Sitting at 21-31 through 52 games of the 2014-15 NBA season, the Brooklyn Nets have objectively been disappointing thus far through the All-Star break. They’re just out of the Eastern Conference playoffs right now, at No. 9, a game behind both the Heat and Hornets, and are a game or less separated from the Celtics, Pistons and Pacers, the three teams just under them in the standings.
But, for now, I’m not going to harp on the overt issues regarding this team–and don’t worry, there are many. Instead, I’m going to do a post I’ve thought about doing for awhile but haven’t had the time to do. Of course, that would be a scouring of Basketball-Reference.com’s advanced stats page for the Nets. No heavy analysis, no trade suggestions, just some interesting statistical tidbits. Here we go, in which I detail some key Brooklyn frontcourt players:
First, one interesting thing I noticed was that in win shares per 48 minutes (good explanation of the stat here), Jerome Jordan is first on the team with .169 while the second-most, .148, is had by Mason Plumlee. Granted, Jordan has only played 343 minutes this season but, along with his third-highest PER on the team (17.5, behind Brook Lopez’s 19.8 and Plumlee’s 19.6), certainly shows that when he has played, he’s been pretty good.
I’ve tweeted a lot about how I think Lionel Hollins extremely under-utilizes Jordan, considering how the Nets have been dominated by strong frontcourt players–Nikola Pekovic, Nikola Vucevic and DeAndre Jordan come to mind–but he just doesn’t like Jordan, I guess. I don’t really understand it and the statistics agree with me (Jordan’s 65 percent true shooting is by far best on the team).
When he has been able to get significant run, Jordan has shown an ability to be an explosive interior defender, capable rebounder and even an efficient scorer when needed. Yet, he rarely plays in close games and almost always is heavily used in blowout losses during garbage time. During Brooklyn’s 3-12 January, Jordan got a grand total of 64 minutes in eight games. Seven of those losses were by less than ten points and four were by less than five. If he played only 5-10 minutes in those contests, maybe the outcomes were different.
The stats I mentioned also indicate just how good of a season Mason Plumlee is having, too. After a rough start to the season, Plumlee has really fine-tuned his game as he plays to his strengths and not to his weaknesses. Outside of his atrocious, sub-50 percent, Mason has been amazing, hitting 59 percent of his field goal attempts and posting a 111 offensive rating, which puts him in the neighborhood of Marc Gasol (112), Greg Monroe (110) and the afor-mentioned Pekovic and Vucevic (110 each).
But, he hasn’t just been great on offense. His defensive rating of 103 puts him just behind noted defensive studs Tyson Chandler, Serge Ibaka and Joakim Noah (all 102). Plumlee is much more than just a high-flyer; he’s a presence at the rim on defense and makes scoring down low much harder for Nets’ opponents.
Basketball-reference’s data also shows how Brook Lopez has been solid offensively this season, and how his defense really isn’t too far behind. His 19.8 PER puts him right with the other top Eastern Conference big men–Andre Drummond, Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap–but he hasn’t garnered the All-Star consideration given to those players, which is a little tough to explain.
He’s shooting over 50 percent from the field and is scoring almost 30 points per 100 possessions, both decent offensive numbers. However, his usage rate of 26.7 is well above any other qualified Nets, meaning he uses a lot of Brooklyn’s possessions. Also, his sub-13 percent total rebounding rate is very poor for a center of his size. Still, though, his 105 defensive rating (equal to his offensive rating, not a great sign) is middle-of-the-pack and he also boasts a 5 percent block rate. We know he’s not close to a lockdown defender but he’s not as useless a one as many people believe.
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