Three (More) Things I Noticed on League Pass: DeMar DeRozan is a step-through king
I still don’t have my normal laptop back yet and thus still don’t have access to the editing program I use for Film Findings, but I can still download clips, so here’s an extra (free!) edition of Three Things I Noticed on League Pass, starring DeMar DeRozan, Josh Hart, and Keon Ellis.
(I should get my laptop back this weekend and get back to Film Findings next week.)
DeMar DeRozan, stepping through the trees
DeRozan is known first and foremost for his mid-range exploits. But one of my favorite things about his game is how he gets to one of those mid-range spots, then fakes and steps through defenders to get himself a layup or a floater — either with an actual step-through move or a Eurostep or slow-gather.
Nobody in the NBA has a better pump fake, and very few players have the body control and balance to fake in the air, speed up or slow down, and still finish at the rim and over or through contests like he does.
Josh Hart, adveturous passer
Hart did not have a single triple-double in the first 6.5 years of his career. He now has 4 of them in the last 6 weeks. He’s always been a good rebounder, so it’s not surprising to see him hit double-digits there, but he had just ONE career game with 10 or more assists before this recent stretch.
Some of the dimes are coming on pretty basic passes and dribble hand-offs and whatnot, but he’s also becoming more and more adventurous.
Unsurprisingly given New York’s injury absences and his own ridiculous minute load, Hart’s assists per game average has spiked considerably of late. (He’s at 5.8 per game since entering the starting lineup upon Julius Randle and OG Anunoby’s injuries. He was at 2.7 before that.) But all of his playmaking numbers are also up across the board on a per-possession basis — and by a lot.
And the numbers are all up despite the fact that his average pass has come with defenders closely guarding both Hart and the man receiving the pass much more closely than they were previously.
In other words, the more adventurous nature of his passing shows up not just on the film, but in the data. It’s really happening, and perhaps at an even higher level than it at first seems.
Keon Ellis, defensive playmaker
This guys needs to be on the floor more often. He is a rare defensive playmaker, getting his hands on the ball all the damn time.
There are 324 players who have played at least 500 minutes this season, and only 13 of them are averaging more than Ellis’ 3.7 deflections per 36 minutes. If he qualified for leaderboards, he’d also be one of only five players with steal and block rates of 2.5% or better. (The others: Matisse Thybulle, Alex Caruso, Andre Drummond, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Pretty good list!)
And here's the complete list of players to hit those steal and block rates during their rookie season: Tari Eason, Herb Jones, Thybulle, Nerlens Noel, Andrei Kirilenko, Stromile Swift, and someone named Carey Scurry, who apparently played a couple seasons for the Jazz (and four games for the Knicks?!?!) before I was born. Again, pretty rare stuff.
Ellis is simply a great find for the Kings. He’s started the past couple games in Keegan Murray and then Kevin Huerter’s absence, and I like the way he fits with that group enough that I wouldn’t mind seeing him take Huerter or Harrison Barnes’ spot when everyone is healthy, just to see how it works.