9 stats that explain the NBA’s most fascinating trends so far

The NBA season is about 30 percent complete, give or take a game, and that means that teams have played enough games for statistical trends to become solid sample sizes.

We know about the brilliant individual performances, like LeBron James’ career-best efficiency and James Harden’s leading the league in points and assists. But this isn’t a post to crow about the MVP leaders, since there’s plenty of that already. I want to talk about the weird and tiny numbers that explain why certain things in the league are happening, or that have no explanation at all.

Here are nine examples of statistics that make sense, or don’t make sense, and are interesting all the same.

Simmons touches the ball more than any other player in the league, and it’s not close. The next-closest is Russell Westbrook’s 94.0 touches per game, and only three players touch it more than 90 times per contest.

This is important. Simmons isn’t leading the league in assists, and his touches are inflated by Philadelphia playing at the fourth-fastest pace. But for someone who can’t shoot like Simmons, he constantly needs the ball in his hands to keep defenses honest. When he has the ball in his hands, defenders can’t sag off into the paint.

These touches don’t have to last forever — Simmons averages 3.4 dribbles per touch, quite a bit less than most traditional point guards — but increasing the amount that he has the ball mitigates any spacing concerns.

The Trail Blazers were 21st in the NBA in points allowed per 100 possessions last season (107.8) and 20th-best the year before (105.6). But this year, Portland is allowing just 100.8 points per 100 possessions, which is fourth-best in the entire NBA.

In the past couple seasons, we often wondered if the Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum pairing would ever produce an above-average defense, and for good reason. It’s a small backcourt, and Lillard especially has always struggled on that end.

But Jusuf Nurkic has been monstrous, Al-Farouq Aminu constantly bails out his teammates when they mess up, and Evan Turner has been surprisingly active. And yes, the two small guards have been fine — in 616 minutes, Lillard and McCollum’s defensive rating together is 102.3.

When Smart’s on the court, the Celtics score 109.3 points per 100 possessions, opposed to just 101.1 points per 100 possessions when he’s sitting down. That is dumb. Smart is shooting 32 percent from the floor and 29.6 percent from behind the arc.

It’s the golden age of the turnover — last season, James Harden and Russell Westbrook both broke the record for the most in a single season. Teams realized that high-usage, highly efficient players (at least in Harden’s case) could still turn the ball over half-a-dozen times and be effective.

Well, Chris Paul disagrees. He has never averaged more than three turnovers per game, and this season, he’s doing it at an ungodly rate. In 230 minutes, Paul has 78 assists and ... 14 turnovers. That includes a 14-assist, zero-turnover game against the Brooklyn Nets.

So yes, Paul and Harden are getting along just fine.

The NBA’s third overall pick started the year and hasn’t looked back. Tatum is hitting more than half of his three-pointers after knocking down just 34 percent of his triples at Duke last year. Surely there’s a rookie wall coming for him, but who’s to say that he won’t plough throw that, too?

Cousins is on pace to become the ninth player 6’11 or taller to average more than five assists per game. Only two active players have done it: Giannis Antetokounmpo last year and Joakim Noah in his bizarre near-MVP 2013-14 season.

The lineup is Yogi Ferrell, J.J. Barea, Devin Harris, Dirk Nowitzki, and Dwight Powell. They’ve played 80 minutes together across 12 games, which is a lot for a non-starting lineup. They’re blitzing teams with a net rating of 51.0, almost double the next lineup with at least 50 minutes played.

You’re probably looking at me for a logical, rational reason for this. I don’t have one. This is preposterously good over a longer sample size than anyone would have imagined. Dirk Nowitzki has been torching teams behind the arc and J.J. Barea is running pick-and-rolls as well as he ever has in his life. Still!

Ball has played 23 games, and in 19 of them, he has taken more field goal attempts than points actually scored. No wonder he’s shooting 31.3 percent from the floor and 25 percent from deep. He has also only hit half of his free throws, going 16 of 32 from the line.

For reference, Kevin Durant played 81 games during the 2013-14 season and scored more points than shots taken in all 81 games.

During the 2012-13 season, 86.4 percent of Shane Battier’s points came from made three-pointers. As far as I can tell, that’s a league record, at least for players who averaged more than 15 minutes per game and played more than 20 games.

This season, Ellington is coming for his crown. He has attempted 151 shots in Miami, and 136 of them have been three-point attempts.

He’s a couple percentage points behind Battier’s record, but this is really like an NBA version of Max Hooper.