If you think the two finalists from last season — the Cavs and Warriors — are tops after three weeks, you’re slightly wrong. Cleveland, no thanks to LeBron sitting out in their defeat to Indiana, lost twice and won 10 times. Golden State sports a similar record. Impressive.
But not as remarkable as the Los Angeles Clippers. Is the team owned by billionaire Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO, for real? En route to their 11-2 record, they obliterated the Trailblazers, 111-80, humiliated the Spurs by 24 points and against the hapless Kings yesterday, the Sacramento squad was hopeless.
Wrapping up Week 4 of the season’s 82 weeks, it’s the Clippers at the No. 1 spot followed jointly by Kevin Durant’s team and Kyrie Irving’s group. Sitting in No. 4 is the Spurs, winner of their last five and sporting a 10-3 scorecard. Fifth spot is handed to the Atlanta Hawks (9-3). No surprises in the Top 5.
With the Clippers, you may ask, what’s different and better this season, other than the triumvirate excellence of Blake Griffin, Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan? The addition of Marreese Speights. Wrote Andrew Sharp and Rohan Nadkarni for SI.com: “Mo Buckets is a solid 98% responsible for the Clippers’ hot start. Who else can give you such a perfect combination of mean mugs and line-drive threes off the bench? … Seriously, I have no clue why Golden State let Speights walk, especially considering he signed for the minimum.”
As hot as the Clippers are, we know that they are less glittery and popular compared to the other Los Angeles squad. This belongs to the “over-performing” Lakers.
Who’d have expected that the Lakers would win three of their first four games, including a 20-point drubbing of their California neighbors, the Warriors? While they lost yesterday to the Spurs (mainly because D’Angelo Russell, with his 16.8 PPG average, was out with a sore knee), the Lakers are still carrying a surprising 7-win, 6-loss clip.
Kudos to our Filipino-American star Jordan Clarkson. The 6-foot-5 guard whose mom Annette is half-Filipina is averaging 15 points per game. Without Kobe Bryant in the spotlight, this youthful team has blossomed.
“We’ve kind of moved on,” Clarkson said of the post-Kobe era. “It’s almost like breaking up with your girlfriend. It’s kind of weird without them around and stuff. But it’s just us. We’re in our own space now. We’re creating something new.”
DEROZAN. Moving to the individual statistics, who have performed best?
For points, it’s the Raptors’ shooting guard DeMar DeRozan with 33.3 PPG, followed by Russell Westbrook (31.8) and Anthony Davis (30.5).
With DeRozan, what’s fascinating is that he’s accumulating points (including two 40-point games) minus the use of 3-pointers. Beyond the arc, he’s only made six shots in 11 games! So unlike last year’s top-scorer, Mr. Curry.
“I don’t shoot 3s because I choose not to shoot 3s,” DeRozan said. “If I shoot them, I know I can make them. I feel like every time I get the ball I can get to the rim or I can get fouled. That’s just what my mindset is.”
Paul Flannery of SBNation.com added: “DeRozan is one of my favorite players because he’s A) a really nice guy and B) he makes everyone so damn mad with his style of play. It’s like they take it personally when he pulls up from mid-range. How dare he!”
With Anthony Davis, while his Pelicans are the second-to-the-lowest team in the West (3-10), he’s tops with 2.91 blocks per game. And while you’d consider Russell Westbrook as a ball hogger and selfish I-can-do-it-all player, his 31.8 PPG average is complemented by a league second-best in assists, 9.8 APG. Not bad, especially after somebody said this of him earlier this week: “I am truly a fan of his. If you can ever say – being as we’re so many years apart – that when I watch him play, I see a lot of resemblance of his passion for the game of basketball, the way I played the game of basketball.”
The man complimenting Westbrook? Michael Jordan.
