Doing The Same Thing In Different Places | Gabe's Favs: NBA Week 1
You should read this because I something to say nice about the Lakers.
Ball and Order is a newsletter with basketball analysis, reporting, and takes that strives to cover the game no matter who is playing. My name is Gabe Ibrahim (twitter: @gabe_ibrahim). I cover the Washington Wizards for Bullets Forever, women’s basketball for Her Hoop Stats, and coach the JV basketball at Meridian High School. Subscribe and tell your friends! Also, check out the YouTube channel!
The first week of the NBA season is a whirlwind. I begin consuming NBA basketball all day long and still have extreme FOMO about games I didn’t get to watch. At times, it feels like I’m missing out on the fresh season. It’s just been picked off the vine by Adam Silver. While the season won’t spoil anytime soon, it will begin changing immediately due to injuries, trades, and tanking. The world we all created in the offseason and in our previews seems to last just a couple of weeks.
But there’s so much season left that we should take a breath and get our bearings. In that spirit, I picked two players who are showing off familiar skills in different situations (Donovan Mitchell and Kelly Olynyk) and one that’s trying to adapt to their suboptimal surroundings.
Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers
It’s starting to look like the Cavs got what they wanted in Donovan Mitchell. He’s putting up truly astounding per-game numbers: 33 points, 7 assists, and 2 steals across three games. He’s shooting 42.3% on 8.7 three-point attempts per game, the fourth-best percentage among the league’s top 20 shooters in attempts. It’s far too early in the season to put too much stock into stats. But Mitchell’s tape reinforces the numbers.
He’s been dominating with the dribble jumper. Almost 40% of his points have come from pull-ups, including 29 of his 55 points off pick and rolls, according to Synergy Sports Tech. His three-point shooting will probably come back down below 40%, considering he’s never shot better than that in a season.
The more encouraging sign for Cleveland might be Mitchell’s attacking mentality. He’s taking 8.3 shots within 8 feet per game this year, which is up from 6.5 such attempts last season. Swapping Rudy Gobert with more offensively talented bigs Evan Mobley and Jarett Allen has opened up space for Mitchell in the paint.
Mitchell is also creating space by using one of his best skills: splitting the defense. He just disappears between defenders off ball screens. His eye discipline creates the seam and his first step allows him to find the space. The splits look so cool because there’s that moment where Mitchell pushes the ball in front of himself and is briefly powerless without control of the ball. Then, he catches up to it and has a wide-open lane to the hoop.
As someone who has pitched the idea of naming a potential child or dog after Dwyane Wade, I bristled at comparisons between the Heat legend and Mitchell in the 2017 draft. But I have to say watching Mitchell scoot between defenders reminded me of DWade. Splitting the defense was a Wade specialty and Mitchell has mastered it. He’s probably the best in the league at it. Perhaps Wade gave him pointers during their time in Utah together? Regardless, Mitchell is scoring at will right now and, hopefully, he’ll be doing it with Darius Garland soon.
Kelly Olynyk, Utah Jazz
Let’s move over to Mitchell’s old team. I’m letting y’all know now that this is a friendly space for Kelly Olynyk. His transgressions of the past and his unique look1 pale in comparison to how much joy I got watching him with the Heat from 2017-19. Even though he played on the worst Heat teams in a decade, Kelly captured my imagination with his gangly finishes and “glacial drives,” as Zach Lowe called them.
Olynyk’s actually a bit faster than I remember. But he didn’t rely on speed to make big plays for Miami. That’s still true for the Utah Jazz, and he may have just had the best four-game stretch of his career. After Utah’s first four games, Olynyk is one of the most efficient offensive players in the NBA. He leads the league in points per 100 shooting attempts (151.2 psa) and effective field goal percentage (76.4% eFG), according to Cleaning The Glass. He also just hit one of those funky finishes to beat the Pelicans.
Olynyk is very graceful at times. At other times, such as that play, he looks like a newborn moose getting used to its limbs. Don’t get it twisted, though. Olynyk is a very smart basketball player. The final play design relied on every Jazz player cutting off a KO screen and him making reads off each defensive decision. He ultimately decided to keep the handoff and go to the rim.
The keeper is a staple of Kelly’s game since he played in Miami. (It’s still a part of the Heat’s offense with Bam Adebayo.) In these plays, he acts like a quarterback running the zone read in football. He holds the ball out to get the defense to react and then decides whether to give it to a teammate or keep it himself. He has mastered the timing of when to pull the handoff and how to attack defenders in different ways off it.
Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Lakers
The Lakers are going through it. Again. For the third straight year. LA started 0-3 and there’s no sense that “they’ll figure it out by mid-season.” But Lebron James and Anthony Davis are still incredible basketball players who can make lemonade out of the lemons they have.
They’re struggling with traditional high pick-and-rolls because the team is shooting an abhorrent 21.2% from three. So Davis has to be creative to get downhill touches by rolling in various actions and after off-ball screens.
Davis has been scoring on these types of plays more often this season than in previous years in LA. Considering new coach Darvin Ham is the namesake for a famous off-ball screen, it’s not that surprising that he’s finding different ways to get Davis touches. One of the concepts that Ham employs to get AD downhill is flowing pin-downs, pin-ins, and hammer screens (!!!) into pick-and-rolls. Davis sets the first screen hard, slips the ball screen, then swings open like a gate for a pocket pass.
The Lakers have run at least once with Lebron starting below Davis in the dunker spot. Lebron curls off Davis’s pin-down and the duo have a 2-on-1 with Jusuf Nurkic in the paint. The pocket pass may be difficult for other players, but it’s Lebron James.
Of course, the Lakers running what’s basically a pick-and-roll on the low block is not ideal. I don’t think LA would run these plays if they had shooters surrounding Lebron and Davis as they did in 2020. But that simply is not happening for the foreseeable future, so LA will need to keep finding ways to give those two chances to score. Or find a way to upgrade the talent.
Thanks for hanging out! Check out the NCAA Women’s basketball preview roundtable I participated in for Her Hoop Stats. I’ll be recording an NCAA Women’s Basketball preview with Megan Gauer for CBS’s Eye On College Basketball so be on the lookout for that. Otherwise, you can expect Courtside with Christy and Gabe on Thursday and a recap of Wizards-Pacers on Friday for Bullets Forever. Peace out and please subscribe!
Two best twitter jokes I saw about Kelly Olynyk: @LukeXCunningham-”Kelly Olynyk looks like a Frankenstein made out of five dead bike messengers” and @Alf954- “Kelly Olynyk looks like an extra from Clerks”