Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Mike Sykes
Happy Friday, folks! Welcome back to Layup Lines. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you’ve got an awesome weekend ahead of you .
NBA basketball is officially back. The league’s very first preseason games are being played today with the Nuggets and Celtics kicking things off in Abu Dhabi. If you’re tuned into games this preseason, you might feel like you’re watching a more physical brand of basketball with fewer free throws and a bit less free movement around the court.
That’s what we should be preparing ourselves for. At least, according to Rick Carlisle, anyway.
The Pacers head coach recently hopped on The Wake Up Call podcast to talk about this upcoming season for his team. The physicality in the game from the second half of last season was brought up. Carlisle said we should expect more of that this coming season.
Shoutout to Basketball, She Wrote’s Caitlin Cooper, who pointed this out. Carlisle said the league told coaches that last year’s physicality was here to stay. “Games are going to look a lot more like FIBA than the old, freedom-of-movement NBA,” he said.
We saw a bit of that last season after the NBA All-Star break. It led to several games with weird results, like the Celtics and Bucks combining for two free throws in a single game. Both of those free throws came from the Bucks. Boston became the first team in NBA history not to shoot a free throw during a game.
This was all according to plan. The NBA sent out a memo on official points of emphasis at the end of last season. League officials were made to focus more on proper defensive positioning and less on contact. It led to a sharp dip in scoring around the NBA. The decline in free throws started in February and scoring dipped right along with it.
If the NBA continues to emphasize these previous points, we should expect a stark contrast between this season and the last few years. That’s probably a good thing.
Let’s put offense in perspective. According to Basketball Reference’s data, the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors had the greatest offense ever, with a 115.6 offensive rating. That’s the team with Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green all in their primes.
That offensive rating would’ve been just above league average (115.3) last season — and that’s with the NBA tightening things up in the second half of the year. Offensive efficiency records have been breaking yearly in the league, with no concessions to the league’s defenses.
We’re about to see a bit of a correction if what Carlisle says holds true. I’m here for it.
Wemby might just win DPOY, but don’t bet on it
Victor Wembanyama is probably going to be a pretty popular bet for Defensive Player of the Year this upcoming NBA season. Nobody can blame you for putting your money on him — he was the runner-up for the award last season despite playing on a 22-win team.
But Bryan Kalbrosky says that, at -250, it’s a pretty bad value pick for any bettors out there.
“That means an individual would have to bet $250 to win $100 if the Spurs star wins Defensive Player of the Year. The return just simply isn’t great!
Over the past ten seasons, no other preseason favorite has even approached that sort of expectation. The closest was when Draymond Green entered the year with +160 odds in 2017.
However, each winner since 2015 has had an average betting return of about 11-1.”
Plus, Kalbrosky writes, the Spurs likely won’t be very good anyway. While he’s elite, the rest of San Antonio’s defense isn’t quite up to snuff. Their defensive rating probably won’t be in the top half of the NBA’s rankings. And, if it’s not, history says Wemby won’t win the award.
Save your money. Or maybe just put it on someone else.
READ MORE: Check out Bryan’s full analysis here
Shootaround
— Nikola Jokic says that losing to Team USA was the “biggest defeat” of his career so far. Robert Zeglinski has more.
— Will LeBron and Bronny finally play together on Friday night? Charles Curtis has more on that here.
—The Knicks are breaking the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement and the league isn’t happy about it.
— In case you missed it from Wednesday, here’s Prince on LeBron trying to temper expectations for the Lakers.
That’s a wrap, folks. Thanks so much for reading. Have a fantastic weekend. Until next time! Peace.
-Sykes ✌️