After one of the most shocking, trade-filled off-seasons in NBA history, the league continues to deliver. Here are five of the most surprising storylines at the NBA’s midway mark, beginning with the stellar performance of the Raptors’ prospects:
Youth movement helping to establish Raptors’ best season ever
Yes, DeMar DeRozan is playing like an MVP, and, yes, Dwane Casey has exceeded expectations in transforming the way his team plays basketball.
Those are two crucial reasons why the Raptors are in the midst of, so far, their best season in franchise history — the Raps’ offence scores more than any team not named the Warriors or Rockets, and they do it with improved ball movement and a greater emphasis on finding open teammates at the basket or behind the arc. DeRozan, too, is having his best season as a pro and drastically improving in what has been the weakest areas of his game in years’ past.
However, that DeRozan has gotten noticeably better from one season to the next shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anybody who’s tracked his career, while Casey and the team really didn’t have a choice but to change the way they played after being called out and mandated by their team president after last season’s playoff exit. Maybe you didn’t expect the change to be as dramatic on both fronts, but you surely expected change, nonetheless.
But what you maybe didn’t expect is just how steady the Raptors’ first-to-third-year players have performed this season. OG Anunoby is the most noticeable surprise, given we weren’t sure if he’d be playing basketball heading into the New Year due to a nasty knee injury suffered in college last season. Now? The Raps are 22-7 since he was inserted into the starting lineup back in November, and Anunoby seems to be the three-and-D answer at small forward the franchise has been searching for throughout its history.
Now throw in Jakob Poeltl, the most effective counter-punch to Jonas Valanciunas the team has had, and a massive force down low who can throw his seven-foot frame around in the paint and flashing deft footwork and quick hands of a player half his size. Then add Delon Wright, a matchup nightmare in the backcourt who cuts through defences like an ambulance weaving through rush-hour traffic. And then there’s Fred VanVleet, a reliable weapon for Casey off the bench who steps up in big moments, and Pascal Siakam, who’s speed, size, and energy (along with three-point shooting ability) causes headaches for opponents.
All of those players are under 25. It’s an embarrassment of riches, and a testament to the coaching staff and the club’s utility of the Raptors 905, where all of those players have spent time since joining the NBA.
Apart from their production and usage (they all average more than 17 minutes per game), it’s their ability to perform and thrive as the calibre of opponent and level of star power across the court grows that should really have fans excited for the direction the team is headed. Games against the Warriors, Rockets, and Cavaliers this season has proves as much.
The Raptors have the sixth-youngest roster in the NBA, hardly a recipe for immediate success, but those young players have provided a killer second unit and accompanying pieces that fit just right.
The new stars of the 2017 draft class
Remember when “Markelle Fultz vs. Lonzo Ball” was a real debate leading up to the 2017 NBA draft, the two collegiate stars headlining one of the most exciting lottery crops in recent memory?
Well, Fultz has been a disaster so far (that’s no indictment on what his future may hold) after a shoulder injury supposedly forced him to transform his jump shot into one of the ugliest ever featured in the pro game, while Ball has been solid as of late and is certainly a great distributor, but there are valid early questions surrounding his ability to thrive as a featured player.
Other top-10 picks like Josh Jackson, De’Aaron Fox, Jonathan Isaac and Frank Ntilikina have bright futures but haven’t exactly set the league on fire.
But do you want to know who has? Donovan Mitchell, the 13th-overall pick out of Lousiville. Utah traded up to draft Mitchell, and have been rewarded with a franchise-altering force in their backcourt. Mitchell, an athletic freak already with one of the most exciting dunk reels in the game, is averaging over 23 points per game since Dec, 1 and is the primary reason why the Rudy Gobert-less Jazz will be fighting for a playoff spot this season.
Joining Mitchell as best-in-class is Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, the third-overall pick playing like a surefire No. 1. Tatum’s poise and shot-making ability is flat out stunning for a 19-year-old and is helping Boston weather the Gordon Hayward injury without missing a beat.
Only 1 more day to vote for Jayson Tatum
1 RT = 1 #NBAVote pic.twitter.com/eq1phrcIav
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) January 14, 2018
LaMarcus Aldridge helps carry the Kawhi-less Spurs
No, it shouldn’t come as a huge shock that, of all teams, the San Antonio Spurs have weathered a major injury to their best player, and, after Monday afternoon’s tilt vs. the last-place Atlanta Hawks, are poised to sit a cool 15 games above .500.
But what is surprising is that they’ve done it thanks in large part to a return to all-NBA form from forward LaMarcus Aldridge.
Kawhi Leonard, universally known as one of the top five basketball players on Earth, has appeared in just nine games after missing time to start the season with a quad injury (he also recently suffered a minor shoulder injury but looked solid in his return to the lineup over the weekend). In his absence, Aldridge has stepped up in a big way, which has to be incredibly reassuring to a Spurs fan base that had a minor panic attack when the team extended his contract for three years and $72 million just before the season tipped off.
In his first two seasons in San Antonio, Aldridge regressed after establishing himself as one of the NBA’s top forwards during his nine seasons in Portland, where he was the No. 1 option. After signing with the Spurs in free agency, he struggled to find his place in Gregg Popovich’s system, and openly lamented not having the ball in his hands enough. His stats dipped, and the eye test would confirm that he wasn’t the same player. It all led to Aldridge requesting a trade this past summer.
Take a look at his last three seasons in Portland compared to his first three so far in San Antonio and it’s clear he’s found a new groove this season (screenshot via basketballreference.com):
Because Popovich and the Spurs demand excellence from whomever is on the court, it should be noted that plenty of Spurs players have stepped up in Leonard’s absence, but none have thrived more than Aldridge.
Oladipo and the Pacers
In a trade that was more or less universally panned from the moment it was made, the Indiana Pacers hit the reset button when they traded away all-star Paul George to the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis — or so we thought.
George has been solid for his new club, particularly on the defensive end (more on that later), but Oladipo’s breakout season, the standout play of Sabonis in just his second pro season and the Pacers’ level of play, overall, have been borderline shocking.
At 23-20, Indiana is currently in the No. 7 seed in the East and is poised to reach the post-season. Oladipo, a most improved player award frontrunner, has been transformed — and not just physically. He’s emerged as a clear No. 1 option for his team and plays like it, stepping up in big moments and allowing the Pacers to lose a star player without missing a beat.
Oladipo is averaging a career-high 24 points per game — nearly 10 more than he averaged last season when he was clearly miscast as Russell Westbrook‘s running mate — and is hitting over 40 per cent from deep for the first time in his career. Simply put: he’s finally playing like a second-overall pick.
Heading into the season the Pacers fortunes this season — and in the future — were tightly linked to the development of Myles Turner, but the 21 year-old big man has quietly been something of a letdown this season, missing ten games to injury already and seeing his production drop off virtually across the board. It only makes Indiana’s solid start, and reconfigured pecking order, all the more surprising.
The Lakers are blowing it
Maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised that things are not going very well in Los Angeles, where one of the league’s marquee franchises is screwing up their chance to return to relevancy.
The Lakers trot out a lineup built around developing prospects Ball, Kyle Kuzma and Brandon Ingram, which means wins will be few and far between, but veteran pieces like Brook Lopez, along with talented young players like Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance Jr., and Julius Randle were supposed to help keep the team afloat.
Instead, the Lakers are 15-27 and fighting to stay out of the West’s basement as rumours surrounding coach Luke Walton’s control over the team and it’s direction are beginning to swirl (and no, that’s not just coming from Lavar Ball).
It wouldn’t be an issue for a young team like this, until you remember that if their upcoming draft pick lands in the top five then the Lakers must surrender it to Boston, losing out on a potential star in a loaded top-end of the 2018 NBA Draft.
Even worse, the Lakers have been believed to be positioning themselves for a monster free agency run next summer, targeting the likes of LeBron James and George.
Heading into the season, the team seemed like a viable destination. Now though? It’s hard to imagine what the King, or any elite-level player, has to gain by hitching their wagon to the Lakers.
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