With roughly a quarter of the NBA season gone, here’s some points of interest from the season so far:

They are who we thought they are

Golden State are as expected, the best team in the league, and by some margin. They are nonchalantly destroying teams like they owe them money. They currently have the best Offensive Rating of all time:

Whilst it is only a quarter of the way through the season, I firmly expect GSW to finish with the best ORtg ever. Interestingly, this year’s Toronto have a ORtg of 116.1 which is the second best ever. I don’t think this is sustainable because:

• Lowry is a .359 career 3pt shooter currently shooting .422 this season
• TRoss is a .381 career 3pt shooter currently shooting .456 this season
• DeRozan is shooting unsustainable numbers on long twos

They’re a good team offensively, but certainly not “second best offense of all time” good.

Who aren’t who we thought they are?

Ok let’s have a look at who’s currently over/under performing compared to the preseason win totals:

Houston are the over performing the most, whilst their Texas neighbours Dallas are having a nightmare. Mark Cuban seems to have developed a knack for backing losers…

One interesting thing about Houston over performing thus far is that they have the biggest discrepancy between games played at home v games played on the road:

Houston have played 7 fewer games at home so far and still have over performed the most. At the other end of things Philly have played 9 more games at home. They’ve lost every game on the road so far. So they’ll be getting yet another lottery pick next year.

Grind & Grind is the real Clutch City

My over bet on Houston looks good so far. My over bet on Memphis looks er, less good. As per usual the Grizzlies are over performing their point differential. Their Pythagorean wins is 10 but they’ve currently won 14. Even though I’m generally not a fan of the word ‘clutch’, they have been exactly that:

• Played 4 OT games, won all 4
• Played in 8 games decided by 5 points or less, won all 8.
• Played in 5 games decided by 3 points or less, won all 5.

These are by far the best records in the league, and they’ve done this despite injuries to Parons, Conley and Carter. Looks like I was wrong on the them, but I’ve got to give them a lot of credit.

How about them Lakers?

Pre season the Lakers win total was 24.5 games. They’re currently 10-13. What happened?

Luke Walton happened.

Back when he was coaching GSW in Kerr’s absence last season they went 39-4 with him there. People were raving about him while I was more reserved as any mistake you make may not be realised when you have a team that good. Luke Walton may very well be the real deal as with the Lakers, their players are either young and promising, or old and past it. He’s even managed to get Swaggy P to play well!

The only plausible explanation to get production from this noted moron is that Walton is a coaching god.

According to fivethirtyeight’s projections, for which you need to take with a pinch of salt, the Lakers have a 16% chance of making the playoffs. This seems about right TBF as their defence is ranked 28th, but if they do then Walton would surely win the COY.