Basketball
Spurs sign forward Alize Johnson, waive rookie Jordan Hall
The San Antonio Spurs have signed G League standout Alize Johnson to a one-year deal and will waive rookie forward Jordan Hall, according to sources. Per team policy, terms of the contract were not disclosed.
Johnson signed an Exhibit 10 contract with the team in late August. However, the Spurs waived the Missouri State product in October. Now, the 26-year-old has another chance to play at the NBA level.
Based on a few NBA betting sites, the Spurs have the second-lowest odds to win the championship in 2023. A number of sportsbooks are giving the Utah Jazz and Sacramento Kings better playoff odds.
The San Antonio Spurs are signing forward Alize Johnson on a one-deal, his agent @GeorgeLangberg tells ESPN. Johnson has averaged 22 points and 10 rebounds for Austin of the G League this season.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 29, 2022
Through 72 career appearances, Johnson has averaged 2.5 points and 3.0 rebounds per game. He has also shot 48% from the field and 25% from outside the arc.
Last season, the forward made 23 appearances off the bench split between the Chicago Bulls, Washington Wizards, and New Orleans Pelicans. He averaged 1.8 points, 2.7 boards, and 7.3 minutes per game.
Spurs sign G League star Alize Johnson, waive rookie Jordan Hall
While with the Brooklyn Nets in the 2020-21 season, in 18 games off the bench, Johnson averaged career highs of 5.2 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 10.5 minutes per contest. He recorded two double-doubles as well.
On March 24, 2021, in the Nets’ 118-88 loss to the Utah Jazz, the wing scored a career-high 23 points in 33 minutes of action. Along with grabbing 15 boards, he finished 11-of-15 (73.3%) shooting from the field and missed a shot from downtown.
If he can stay healthy, Johnson could benefit the Spurs’ frontcourt.
Moreover, in Brooklyn’s 130-113 win over the Indiana Pacers on April 29, Johnson ended his performance with a career-best 21 rebounds in 33 minutes played. In addition to putting up 20 points, he also shot 7-of-12 (58.3%) from the floor.
With the Raptors 905 of the G League, the forward averaged 16.6 points, 13.3 rebounds, and 4.2 assists during the 2020-21 season. He played 32 minutes per game in 15 starts.
Meanwhile, Jordan Hall went undrafted out of St. Joseph’s during this year’s offseason. He signed a two-way contract with the Spurs in August.
Nonetheless, he was waived two months later. In early November, Hall signed a rest-of-season contract with the team. This was a one-year deal for $935,891.
Through nine games off the bench with the Spurs, the wing averaged 3.1 points, 1.3 boards, and 1.2 assists per game. Not to mention, he was shooting 32.1% from the field and 20% from three-point range.
Considering Hall was logging just 9.2 minutes per game, he was playing decent with San Antonio. He was recalled from the Austin Spurs, the team’s G League affiliate, on Nov. 2.
Basketball
76ers’ Joel Embiid Likely to Return From Injury Before NBA Playoffs
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.
Nick Nurse says there is a “very good likelihood” that Joel Embiid will return before the end of regular season
“He is on the court and getting better each day” pic.twitter.com/9sD3NqYrVG
— John Clark (@JClarkNBCS) March 27, 2024
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.”
Reporting on Joel Embiid for NBA Countdown with @malika_andrews pic.twitter.com/nXI5WbZAF0
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) March 28, 2024
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.
Basketball
Head coach Ty Lue describes Clippers’ team identity as ‘soft’
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.”
Ty Lue calls out the Clippers
“Right now do we have an identity? I think, yeah. We’re soft.” 😳
(Via @TomerAzarly pic.twitter.com/kzLEVKyk1c
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) March 26, 2024
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.
Basketball
What is the right way to analyze rookies?
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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