Some Stats Defining the NBA Season So Far

 With the Raptors taking on the Pelicans tonight, hopefully they come out and look good so I can have a nice jubilation post tomorrow. Besides that, I have no interest in talking about the Jaden Ivey buzzer beater, I was sad. Instead, today lets look at a few stats that jumped off the page to me to start the NBA season. 

56%

If you've watched any Celtics game at all this year you probably came out of it very annoyed. The Celtics this season are launching 56% of their field goal attempts from 3 point range, by far the highest percentage of shots taken from deep in the league. In fact, no other team attempts even half of their shots from 3. Every Celtics game I've seen has been just an endless effort of jacking up 3s. With Porzingis back in the lineup, they play a rotation with zero bad shooters and they take full advantage. At over 50 threes attempted per game, the Celtics are on pace to lead NBA history in most 3s launched. Even the peak math-ball Rockets only ever got up 45 per game, simply insane stuff from Boston. 

The thing is, we can complain that it's annoying basketball and not aesthetically pleasing, but it is certainly working. The Celtics have the third best offensive rating in basketball and are sitting at 15-3. There's games where they can look foolish missing a bunch of 3s, but more often than not they nail a good percentage of them and they are comfortable with 3>2. Either way, I won't be watching many Celtics games if this keeps up. 

123.6 Offensive Rating

On the flip side, you have the 16-1 Cavs who possess the best offensive rating in the league so far this season. Their offensive rating is cool and all, but the real stat here is the Cavs attempt the second most shots from 0-3 feet in the league with 31% of their attempts coming right at the rim. Where the Celtics have gone all in on 3s, the Cavs have gone all in dominating the paint and they've had even better results. 

I like this one! The top 3 offenses in the league so far in order are the Cavs, Knicks and Celtics, and all 3 teams are getting it done in a different way. The Cavs attempt most of their shots at the rim, the Knicks take the 5th most shots between 10 and 16 feet in the league and the Celtics attempt the most 3s in NBA history. Who's to say what the right way to run an offense is?

30mpg

The Golden State Warriors have fairly quietly gotten off to a great start sitting at 12-5 and holding onto second place in the tough western conference early. A surprising stat so far is that they have currently 0 players averaging 30 or more minutes per game. More surprising, not including DeAnthony Melton who's been injured for much of the year, the Warriors have 12 players playing 12 or more minutes per game. 

This one really surprised me, you'd think a team playing really well with only 1 true super star, Steph Curry, would be playing that guy into the ground to get their results. The Warriors are sneakily way deeper than I thought. You'll remember in my season predictions I had them missing the playoffs. It turns out the guys they have are fitting and playing together really well. There's no way a 12 man rotation sticks around for the playoffs, but if you can stay fresher than every team in the regular season while still pulling off wins, I'm all for it! Side note, the Warriors when they don't have a world beating superteam are probably the most fun team to cheer for. Steph is insane. 

-2.1 Net Rating

Last season I remember LeBron comparing the Lakers to the Pittsburgh Steelers since both teams had winning records despite having negative net ratings. This season I've heard a lot of chatter about JJ Reddick revitalizing the Lakers with his great coaching, but after 17 games the Lakers are 10-7 with a -2.1 net rating again. History repeats itself eh?

The Lakers are the only team in the league with a winning record and negative net rating. It's always interesting to see the teams that perform like this but I think a lot of this is the Lakers are just an older team. With LeBron at age 40 and Anthony Davis always having small bumps and bruises, the Lakers pull the plug on games earlier when the lead gets large. Still though, this is one that typically projects the real quality of a team and just like last year, the Lakers are pretty middle of the road. I guess JJ Reddick can't fix everything. 

Fun season so far with lots of storylines as usual. I still believe the Raptors can and will dig out of this hole and put together a couple of good weeks here and when they do you best believe I'll have a big long post about it! Go Raptors.