NBA Preseason 2014-15: Early Surprises and Disappointments
Long ago, we all agreed the NBA preseason was no place for conclusions.
Speculation? Sure.
Rampant optimism? OK, fine.
But not conclusions.
There's too much uncertainty, too many coaches trying to hammer out rotations and implement schemes. For crying out loud, many preseason contests feature players who won't even make the final roster. In terms of predictive value, games before Halloween (or Oct. 28, as is the case this year) aren't all that helpful.
But hey, we all enter exhibition season with expectations.
We believe our favorite teams will be worlds better, and we anticipate which players will shine or fade. We expect the San Antonio Spurs to perform like champs and the Philadelphia 76ers to keep plumbing the depths of failure. And we expect the 2013-14 progress of Blake Griffin and John Wall to continue.
What follows is a rundown of which players, teams and trends have either exceeded those expectations or fallen woefully short.
Surprise: Warriors Offense
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There was a pervasive suspicion that former head coach Mark Jackson sapped some of the juice from what should have been a very punchy Golden State Warriors offense last year. The thinking went that rigid rotations, little off-ball movement and precious few secondary actions prevented Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, David Lee et al. from reaching their potential.
After the Warriors finished 12th in offensive efficiency in 2013-14, there was reason to hope new coach Steve Kerr might get a little more from a seemingly talented scoring bunch.
But nobody expected this.
The Dubs have looked like offensive juggernauts in their first three preseason games, featuring tons of big-man facilitation, endless motion away from the ball and a free-flowing feel that has bred open shots.
With scoring totals of 112, 120 and 116 (albeit with the latter two coming against the defensively invisible Los Angeles Lakers), Golden State is exceeding even the most optimistic offensive hopes. They're making more than 10 threes per game, have registered at least 25 assists in every contest and show no signs of slowing down.
Per Diamond Leung of the San Jose Mercury News, Stephen Curry said before the Warriors' preseason opener: "If we move the ball and just make simple plays, we have so much talent that everybody can be a threat, and it's tough to defend possession after possession."
Far tougher than anybody could have imagined.
Disappointment: Injuries
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Enough with the injuries, already. We've reached our quota.
Kevin Durant's Jones fracture is the most significant physical malady, but he hasn't been alone this preseason. Not by a long shot.
Bradley Beal's busted wrist will cost him a couple of months. Rajon Rondo suffered a broken hand during training camp. Kyrie Irving spent part of his time in Brazil in a walking boot. Jodie Meeks has a stress reaction in his back that will cost him two months. Andre Iguodala broke his nose against the Lakers...the list goes on.
This isn't any fun at all.
These injuries are doubly disappointing. They not only rob us of some of our favorite players, but they also shake up many of the expectations we had about how this season would play out.
Are the Oklahoma City Thunder going to survive a playoff road as a third or fourth seed as easily as they might have as a No. 1? We might find out.
And can the Washington Wizards maintain the upward trajectory they started last season without a key starter until December? These are questions we didn't expect to ask.
Bummer.
Surprise: Young Bigs
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Steven Adams, Rudy Gobert and Jusuf Nurkic all have plenty left to prove as NBA players (Nurkic, in particular, has yet to play a regular-season game), but the trio of youthful big men are off to a sterling, startling start so far.
Adams, the heir apparent to Kendrick Perkins in OKC, has been an efficiency machine, shooting 15-of-17 from the floor in his first two preseason tilts. His passing and grasp of offensive flow were advanced as a rookie center, and he's only improved them to this point. Plus, he's swatted away five shots, proving he can hold his own as a replacement until the injured Perkins finds his way back onto the floor.
Gobert leads all players in preseason rebounds per game with an average of 12.3, and he's been joining Derrick Favors up front to form one of the most intriguing big-man combos in the league. Scoring against those two won't be easy.
Nurkic, the Denver Nuggets' first-rounder in last June's draft, has hauled in 9.8 rebounds per game while flashing a soft touch with either hand on offense. JaVale McGee and Timofey Mozgov have competition for minutes at center.
It's a good time to be a young big man, apparently.
Disappointment: Winless Clips
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Wait a minute, weren't the Los Angeles Clippers supposed to be contenders in the West?
Sound the alarm; L.A. has dropped all three of its preseason tilts!
Maybe it's a little early to panic, especially since we've already established that it's a mistake to draw season-long conclusions from games being played in October. At the same time, these Clippers haven't performed quite as crisply as most might have hoped. And with the Spurs perhaps coasting after a title win and the Thunder dealing with KD's injury, a fast start might have set the course for a Clippers ascent.
That hasn't happened, and it's a little disappointing. Not worrisome, though, if you're Doc Rivers.
Per Dan Woike of the Orange County Register: "I have one announcement," Rivers said, fighting back a smirk. "We’re probably not going to win the preseason championship."
Personally, I'm disappointed. I had no idea there was a preseason championship until just now. The more you know...
Surprise: Blake Griffin's Jumper
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Like LeBron James losing weight to get quicker and Chandler Parsons being both handsome and talented, Blake Griffin with a jumper just feels unfair.
But here we are three games in, and Griffin looks like a player transformed.
Oh, he's still got the bounce and bull-in-a-china-shop bulk, but he's added a perimeter shot that only makes his built-in attributes scarier. Against the Warriors on Oct. 7, he drilled the first six shots he took from the outside, including a triple from the right corner.
For a guy who's never shot better than 40 percent from 10-16 feet or 16-23 feet, per Basketball-Reference.com, newfound confidence and better mechanics from the perimeter are a big deal.
Per Mike Prada of SBNation.com, Griffin is setting his feet earlier, speeding up his motion and generally smoothing out the entire process. Though he wasn't nearly as hot in the Clips' second game against the Portland Trail Blazers, Griffin knocked down four more mid-range jumpers in game No. 3 against the Utah Jazz.
If you're a Clippers fan, this is a very pleasant surprise. If you're any other team in the West, you're not at all cool with this development.
Disappointment: John Wall's Shooting
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Not everybody's stroke is drawing raves lately, and John Wall's underwhelming marksmanship is cause for real concern in D.C.
After drastically increasing his volume and efficiency from long range last year, Wall has stalled during early preseason action. He has hit just 30 percent of his triples in four games and made only 13 of his 40 field-goal attempts overall.
Beal is out for a while. Martell Webster won't be suiting up anytime soon either. Paul Pierce is closer to 40 than 30.
Wall has to score a lot more than the 19.3 points per game he averaged a year ago if the Washington Wizards are going to stay afloat until they get back to full strength. And remember, this is a team many believe to be a fringe contender. After 44 wins last season, the Wiz are supposed to take the next step in 2014-15.
The progress Wall showed as a shooter last year can't be the end of his developmental curve; it has to be part of an ongoing trend.
Signs, to this point, have not been encouraging.
Surprise: The Spurs Lost
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It has still been nearly five months since the San Antonio Spurs lost to an NBA team. That's the good news.
The bad news: Alba Berlin now holds the unofficial championship belt, having beaten the Spurs by a final score of 94-93 on Oct. 8. No, seriously, that happened.
San Antonio didn't throw out the B-Team, either. Tim Duncan, Boris Diaw, Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green and Tony Parker started the contest, and all five played at least 23 minutes. Manu Ginobili logged 22. That's not so different from the way head coach Gregg Popovich approaches his regular-season assignments.
Credit a game opponent for seizing an opportunity to notch a very impressive win, but don't worry too much about the Spurs.
"We're not happy, but there's never anger after a preseason game," Ginobili said, per Sebastian Kunze of the San Antonio Express-News. "It is a promotion trip, but we use it to get prepared. We don't work as hard as if we were in San Antonio."
Fair enough.
Nonetheless, I'd like to blame this disappointing defeat on Lady Gaga, who was in attendance for some reason.
Disappointment: Steve Nash Is the Same
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I know we already had an injury slide, but Steve Nash gets special treatment—both because his injury saga is uniquely profound and because for just a second, his preseason story was going to be pleasantly surprising.
Nash appeared healthy initially.
On Sept. 25, B/R's Kevin Ding wrote: "If his body allows, Nash still can be a magical player. In recent pickup games with Lakers teammates, Nash has been pain-free and tossing around that old fairy dust."
Fast forward a few weeks, and a painfully familiar narrative is now in place, erasing the hope surrounding the 40-year-old's training camp performance.
After asking out of a game against the Warriors because he didn't feel right, Nash missed practice Oct. 14.
Per Serena Winters of LakersNation.com: "Steve Nash did not practice today. Lakers described it as similar issues he was having last year."
Those issues, as we all remember, affected the nerves in Nash's back, legs and feet. He never got them under control last season, and they appear to be flaring up again, making a return to health and fairy-dust sprinkling seem like, well...a fairy tale.
Surprise: Philly Is Doing It Wrong
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The preseason is supposed to be about setting the tone, getting core principles in place and establishing an identity.
Last year's paragon of basketball ineptitude, the Philadelphia 76ers, have failed on all fronts.
They won.
So early in their rebuilding process that nobody's even purchased the paper on which a blueprint might one day be drawn, the Sixers are all about lottery picks, saving cash and piling up losses. Allegedly. We have no proof or admission that tanking is Philly's goal.
If we assume the Sixers are still interested in bottoming out, though, they're going to have to stop notching results like the 106-92 victory they logged against the Charlotte Hornets (which is still fun to type) on Oct. 8.
Nerlens Noel—who doesn't count as a surprise because we knew he'd be dominant on defense right away—scored 10 points, grabbed nine boards and turned away three shots in 31 minutes. As Philadelphia's stockpiled talent continues to develop, it's going to be increasingly difficult to avoid success.
That's a good problem to have, I suppose.
Disappointment: The Knicks Have Not Yet Been Hilarious
10 of 10J.R. Smith is a character, Derek Fisher might be in over his head, Amar'e Stoudemire loves to make wacky proclamations and Phil Jackson is as unorthodox a thinker as you could ever hope to find.
Yet, for all that, we haven't gotten any truly bizarre bits of news from the New York Knicks.
Ian Begley of ESPN.com reported Jackson had implemented "mindfulness training" to teach his employees how to stay in the moment, which is not sufficiently strange to satisfy our hopes. That's actually just a good idea.
When are the Knicks hitting a sweat lodge?
How long until Jackson has everyone hold hands in the dark after practice?
Will Smith and Fisher live-blog a golf outing?
We need some serious weirdness out of Knicks camp, and we haven't gotten it yet.
Actually, you know what? I forgot about the kazoos (see above video). Disregard everything I just said; the Knicks have met my expectations for oddness and hilarity. And they did it for a good cause.
Thank you, James Dolan. Everybody wins.
