Stock Watch: What's trending in the NBA
Welcome to the third installment of Stock Watch for the 2023-24 season, a look at what’s been trending up and down in the NBA.
?? Anunoby’s 2-way impact
OG Anunoby has been a hit in the Big Apple. The ex-Toronto Raptors wing has been solid at both ends of the floor, averaging 15.6 points, 4.6 boards, and 1.8 steals to go along with a 39.1% clip from deep across 14 appearances for the New York Knicks. During that span, the Knicks own the NBA’s best mark in defensive efficiency (104.1 points per 100 possessions) and trail only the Cleveland Cavaliers in net rating (plus-15.1). New York has a minus-12.7 net rating when Anunoby isn’t on the court.
RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley were both key members of the Knicks’ rotation, but their high-usage rates weren’t ideal with two ball-dominant stars already at the focal point of the offense. Anunoby’s presence allows Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle to operate more efficiently and has helped the floor-spacing immensely.
?? Bucks’ defensive regression
It’s not often that a team fires their head coach while nearly 20 games above .500, but the Milwaukee Bucks did just that following a steep defensive decline under Adrian Griffin. Despite sitting second in the East, the Bucks ranked 22nd in defensive efficiency at the time of Griffin’s dismissal after residing within the top 10 for most of Mike Budenholzer’s tenure. Milwaukee was also 20th in points allowed per direct drive and 24th in points allowed per direct pick through the first 43 games of the 2023-24 campaign, according to ESPN.
Players began to question Griffin’s schemes and strategies in the leadup to his ousting last week, sources told The Athletic’s Shams Charania, Sam Amick, and Eric Nehm. Giannis Antetokounmpo openly raised doubts about the Bucks’ defensive planning following a 122-116 loss to the Houston Rockets earlier in January.
It’ll be on new head coach Doc Rivers to re-establish a defensive identity. Even with Jrue Holiday no longer on the team, the pieces are there to turn things around. Antetokounmpo is a five-time NBA All-Defensive Team selection. Brook Lopez finished second in last year’s Defensive Player of the Year voting and excels when playing drop coverage in pick-and-rolls and protecting the rim. Rivers must maximize their defensive talents for the Bucks to reach their championship potential.
?? Big man scoring
Joel Embiid is on pace to score the most points per game of any center since Wilt Chamberlain 60 years ago and enjoyed a historic 70-point performance last week. Karl-Anthony Towns dropped 62 with 10 threes on the same night. Nikola Jokic is weeks removed from a nine-game stretch where he shot an unfathomable 81% on nearly 12 shots per contest. Alperen Sengun, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Victor Wembanyama are all under 25 and averaging over 20 points.
The center position seemed primed for extinction just a handful of years ago, and now the NBA’s brightest stars are some of its tallest. In 2019-20, the year before Jokic began the league’s streak of big men winning MVPs, only five full-time centers were in the top 50 in scoring and none were in the top 20. This season, that number has skyrocketed to nine, with three top-20 entries. And with Embiid becoming increasingly likely to take home a second straight MVP, the position’s streak may jump to four.
?? Rockets’ playoff push
After a tight win over the New Orleans Pelicans on Dec. 23 pushed the Rockets to 15-12 and firmly into the West’s No. 8 seed, things have gone downhill. Houston is just 1-9 against teams above .500, and 6-12 overall since then, and has slid out of the playoff picture entirely. While many didn’t have the Rockets as playoff contenders to begin the year, their recent slide has brought up some questions about which direction the team should go.
The young frontcourt of Jabari Smith and Sengun have risen to the occasion, and splashy veteran offseason signings Fred VanVleet and Dillon Brooks have been two of the team’s best players. But 2021 No. 2 pick Jalen Green has taken a nosedive, and the incredibly promising trio of Tari Eason, Amen Thompson, and Cam Whitmore have seen inconsistent playing time throughout the season. With the playoffs seeming like an uphill battle now, the Rockets face risking another early offseason while not maximizing their youth’s development.
?? Cavs flying under the radar
When it was announced Dec. 15 that Evan Mobley and Darius Garland would miss extended periods with respective knee and jaw injuries, it seemed safe to assume the Cavaliers would fall off mightily. Mobley was tallying a 16-point double-double per game in his third season while helping anchor the defense, and Garland, their starting point guard, was averaging 20.7 points, 5.9 assists, and a career-high 1.6 steals. At the time, Cleveland was a hair above .500 and looked likely to drop out of the play-in zone, but the team has gone 14-4 without its two key starters and is going toe to toe with the Knicks for fourth in the Eastern Conference.
Amid all the high-scoring hubbub around the league recently, the Cavaliers turning the East on its head has been understandably overshadowed. It’s due time to give them their recognition, though, especially Donovan Mitchell, who’s been on another level with Cleveland shorthanded. While he’s been the usual offensive headliner we’ve grown accustomed to, his defense has been sensational over the last 14 games.
With Mitchell on the court, the Cavs are surrendering just 103.3 points per 100 possessions since Dec. 15, but that mark climbs to 115.1 when he sits. That 11.8-point swing is far and away the largest among any mainstay in Cleveland’s lineup in that span and is a near-perfect encapsulation of how he’s honed in at that end to keep the Cavs not just alive but thriving when they really shouldn’t be. That kind of influence is why coaches are almost certain to vote him into his fifth All-Star appearance come February.
?? Magic running out of gas
At the one-month mark of the campaign – a respectable 16-game sample size – the Magic were turning heads with an 11-5 record that had them tied with the Bucks for second in the East. Three months in, they were still a solid 17-11 and only five games behind the Boston Celtics at the summit. With a quarter of the season under their belt at the time, public opinion quickly started to shift from “fluky start” to “the Magic are for real.” It helps that they had convincing wins against the likes of the Bucks and Denver Nuggets in the early going. However, their recent stretch has nullified all of that early positivity.
Since the calendar flipped to 2024, the Magic are 5-9 and have been bewilderingly inconsistent. They went into Denver and beat the Nuggets but have also dropped contests to the struggling Golden State Warriors, Atlanta Hawks, and injury-ravaged Memphis Grizzlies. A simple synopsis of their drop-off can be found in the difference in their net rating: In January, they’ve been a bottom-10 team at minus-3.1 despite boasting a plus-2.3 net rating until the end of December.
