Raymond Simms

The Indiana Pacers have had a rough four weeks. What has gone wrong in Indiana’s capital?

On January 8th, 2023, the Indiana Pacers capped off the first half of their season with a 116-111 victory over the Charlotte Hornets. This win gave the Pacers a 23-18 record through 41 games, putting them in sixth place in the Eastern Conference. It was the team’s best 41-game start since 2019-20 (26-15) and a surprise surge from a young team that Vegas expected to win just 24 or 25 games.

Unfortunately, the Pacers have had a less endearing start to the second half of their schedule. Indiana has gone on a 2-12 slump since their win over Charlotte.

Indiana has suffered a drop in both offensive and defensive rating during this slump. The Pacers dropped from 18th in defensive rating pre-slump to 23rd since then. More notably, however, they plummeted from 14th in offensive rating to last in the league during the slump.

Offensively, the Pacers struggled from all zones and in terms of playmaking during this slump. Their 2-point percentage dropped from 21st to 29th and their free throw percentage fell from 7th to 12th. but the more glaring wounds were in their three-point percentage (9th to 26th) and assist-to-turnover ratio (11th to 29th).

You don’t have to look far to uncover the mystery behind Indiana’s descent from sixth in the East on January 8th to 10th in the conference by the morning of February 7th. The team lost star point guard Tyrese Haliburton due to compounding injuries and he has slightly struggled during his recent re-acclimation to the lineup.

Haliburton is having a career year in just his third season in the NBA. In 43 games played this season, he’s averaging 20.0 points, 10.3 assists, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.7 steals per game. He currently leads the league in assists per game, and his scoring and assist averages are career highs. Unsurprisingly, these numbers earned Haliburton an All-Star reserve nod. It’s clear that the Pacers have their Point Guard of Tomorrow.

However, Haliburton’s banner year took a slight pause on January 11th. Late in the third quarter of Indiana’s game at the New York Knicks, Haliburton hit the deck after Isaiah Hartenstein blocked his layup. One of Hartenstein’s feet subsequently landed on Haliburton’s leg while corralling the rebound.

As a result, Haliburton left the game and didn’t return, and the Pacers went on to lose the game. The diagnosis turned out to be a sprained left elbow and a left knee bone contusion, sidelining him for 10 games. Indiana would go 1-9 sans Hali.

A talent like him went a long way towards drawing in defenses and finding scoring opportunities for other players. That’s why the team not only saw a drop in their offense, but specifically saw the biggest drops in their three-point shooting and assist-to-turnover ratio.

Haliburton returned for their February 2nd matchup versus the Los Angeles Lakers, but the team has still gone 1-2 since being reinstated. While it’s fantastic that he’s back, it should be noted he’s coming back from two injuries, so it’s fair to assume he’s not completely right-as-rain despite being fit to play.

Haliburton picked up 26 points and 12 assists in the losing effort versus Los Angeles. In the following two games, he still dished out nine and 11 assists, respectively, but his scoring volume was somewhat muted. He scored just 10 points on 12 shots in a win against Sacramento. Haliburton improved in the most recent game with 15 points on 10 shots, but it was in a losing effort where he picked up four fouls in the process.

The Indiana Pacers were the darling of the league through its first 41 games due to their surprising start led by rising star Tyrese Haliburton. Without him, however, the Pacers lost a lot of ground, thanks in part to not having the playmaking and scoring gravity the All-Star point would normally create. Fortunately, he has returned to kick off the month of February. We’ll see in time if his return can once again make the Indiana Pacers a formidable team in the East.

The 2023 All-Star Player Pool has been fully revealed. Who were the biggest snubs for this year’s Midseason Classic?

Each season, 24 players (12 per conference) get the opportunity to be called NBA All-Stars, give or take any injury replacements. Naturally, with any list, there are bound to be players worthy of it that will be left off. By extension, there will be people mad that those players are left off.

Backers of various players will treat these “snubs” like injustices. “How could they forget my guy? It’s so obvious they should be an All-Star!” That’s the price of sports fandom, and I don’t begrudge those backers for their beliefs. But if we look at the All-Star selections through a statistical lens, which players have the most legitimate gripe for being left out of the All-Star fray?

To determine this answer, I simply looked at player VORP. Value Over Replacement Player is a box score estimate of points per 100 team possessions that a player contributes over a replacement level player, pro-rated to an 82-game season. I feel like it’s the second-most succinct advanced stat publicly available, bested only by Fivethirtyeight’s RAPTOR ratings. You just look at it and get a straightforward look at that player’s impact. I’m a big fan of it.

So when cross-referencing the All-Star pool with league VORP rankings (as of February 2, 2023), the top 13 and 16 of the top 17 all rightfully got the nod. That odd man out? Miami’s Jimmy Butler, whose 3.1 VORP is 14th-best in the NBA. James Harden (18th, 2.4), Anthony Davis (19th, 2.4), Nikola Vucevic (20th, 2.2), Jalen Brunson (21st, 2.1), Darius Garland (23rd, 2.1), and Pascal Siakam (24th, 2.0) are other players within the Top 24 that were left out of the All-Star player pool.

Conversely, Memphis’ Jaren Jackson Jr. is the lowest-ranked All-Star, his 1.3 VORP being 51st-best in the NBA. Zion Williamson (27th, 1.9), DeMar DeRozan (28th, 1.8), Bam Adebayo (34th, 1.7), Paul George (36th, 1.7), Jrue Holiday (42nd, 1.5), and Jaylen Brown (47th, 1.4) join Jackson Jr. as players outside of the Top 24 that received an All-Star nod.

Personally, I don’t get revved up by All-Star snubs. Coming up with All-Star teams in such a talent-rich league means plenty of deserving players are going to be left off. Not to mention that the All-Star rosters are serving multiple goals. The starter votes are a convergence of three popularity contests (fans, players, and media). Then the coaches, who are more focused on their own teams than the rest of the league, make up the difference with the reserve selections. That’s four separate factions of biases. Someone is bound to fall through the cracks. That’s just human nature.

Nevertheless, it was still fun to carry out this statistical exercise to see which players were ultimately left holding the bag. All things considered, I think this a pretty well-constructed player pool. I’m looking forward to seeing who captains Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James will pick when they make their selections right before the 2023 All-Star Game on February 19th in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Toronto Raptors were supposed to be the Long-armed Team of Tomorrow. What went wrong?

The 2021-22 Toronto Raptors looked like a team on the rise. Following a 2020-21 campaign that saw the team go 27-45 while playing their entire home schedule in Tampa, Florida, the 2022 Raptors returned to Canada and made the playoffs with a respectable 48-34 record.

The 2022 team was a unique build. The end-of-season roster had only three players out of 17 that were shorter than 6’5″, but no one was taller than 6’9″. Most of these players also had copious amounts of wingspan.

With a Solid Seven of Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, Scottie Barnes, OG Anunoby, Gary Trent Jr., Precious Achiuwa, and Chris Boucher, the 2022 Raptors managed to push their First Round series against the Philadelphia 76ers to six games. Despite their ultimate elimination, it seemed that there was plenty to look forward to in Raptors Nation.

Fast forward to February 2023 and the Raps are 23-30. Basketball Reference’s Pythagorean Win formula indicates that record is four games below expectation (27-26). Not only are they not in the East’s Top 8, they’re 12th in the conference, standing 1.5 games outside of the Play-In Club. All of this is happening even with the Solid Seven still intact and the team holding the seventh-best average point differential in the conference (0.5 points per game). So what gives?

In the macro, two things are immediately apparent: the year-over-year drop in defensive rating and the offensive efficiency from the Solid Seven.

Toronto finished 2022 with the ninth-best defensive rating. They’ve dropped to 20th so far this season. The Raptors were 19th in opponent 2-point percentage and 18th in opponent 3-point percentage in 2021-22, but has dropped to 29th in both categories in 2022-23.

Let’s look at opponent shooting zones to parse where the leak is coming from. Toronto dropped from 17th to 27th year-over-year in Left Corner 3 percentage and ninth to 24th on above-the-break treys. These declines undercut the improvement from 18th to 12th on Right Corner 3 percentage. Within the paint, the drop takes place in the non-restricted-area paint. Toronto fell from sixth in 2022 to 25th this season when defending that district of the court.

Despite the abundance of wingspan on the roster, it seems the team has become less adept at keeping opponents out of the paint and challenging perimeter shots, two places modern teams are always looking to score from.

The offensive efficiency of Toronto’s Solid Seven has also dropped from last year. Their 3-point percentage has fallen from 30.1 percent to 29.3 percent while their 2-point percentage has dived from 54.3 percent to 50.7 percent. That’s a drop in effective field goal percentage from 52.4 percent to 49.2 percent, when the general goal is to remain above 50 percent.

After a promising 2022 campaign, the 2023 Raptors are still a competitive, tempo-dictating (27th in pace in 21-22, 26th in 22-23) squad. Unfortunately, they aren’t as sharp on either side of the floor as they were last year, leading to some disappointing losses.

With these results and the trade deadline looming, the Raptors are clearly at a crossroads. Does the front office need to make moves so Toronto can make a more decisive playoff push? Or is it time to end this era and focus on the future? Either way, it’s clear that this is not where the Toronto Raptors want to or expected to be.

The issues that separate the 2022 champion Golden State Warriors from the middling 2023 edition are coming from the back of the rotation.

The Golden State Warriors enter their Wednesday tilt at the Minnesota Timberwolves 26-24 and on a three-game winning streak. This is their third time this season being two games above .500, a high-water mark they hope to surpass with a win on Wednesday.

It’s an unflattering position to be in when compared to where they were last season. GSW was 37-13 at the 50-game mark of the 2021-22 season. They began this season 3-7 through the first ten games, evened out to 10-10 through the first twenty, and have straddled the break-even line ever since. By comparison, the Warriors had a 9-1 open to 2021-22 that eventually became an 18-2 start, a 53-29 final record, and a NBA championship.

These are confounding circumstances considering that Warriors Season 76 and Season 77 have the same core six players: the starting lineup of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, and Kevon Looney along with sixth man Jordan Poole. In fact, their collective offense is even better than last year, jumping from 93.7 points per game in 2022 to 103.7 ppg this year. Green is the only player in this Big Six that hasn’t experienced a year-over-year scoring average increase.

So if the core of a defending champion is still holding up their end of the production bargain, what gives? Well, to understand the misfortunes of the 2023 Golden State Warriors is to understand the importance of reliable role players to a title-contending rotation, especially on the defensive end.

The 2022 offseason proved to be a detrimental one for the Warriors. While the team had a number of defections from its bench, the biggest ones came with the losses of their seventh-through-ninth men.

During the playoffs, the three players to average double-digit minutes outside of the Big Six were Otto Porter (19.5 minutes per game), Gary Payton II (16.9 mpg), and Nemanja Bjelica (10.0 mpg). Porter and Bjelica were change-of-pace frontcourtmen from Green and Looney thanks to their abilities to stretch the floor offensively. Meanwhile, Payton II was a tireless versatile defender that always seemed to deliver a bucket at just the right time. He shot a hot 65.9 percent from the field (72.4 from 2, 53.3 from 3) and had a team-high 3.4 steal percentage during the postseason.

However, all three of these players dipped after they raised the Larry O’Brien trophy. Payton went to Portland, Porter signed with Toronto, and Bjelica shipped off to Istanbul. So how would the Warriors fill the 21.4 points per game and 7.8 defensive box plus-minus that these three brought during the 2021-22 regular season? As evidenced by the differences in records between seasons, the 2023 auditions have had middling returns.

Free agent acquisition Donte DiVincenzo has held up the best so far as he attempts to fill Gary Payton II’s vacancy. A 2021 NBA champion with Milwaukee, DiVincenzo has brought more playmaking and 3-point volume than Payton II, but less defensive prowess and 2-point scoring efficiency. DiVincenzo is averaging 1.2 more points than Payton did last season (8.3 to 7.1), but is conceding 1.9 points in defensive box plus-minus (1.5 to GPII’s 3.4).

Second-year player Jonathan Kuminga has the athleticism and versatility to fill Otto Porter’s role. On the surface, Kuminga is doing fairly well, with his 2023 scoring average and Porter’s 2022 being identical at 8.2 points per game. Jonathan is even apparently shooting 3.0 percent better than Otto did to do it (49.4 percent versus 46.4 percent). However, the comparisons fall apart from there.

For one, Porter was a better rebounder and 3-point shooter than Kuminga. Porter’s 37.0 3-point percentage, 14.2 total rebounding percentage, and 2.4 steal percentage outclass Kuminga’s 31.1, 8.9, and 1.1 in those respective categories.

Secondly, Kuminga’s 2023 numbers are a step down even by his own standards. His regular season minutes have increased while his scoring production has dropped. Kuminga went from 9.3 points on 51.3 percent shooting in 16.9 minutes per game his rookie year to 8.2 points on 49.4 percent in 19.1 minutes this year. While this output is still admirable, by his rookie benchmarks and in context of his team’s needs, Kuminga is in a sophomore slump.

Filling the Nemanja Bjelica gap has proven to be the tallest task for Golden State. JaMychal Green was brought in to handle the job. However, injuries have kept JMG from carrying out his duties.

J. Green had a 14-game inactive stretch from late December through mid-January. It was initially due to health & safety protocols, but that ailment was promptly followed by a right lower-leg infection. Fortunately, he has since returned. However, he has still struggled this season in certain aspects of the game even when he is fit to play.

Green and Bjelica have similar per game numbers, which would be a good sign. Beyond the surface, though, while Green has been a superior finisher (65.1 percent on 2’s to 54.9 percent) and offensive rebounder (11.4 offensive board percentage to 6.1 percent) to Bjelica, Nemanja was a much better outside shooter and passer. Bjelica’s 36.2 percent from long-range and 19.8 assist percentage dwarf Green’s 29.8 and 6.6 percent in those respective categories.

Notably, JaMychal has chalked up his exterior shooting struggles to a nagging wrist injury that also hampered him last season with the Denver Nuggets. He shot a career-low (barring his 0-for-6 rookie campaign) 26.6 percent last year, making this year’s output a technical step up.

It was Porter and Bjelica’s floor-opening abilities of 3-point shooting and passing IQ that unlocked another dimension for the Warriors during their title run, and Kuminga and JaMychal Green have shown a lack of those facets this season.

It should also be noted that two-way players Anthony Lamb and Ty Jerome are also taking up a bulk of minutes. Lamb is eighth on the team in minutes per game while Jerome is tenth. Great for them individually. Their combined 40.7 percent shooting from 3-point range is a boon for the Warriors, with Lamb providing good size (a 227-point forward) and defensive energy (0.4 DBPM) and Jerome bringing a little more playmaking to the table (19.8 assist percentage).

However, it’s also a little odd that so many minutes are being entrusted to players whose availability is limited by design. Their roles are also redundant in the grand scheme of title contention, with the Core Six and DiVincenzo already possessing Lamb’s and Jerome’s skillsets at a higher caliber.

With all this turnover at the back of the rotation, team pace has increased. The Warriors jumped from 15th in 2022 to first place this season. Their offensive rating has held steady, going from 16th in ’22 to 15th in ’23. However, GSW’s defensive rating has taken a massive hit, plummeting from second-best in 2022 to 16th this season.

As mentioned earlier, Golden State’s seventh-through-ninth men accounted for 21.4 points per game and 7.8 defensive box plus-minus during the 2021-22 season. This year’s projected replacements have combined for 22.7 points per game, but a 0.5 defensive box plus-minus. While Gary Payton II, Otto Porter, and Nemanja Bjelica are nowhere near household names, their skillsets proved valuable in upholding the production of the core six, allowing this team to compete on a nightly basis and ultimately win the title.

With the trade deadline approaching, the Golden State Warriors’ front office have to determine if they truly believe DiVincenzo, Kuminga, and JaMychal Green can gel well enough down the stretch to deliver the two-way production that has been lacking during this middling 2022-23 campaign.

Ben Simmons returned to the basketball court for the 2022-23 season, but he’s 100 miles away from the team he used to play for and the player he used to be.

The Ben Simmons Saga was well-publicized from his interior shooting hesitancy in Game 7 of the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals to his abstaining from the entire 2021-22 season. He was traded during this sabbatical to the Brooklyn Nets, a chance for a fresh start despite being only 100 miles away from his former team.

However, now that he has finally suited up for the Nets, the returns have been less than in impressive.

A three-time All-Star in Philly, Simmons’ 2023 point-per-game average is just over half of what he produced in his final season with the Sixers. He finished the 2021 season averaging 14.3 points, 7.2 rebounds, 6.9 assists, and 1.6 steals a game. Oddly enough, that production was down from what he had done in prior seasons. In Brooklyn, he’s now churning out 7.6 points, 6.7 rebounds, 6.4 assists, and 1.4 steals per game.

You might have noticed that his non-scoring box score stats have actually held form despite the season-long hiatus. Simmons has carved himself into a defensive playmaker role in the Borough. He’s still capable of defending any position, and he still has a great passing eye.

The issue is that he tends to use that passing eye to pass out of situations that All-Star Ben would be expected to score or create a shot out of. Instead of channeling Magic Johnson, Simmons has been channeling Draymond Green.

It’s certainly a choice by Jacque Vaughn and the Nets staff. Filling the Draymond Role is an admirable position to be in, and especially when Simmons has done that role very well this season. Frankly, though, it feels like a waste of such an athletic talent to not have him be a more willing scorer.

That’s especially apparent during this stretch where the Brooklyn Nets are without lead scorer Kevin Durant. Durant has been out for the past two weeks due to a MCL sprain and will be re-evaluated two weeks from now. He is eighth in the league in scoring, despite missing the last seven games, so the Nets have their work cut out for them to fill that absence.

Spoiler alert: They mostly haven’t. The Nets have gone 2-5 sans Durantula. Kyrie Irving has predictably taken up the leading scorer mantle, averaging 30.8 points per game over the last seven. That’s followed up with Nic Claxton’s 18.6 and Seth Curry’s 17.1.

While budding two-way interior threat Claxton and career microwave Curry should be applauded for their production, the 12.2-point game between leader and second place shows that this team is lacking a reliable second scoring option. This should be Simmons’ time to shine!

That was apparent in the Nets’ latest contest, a 137-133 loss to the 76ers. Irving came away with his now-customary 30 points, but it was Seth Curry that paced the Nets with a season-high 32 points!

Meanwhile, Simmons finished with just 12 points, going scoreless in the first half then scoring 10 in the third quarter. Per NBA Player Tracking, he received 63 touches — third-most of any Net — but he only attempted seven field goals. That’s a lot of passed up shots!

Yet he went 5-of-7 on those shot attempts, 71.4 percent from the field. That seems like a well the Nets should have gone to more often, rather that be schematically or of Simmons’ volition.

It’s rough to see such a highly-touted prospect like Ben Simmons, a No. 1 overall pick mind you, be reduced to a role player while still being just 26 years old. While his scoring services certainly aren’t necessary when KD and Kyrie are on the floor together, it’s apparent now that Durant is benched that the Nets sorely need another reliable 20-point scorer to keep The W Train going.

The Nets have a number of hard-working, reliable role players that can supplement their star’s production and even have the occasional big game. However, due to his athleticism and offensive skillset, Ben Simmons is the Net most equipped to step up and become a bigger part of the Nets’ offense.

I honestly don’t expect that to happen, even on the heels of tonight’s matchup hosting the Pistons, but I wanted to be on record saying that I feel it should.

How did NBA teams fair in calendar year 2022? What does it tell us about how the remainder of the 2022-23 could unfold?

Happy New Year!! The turn of the calendar may feel like turning a page for most people. However, the autumn-to-spring schedule of the NBA charges on.

But what if the NBA records were decided within the Gregorian-imposed construct of a single year? My curiosity led me to go through the standings and combine franchise records for regular season games played in 2022: the latter portion of the 2021-22 season and the current campaign up through New Year’s Eve. The results revealed some intriguing conclusions.

The Boston Celtics are the NBA’s King of the Hill for the year 2022. Their 60-22 record on the year leaves them as the lone team to hit the 60-win plateau. In the East, it places them a comfortable seven games ahead of the second-place Philadelphia.

It’s not too much of a surprise. The C’s notoriously turned their flailing 2021-22 season around shortly after New Year’s Day. After an anemic 17-19 start, Boston went 34-12 the rest of the way. They took this fortune into the playoffs by pulling off the only sweep of the postseason and reaching the Finals.

The offseason nor a controversy-induced coaching change were able to stoke the Celtics’ flame. Instead, they opened the campaign with a 26-10 start to the 2022-23 season.

The Memphis Grizzlies sit atop the West by winning percentage thanks to a 55-25 (.688). However, it’s the Phoenix Suns hold the most total wins in the conference with their 57-27 record. The Detroit Pistons set the floor in the East with their 28-60 ledger, while the Houston Rockets hold the league’s worst 2022 record at 20-62, picking up 10 wins each in both halves of the year.

While looking at the records and how both halves of the year composed them, I was also intrigued by the percentage differential between the Spring 2022 and Fall 2022 records. Which franchises have been consistent (or stagnant), which teams have dramatically improved, which teams have underwhelmed?

The Indiana Pacers earn the honor of most improved team, as their 20-17 second half record is a league-leading 30.1 percent improvement from their 11-35 first half record. After feeling like a rudderless ship for much of 2021-22, the trade deadline acquisition of Tyrese Haliburton as well as the draft-day additions of Bennedict Mathurin and Andrew Nembhard seem to have injected new life into Rick Carlisle’s club.

Conversely, the Charlotte Hornets have the largest decline in the NBA between first and second halves. After finishing 2021-22 24-22, they began 2022-23 by going 10-27. A 25.1-percent drop between halves. Their tumultuous offseason saw them hire a retread coach and lose their star forward due to off-court legal issues. Once the ball actually tipped off, the team then faced extended injury stints from star players LaMelo Ball and Gordon Hayward. Both have since returned, so perhaps there are better days for them in 2023.

In the West, the Sacramento Kings are the biggest improvement story. Their 19-15 second half mark is a 22.5 percent increase from their 15-30 first half record. Like Charlotte, the Kings also had a coaching change. In this case it worked for the better, bringing a more cohesive offense and increased defensive energy to California’s capital city.

The Phoenix Suns, on the other hand, have the largest decline in the Western Conference. After going 37-10 to cap off a 64-18 2021-22 season, the Suns have gone a much more lukewarm 20-17 to start 2022-23, a 24.7-percent drop-off.

For starters, Phoenix has a gaping hole at the power forward position due to Cameron Johnson’s long-term injury and Jae Crowder’s personal holdout. Additional injury stints from Chris Paul and Devin Booker have also hamstrung Phoenix’s team depth on on-court consistency.

The Utah Jazz, however, haven’t had a problem with consistency. Their 19-20 second-half record is only 0.2-percent worse than their 23-24 first half mark, making them the most consistent team in the league. This is the case despite a coaching change, massive roster upheaval, and even new uniforms! With all that, Utah’s standing this year is seen as a huge surprise, while their record at the end of last campaign was seen as a massive disappointment.

New Years’ is always a time of reflection on the year that was, and it was interesting to do it with the NBA standings. If these reflections tell me anything, it’s that the Celtics, 76ers, and Bucks remain the teams to beat in the East, while regression from the West’s top teams has made left the position for the Left Coast crown wide open.