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Knicks, Lakers, Jazz nearly pulled trigger on Westbrook, Mitchell trade

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The Knicks, Lakers and Jazz negotiated a three-team trade that would have sent Donovan Mitchell to the Knicks and Russell Westbrook to the Jazz. Of course, Westbrook’s contract would have been bought out. And the Jazz would have received multiple first-round draft picks.

According to Michael Scoto of HoopsHype, this NBA blockbuster trade almost occurred. “The proposed three-team trade scenario included Westbrook going to Utah and getting bought out,” explains Scoto.

“Utah would send Donovan Mitchell to the Knicks, a combination of two players, including Patrick Beverley and Jordan Clarkson, Bojan Bogdanovic or Malic Beasley to the Lakers, and the Jazz receive significant draft pick compensation from the Knicks and Lakers.”

“The Knicks also would’ve had to part with veteran salary filler(s), such as Derrick Rose to help make the salaries work. The Lakers also had interest in trading for Knicks forward Cam Reddish, who could also become part of a trade.”

Would the Jazz have won the trade?

A news story like this will usually lead to more questions than answers. How many first-round draft picks did Jazz executive Danny Ainge want? In the Rudy Gobert trade, the Timberwolves gave the Jazz five first-round draft picks. For a Mitchell-Westbrook trade, the same number of picks could have been the asking price.

Not to mention, which players would the Lakers receive? Per NBC Sports, one report suggested Cam Reddish, Derrick Rose and Jordan Clarkson. If true, one cannot help but wonder if such a trade would have actually hurt the Lakers.

Westbrook had a down year last season, having averaged 18.5 points, 7.4 rebounds, 7.1 assists and 1 steal per game. Though, the two-time scoring champ still averaged 27.2 points per game with the Rockets in the 2019-20 season.

The Knicks would have improved with Donovan Mitchell

This offseason, the Knicks signed Jalen Brunson to a four-year, $104 million contract. The team also traded Kemba Walker to the Pistons. Having Mitchell, Brunson and Julius Randle together would have given the Knicks an extra push offensively.

Last season, Mitchell averaged 25.9 points, 4.2 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game. One thing is for certain, coach Tom Thibodeau and the Knicks would have enough firepower to return to the playoffs. In the 2021-22 season, the team finished 37-45 (.451) and ranked 11th in the Eastern Conference.

While the Knicks would have had Mitchell, the Jazz would remain almost just as dominant with Westbrook. Without Gobert, it’s tough to say for sure. But maybe the triple-double king is better off in Los Angeles.

Under new Lakers coach Davin Ham, the 2021-22 season will show the basketball world whether or not the nine-time All-Star can play better offensively. Westbrook turns 34 in November.

Trading for Damian Lillard is one thing. However, if G.M. Rob Pelinka trades Westbrook, it better be for another superstar player. Otherwise, what’s the point? LeBron James turns 38 this December. And Anthony Davis could sustain additional injuries next season as well.



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76ers’ Joel Embiid Likely to Return From Injury Before NBA Playoffs

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Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid is expected to return to the court before the end of the regular season in time for the 2024 NBA Playoffs, according to Sixers coach Nick Nurse.

“I think there’s a very good likelihood that he will return before the play-in, playoff,” Nurse said before Wednesday night’s home game against the Los Angeles Clippers.

Embiid hasn’t played since Jan. 30, when Golden State Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga fell on his left leg in the fourth quarter of a 119-107 loss in San Francisco.

Referring to a few NBA betting sites, the 76ers hold 14th-ranked odds to win the championship. Sportsbooks are showing better odds for the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat.

Without the seven-time All-Star since then, the 76ers have gone 10-16, the 10th-best record in the Eastern Conference over that span. Tyrese Maxey has helped the team stay afloat in the standings.

Prior to Embiid’s injury, he was averaging career highs of 35.3 points and 5.7 assists, along with 11.3 rebounds, 1.1 steals, 1.8 blocks, and 34 minutes per game. Plus, he was shooting 53.3% from the field and a career-best 88.3% at the foul line.

Philadelphia 76ers are 26-8 with reigning MVP center Joel Embiid, 13-25 without him this season

Embiid is seven weeks removed from having surgery on the lateral meniscus in his left knee. Nurse added that there’s “no timetable” for his return. However, he also said that Embiid continues to participate in on-court work.

“I haven’t met with him,” Nurse said. “I have talked with him, FaceTimed with him a couple times. He’s on the court, as you guys know, and we still don’t have a timeline for his return.”

“I would imagine he’s getting better each day. It’s just trying to get him strong and confident and in shape and ramped up and all those wonderful words.”

Furthermore, Nurse mentioned to reporters on Wednesday that he would provide an update when Embiid progresses to contact practice or other steps before his long-awaited return to the court.

Embiid underwent surgery to repair the torn meniscus in his left knee on Feb. 6.

The Sixers’ original timeline for Embiid was 6-8 weeks. Eight weeks out from Feb. 6 would be April 2. Philadelphia will host the Oklahoma City Thunder that night at the Wells Fargo Center.

Following that matchup, the team will have a three-game road trip at the Heat (April 4), the Memphis Grizzlies (April 6), and the San Antonio Spurs (April 7) before finishing the season with a three-game homestand.

Last season, the Sixers went 11-5 during the regular season and 2-0 in the playoffs without the reigning MVP. Philadelphia is 26-8 with Embiid this season and 13-25 without him.





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Head coach Ty Lue describes Clippers’ team identity as ‘soft’

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The word “instability” is probably the best way to describe this Clippers‘ season, as they’ve tallied consecutive victories for weeks, as well as gathered losing streaks along the way. After falling to Pacers 133-116 at the start of the week, they dropped to the Western Conference’s 5th place below the Pelicans. At this point, the L.A. team has lost six out of their last nine matches and seem to have lost their identity as the playoffs grow closer. 

Once the contest was over at the Crypto.com Arena, coach Tyronn Lue felt somewhat defeated. When asked about his squad’s recent struggles, he admitted that they forgot their tough spirit and need to rebuild this congruity if they hope to make an impact this postseason.

“So identity for us, it’s got to be toughness,” he explained. “Which means physicality, mental and physical toughness, a high-powered offense — we can score in a lot of different ways — and we got to have a defensive mindset. And so right now, do we have an identity? I think, yeah, we’re soft. That can be an identity if you want to call it that. We gotta be tougher, mentally and physically.”

Before the All-Star break, the Los Angeles team was 36-17 and sat comfortably in the Top 3 positions of their conference. Since then, they’ve produced the 11th worst record in the West at 8-10, and are losing their potential home-court advantages as they fall off the standings.

Lue made a special mention of how different the Clippers are playing now, compared to what they were displaying at the start of the campaign. However, the coach has vowed that things will start to change and can’t hide their struggles any longer.

“We have an identity, when we were 26-5 we had a great identity,” Tyronn said. “You can’t pick and choose when you want to lead. You can’t pick and choose when you want to have an identity. You can’t pick and choose when you want to do things the right way. So just do the right things every night and everything else will fall in order. So, guess we do have an identity, we have to get back to that, because we’ve had it.”

Despite his intentions, the tactician recognises how complicated it is to wake up from a losing streak. “But when you lose games, it’s easy to go the other way and we’re not gonna do that. I’m not gonna let our team do that. I’m tough-minded, I’ve been through everything and so are these guys. So the only way we’re going to get out of it is playing hard for 48 minutes,” he said.

Hall of Famer predicts that if the Clippers don’t wake up they are going to be eliminated in the playoff’s first round

At one point during the season, Paul Pierce was convinced that this Clippers’ squad was destined for greatness, but after this past month he believes they won’t get passed the postseason’s first round. In the most recent episode of Undisputed, the Boston icon said he was disappointed by the team’s spirit and even criticised Lue’s way of describing his own team.

“I see a team that is probably going to a first round exit. We’re at the end of the year and I’m hearing words like ‘no identity’ and ‘we’re soft,’” he expressed at the start of the week.

Not too long ago, he compared the superstars leading the pack in Los Angeles, explaining why he believes that James Harden is the one who can guide them back to the top. Alongside his co-host Kevin Garnett in the KG Certified podcast, he picked the former Sixers guard over Kawhi Leonard.

“James Harden is a bigger superstar than Kawhi Leonard. Kawhi won this won and Harden got the shoes people buy Harden. He is the bigger superstar than Kawhi,” he expressed.





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What is the right way to analyze rookies?

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Key Highlights:

  • Since young players are inherently inconsistent, the best way to analyze their rookie seasons is to look at their flashes
  • According to Game Score, Victor Wembanyama, Chet Holmgren, Brandon Miller, Keyonte George, and GG Jackson have had the top 5 best flashes among rookies this year
  • The best way to use this study is to compare players that share similar roles/usage to each other

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. In a lot of ways, the same is true of rookie seasons. A player’s inaugural season is hardly ever a summary of their entire career. Rather, it is merely the beginning of their NBA story.

But what people often don’t mention is that you can glean some insight about the contents of a novel based on its cover. The same is also true for players and their rookie seasons. But what is it exactly that you can extract?

In this edition of “NBA Study”, we look at one (not the only) way to analyze a player’s rookie season.

Our Process

In his book (one that you should read), “Basketball Analytics: Spatial Tracking,” Dr. Stephen Shea wrote this in his chapter about evaluating prospects:

“College players are inconsistent. Their production can vary wildly from one game to the next. This is especially true for freshmen, and it is often after the freshman season that the most elite prospects enter the draft…The moral is that consistency is not something we should expect from even the very best of prospects. It is something that players gain with experience; it is something they can be taught.”

Young players are inherently inconsistent. But that’s okay because consistency can be learned. So, what we should focus on instead are a player’s flashes, since those flashes are what the player will be regularly if/when they master the art of consistency.

How To Measure Consistency

It’s been about two years since I read Shea’s book. And in that time, the best method I’ve been able to come up with for quantifying flashes is Basketball Reference’s Game Score metric. According to their website, Game Score is a metric “created by John Hollinger to give a rough measure of a player’s productivity for a single game. The scale is similar to that of points scored (40 is an outstanding performance, 10 is an average performance, etc.).”

What we will do is take the average of each rookie’s ten best Game Score games and compare that number to their peers. Our threshold to qualify for this study is at least 30 games played. That means we’ll be looking at the ten best Game Score games average of 34 rookies.

To be fully transparent, I’ve only run this test for a couple of seasons. So, the true validity of this study is still yet to be fully proven. However, last year’s version of this study featured Jalen Williams and Paolo Banchero as the two rookies with the best flashes (according to Game Score). And considering one of them is an All-Star (Banchero) and the other is playing at a borderline All-Star level (Williams), that is a pretty good sign.

Anyway, here are the results for this year’s rookies (as of March 26, 2024):

2023-24 Rookies Best 10 Game Score (GS) Games Average*

Player Name Games Played Best 10 GS Games Average
Victor Wembanyama 63 30
Chet Holmgren 71 27.5
Brandon Miller 64 22.2
Keyonte George 65 19.7
GG Jackson 38 19.7
Jaime Jaquez Jr. 65 19.2
Amen Thompson 52 19.1
Brandin Podziemski 63 18.8
Scoot Henderson 53 18.2
Ausar Thompson 63 18
Trayce Jackson-Davis 57 17.4
Dereck Lively II 53 17.4
Marcus Sasser 63 16.4
Duop Reath 58 16.3
Jordan Hawkins 61 16
Cam Whitmore 38 15.2
Vasilije Micic 50 15
Craig Porter Jr. 47 13.9
Gradey Dick 51 13.7
Cason Wallace 71 13.4
Toumani Camara 69 13.4
Kris Murray 52 12.8
Bilal Coulibaly 63 12.7
Anthony Black 63 11.7
Sasha Vezenkov 35 10
Taylor Hendricks 30 10
Julian Strawther 42 9.9
Ben Sheppard 48 9.1
Jalen Wilson 33 9.1
Nick Smith Jr. 45 8.2
Andre Jackson Jr. 50 7.3
Olivier-Maxence Prosper 34 6.3
Julian Phillips 40 6
Kobe Brown 38 4.6

*Data Provided by Basketball Reference

It should be no surprise here that Victor Wembanyama (who is having one of the best rookie seasons of the last three decades) is first, with the other unicorn, Chet Holmgren, trailing behind him. It also makes sense that two-time Rookie of the Month winners Brandon Miller and Jaime Jaquez Jr. are in the top 6 on this list.

How To Interpret These Results

Two problems I’ve noticed with using Game Score is that it biases toward players who play a lot of minutes and carry a large offensive role on their team (since the metric uses box score data). So, the best way to use these results is to compare players who play similar minutes/positions.

For instance, one thing I found incredibly fascinating is that between Keyonte George and Scoot Henderson (two on-ball guards getting a bounty of repetitions on tanking teams), George is the one with the higher Game Score average (19.7).

Another data point that stands out to me is that Bilal Coulibaly’s Game Score average (12.7) is lower than other defense-first wings and forwards like GG Jackson (19.7), Amen (19.1) and Ausar Thompson (18), and Toumani Camara (13.4).

The Bottom Line

As I mentioned in the introduction, this is just one way to evaluate a player’s rookie season. You still need to consider factors like injuries, team context, and how certain players may be affected by what the metric is measuring.

As readers of this website know, I am fairly high on Camara. But he only ranks 21st out of the 34 rookies on this list. If I had to guess, it’s because Game Score doesn’t pick up on all his contributions to the defensive end of the floor (95th percentile in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus).

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take away anything from these results. Dr. Shea is a smart dude, and I wouldn’t write this article if I didn’t think it had some value. It just isn’t an end all be all.

It’s another tool in our rookie interpretation toolbox.

If you enjoyed this edition of “NBA Study,” check out our other articles, like this one on which coaches are the best at calling plays





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