Taking into account player performance over the last two NBA seasons here are five guys who are roughly as valuable as Carmelo Anthony. Numbers included are offense only so for the sake of this post defense is totally ignored.
These are players with similar shooting, rebounding, passing and ball control attributes to ‘Melo:
Adva
Player ORB% AST% TOV% TS%
Blake Griffin 8.2 19.5 12.3 .578
Kevin Love 9.0 19.6 10.2 .568
David Lee 8.7 14.0 13.0 .563
Carmelo Anthony 5.8 15.0 9.4 .561
Paul Millsap 7.9 15.3 12.6 .547
Tim Duncan 8.0 15.8 12.4 .545
After the Clippers home loss to the Andrew Bogut-less Warriors most people are talking about Blake Griffin fouling out. Of course when your second best player logs only 19 minutes that is not a good sign. But the refs were not going against LAC.
Oakland was called for 27 fouls while Doc Rivers‘ squad got hit for only 24. This lead to LA shooting ten more free throws in the game.
Also, Blake’s back-up Glen Davis played well enough that LA still could have won.
The real problem was Jamal Crawford‘s shot turning ice cold and the Clips allowing David Lee and Jermaine O’Neal to eat them up inside (14-of-20 shooting in the paint).
Mark Jackson‘s Golden State Warriors are playing great basketball. Offensively they are led by Stephen Curry who is a legit top-ten NBA player. The former Davidson stud is going for 23 points and 9 assists per night. Curry and back-court mate Klay Thompson are combining to make six three’s per game while connecting on an incredible 40% of their deep attempts.
Oakland’s defense anchored by center Andrew Bogut is even better than their scoring attack. Overall the team is top-five in the league at preventing points while Bogut is dominating on the glass (30% Defensive Rebound Rate).
Finally, as far as lineups are concerned Jackson’s options have been pretty clear cut so far this year. The Warriors two most commonly used lineups include Curry, Thompson, David Lee and Bogut. Add in Andre Iguodala and this five man team has played nearly five hundred minutes and averaged 120 points/100 possessions.
Their sixth man Harrison Barnes is getting 30 minutes/night. The UNC alum has played 269 minutes with Jackson’s first unit in place of Iguodala. According to 82games.com this one substitution has cost the Warriors 22 points/100 possessions.
In addition to Iggy’s wonderful defensive efforts he is doing a great job helping the offense flow through the young guards and David Lee. If the ten-year veteran can stay healthy we could see Mark Jackson coaching in the NBA finals this year.
I feel like the Oakland Golden State Warriors get a bad wrap for the David Lee contract they agreed to four years ago. At the time signing a guy to a 6-year, $80 million deal who averaged only 11 points per game in college and was drafted 30th overall sounded crazy.
The Warriors saw Lee as a 20 & 10 guy. Is $13 million per year an overpay for the prime years of a 20/10 guy? I think not.
So how has Lee paid off two-thirds through his monster deal? Try 18 points, 10 rebounds and 3 assists per game to go with 56% True Shooting. Plus he was the second best player on a team that won 47 games and Oakland’s first playoff series since the Don Nelson era.
Foul Line Extended 