The NBA All-Star teams have been announced. That means that there are going to be plenty of complaints about players who were snubbed. These complaints are never met with a follow up of who should be taken off of the team in place of the snubbed player. Anyhow, before I get too worked up about talking heads in the media yelling about nothing, I want to get to a more important aspect of All-Star rosters being announced and that means that we are getting to the prime part of the NBA season where we can start to accept teams for what they are and players for who they are.
Here are some thoughts I have thus far about the 2020-2021 NBA Season:
JOEL EMBIID IS THE NBA MVP
The Sixers, after an incredibly disappointing season, are currently the number one seed in the Eastern Conference. I don’t expect them to stay in the one seed. The Brooklyn Nets are scorching (without Kevin Durant) and I think that they end up taking the number one seed. However, even if the 76ers finish in the second seed, that has to be considered an enormous success. Most of that success can be credited to Embiid’s improved play. This is the player that everyone envisioned in 2014 before an untimely injury prior to being the expected number one pick. He is averaging 29.8 points, 11.8 rebounds, and 3.5 assists. These are prime David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon numbers.
I hope that Embiid can continue to play at this pace throughout the rest of the NBA Season. In a league that seemed to get further and further away from the Center position having relevance in the league, it is great to see Embiid star. Conditioning has always seemed to be a worry for Embiid. Thus far, it doesn’t seem to be an issue.
TOO MANY GUYS ARE HOGGING THE BALL
The recent influx of three pointers in the NBA has not bothered me as much as many whom I speak to. But the rise of threes appears to have led to a rise in usage rate across the league. Usage rate, per basketballreference.com, is defined as “an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while they were on the floor.” I consider 30% to be a very high usage rate. In 2015-2016, there were ten players at 30% or higher. This season, that number is at 16. Now, a jump of only six might not seem that large, but dig a little deeper. That increase in six means that there are teams that are adding a high usage player that dominates the ball. That is 1/5 of the league. The Washington Wizards, one of the worst teams in the NBA (though on a nice little streak as I right this), have two of them in Bradley Beal and Russell Westbrook. Westbrook was the innovator of showing how hollow a triple double can be. We are expounding on his 2016-2017 NBA Season. It’s a lot easier to put up great stats when the ball is in your hand all the time. Teams that share the basketball make the game a lot more fun to watch.
ENOUGH WITH INSTANT REPLAY
When I first heard that instant replay would be a larger factor in the NBA, I was excited. It was a chance to right calls that could potentially swing a play, a game, maybe even an NBA Finals. But goodness, it’s been a disaster. The last few minutes of an NBA game are already long enough with the constant fouls. We do not need to add another five to ten minutes of watching refs stare at a tiny TV to see if they made the right call or not. Don’t turn the NBA into something boring. We do not need another baseball!
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