NBA Column: Which early season narratives will hold up?

Over a single offseason, NBA fans manage to convince themselves of a number of things. They make themselves believe that the free agent they missed out on is overrated and overpaid. They talk themselves into the idea that their second-round pick is the next big superstar. Perhaps most impressively, they tell themselves that baseball is actually fun to watch.

The point is, NBA fans often believe what they want to believe. That’s evident over the course of an offseason, and it’s evident in the first few weeks of a new season. It’s only been about two weeks since the first game tipped off, and there’s already narratives floating around based on that ridiculously small sample size. It’s time to look at some of those narratives and trends and try to predict which ones are overreactions and which ones (if any) will turn out to be true.

Narrative One: The Warriors made the wrong decision signing Kevin Durant

This one has cooled down a lot recently once Golden State started winning again, but it definitely existed after an opening night defeat to the San Antonio Spurs and a dispiriting loss to a young and raw Los Angeles Lakers team. People were concerned that they gave up too much depth, rebounding and rim protection, leaving themselves with flaws that even Kevin Durant couldn’t make up for.

The fact is that the Warriors should be just fine. It’s true that they aren’t as deep as they were last year and that they won’t have the same level of at-the-rim defense or rebounding, but it shouldn’t matter too much. A team with pieces like Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Durant and Andre Iguodala shouldn’t have too much of a problem forming a good defense, even if Zaza Pachulia isn’t the same presence at the rim that Andrew Bogut was. And when the offense finishes gelling together, it should be nearly impossible to stop. We caught a glimpse of that on Wednesday night when Curry, Thompson, Durant and Green all hit four three-pointers in a win against the Dallas Mavericks.

Verdict: False

Narrative Two: DeMar DeRozan is proving you don’t need to shoot threes to be successful

For several years now, the conventional wisdom has been that you need to shoot and make threes at a high rate to be successful in the NBA. The star Raptors guard is bucking that trend, leading the league in scoring at 34.1 points per game despite shooting a ridiculously low 16.7 percent on long-distance shots.

Long two-pointers remain the worst shot in basketball, but DeRozan hits them at an absurdly efficient rate, and it’s obviously been enough for him to overcome his lack of three-point range. It’s unlikely that his scoring average will remain that high; across his first seven years he never averaged above 23.5 points, and no one has hit that 34-point average since Kobe Bryant averaged 35.4 points in 2005-06. He could especially struggle in the playoffs, when defenses get tighter and spacing is even harder to come by. Still, as long as he continues to score efficiently on midrange shots, he’ll be okay. Stepping out and nailing threes might be nice, but he’s shown that he can get by without them.

Verdict: True, so far

 Narrative Three: Don’t worry about the Clippers, they won’t matter in the postseason

Throughout most of their history, the Los Angeles Clippers haven’t been good at basketball. Even during their recent resurgence with Blake Griffin and Chris Paul, they’ve earned the scorn of fans due to their inability to make it out of the second round. Both Griffin and Paul have been slapped with the dreaded “choker” label. So, despite their 6-1 start, plenty of people have made the decision to ignore the Clippers and write them off.

That’s not fair to either player, or the team as a whole. Paul is one of the greatest point guards to ever play in the NBA, and he’s still great at age 31. At 27, Griffin is just entering his prime as one of the league’s most versatile and talented big men; he’s not as incredible as younger guys like Karl Anthony-Towns or Anthony Davis, but he’s able to score in a variety of ways, he rebounds at a high rate, he works on defense and he’s a great passer for his position. They’re flanked by one of the league’s best rebounders and shot blockers in DeAndre Jordan and a great shooter and solid all-around guard in JJ Redick. The bench mob consists of two talented scorers in Marreese Speights and Jamal Crawford. The immortal Austin Rivers is somehow an important (and not bad, don’t @ me) player.

The point is, the Clippers should be fine. Their history of early playoff exists shouldn’t be cause for concern, simply because they probably don’t mean anything moving forward. Remember – it was only five or six years ago that people were saying LeBron James was too mentally weak to win a title.

Verdict: False

There’s plenty of narratives swirling around in the early days of the season. Some will continue throughout the year and onwards. Some will prove true, some will fade away. The most important thing is to remember that it never helps to get caught up in narratives so quickly.

Edited by David Bradford

Featured image by Michael Tipton

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