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The start of the NBA season has been tremendous, major gambling scandals aside. Multiple 50-point scoring outbursts, a rookie class that has hit the ground running and tactical tweaks across the league.
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Yahoo Sports contributor Steve Jones waxed poetic about some of the joys of the Eastern Conference earlier this week. Our first regular-season installment of The IkoSystem takes things out West, looking at the Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets and L.A. Clippers.
The two-way maturation of Jonathan Kuminga
We all love a dramatic offseason, and the Jonathan Kuminga will-he-or-won’t-he-sign sweepstakes was a summer-long trope. But the core of the tension between Kuminga and the organization was rooted in maturity issues.
Since signing a two-year deal, something’s clicked. After starting just 10 games all of last season, Kuminga has started every game for the Warriors this season and is earning the praise of head coach Steve Kerr, who has often been very public with his criticism of the fifth-year forward.
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“JK has been fantastic,” Kerr told reporters Monday. “It just feels like he’s found his spot with this group. The way he’s rebounding and attacking the rim, that’s what makes him special — his athleticism, his force — and when he’s playing to that talent, it changes our team.”
Kuminga has reshaped his offensive profile, essentially swapping out his midrange looks for shots at the rim, the most efficient shots in basketball. According to Cleaning the Glass, 48% of Kuminga’s attempts have come within the restricted area, putting him in rare air (91st percentile). It has drastically fortified Golden State’s halfcourt efficiency, which ranks second in the NBA. The Warriors score an eye-popping 124.8 points per 100 possessions with a 61.4 effective field-goal percentage while Kuminga is on the floor, and it has more to do with his growth than any sample-size outlier.
Last season, Kuminga’s body language while he was on the floor was poor, especially when sharing the floor with Jimmy Butler. His lack of playing time was partially due to a poor on-court fit with Butler, which Kerr alluded to on multiple occasions.
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The new and improved Kuminga is constantly on the move, a willing relocator and timely cutter. He’s shooting 43.8% on 3s, the highest in his career, and that wrinkle forces defenses to account for his spacing. Watch the BLOB (baseline out-of-bounds) play, which is disguised as a double drag for Butler, but in actuality is a design to get Kuminga on the move. Kuminga’s getting fouled on nearly 18% of his shots, the 83rd percentile, according to Cleaning the Glass, and is shooting a career-best 76.2% from the charity stripe.
Defensively, Kuminga still has some room to grow individually, but his effort on the glass and commitment to becoming a more positive team defender is admirable. The Warriors are still a poor rebounding team overall (25th), but that’s not the fault of Kuminga, who is snagging nearly 10% of his team’s misses and 17% of the opponents’. For a team relying on Kuminga, Butler and Draymond Green to control the bulk of rebounding opportunities, the 23-year-old has done more than his fair share of crashing so far.
Alperen Şengün and inverted pick-and-rolls
As the Rockets continue to navigate their Fred VanVleet-less waters, all roads will eventually lead back to starting center Alperen Şengün and his ascension as Houston’s primary and, ultimately, most important half-court creator.
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Through three games, Şengün’s usage and assist percentage have spiked, while maintaining a consistent turnover rate. When VanVleet tore his ACL, the natural assumption within basketball circles was a higher playmaking workload on the likes of Amen Thompson and Reed Sheppard. And by all accounts, this is true — Thompson’s usage has risen by around 5% this season and Sheppard’s by 6%, according to Cleaning the Glass.
But two major factors weren’t accounted for in VanVleet’s absence. One, Kevin Durant’s ability to leverage his three-level scoring ability and create plays for others. And two, Şengün’s growth as an offensive hub in a similar setup to Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets. Head coach Ime Udoka has earmarked both players as offensive focal points and, in efforts to clean up their half-court efficiency, actively sought out mismatches. The easiest way to force a mismatch is to bring another player in the action, screen and space.
Şengün rarely operated as the ball-handler in screens last season, logging only 95 possessions in such actions. But Houston scored 1.126 points per possession — the 93rd percentile, according to Synergy.
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“It was one of our highest-rated plays last year,” Udoka said last week. “Putting him in pick-and-rolls, a lot of times we saved it for big moments when we needed it and it was something we could go to. But not just for Fred being out, we know Alpi can get downhill and continues to improve. It’s an action we can put guys in and get success. We use it a lot more because of the attention he draws and the playmaking ability he has.”
The Rockets haven’t had the same success early on this season, but Houston’s offense is still a work in progress. They had the benefit of having a winless Nets team in town to juice their numbers, and their 93.3 points per half-court play still ranks in the bottom third of the league. Udoka is experimenting with lineup combinations and substitution patterns, in addition to awaiting the debut of Dorian Finney-Smith, a tenacious two-way forward who will improve their spacing woes.
Still, it’s important to get Şengün familiar with these actions as much as possible. He’s typically been the antithesis to Houston’s dreams of playing with pace, preferring a death by a thousand spins and swirls as an elite post presence. (The irony here is Şengün is scoring a whopping 1.917 points per transition play!) But putting the ball in Şengün’s hands early and letting him dictate a possession — oftentimes in tandem with Durant — should yield positive results. It can be a simple screen, switch and isolation for Şengün, like in the possession below, putting the smaller defender on him and giving him freedom. Şengün draws double-teams on post-ups more often than most, which can free up Clint Capela under the basket for an easy finish.
In another example, Durant can screen for Şengün before receiving the ball at the top of the key against a smaller defender, allowing him to isolate, which is basketball terminology for, duh, a basket.
Baby steps for Houston, but positive ones.
John Collins, the cutting consolidator
John Collins joining the Clippers in the offseason is definitely filed in the “Wait, that happened?” cabinet, but the 28-year-old is enjoying life in Los Angeles as part of a deep stash of reserves.
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He’s averaging the fewest minutes and shots per game since his rookie season, but his effective field-goal percentage, true shooting percentage and points per shot attempt are all career highs. Even after a sluggish showing against Golden State on Tuesday, the Clippers are still a respectable 6.1 points better per 100 possessions in Collins’ minutes.
How? It starts with consolidating his offensive profile and simplifying his role, using the ball less and ultimately doing more with it when he has it.
Last season, Collins was primarily used as a floor spacer — 20% of the time, according to Synergy — on a really bad Jazz team, scoring a decent 1.05 points per possession. Collins has always been a good, not great, shooter, but he’s had to show his value around other ball-dominant options (Trae Young, for example), which oftentimes limits the extent to which players can display their full arsenals.
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It’s not to say it gets any easier playing with Kawhi Leonard and James Harden. The difference with the Clippers is, because of the floor-spacing depth, Collins isn’t asked to knock down 3s at a high rate — his 1.5 attempts from behind the arc are the fewest in his nine-year career. In Los Angeles, Collins is encouraged to amplify what he’s good at: running.
In Utah, one of the odder player-team pairings in recent memory, Collins cut on only 8.6% and 8.9% of offensive plays during his two seasons, according to Synergy tracking data. Traditionally, Collins has served as an effective cutter because of his size, power and speed. That figure has jumped to 13.9% with the Clippers, given the freedom to roam under the arc because of a unique combination of high-level guard play (Harden, Chris Paul) and frontcourt shooting (Brook Lopez, Nic Batum).
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Forty-five percent of Collins’ shots have come at the rim, his highest mark in six years, and he’s scoring an impressive 1.5 points per possession. It works for Collins because he’s just as comfortable playing alongside a spacing big as he is a traditional one. In Atlanta, Collins’ two-most frequent lineups featured either Capela or Onyeka Okongwu.
The Clippers play at one of the slowest paces in the NBA, understandable given their array of older, more methodical players. But Collins is a nice changeup, a bouncy forward who has a penchant for relocation and quick bursts to the rim. It helps to have a high motor and the awareness of how and when to cut, something Collins does at a high level. Expect a ton of simple buckets like this all year long.
We’re still early in the season, but it’s a refreshing sign to see Collins with just as many assists from Paul as Ivica Zubac. It’s a balanced, measured approach that gives Tyronn Lue and the Clippers coaching staff comfort. Doing more by doing less.
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