Quick Thoughts on Clippers' Start

Eight games into the NBA season, the Clippers have navigated a fairly difficult early schedule about as one would expect, accumulating a 5-3 record.  Overall, the offense has looked even better than last year.  The Clippers are currently second in the NBA in offensive efficiency, scoring 109 points per 100 possessions.  Chris Paul has been in attack mode more often than usual early in the season, Jamal Crawford is off to a red hot start much like last season, JJ Redick is scoring efficiently, and DeAndre Jordan is leading the NBA in offensive rebounding.  Blake Griffin is off to a terrific start as well, putting up 22.1 PPG on 57% shooting.  The constant nitpicking by members of the national media of Blake’s game (particularly his offensive game) actually make him one of the more underrated players in the NBA.  So that’s the good news….

But apparently, there is this other half of the game called defense.  Somebody should alert the Clippers to this fact.  The Clippers are 28^th in the NBA in defensive efficiency, allowing 106 points per 100 possessions.  While I will not pretend to have any expert insight into the defensive schemes that Doc Rivers is implementing, the most logical explanation for the Clippers' struggles is a learning curve.  This team was middle of the pack defensively last year and the personnel is no worse this season.  As the team learns to Rivers’ principles and system, I would expect them to rise to the middle of the pack or perhaps a bit better.

Bobcats Individual PERs After Five Games

Above are the Bobcats individual PERs after five games. Admittedly, this is a pretty small sample size, but it's at least a way to show which players have been making quality use of their time on the court. Comparing this graph to the graph below, you can see that Adrien has kept up the impressive early season performance in very limited minutes. Zeller, meanwhile, has picked it up a bit in games 4 and 5 to make up for an extremely lackluster first three games. Jannero Pargo is really screwing up the whole graph, but he also hasn't played enough minutes yet this season to hold it against him. Still,  something a little closer to zero would make it a lot easier to see the rest of the beautifully labeled columns. Pick it up Pargo!

After about a month of the season, the DLeague will continue to show off our Excel prowess by putting up some line graphs to show which players are on a hot streak and which players are slumping. Right now, teams just haven't played enough games to make it meaningful.