The NBA has seen an explosion of huge scoring performances over the past week, but it’s part of a season-long trend. What explains it? On the same night that Donovan Mitchell went off for 71 points, Klay Thompson poured in 54. Just a day later, Giannis Antetokounmpo hung 55 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists
Nylon Calculus
Tyrese Haliburton is breaking new ground with his assist stats this season. But don’t overlook what he’s doing on defense for the Indiana Pacers. Tyrese Haliburton is having a remarkable season for the surprising Indiana Pacers, pushing himself into all sorts of outlier statistical territory. His assist to Andrew Nembhard on the game-winning 3-pointer against
The Sacramento Kings have been scoring at an absurd rate, with an offense powered in large part by a historic fastbreak attack. After dropping their first four games of the season, the Sacramento Kings have been on an absolute tear, winning nine of their last 11 games and scoring an obscene 121.5 points per 100
The Warriors bench has been a complete mess and a major factor in their slow start. What’s not working and how do they fix it? The Golden State Warriors championship defense is off to a rough start. After a 130-119 loss to the Phoenix Suns, they’re 6-9 and a league-worst 0-8 on the road. Steph
The Hawks are winning games but passing less than any team in a decade. Will a lack of offensive dynamism hurt them as the season goes along? The Atlanta Hawks made one of the biggest moves of the offseason, trading Danilo Gallinari, three future first-round picks and a pick swap to the San Antonio Spurs
The Lakers have been one of the worst 3-point shooting teams in modern history to start the season. Is the problem talent or random variance? If you’re an NBA fan with a hunger for schadenfreude, the Los Angeles Lakers have been a veritable feast this season. They’re off to a 2-8 start with the worst
A week into the season, the NBA MVP race looks wide open. Here’s a look at one key stat for each of the top candidates so far. By the time we get to March and April, the NBA MVP race will have likely winnowed to one or two key frontrunners. But for now, the field
The Las Vegas Aces collected a historic number of trophies and honors during the 2022 WNBA season, culminating with the first title in franchise history. The Las Vegas Aces capped off their season with a 78-71 victory over the Connecticut Sun in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals, securing the league’s biggest prize. But the
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. At first glance, it would be hard to place blame on Giannis Antetokounmpo for any of the Bucks’ offensive struggles in their 2-2 split with the Boston Celtics. He’s
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. The Eastern Conference Finals has rolled out with some bizarre statistical twists. Going into Game 4, the Miami Heat held a 2-1 lead despite outscoring the Celtics in just
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. Every team has the same goal on offense — score as many points as possible. But every team goes about that in a different way, using different patterns of
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. This morning, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski broke news that Nikola Jokic had been selected as the NBA MVP, with an official announcement to come later this week. It was Jokic’s
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. Clutch statistics, both for teams and players, are notoriously unreliable as predictors of future outcomes. They come with the requisite noise of small sample size, the context and style
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. Last week on The Whiteboard, I began the annual exercise of examining the offensive style of each team using the same NBA offensive style charts I’ve been building for
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. Last week on The Whiteboard, I began the annual exercise of examining the offensive style of each team using the same NBA offensive style charts I’ve been building for
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. In yesterday’s installment of The Whiteboard, I began the annual exercise of examining the offensive style of each team using the same NBA offensive style charts I’ve been building
For much of the regular season, the Milwaukee Bucks have avoided the national spotlight. They begin their campaign for a second-consecutive championship on Sunday against the Chicago Bulls, and the numbers say they’re just as good as last year. Less than nine months ago the Milwaukee Bucks secured the franchise’s second championship and first in
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. As the end of the NBA season approaches playoff and award races are narrowing. In the case of MVP, that latest straw poll at ESPN indicates that we’re likely
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. On the surface, the most obvious link between the 60-point games for Karl-Anthony Towns and Kyrie Irving this week was their 3-point shooting — 7-of-11 for Towns, 8-of-12 for
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. Assists can be one of the noisest measures of statistical performance because they require to players to make it work. The creator who makes the pass is the one
The Cleveland Cavaliers’ surge into the NBA playoff picture has surprised many, but the data suggests this young Cavs team is right where it belongs. At the midway point of the NBA season, few would have predicted that the Cleveland Cavaliers would sit with a top-10 record and the league’s sixth-best point differential. The Cavs’
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. The decline of the post-up is well understood, although the degree to which it has led to adaptation rather than extinction doesn’t get enough attention. The post-up has, generally,
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. Another night. Another win for the Golden State Warriors. Another rough shooting night for Steph Curry. He finished 18 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists in a 38-point blowout
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. P.J. Tucker’s NBA niche has always been about 3-and-D but his defensive impact and versatility have long been the more reliable half of that equation. For his career, he’s
Troy Wayrynen-USA TODAY Sports Through a quarter season of play, trends have begun to materialize across the league. We’re taking a look at whether these early season indicators are real or fake, and where we expect them to settle over the remainder of the season. 5. Philadelphia’s superb offense: Real or fake? The 76ers experience
The Houston Rockets have several solid veterans who will draw interest at the trade deadline. How could they flip them for long-term value? The Houston Rockets are likely to be very active at the NBA Trade Deadline. They’ve slipped, significantly, in the standings and the playoffs are a pipe dream at this point. They’re also
It’s time to put aside the Stephen Curry comparisons for good. Trae Young is a uniquely talented offensive player but in the James Harden mold. The comparisons to Steph Curry started even before Trae Young officially declared for the NBA Draft. His slight built, flashy handle and propensity for pulling up off the dribble at
The Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder and New Orleans Pelicans have leveraged superstar trades into a huge number of draft picks. But how far ahead of the pack are they? The past two years have seen a succession of enormous, superstar trades in the NBA, with Anthony Davis, Paul George, Russell Westbrook (twice), Chris Paul
By adding James Harden to Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, the Brooklyn Nets have assembled a historically unique Big 3. As the situation with the Houston Rockets unraveled in the past few days, the Brooklyn Nets swooped in and pulled off an enormous trade to land James Harden. They gave up an enormous amount of
Building player pick probabilities from a massive sample of mock drafts reveals just how divisive this NBA Draft class is. Say you’re the Atlanta Hawks, and you really like Obi Toppin in the upcoming NBA Draft, but you’re not sure if he’ll still be available at No. 6. Do you move up, or hold on
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