Hey, look on the positive side
In the first month of his rookie season, which began when he was just 20 years old, O.J. Mayo averaged 23.1 points per game, shot 42.1 percent on 3s, and generally looked like the kind of guy you'd be happy to have traded Kevin Love to acquire. He wasn't a brilliant playmaker, perhaps, or a world-class guy athletically, but at worst he looked like he'd be one of the best shooters in basketball for the next decade or so.
And then we never saw that player again. In the nearly four years that followed, Mayo never had a full NBA month (i.e., not October or April) in which he averaged 20 points, and only three when he shot better than 40 percent on 3s. Instead, Mayo settled in as a no-frills lineup condiment, posting a PER in the 14s three different times and shooting between 36.4 percent and 38.4 percent on 3s every season -- helpful, yes, but nowhere near the deadly accuracy he showed in that first month.
Until, that is, these past 21 games in Dallas. On a Mavs team expected to struggle without Dirk Nowitzki, Mayo has them at a surprising 11-10 largely by shooting wildly better than anyone expected. He's taking 5.5 triples a game and making 53 percent of them -- again, for emphasis, he's shooting 53 percent on 3s -- averaging 20.8 points per game, and rocking a TS% that's more than 10 points higher than either of his past two seasons.
Mayo isn't shooting any more than he did a year ago in Memphis, and his assist and turnover rates are exactly the same. He's not any better on 2s either, making a ho-hum 44 percent.
But that 3-point stroke? My, oh my. He's shooting with phenomenal accuracy, the kind he hinted at in that first month nearly half a decade ago. Mayo in the mid-30s on 3s is just another guy; Mayo in the mid-40s, however, is a completely different proposition.
Perhaps he regresses back to that, but we've got a lot of season under our belts and Mayo has tried over 100 3s, and he's still making more than half of them. Which is why his emergence in Big D has to rank as one of the top positive stories from the first quarter of the season.
And that, in turn, takes us to our theme today. We're trying to get into the holiday spirit and stay positive, but sometimes that can be tough in this business -- especially with so much humbug fodder. While it's easy to focus our glare on the bad things in the NBA right now (short list: the Lakers, Michael Beasley, the Wizards, Andrea Bargnani, the Lakers again, Miami's defense, paltry November crowds, and finally, the Lakers), today I want to go in the opposite direction and look at some of the positive stories.
Mayo is obviously a big one, and so are the Knicks -- who are such a story that they'll get their own column Thursday. But for now, let's take a look at some other positive stories that have been a bit more under the radar:
Golden State joins the NBA
They may still do some foolish things, but so do lots of teams. The big-picture story here is that the Warriors have become a real franchise again, with a coach that is both interested in defense and capable of summoning a modicum of effort from his players, and a front office that seems reasonably competent and doesn't have the owner and his lackeys actively undermining it.
That's taken for granted in a lot of locales, but not in Oakland. In an 18-year-span of ineptitude that saw the Warriors post one playoff berth, two winning seasons, countless LOL All-Star crusades and two different owners booed on their home floor, the Warriors finally looked poised for a U-turn. They're 14-7 in the rough West, and while you can argue that it's a soft 14-7, I mean, the Warriors are 14-7 without Andrew Bogut!
Wait, it gets better. The Warriors lead the NBA in Defensive Rebound Rate -- again, without Bogut, and with David Lee often posing as a center as a result. A year ago, with nearly the same roster, they were last. Yes, some blatant tanking in the final third of the 2011-12 season factored into this -- take a bow, Jeremy Tyler and Mickell Gladness -- but I can't ever remember a team going from worst to first in a category like this, especially without something like "traded for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen" factoring into the story.
We don't know how this story ends yet, but it begins with the Warriors being a real NBA team instead of a circus. For a fan base that has remained almost masochistically loyal through the past two decades, it looks like they may finally get a payoff.
Atlanta under Larry Drew
Remember Larry Drew's first season in Atlanta? Here, I'll help you out: The Hawks gave up more points than they scored, openly mailed in several games -- especially late in the season -- and generally looked like they were trying to get him fired. Given Drew's low-key presence, it wasn't clear whether he could reach his players and coax maximum effort from them.
Well, apparently he reached them, because Drew quietly has been among the league's most effective coaches since. Atlanta managed to win a playoff series with Orlando that first year, and since then Drew's team has overachieved on defense in consecutive seasons. The Hawks were just 15th in Defensive Efficiency in 2010-11, but moved up to sixth a year ago despite missing Al Horford for nearly the entire season.
In 2012-13 Atlanta is even better, both nominally (fifth) and relative to the league (just 1.5 points behind first-place Memphis). Drew has done this despite having a lineup full of tiny guards that presents size mismatches on the wing on a nearly nightly basis. He also has only one true small forward, Kyle Korver, who isn't exactly renowned as a defensive specialist. Also, Drew has taught his players how to do this.
Somehow, he's making it all work, and as a result the Hawks are in prime position for a 16th consecutive Eastern Conference semifinals defeat. Wait, I was trying to keep this positive … let's move on.
Old Guy career revivals
I haven't heard much chatter about this, but has anyone else noticed how many seriously old guys are playing well right now?
Stars, role players, it doesn't matter. Everybody is getting in on it. Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan stand in the top five in PER. Jason Kidd, who is 39 years old, is working on his best PER in a decade following Tuesday night's game-winning offensive foul. Jermaine O'Neal has arguably played the best minutes of any Phoenix Sun this season. Derek Fisher is starting for the Mavs, and teammate Vince Carter has a little extra boogie in his step too. Jamaal Tinsley and Rashard Lewis are rotation players. Bernie Bickerstaff is 4-1 as a head coach.
And to top it all off, Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace -- the duo that led North Carolina to the Final Four in 1995 -- both emerged from cryogenic chambers to become important rotation players for the Nets and Knicks.
Clippers' Bledsoe and Crawford
The best show in L.A. right now isn't Lob City, it's the second unit/garbage-time dunkfest unleashed when the Clippers bring Eric Bledsoe and Jamal Crawford off the bench together. Bledsoe has been so good that he ranks second among all point guards in PER; unfortunately he's trapped behind the guy who's in first. Crawford is merely ninth among shooting guards, averaging a career-best 23.7 points per 40 minutes on career-high shooting percentages.
And together? It's nuts. The duo is plus-90 in 349 minutes together, accounting for more than half the Clippers' total victory margin this season, even though they're usually paired with frontcourt mates from the recycling bin (Lamar Odom, Ryan Hollins and Ronny Turiaf). They almost perfectly offset each other's weaknesses, with Bledsoe's defensive peskiness making it easier to hide Crawford on defense, and Crawford's shooting opening lanes for Bledsoe's forays to the rim on offense.
Bledsoe, in particular, has been a force of nature. He's cut his turnover rate dramatically, he's averaging nearly a steal every 10 minutes, and he's scoring at an unprecedented clip of 21.5 points per 40 minutes. He still doesn't play a lot because of Paul's presence, setting up the ironic situation that Crawford may win the Sixth Man award while being the second-best bench player on his own team.
Linsanity? Still there
Remember when James Harden had to come off bench in Oklahoma City because there was too much ball-needing overlap between him, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook? It's fair to wonder whether the Rockets need to pursue a similar arrangement to get Jeremy Lin the ball enough now that he's been teamed with Harden. Somehow, Lin had only played 57 Harden-free minutes heading into Monday's game against San Antonio, and had posted disappointing results while struggling as a floor-spacer next to the basketball world's second-most prominent left-handed JH.
The good news in all this is that Harden sat out Monday's game against San Antonio, and Lin showed he still has the goods to be an offensive focal point if he's not paired with Harden. Going up against a top-notch opponent, Lin scored 38 points, made only two turnovers and generally looked like the guy who had Knicks fans in a lather last spring.
The solution couldn't be more hammer-to-the-head obvious: Play Lin when Harden sits, and give him the rock in a constant stream of pick-and-rolls for those 12 minutes. In other words, do almost exactly what Oklahoma City did with Harden. This would mean "demoting" Lin to a backup role, but it actually would make his function in Houston much more prominent, not to mention helpful.
And since this is a story about the positives, the real takeaway from Monday is that yes, by golly, Lin is still capable of this. Not that he'll score 38 or make 4 of 5 3s every time, but he can be an offensive focal point and create high-value scoring chances. Linsanity wasn't a mirage.
Philly's Evan Turner's offense
It's a quarter of a season, but Philly fans have to be encouraged by the uptick in efficiency shown by Turner. An odd package of skills -- he can handle the ball, defends decently and is a truly phenomenal defensive rebounder for his size -- Turner's first two seasons were undone by an inability to generate high-percentage offensive chances. Turner looked OK during the games, but produced such low rates of free throws, 3-pointers and shots at the rim that it was virtually impossible for him to post acceptable percentages. Instead he was a quiet killer, an empty trip machine that had TS%s of 48.4 and 47.8 his first two seasons.
This season he's getting better, at 51.0, and of particular note are the increases in 3s and free throws. Turner has already set a career high in 3-point makes and actually looks competent catching and shooting from the corner -- he's 17-of-37 from long range this year. Meanwhile, his free throw numbers should offer at least as much encouragement, because he's doubled his per-game attempts from a year ago. As long as Turner does these things, his shot-creation skill adds enough value to make him a solid offensive player.
Orlando doesn't stink
We've got to stick in a hat tip to the Orlando Magic in general and new coach Jacque Vaughn in particular; very little was expected from this club but they've competed every night and find themselves a surprising 8-12 -- good enough that the Playoff Odds still give them a 30.5 percent chance of crawling into the postseason.
While they still have a way to go before we start comparing them to the wildly overachieving "Heart and Hustle" bunch under Doc Rivers in 1999-2000 (despite their team making two NBA Finals, a lot of Magic fans will tell you this 41-41 club of what were then total no-names was their favorite team), what's notable about this season's club is how well Vaughn has prepared them defensively. Orlando is eighth in Defensive Efficiency, a fact that should pretty much embarrass 22 other teams, because they're doing it with effort and scheme, not talent.
Meanwhile, the Magic may not have star power but they do at least have broad-based competence. Their top five players in minutes have PERs between 13 and 16; all their rotation players are in double figures; and rookie first-round pick Andrew Nicholson (22.1 points per 40 minutes, 18.71 PER) looks like a nice find as a pick-and-pop threat in the David West mold.
What makes the Magic's season more impressive is how experimental it's been. They're still starting rookie project Moe Harkless, and have patched together a lot of lineups due to injuries to Jameer Nelson, Al Harrington and Hedo Turkoglu. It's not always easy on the eyes, especially when it involves Glen Davis' shot selection, but Orlando's competitiveness has been a pleasant surprise.
Minnesota's Rick Adelman, defensive coach
Look who's tied for second in Defensive Efficiency. Would you believe the Minnesota Timberwolves, coached by none other than the offensive-minded Rick Adelman?
Wait, it gets better. Do you realize they're doing this without Ricky Rubio, the same guy whose absence basically caused the defense to collapse in a heap a year ago? Or that they did this while starting Brandon Roy five games on the wing, Derrick Williams another nine, playing wispy rookie Alexey Shved there for half the game, and plugging in random assorted Josh Howards and Lou Amundsons along the way?
One great adjustment Adelman's made is to make the Wolves a more defensive-minded club while he waits for the cavalry to return. With Roy, Rubio and Chase Budinger still out and Kevin Love only recently returned, he's been starting defensive specialist Malcolm Lee and turning for heavy minutes to ace pick-and-roll defender Dante Cunningham in the frontcourt. That plus heavy doses of Andrei Kirilenko have the Wolves achieving far more than anyone expected on this end, and could be enough to get them into the postseason despite a torrent of early-season injuries, all of which makes the Wolves the last of our merry positives today.
at the first mention about Bynum from that chicks TL
