NBA Stats That Tell Stories (With Guests!)
Welcome to Data Land, it's beautiful this time of year.
I recently reached out to three of my favorite basketball minds and asked them to provide a statistic that tells a story about the NBA this year; a player stat, team stat, league stat, any kind of stat. We don’t discriminate here.
They delivered! Huge thanks to Jacob, Marc and Neil for helping me out here. I recommend their Substacks with all of my heart. Go subscribe to each of them… NOW.
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Right now, the most informative number of the NBA season is 13. That’s how many losses the Cavs and Thunder have combined on January 21st. I’m not breaking any news by saying these teams are really damn good, but… they’re damn good. Beyond good, really; maybe dominant enough to transcend the notion that the regular season doesn’t mean anything, because I have a pretty tough time picturing either of these teams losing four games in a playoff series unless it’s against each other. But we’ll think about that when we get there. For now, I’m having fun watching two teams obliterate the rest of the NBA.
Another important number, which works in tandem with the first number, is 4. That’s how many teams in the past decade have posted net ratings as high as Cleveland (10.1) has this season; Boston last year, the Warriors twice, and the Spurs once. Three of those teams made the Finals and two of them won.
And still… Cleveland has the second-best net rating in the league. Oklahoma City’s net rating is currently 12.8, which would be the second-best ever behind one of MJ’s Bulls teams. I know we’re only halfway through the season, but I’m struggling to find a reason why they can’t keep this up. They’re cruising through an otherwise very balanced NBA.
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If you want a number that really tells a story, it’s this one: 0.
That donut of an integer is the number of rookies this season that have averaged a box plus-minus of +1 or greater while also playing at least 20 games. Not only is that bad, it’s downright horrendous.
According to my data, every single season going back to 1973-74 has had at least one rookie average a BPM equal to or greater than +1, with even 2013-14’s rookie class having one — shoutout to the Plumdog Millionaire Mason Plumlee!
The closest player to meeting that low bar is Kel’El Ware, who has been good in a limited role but doesn’t get as many opportunities as his peers. Out of the top 3 picks from this year’s class — Risacher, Sarr, and Sheppard — none have a BPM higher than -3.0, which is, uh, a problem. That isn’t to say that it’s been all bad, though. Sarr has been a solid defender, Sheppard is starting to look better, and Risacher’s ceiling might be Michael Porter Jr…but that’s okay, too!
In fact, most of the impactful rookies have come from later in the draft. Zach Edey (#9), Jared McCain (#16), and Jonathan Mogbo (#31) all rank among the best rookies in terms of BPM and all look like solid role players — and possibly more in the case of McCain if it weren’t for injury.
Yet another zero comes up when you look at this class in a closely-related stat: No rookie has a PER (player efficiency rating) of 20 or more, which would be categorized as a player being “great” so to speak. If that trend keeps up, this would be the only season since 2013-14 in which no rookie met the mark, further damning this class.
We all talked about how supposedly “bad” this class is, which I still think is slightly overblown, but no rookie appears to be impacting the game on a “future star” level like years past…or even on a Plumlee level, it seems.
But why is that? Well, some of it has to do with the lack of trust that teams have in this year’s class to play a large role. Just 4 rookies this season have a usage rate above 20%, which is the lowest number in recorded NBA history. Is that an indicator of the quality of this class or merely a causation of the subpar advanced stats? I’m unsure, but teams simply don’t trust their guys, instead opting to leave them out of the offense, potentially causing their advanced metrics to be skewed.
Regardless, the league has a rookie problem this year, potentially causing fans to look to the loaded 2025 class for hope in these trying times, ones in which eggs simply don’t cut it.
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+15.3
That number represents Andrew Nembhard's net rating per CTG. It’s in the 98th percentile across the entire NBA.
Indiana’s record when Nembhard plays this season is 19-9 (.678 winning percentage). That’s a 55.5-win pace, and as my friend Larry David would say…
I despise any list that ranks NBA players. It doesn't matter the context—best players, defenders, or role players—it’s pointless.
I’m no dummy. I understand the point of these exercises: clicks. But in the context of actual basketball, like what happens on the court, those lists are pointless!
Players don't exist in a vacuum. Basketball is a team game, and each individual must always be measured within the environment of their teammates and scheme.
When it comes to role players, which, while we’re on the subject, is a dumb name because every player on the team has a role, not always the one they want, but they all have roles… anyways, when it comes to what is traditionally known as role players, two things separate the top-end ones from the rest:
Self-awareness:
An internal understanding of where you stand in the pecking order within every lineup you’re involved. This is the most important thing for a “role player.”
Every one of these guys has always been the best player on any team they’ve played on before making it to the NBA; having the self-awareness to know and accept that this has changed is a hard step for a player to grasp.
The top-end role players understand this easily, accept it willingly, and enthusiastically attack ways to be the connective tissue within lineups.
Amplification:
Can your game amplify the star player?!
A true star can amplify almost any role player, but the top-end role players know how to relieve pressure and turn a star’s strengths into superpowers!
Nembhard is in the upper quadrant of both of these key separators.
His game is the basketball version of a boxer throwing body punches. It’s not a string of loud and flashy highlight plays; you don’t see the damage he’s doing with the naked eye, but every second he is out there, he’s making life hell on both ends of the floor and wearing his opponents down.
On defense, he has some of the strongest feet and hands in the league. He uses his size to his advantage to win the leverage battle against bigger players, similar to what Draymond Green does when defending bigger players in post-up situations.
He’s consistently getting deflections, never getting screened, and rotating early to cover for his teammates.
Everything he does defensively eats up valuable time and energy from the opposing team’s star guards while giving his stars a chance to rest.
On offense, he’s one of the best Swiss army knives in the league. He can play on the ball to save Haliburton from full-court pressure and depleting energy 94 feet away from the basket.
He can run PnR offense when Haliburton sits; he’s currently averaging 1.112 PPD PnR this season, in the 83rd percentile according to Second Spectrum.
Off-ball play suits his game just fine, too. He’s capable of spacing the floor enough (35% career 3-point shooter) to hold defenders, allowing Haliburton and Siakam space to operate in tandem or isolation. Haliburton and Siakam have the top PnR game in the league (Top 50 volume) at 1.294 PPD per Second Spectrum.
Indiana played Boston the toughest out of any team in last year’s playoffs, and I expect they’ll be a force to be reckoned with when April, May, and maybe even June basketball come around in 2025.
And Andrew Nembhard is one of the biggest reasons I am buying all the Indiana stock I currently can find.
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I'm not sure how much this stat will matter for a couple of franchises that haven't had much real playoff success in a long time, but the two most imbalanced teams in the NBA this season between offense and defense are the Orlando Magic (3rd on defense, 29th on offense) and LA Clippers (2nd on defense, 22nd on offense). In each case, we can blame injuries — Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero have missed big parts of the year for Orlando, while Kawhi Leonard has suited up only a handful of times for the Clippers. But I can't help but wonder if those huge splits are secretly cause for optimism.
Both Banchero and Leonard recently returned from long absences — Kawhi in particular has looked great when not resting — and Wagner (who was incredible before the injury) is reportedly ramping up for a return as well. Both teams have playoff odds in excess of 75% (https://neilpaine.substack.com/i/150270605/nba-forecast), and we might expect both offenses to get better over the rest of the season, and into the postseason, with improved health.
I still can't explain how James Harden, arguably the most efficient scorer in NBA history at his peak, could be so heavily associated with such a mediocre offense in LA this season, but it seems at least plausible that versions of the Magic and Clippers which retain their elite defense while also getting back key offensive players to fix their poor rankings at that end might actually be threats to make noise in the playoffs — something which you can seldom say with a straight face about either franchise.