NBA Player Preview: Northwest Division
Today we continue on our journey with the Northwest Division.
Denver Nuggets
Nikola Jokic (Statistical darling/breakout)
Jokic was mentioned in the opening paragraph of the first one of these player previews, and with good reason. There’s a case to be made that Jokic might be the single most beloved player by the new-fangled advanced NBA metrics. Jokic, the 21-year-old Serbian, spent his rookie season in relative obscurity last season, averaging 10.0 points and 7.0 rebounds a game for the 33–49 Denver Nuggets. However, Jokic caught the eye of some of the more analytically-engaged NBA fans. Most impressively, Jokic finished 9th, in the entire NBA, in ESPN’s real plus-minus last season. He finished above names such as: Paul George, DeMarcus Cousins, James Harden, and many many more. He was a definite plus on offense, but a real gem on defense, ranking tenth in the entire NBA in the defensive half of the equation. It wasn’t just ESPN’s real plus-minus that drooled over Jokic, though. He was the only Nugget (min. 5 games) to finish the season with a positive net rating (+1.2), no easy feat on a team that finished the season 16 games under .500. Using NBA-Reference’s offensive (118) and defensive (104) ratings, he was a beast, as well. He led the Nuggets in win shares, despite not landing the full-time starting gig until January. Jokic is one of the most interesting young players in the league, and seems primed for an absolute beast of a season. NBA-Reference has him projected to average 16.9 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 4.0 assists in 2016–17; as a 21-year-old! You know how many players have managed to put up those numbers in a season at that young an age in the entirety of NBA history? Two: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Sidney Wicks. No player has done it since 1972. That’s how good the projection systems think Jokic will be. Now the brakes clearly need to be pumped a bit, but even if Jokic averaged “just” 13.0 points 8.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists, those are some excellent numbers for a young big, and don’t even include his excellent defense. Nuggets fans should be very excited.
Minnesota Timberwolves
Ricky Rubio (Statistical darling)
Having lived and worked (in the sports writing field) in Minnesota for multiple years, I can tell you, there aren’t many players more divisive, even among his home fanbase, than Rubio. On the plus side, he is one of the best creative forces the NBA has seen in the past 15 years. However, there are a great number of fans who simply can’t ignore the fact that Rubio can’t hit a jump shot to save his life, and to make matters worse, is no better at scoring near the rim. The shooting woes of Rubio are no joke, and are really the only thing keeping him away from being a superstar, because even with those heinous shooting numbers, he managed to be the best Timberwolves player by ESPN’s real plus-minus last season, and second-best (to Kevin Garnett) in terms of net rating. The Wolves simply did better with Rubio on the court, warts and all, than they did with him off the court. Part of the reason for that, though, was the backup point guard situation was terrible in Minnesota last season. Sam Mitchell tried the “Zach Lavine at point guard” experiment, and the results weren’t great. (Although I am in the camp that believes it can’t hurt the young player to have honed his ball-handling skills for a few months during a lost season.) Now, Rubio has Kris Dunn backing him up, which means there will be more pressure than ever on Rubio to succeed, as he could well be shown the door, and Dunn be handed the reigns, if Rubio doesn’t impress in 2016–17. The stats love Rubio, it is time to see if he can win over the fans.
Oklahoma City Thunder
Steven Adams (Breakout)
Pegging a breakout on the results of the previous season’s postseason can be a dangerous game. Oftentimes we get lured into loving players during the playoffs because we simply hadn’t seen much of them during the regular season, or they rode a couple hot weeks to a big contract boost, and disturbingly high expectations. That won’t be the case with Adams. He is legit. Adams was showing signs of improving even before his outstanding 2016 playoff run (10.1 points 9.5 rebounds on 61.3 percent shooting). After the All-Star Break last season, Adams averaged 9.3 points and 7.3 rebounds per game on 64.4 percent shooting, doing so in just 25.8 minutes a game. With Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka gone, there will be plenty more minutes, and stats, for Adams to scoop up. Adams is just 23 years old, and entering his prime. Of all the players returning to the Thunder this season, no one had a better net rating in 2015–16 than Adams, and if the Thunder want to stay a playoff team, Adams will be a big reason why.
Portland Trail Blazers
C.J. McCollum (Continued breakout)
The 2016–17 Trail Blazers are the only team that truly lacks a statistical darling or breakout candidate. If you look at the players who rate highest by the advanced metrics, it’s Lillard and McCollum by a landslide, aka their two best players. Lillard is an established star, and the rest of their lineup is filled with solid, albeit non-breakout-worthy NBA veterans. Sure, Miles Plumlee might do a little bit more than the average NBA fan thinks he does, but there really isn’t any player that fits into the mold of players we have been trying to find in this exercise so far. So instead, let’s look closer at McCollum, and show that last season was no fluke. McCollum went from averaging 6.8 points per game in 2014–15 to 20.6 points per game in 2015–16. That’s a massive leap, and one that might seem primed for a fallback this season. Don’t fall for that. If anything, McCollum might even average more points per game this season, as he gets more and more comfortable with Lillard. In the second half of last season, McCollum saw his points per game average go up from 20.7 to 21.1; this was not a player who rode a couple hot months and coasted down the stretch. His production didn’t fade at all during the season, and he even shot a higher percent from the field in the second half. He was the Blazers best player by net rating, and should continue his career arc into stardom this season. Plus, if you have ever heard him interviewed, you know this is not the type of guy who is going to rest on the laurels of his 2015–16 success, but will continue to improve his game throughout his career.
Utah Jazz
Jeff Withey (Statistical darling)
If the Portland Trail Blazers were the hardest team to pick a breakout/statistical darling for because of a lack of options, the Jazz were their complete opposite. They were the hardest team to choose because there were seven or eight viable options for the crown. Dante Exum is a top-five pick who is a bit forgotten because he missed all of last season, but is an octopus secretly playing point guard in the NBA. Shelvin Mack led the team in net rating last season, albeit in a small role. George Hill has been one of my favorite under-the-radar players in the league for a decade. Rodney Hood nearly doubled his points per game last season. Chris Johnson was third on the team in net rating. Say the names “Derrick Favors” and “Rudy Gobert” to a defensively-aware NBA Front Office exec, and they are contractually obligated to start drooling. Trey Lyles is a 6’ 10” 20-year-old who can hit threes.
And we haven’t even gotten to the team’s best player, Gordon Hayward. And with all those names, we’re going with Jeff Withey. Why? A couple of reasons. For one, a lot of NBA fans might have read that previous paragraph and actually known most of it. Most of those fans still wouldn’t know that Withey finished 22nd in the defensive portion of ESPN’s real plus-minus last season, or that no Jazz player finished with a better defensive rating (min. 25 games played) than Withey last season. Only eight players had a better impact on the defensive end within six feet (per NBA.com’s player tracking defense), and only 15 were better inside of ten feet. Withey is clearly one of the top defensive presences in the league.
The other reason is because Withey represents just how deep this team is. He’s arguably the tenth most famous player on this team, and is going to be a definite contributor all season. There’s a lot of hype on this team this season, so much that people have started to go the other way, and are now saying the team is over-rated. Don’t be that person. The Jazz are legit, and could easily be a top-four finisher in the West. They have the depth to deal with injuries, and are defensive juggernauts. Their ceiling will depend on how much Quin Snyder can get out of them, but their floor is high.
