gotten really loose and the players are so talented, it’s made for a lot of big scoring nights."
The result?
The aforementioned Mr. Chamberlain hasn’t played in a regular-season game since March 1973, but there have been 14 games already this season in which an NBA player has scored 50 points. That, of course, includes the recent 71-point, 11-assist overtime thunderbolt from Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell and a 60-point, 21-rebound, 10-assist masterpiece from Dončić.
There were 19 50-point games last season.
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Trade Deadline Time
Brace yourself for a slew of articles from your humble correspondent this month covering the Feb. 9 trade deadline from every angle. I know it’s what you guys want this time of year more than anything and I will keep digging to deliver as much of the behind-the-scenes chatter as I can.
I published two such stories in a three-day span over the weekend, starting with a This Week In Basketball compilation Saturday and then another trade deadline update via Monday Musings shortly after midnight ET on Sunday to ring in the new week properly.
Check these pieces out if you missed them:
Numbers Game
🏀 150
Only two teams in NBA history, according to research provided by my pal Mr. Kubatko as well as the Elias Sports Bureau, have allowed 150 points in a regular-season game and gone on to win the championship: The 1979-80 Lakers in a four-OT game against Cleveland and the 1994-95 Rockets in a two-OT game against Dallas. Both Boston and Brooklyn have allowed 150 points in a regulation game this season — respectively to Oklahoma City and Sacramento.
🏀 18
Some tweeted optimism from In Street Clothes' Jeff Stotts if Brooklyn's Kevin Durant, as it appears, has indeed sustained a low-grade medial collateral ligament sprain.
🏀 60
On its first Thursday night doubleheader of the season, TNT aired two games (Boston over Dallas by 29 and Denver over the LA Clippers by 31) that devolved into blowouts with a combined margin of 60 points.
🏀 18
The Knicks' Cam Reddish has received a DNP-CD from Coach Tom Thibodeau in 18 consecutive games. Reddish is being openly shopped by the Knicks ahead of the Feb. 9 trade deadline after New York dealt Kevin Knox II and a 2022 first-round draft pick via Charlotte to Atlanta to acquire him almost exactly a year ago on Jan. 13, 2022.
🏀 8
In his return to Chicago last week, Utah's Lauri Markkanen had a career-high eight dunks. Guess Markkanen is really buying into his nickname The Finnisher.
🏀 60.4
Denver’s Nikola Jokić averaged a triple-double in December (29.2 PPG, 12.3 RPG and 10.1 APG) while shooting a ridiculous 60.4% from the field. The only other player in league history to average a triple-double with 60% shooting from the field over the course of a month, according to Justin Kubatko, is Wilt Chamberlain, who did it in both February and March in 1968.
🏀 16
The Kings, trying to bring a halt to the NBA’s longest-ever playoff drought at 16 seasons and counting, reached this season's midpoint as the Pacific Division leaders! Yet we must caution: Sacramento has played a league-low 39 games and holds just a three-game lead over the last-place Lakers in the Pacific.
🏀 2,022
Major development in the restaurant world Tuesday: My beloved In-N-Out Burger announced that it is expanding east of Texas for the first time with new locations planned in Nashville, Tenn. That’s approximately 2,022 miles away from the first In-N-Out that I ever visited in San Clemente, Calif.
Scoring looks to be up...I can't remember a season with this many teams having 3 players average 20 or more points (Philadelphia, Washington, Charlotte, Golden State, Miami, Portland, and New Orleans). The Knicks are the next closest team with RJ Barrett averaging 19.7.
Was the Aliso Viejo In n out not open when you were growing up?