NBA Stars Trending the Wrong Way
Well, it's about that time again: take-stock-of-underperforming-NBA-stars o'clock.
Spotting big names currently failing to meet expectations isn't especially difficult. Most NBA teams aren't even five games into their 2023-24 regular season. Small samples lend themselves to extremes, both good and bad.
This exercise aims to go layers upon layers deeper than the fleeting noise. We want to identify marquee names who are struggling outright or enduring role changes that infer longer-term concerns.
No one who appears here is regressing beyond reversal. One of the five main subjects has actually been quite good.
But even this early, we've seen and know enough to file each of these players under the "Something's Afoot Here and It Might Not Be Good" tab.
This is No Time to Panic, But We're Concerned...
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LaMelo Ball, Charlotte Hornets
I'm not in the habit of betting against a 22-year-old who's getting to the rim more and has proven to be a viable long-range weapon. At the same time, opening the year by knocking down 25 percent of his twos (31 percent at the basket) and his threes is pretty darn troubling.
Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks
Defensive attention has necessitated Brunson taking a step back for stretches while also forcing him to, if you can believe it, work even harder for what he gets inside the rainbow.
Nobody should be out on him, but the Knicks half-court offense will remain at a staunch deficit so long as he's struggling to find nylon on his twos (34.1) and not getting to the foul line nearly as often.
Julius Randle, New York Knicks
Feel free to insert your Julius "Every Other Year" Randle joke here. His passing process this season has bordered on admirable and largely spares him from overall inclusion.
The shot-making? Yeah, that's a different story. Randle is hitting just 27.8 percent of his twos, including a mind-meltingly bad 8 percent clip at the rim (1-of-12). If nothing else, his efficiency is worth monitoring because of the, you know, every-other-year thing.
Fred VanVleet, Houston Rockets
Shooting under 40 percent on twos and below 35 percent on threes is...not good. VanVleet has grappled with inefficiency inside the arc before, but that's part of the problem.
So, too, is the fact he's already working off a down year from three and doesn't have the proven helping hands around him to ensure his shot quality dramatically improves.
Trae Young, Atlanta Hawks
Benefit of the doubt still lies with Young. But it's flimsier than ever. For the moment,
Last year, he saw his efficiency at the rim and from long range suffer precipitous drop. The same thing is currently happening again—for now.
Jalen Green, Houston Rockets
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Yours truly predicted Jalen Green would join the 25-point, five-assist club this season.
So much for that.
Green's third year is galaxies from a lost cause, but it's clear he has serious, perhaps alarming, amounts of work to do. Writing off relative inefficiency as early season noise is perfectly fine if you believe his process doesn't need to change. It does.
Almost everything about Green's offensive performance is wonky. He has traded in three-point attempts for long twos and additional looks at the rim. His usage rate is down a tick from last year, but his turnover rate has significantly increased. Extra shots at the basket have not translated to more time spent at the charity stripe.
Too often it feels like Green is trying to exist outside the entire offense. The Houston Rockets added Fred VanVleet and are leaning noticeably more upon Alperen Şengün. And yet, somehow, even fewer of Green's made buckets are coming off assists than last season.
Time is on the 21-year-old's side. Houston is, in so many ways, a completely new outfit. But the early returns suggest that, at best, Green faces a steeper learning curve than is ideal.
Pascal Siakam, Toronto Raptors
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Pascal Siakam is too entrenched as a star to interpret his cratering efficiency as an irreversible downward spiral.
The Toronto Raptors half-court offense remains clunky and ill-fit to open consistent pockets of space near the basket, but that's nothing new for the two-time All-NBAer. Siakam will see his shaky shooting closer to the basket climb.
Whether he'll also see his role normalize is a separate matter—and the overarching concern here.
Featured possessions are harder to come by as the Raptors look to juice up ball movement and the development of Scottie Barnes. After averaging over 73 touches per 36 minutes in each of the previous three years, Siakam is on track for much lower volume now:
Pretty much everything associated with this volume is down as a result. Siakam's usage rate has dipped by more than five percentage points, and he's gone from averaging 13.2 drives per 36 minutes last year to 9.3 this season.
Playing a less central role is not the end of the world when the alternatives are panning out. They're not. The half-court offense is dead last in efficiency by a country mile, and accentuating Barnes' importance doesn't adequately explain Siakam's deemphasis when the Raptors no longer have Fred VanVleet. The vibes, as ever, are off in Toronto.
Karl-Anthony Towns, Minnesota Timberwolves
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Karl-Anthony Towns, like always, is turning in stretches of enviable, effective, much-needed aggression. The rest of the time, well, he's being outplayed by Naz Reid.
Shooting splits are only a minor part of the concern. Towns won't shoot under 44 percent on twos or below 24 percent from distance forever. Those marks would be something worse than career lows.
Applying this same faith to KAT's overall role and usage is much tougher. Operating within the dual-big setup doesn't seem to suit him.
His rim frequency is nonexistent, and the Minnesota Timberwolves' spacing isn't necessarily to blame. He looks reluctant to attack slower players and seems more inclined to settle for jumpers. His seven drives per 36 minutes are down from last year (7.9), which were already down from 2021-22 (8.5). And he has attempted just four free throws—the second lowest among 54 players who have taken at least 50 shots.
Lackluster defense persists all the while. Minnesota has tried insulating Towns by putting him on more stationary forwards and wings to virtually no success. He remains a big part of their penchant for transition-defense disinterest, and the team, not surprisingly, is bleeding points with him on the floor.
It would be foolish to believe that a 27-year-old three-time All-Star has dropped off permanently by such stark measures. But while Towns has always suffered from inconsistency, this is something different, something tougher to reconcile—something that might say more about Minnesota's current experiment, if not his spot within it.
Russell Westbrook, L.A. Clippers
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Russell Westbrook's inclusion has almost nothing to do with what he's done this season. He has made a concerted effort to fit within the larger context of the L.A. Clippers. His sub-12-shot-attempts per 36 minutes would be a career low, and over half his made buckets are coming off assists—something that's never even come close to happening before.
This should be a time to celebrate, or at least acknowledge, Westbrook's attempts at reinvention. The acquisition of James Harden shifts the discussion elsewhere, past the boundaries of what's known.
Can Russ adapt again?
Everyone involved will have to make concessions if the new-look Clippers are going to thrive—Paul George, Kawhi Leonard and most of all, Harden himself. This includes Westbrook. He may need to spend even more time away from the ball to accommodate one of the most high-usage stars in NBA history.
And this says nothing of how Harden's arrival impacts Westbrook's spot in the rotation. Will he continue to start? Is bringing him off the bench the most effective way to optimize his skill set? If it is, will he be OK with that?
More critically, will Westbrook remain one of the closing-lineup staples? George, Harden and Leonard are locks. The big-man slot will (almost always) be filled by Ivica Zubac, perhaps with a little P.J. Tucker-at-the-5 peppered in for five-out measure. Will head coach Tyronn Lue give the final nod to Westbrook over Terance Mann? Change it up based on matchups?
Russ' fit with the full-strength Clippers was already complicated. It's even more complex, not to mention ambiguous, now.
Andrew Wiggins, Golden State Warriors
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Andrew Wiggins has never exactly been a bastion of continuity. He has, however, maintained more of a useful equilibrium since joining the Golden State Warriors.
Once considered a punchline chucker best known for doing-the-least-with-the-most-on defense, Wiggins transformed into a reliable three-and-D weapon, the kind we know is capable of being his team's third best player during a Finals run, because that's what he was in 2022.
Unevenness has started creeping back into the fold, though. Really, it began last season after he suffered an adductor injury and missed extensive time while tending to a family matter. His up-and-downness was largely dismissed as a symptom of stop-and-start availability and the underlying, existential awkwardness that came to define Golden State's 2022-23 campaign. It was also easier to accept or ignore when an off-ish year included 39.6 percent shooting from deep.
Dismissing Wiggins' onset struggles in 2023-24 is harder. He has been more aggressive inside the arc on a per-minute basis, not because he's getting to the rim, but rather because he's dribbling into more mid-range jumpers. His three-point volume has plummeted right along with his efficiency from beyond the arc (sub-19 percent). And his rebounding is plumbing a new rock bottom, a truly harrowing development given Draymond Green wasn't available to start the year.
Maybe Wiggins' performance progresses and then stabilizes. Or maybe the Warriors start pulling back his minutes indefinitely, not merely because he's fouling at a higher clip, but because Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody and Gary Payton II prove more deserving of them.
Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference, Stathead or Cleaning the Glass and accurate entering games on Wednesday, Nov. 1. Salary information via Spotrac.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.
