Two-week update time.
Kobe Bufkin still hasn’t played due to that shoulder sublexation, but he’s been upgraded from “out” to “doubtful” on recent injury reports. Maybe soon?
Jett Howard’s flirtation with the rotation appears to be short-lived. He has consistently been getting into games (played in all 7 Magic games in the past 2 weeks), but averaged around 6.5 minutes - given that half of these had 20+ point margins, there’s a healthy amount of garbage time here. For now, most of the minutes Howard was getting two weeks ago are going to Tristan Da Silva and Anthony Black. To the positive: 43.4% from the floor, 46.7% from three. To the negative: 1 rebound and 2 assists total in these 7 games. This whole thing sounds familiar!
Mark Williams still isn’t back, but the Hornets have decided to forget centers and start Grant Williams (6’6") at the spot. Simultaneously, they’ve lifted about 12-15 minutes off of the ancient Taj Gibson, and granted those to Moussa Diabate, who has played 19.5 minutes per game in the past two weeks, peaking at nearly 24 per game in his last 5 games. His best performance was a 12/14 with three blocks and a steal in a one point win in the NBA Cup game vs Milwaukee - a game in which he personally rebounded over 40% of the Hornets’ misses when he was on the floor, on his way 10 offensive rebounds. Rebounding, specifically offensive, remains his strongest asset (9.9 boards in his 19 minutes, 3.7 offensive in this stretch), and form the basis of his offense. He also blocked 10 shots in these 7 games, after blocking 2 in his first 6 games. He rebounds, on the season, nearly 20% of his team’s misses - this is a better rate than the entirety of Milwaukee Bucks, and a hair below five other entire teams. The average team in the NBA rebounds 25% of their misses. My point is that there is one serious skill here - the question is if he can mitigate his weaknesses in other areas enough to let this one shine. Starting to block some shots may be a sign of that? I’m interested here now!
We noted in the Jett section, that Orlando has not been playing many competitive games (more on that when we get to the Wagner brothers), which has afforded Caleb Houstan the opportunity to play in 5 of their 7 contests, totalling 21 minutes in these games. He’s still just a shooter (he did dwarf Jett’s rebounding with FOUR rebounds in this span) but went 0/6 from the floor/from three (all his shots were threes). He seems to be behind Jett’s “next guy after the rotation spot”. I’m not sure how much more time we have in the league here.
The Orlando Magic lost narrowly to the Bulls (by three) the night Paolo Banchero was hurt after playing 12 minutes, and lost their next four games by over 14/game, falling to 3-6 as the team really struggled to find an offensive theory without him, and Franz seemed unable to pick that up in a way that helped either himself (his efficiency really dropped), or his teammates. Well…the Magic then won their next 5 games, by an average of 19 points, and Franz, Franz has been cooking. He’s scoring 27.4 points in the 7 games over the past 2 weeks, averaging 5.5 assists and grabbing over 6 boards. He’s taking over 22 shots per game in the 5 game win streak and 7.5 threes in that span (initially, when Paolo went out, his attempts here had fallen to under two per game, leading me to wonder if he could find three point attempts without Paolo to dime him up). Franz is shooting 46% from the floor in this span, and 37% from three, and taking over 6 free throws per game. His assist rate sits at 30% right now to a turnover rate of under 10%. Obviously, this is extremely encouraging!
Jordan Poole continues to play cromulent professional basketball (a significant improvement from last year, when he was arguably the league’s silliest player), albeit in a pretty useless context (the 24/25 Washington Wizards), scoring 22 ppg, including 42 points in a 9 points loss to the lowly Spurs. He’s shooting 46% from the floor, 40% from three, and averaging 4 assists. That’s all pretty solid (take a look at his floor mates shooting for a relatively simple explanation of his low assist total). He did turn the ball over 23 times in the past 7 games compared to 28 assists, a bit of a reversion to bad habits, but this team’s shooting is so messed up (his most common floormates included a 40.2% eFG center, and a 52% eFG shooting guard) that it’s sort of hard to figure out what exactly he SHOULD be doing.
Mo Wagner is still doing Mo Wagner stuff. He’s playing a tick under 20 mpg in the past two weeks, scoring 14 ppg, and grabbing 4 boards. He is starting to shoot more threes (half his season total comes in the past 4 games - 7/17 (41%) there), but he’s never been that great a shooter as a pro. His true shooting is still up his customary 66%-ish, continuing his few year run now of relentlessly efficient pretty high-volume play (driven, now, by a 0.500 free throw rate). FUN FACT: when the Wagners share the floor together (121 minutes) they outscore the opponenet by 16 points per 100 possessions.
Caris Levert missed a game at the start of this span, but scored 11.6 ppg and handed out 4.6 assists per game in under 27 mpg. He’s shooting 41% from three, and 45% for the season…numbers I generally wouldn’t expect to hold, but he’s a pretty boom or bust player (scoring 22 points on 10 shots between 2 games where he scorred 11 on 13 shots combined is pretty typical Caris), and seems to have an iron grip on the third guard role, spending basically all his time paired with either Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell (but not both). Oddly, when one of those guys can’t go, they don’t elevate Levert, but rather start Ty Jerome. The Cavs are off to the best start in the league, so hopefully Caris gets some high leverage opportunities later in the season.
Tim Hardaway missed the last three Pistons games with a head injury, but in the 5 preceding that since our past update continued to shoot well - making almost 41% of his threes, scoring 12 points per game. After a season in Dallas that contained a really hot start (56% TS pre-ASG) and a really cold finish (48% post-ASG), it’s good to see him hot again.
It would appear that Duncan Robinson’s usage patterns are starting to approximate last year a bit more - handing out 17 assists in their last 7 games after handing out 2 in their first 4 games. The boom in two point attempts hasn’t really translated with that, but NBA.com’s tracking data shows that his ball-screen handler volume has crept from “none at all” to “a few times a game” in the past 2 weeks. The other good news is that he’s making shots after a difficult start - 46% in these 7 games, hoisting over 7 attempts in a little over 22 minutes. The cause in both his minutes jump and his play-making usage is that the Heat are missing one of their primary offensive engines (last year, Herro, this year, Butler), but good to see him getting a lot of threes up and making them, he’s now a hair under 39% from 3 for the year.
Overall, I think this has been one of the best 2 week spans for our guys I can recall over the past few years - other than two Orland three-and-zzzz shooters we’re doing good!
