Welcome to Hater Report: A breakdown of some of the players, teams and trends around the league that are really drawing your ire. Unless you are a pessimist, proceed with caution.
Paul George's early returns are terrible
The Sixers are a real mess. They lost again on Wednesday, this time to a Grizzlies team playing without its best player, and fell to 2-12. This is not Paul George's fault. Tyrese Maxey was injured. Joel Embiid played in four games and was a poor player in three of them. But George doesn't get off the hook here.
In seven games this season, George has only broken the 20-point mark once. He's shooting less than 40% overall and 27% from 3. Throw in a game where he shot 7 of 11 from distance Curtsy and his numbers are absolutely abysmal. On Wednesday, he scored two points on 1-of-6 shooting in 17 minutes. Oh yeah – he also hyperextended his knee and didn’t come back.
Nick Nurse said George was close to returning but the knee stiffened at the last second so perhaps it wasn't too serious. It's better not to do that, because the Sixers are in a serious hole and won't get out of it unless George starts producing at a level much closer to his maximum contract than what he is currently does.
Yes, there was some kind of inner understanding that George didn't have to be “the guy” when he signed with Philadelphia this summer, but had to make $212 million over the next four years when you turn 35 in March and it Also, shooting like Russell Westbrook is a bust. Plain and simple. Everyone understands that it's still early and George can certainly change the narrative of his season and the value of his contract overall, but until he does, this looks downright terrible.
KAT destroys its own brilliance
I played college baseball with a man who was affectionately known as “Even Steven” because he hit a home run and then gave the run back on an error in the next inning. It was all a lot of fun. The guy was a great hitter. But yes, there was some compromise between offense and defense built into his very talented equation.
With Karl Anthony citiesthe compromise is extreme. In fact, one could argue that he was the most valuable offensive player in the league while also qualifying as the least valuable or, in other words, most damaging defensive player.
The Knicks have the 22nd-ranked offense in the league, according to Cleaning the Glass, and perform four points worse per 100 possessions when Towns is on the floor. Additionally, against the Knicks, teams shoot 14% better at the rim when Towns is on the court than when he is out. This literally puts him in the bottom percentile of all defenders. It's tough stuff.
Towns will have to guard the centers far more often this season than last year, when he was named Defensive Player of the Year four times Rudy Gobert. It allows him to enjoy the offense as most opposing bigs are able to credibly defend his shooting ability and ability to get off the dribble, and when teams go small he punishes you in the post.
But defensively he has to work at the rim and can't get close to other strong shooters. The Knicks can and have tried to hide him from the least threatening offensive player, but that represents a huge liability OG Anunoby or Mikal Bridges to defend well above their weight class, and Towns isn't much of a helper in those scenarios either.
Maybe when Mitchell Robinson When the Knicks come back, they can mitigate some of that with two big lineups with Towns stretching the floor offensively and Mitchell protecting the rim defensively. But until then, Towns needs to raise his defensive level to at least a passable level.
warrior Free throw shooting
The Golden State Warriors are atop the Western Conference with a 10-3 record and a top-five ranking in offense and defense, so yes, in some ways I'm being petty when I point out that their free throw shooting has been terrible . But don't let the balance sheet fool you. This is not a team with much room for error, at least not against good teams, and if it continues like this it will absolutely do them harm as they post a 69.7% shooting percentage as a team out of the jersey, the worst mark in the league .
It has already burned them against them Hair clippers on Monday when they lost by three points and missed 10 free throws (9 of 19). Throw away Stephen Curry 94.3% clip and Buddy Hields 85.7%, and these percentages are brutal.
If 10 of your 12 rotation players are 72% or less from the line and six of them are under 63%, you have a problem. Golden State needs to fix this problem, and quickly.
