On Sunday night, as part of the regular (and regularly amusing) “Is This Anything?” segment on the Orlando broadcast of the Nuggets’ eventual win over the Magic, Orlando play-by-play man David Steele wondered if the increase in enormous blowouts is anything. Steele and analyst Jeff Turner noted that after four games were decided by 40 or more points on Friday and Saturday (and another by 37), the 2020-21 season was approaching the modern-era record for most games with final margins that large:
In fact, by proportion of games, this season has seen the highest frequency ever. The high-water mark from last year was one 40-plus-point laugher every 88 or 89 games. This season, it’s been one every 81 or 82 games.
The Magic broadcast ultimately decided that, no, this was not anything, though that was more about not wanting to relive Orlando being on the receiving end of one of those pastings Saturday in Utah than addressing the situation itself, which is definitely a thing. Earlier in the season, I noted the degree to which more games weren’t merely finishing as blowouts but had been largely non-competitive all the way through. To revisit that analysis slightly, here is the proportion of game time in each season where one team has a lead of at least 20 points:
The trend observed early in the year, with there being more wire-to-wire type blowouts, is still present, though the pattern throughout the season has been worth noting. While measuring in this way will inevitably produce spikes around larger blowouts, these blowouts have seemed to cluster around certain events this year. The year started with a bunch of non-competitive games, then the league settled into a more competitive period until the first spate of COVID-19 and health-and-safety protocol-based suspensions coincided with another spike. There was another rise heading into and out of the All-Star break while we are currently in the midst of the largest bout of non-competitiveness since the beginning of the season:
While this is normal for this time of year — the last week or so of most recent seasons has seen around 12 or 13 percent of game action occurring with 20-plus-point leads — this time of year is normally the very end of the season, when teams are resting for the playoffs, jockeying for that last jump up (down?) the lottery standings or are otherwise already on the beach. Unfortunately, there are still six weeks left in the season, so unless this is part of the natural sorting out of rosters and rotations, post-trade deadline, we could be in for a long period of boring games.
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There has been and will continue to be an enormous volume of speculation as to why these margins have become more commonplace. One frequently posited explanation is the continued increase in 3-point shooting. And there is probably something to that. As attempts increase, there will naturally be more games when teams make or miss a bunch more than usual. As a quick and dirty definition, the chart below compares a team’s game-to-game 3-point accuracy with its season accuracy and includes games as a “positive” outlier if made 3s exceeded “expected,” according to season average, by three or more, with the reverse indicating negative outliers. The proportion of team games where a team has had such an outlier one way or the other has doubled in the last 10 years.
| Season | 3+ 3FGM> AVG | 3+ 3FGM < AVG | % Outliers | Standard Dev +/- via 3FGM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2003-04
|
5.4%
|
4.2%
|
9.6%
|
5.47
|
|
2004-05
|
6.3%
|
4.9%
|
11.3%
|
5.73
|
|
2005-06
|
6.2%
|
4.4%
|
10.6%
|
5.69
|
|
2006-07
|
6.8%
|
5.2%
|
12.0%
|
5.80
|
|
2007-08
|
6.8%
|
6.6%
|
13.4%
|
6.10
|
|
2008-09
|
7.2%
|
5.5%
|
12.8%
|
5.98
|
|
2009-10
|
8.5%
|
6.3%
|
14.8%
|
6.22
|
|
2010-11
|
6.6%
|
6.3%
|
13.0%
|
5.99
|
|
2011-12
|
7.4%
|
6.8%
|
14.2%
|
6.17
|
|
2012-13
|
8.3%
|
7.5%
|
15.8%
|
6.42
|
|
2013-14
|
8.0%
|
7.7%
|
15.7%
|
6.55
|
|
2014-15
|
9.0%
|
8.0%
|
17.0%
|
6.55
|
|
2015-16
|
9.8%
|
8.8%
|
18.6%
|
6.89
|
|
2016-17
|
10.8%
|
10.4%
|
21.2%
|
7.21
|
|
2017-18
|
12.0%
|
11.5%
|
23.5%
|
7.59
|
|
2018-19
|
12.7%
|
11.9%
|
24.6%
|
7.89
|
|
2019-20
|
14.2%
|
13.9%
|
28.0%
|
8.41
|
|
2020-21
|
14.5%
|
13.9%
|
28.5%
|
8.51
|
To put it in more concrete terms, in 2003-04, just over two-thirds of games saw a team with a range of about 11 points from 5.47 above to 5.47 below their norm for that season in terms of 3-point scoring. This year that range is just over 17 points. With both teams subject to this sort of variance, it’s easy to see how this could lead to some wild swings just in terms of shot-making from the outside.
Regression revisited
Back at the end of February, I worried over the Knicks’ defensive shot quality. To that point in the season, New York had the NBA’s third-rated defense, in large part driven by opponents shooting a paltry 32.5 percent from 3-point range. In suggesting that such good fortune was unlikely to continue, I thought they were going to come back to the pack as that outside cold freeze-thawed.
The notion that Knicks’ opponents should be expected to regress to the mean in terms of shooting doesn’t mean we should have expected them to suddenly go on a crazy binge of 40-plus percent from deep. Rather, the shots should be predicted to go in at about average rates. With nearly 40 games of opposition bricks built-in, the full-season numbers are likely to finish above average. And this should still be the expectation, with New York still leading the league in defensive 3FG% at 33.5 percent.
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However, in the nine games since I first raised the question, opponents have hit just about the league average (35.9 percent) of their 3-pointers. For the Knicks, the truly encouraging thing should be that even as opponent long-range shot making has regressed, their defense has remained robust, sitting fifth in the NBA by defensive rating over that span.
The downside of relying on buyouts
When news broke that the Nets were about to sign LaMarcus Aldridge, I was not impressed:
Aldridge seems like a low upside high downside signing for Brooklyn.
— Anchorage Man (@SethPartnow) March 27, 2021
The degree to which Aldridge has enough left for me to have been wrong about the upside is not a question that is going to be answered in a week’s worth of games, though I think my skepticism is that a mediocre efficiency shot taker and creator doesn’t really do much for the championship version (as in the Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving healthy version) of the Nets.
The first few games have illustrated the hidden downside to a lot of buyout signings. It isn’t just that the player in question won’t bring much to the table, it’s that they could take opportunities away from someone more ready to contribute. It’s safe to say the Nets’ biggest worry is on defense right now. Of their available big men, it’s fair to say one should not expect massive amounts of value to be derived from Aldridge, Blake Griffin and, to a lesser extent, Jeff Green (who at least unlocks a decent amount of switchability against certain opposition). DeAndre Jordan will be valuable in certain matchups, most notably as a first line of defense against Joel Embiid in a potential playoff matchup between the Nets and 76ers.
The player who seems best primed to have a defensive impact on the Nets’ postseason chances is Nicolas Claxton. The second-year PF/C has a chance to be exactly the kind of versatile big who can both protect the rim in rotation while also chasing perimeter players on switches that come to the fore in the postseason. Come playoff time, the only thing certain about Claxton is that he won’t be able to have that sort of impact from the bench.
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It’s early days of Aldridge’s stay in Brooklyn, but in the 10 games prior to Aldridge’s debut, Claxton averaged 21.2 minutes per game, putting up a 58.3 percent eFG% while the Nets outscored opponents by 17 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor. In the first three games after Aldridge’s arrival, Claxton has gotten just over 13 minutes per night, including only eight in Sunday’s loss to the Bulls. This low minute load has been despite Jordan pulling DNP-CDs in all those games.
To reiterate, it’s only three games, and the Nets are comfortable enough in terms of playoff positioning to have the time to experiment with how to best use the pieces on their roster, especially once Durant returns to action. But guys tend to get bought out for a reason, and a player acquired in this way can easily prove to be a downgrade. For a team with championship aspirations, costing itself even a single postseason game because of overreliance on a past-prime veteran represents a catastrophe. It’s tricky waters for a rookie coach to navigate, so it will be worth watching how Steve Nash manages the big man rotation over the next month-plus heading toward the end of the regular season.
Related Reading
• Alex Schiffer: It’s on Steve Nash to make it all work in Brooklyn
• Zach Harper: Jazz, Nuggets, Suns top this week’s Power Rankings
(Photo: Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images)
