Dissecting 5 NBA Breakouts

Everyone loves a breakout! Except jail wardens, but who likes jail wardens?

The NBA season is still incredibly young, which means a whole host of pleasant surprises. The Chicago Bulls are 6-1 and leading the Eastern Conference, the Rockets have the best offense in league history, and the Pelicans even won a game. Does anyone think these will stand the test of time? Absolutely not, chances are they’ll be ruminated on, many months from now, like the works of Ozymandias. However, while the sands of time will sweep away many of these early-season joys, some are built to last.

The most fun early-season breakouts are not frisky teams on a hot streak, but players who have unlocked a new level. Due to the sample size, many of these breakouts are what we call “flukes.” Even the worst players in the league can get hot for two weeks and look like real contributors. However, sometimes a hot two weeks turns into a month, and then a year, and finally a career. These are five players who have had hot starts, and whether they can make it last.

Keyonte George: Utah Jazz

The Utah Jazz are one of those said frisky teams playing above their level, but that’s largely a product of Keyonte George leveling up. The Jazz entered the season with the solid frontcourt foundation of **Walker Kessler and Lauri Markkanen, but one of the least settled and worst backcourts in the league. It has only been seven games, but George has singlehandedly elevated their backcourt to respectability. While this is fantastic for the Jazz, it also means their surprising competence hinges, almost exclusively, on George maintaining this level.

(*Stats as of Nov. 5 & **After writing this, it was announced that Kessler will miss the remainder of the season following surgery to repair his left shoulder labrum)

Pick a *stat, and George has probably never been better. He’s averaging career-highs in points (23.1), assists (8.1), free throw attempts (9.6), and steals per game (1.0) on a career-best effective field goal percentage (49%). What makes this so wild, and potentially sustainable, is that he has done this while shooting a career-worst 26.8% from three. Usually, when a player is enjoying a career-best stretch, you can go take a look at their 3-point efficiency and confidently proclaim, “That ain’t gonna last.” You can and should say that about George, just his will almost surely get better.

Now, I do think George’s work within the arc is going to regress. A big part of his excellence has been his ability to generate free throws, where he’s shooting a scorching 91%, and there’s just no reason to believe he can keep this up. First and foremost, look at the players around him on the free-throw attempts leaderboard.

These are all well-established offensive dynamos who are either front court players or the absolute best offensive guards in the league. On top of that, George is averaging by far the fewest 2-point attempts. Digging a bit deeper, he has only drawn 28 shooting fouls, including three and-ones, but has 67 free throw attempts. If we assume all of his fouls are on 2-point attempts, we’d expect him to have 53 free throw attempts. While being a nuisance in the bonus is what great players do, I think that should level off, especially because the foul rate is generally much higher at the beginning of the season. Throw in a sprinkling of he isn’t a true 90% free throw shooter, and suddenly George has lost a point or two per game. That’s not tragic, but it matters.

Next, 32% of George’s shots come three to ten feet from the basket, and he is shooting, I shit you not, 66.7%. Last season, among players who attempt over a quarter of their shots in the three to ten feet range, the best field goal percentage was Nikola Jokic’s 60.5%, with ten of the top eleven being centers. Even if George is the best guard in the league on shots in this range, that figure would still only be around 55%. Over his first two seasons, he shot 42.6% on shots in the floater range, and while it’s very possible he has improved there, I think 50% is an optimistically realistic figure to expect.

Currently, George is scoring 23 points per game on a true shooting percentage 5% above league average. Even with positive 3-point regression, I expect him to settle in the 18 to 20 points per game range on a true shooting percentage at or just below league average. When you factor in his improved passing and defense, that’s an incredible jump from what he showed in his first two seasons. George’s breakout is definitely real, but he is also riding a bit higher than his true level. Regardless, the Jazz have a solid lead guard to build around, which isn’t something they could say in the summer.

Josh Giddey: Chicago Bulls

Is it even fair to consider this Josh Giddey’s breakout? Over the final 25 games of last season, he averaged 20.2 points, 9.5 rebounds, and 8.1 assists per game on an effective field goal percentage (eFG%) of 56.4%. So while the 23.1 points, 10.0 rebounds, and 9.1 assists per game on an eFG% of 55.1% would all be full season bests, he has been roughly at this level for a while now. If you add it all up, over the past 32 games, Giddey is averaging 20.8 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 8.3 assists on an eFG% of 56.1%. So, is this a breakout? Well, maybe, probably, it’s complicated.

The big things driving Giddey’s spike in production are an increase in usage and excellent 3-point shooting. The usage part is simple. If you have the ball more, you’re probably going to score more points and generate more assists. Last season, over Giddey’s first 45 games, he had a 19.8% usage rate, but saw that figure grow to 24.6% over the final 25, and is now at 28.2% to start the season. This corresponds very tidily with his assist percentage, going from 32.2% to 34.4% and is now at 39.9%. Unsurprisingly, his increased offensive volume has seen his turnovers per game grow as well. He went from 2.8 per game to 3.1 and is at 3.6 this season. However, he has been able to keep his assist-to-turnover ratio in check, and he has actually improved it over the past 32 games from 2.4:1 to 2.7:1. With Giddey’s track record and prospect pedigree, I think the passing is real, and it gives his offensive performance a nice floor to fall back onto.

Now, the divisive part. I don’t know if you know this, but Josh Giddey hasn’t been a good 3-point shooter throughout his career. Over his first three seasons, he shot 31% from three on 4.1 attempts per 36 minutes. Then, last season, he shot 32.7% from three on 3.7 attempts per game. But that was just his first 45 games. To close the season, he shot 45.1% on 4.4 attempts per game, and he has continued that hot shooting into this season, converting 41.9% of his 4.4 attempts per game. Are 329 3-point attempts on 38.2% shooting enough to erase the past? No, but completely scoffing at his improved 3-point shooting would be just as foolish. 3-point shooting is something that generally improves throughout a player’s career, and Giddey has done just that. Every season of his career, he has improved his 3-point efficiency. It’s fair to question if he isn’t a 40% 3-point shooter, but that doesn’t make it fair to completely dismiss the improvements he has made. Players get better. Players have breakouts.

Within the arc, Giddey is getting to the rim and finishing (shot zero to three feet) at career best figures. He isn’t an elite finisher, but it gives his 2-point efficiency, which is only solid, a relatively stable foundation. He’s shooting a bit below his career norm on shots three to ten feet from the basket, which gives me even more confidence he can maintain his 52.3% shooting on twos. On top of that, he is generating the most free throws of his career, which only adds more stability to his scoring output.

All told, I think it’s safe to say this is who Josh Giddey is, just with some 3-point shooting regression baked in. What does that look like? Probably 19.5 points, 8.5 rebounds, and 8.0 assists per game with a totally acceptable turnover rate and a slightly below league average true shooting percentage. That’s a player who will win you your fantasy league, and also a bunch of games.

Mark Williams: Phoenix Suns

For some reason, Mark Williams has never been a good defensive player. At 7’0 with a 9’9 standing reach, you kind of have to be trying to be bad on defense. However, that was the old Mark Williams. In 174 minutes, the Phoenix Suns have a defensive rating of 107.3 with Williams on the court and held opponents to 49.1% shooting on twos. In the 215 minutes he has been on the bench, the Suns have been gashed for a defensive rating of 125.8 and 58.7% shooting on twos. I’m no math genius, but my mathing tells me, “Play more Mark Williams!”

Making a mountain out of under 200 minutes of defensive data is what those annoying stan accounts do. All of that, “I thought you said Ja couldn’t defend?” nonsense. However, Williams has a few things going for him. First, and I cannot stress this enough, he is too big to fail. Basketball is a simple game. Get orb in cylinder ten feet in sky. Naturally, man who is closest to cylinder in sky, should be good at stopping orb. And guess what? This season, Williams is finally leveraging his mammoth size to great effect.

For a seven-footer, Williams entered the season with a truly pitiful track record, but has been Rudy Gobertish to start the season. Now, he needs to contest more shots, but the fact that he is at least impacting shooters around the rim is a fantastic start, and part of his low defended field goal attempt figure appears to be a product of his presence.

There’s an old Paolo Maldini quote that remains undefeated. The legendary AC Milan defender once said, probably in Italian, “If I have to make a tackle, then I’ve already made a mistake.” Basketball isn’t soccer, but I think the idea remains pertinent. The best defenders don’t just contest or block shots; they prevent them in the first place. It’s early, but with Williams on the court, the Suns are allowing 21% of opponent shots at the rim, but that figure jumps to 32.8% without him. When you factor in the Suns’ 60% at rim opponent field goal percentage with Williams, and their 74.6% without him, it’s pretty easy to see just how big a defensive impact he has had.

On offense, Williams is doing what he always has. He grabs a bunch of offensive rebounds, finishes at the rim, and screens. He has always been good at the big man offense stuff, and despite his finishing right at the basket being down, I expect that to trend toward up as the season goes on. If the defensive growth is real, that would be huge for Williams and the Suns. When all you can do are the basic center actions on offense, you need to bring center-level defense to be a starting caliber player, and right now, Williams is bringing center-level defense. I’ll need 20 more games before I’m fully convinced, but I’m tentatively optimistic that he has finally turned the corner.

Alex Sarr: Washington Wizards

The Washington Wizards are still an abject disaster on the basketball court, but they’re at least an interesting disaster, and Alex Sarr’s development is cause for excitement. Sarr was frankly pitiful as a rookie. He was disasterously inefficient in every shooting metric imaginable. The only productive thing he did was shoot a positionally high rate of 3-pointers, but when you hit 30.8% of them, maybe you should take fewer. On defense, he contested a bunch of shots, but did little to prevent opponents from scoring. The only positive takeaway from his rookie season was that he was doing the things you want, just so poorly that it didn’t matter.

Well, well, well, what a difference a summer makes. Not that I’ve seen this show because I’m not a 12-year-old girl, but there is apparently a show called The Summer I Turned Pretty, or something of that ilk, that is objectively unfeminist but masquerades as female empowerment, and I guess Sarr had his NBA equivalent– The Summer I Learned to Hoop. The best way to illustrate his offensive growth is to just show you his league-adjusted shooting metrics.

(100 is league average; the difference above or below represents one percentage point relative to league average)

Sarr went from saying, “I couldn’t hit that,” to saying, “I hit that.” When a player makes a leap like this, it’s fair to be skeptical, and I am very confident he won’t continue to shoot 45.5% from three, but I also think he has become a wildly more efficient scorer. First, his free throw shooting has gone from awful (67.9%) to solid (80%). Free throw shooting doesn’t always indicate future growth as a shooter, but it’s a good proxy for mechanical consistency, and mechanical consistency is a good proxy for hitting your shots. Second, his improvements within the arc have basically come across the board. And third, his shot chart has improved dramatically.

He’s taking far more shots near the basket, hitting them with far greater frequency, and crucially, there’s nothing that screams serious regression. I don’t expect Sarr to continue scoring 19 points per game this efficiently, but he has done enough already that I think we can start to erase any concerns we had from his rookie season.

While scoring captures people’s attention, Sarr’s passing has also improved dramatically. His assist percentage has jumped from 13.9% to 23.9%, a figure that ranks 39th league wide and third among centers. On a per minute basis, there just aren’t many centers who pass this well, and it suggests he could one day be an offensive hub.

Defensively, Sarr is making the exact strides you want to see. Last season, he led the league in defended field goal attempts per game within six feet of the basket with 8.7. Unfortunately, he only held opponents to a 61.9% field goal percentage. This season, he’s again leading the league in defended field goal attempts within six feet at 11.6, but he’s holding opponents to 58.1% shooting this time around. The Wizards are so inept on defense that Sarr isn’t going to suddenly start challenging Victor Wembanyama for Defensive Player of the Year, but he is already a plus on that end.

Saying the second overall pick in their second season is having a breakout feels like cheating. They’re supposed to do this. However, Sarr’s rookie season, from a production standpoint, was so bad that he was a slow start away from being called the B-word– a bust. That’s all been put to bed, and now we can fire up the re-drafts where he goes first overall.

Ryan Rollins: Milwaukee Bucks

The Bucks have had a surprisingly positive start to the season, and most of the credit should go to Ryan Rollins. Obviously, Giannis Antetokounmpo playing at an All-Time level is why they’re winning games, but the vibes are right because Rollins is playing at a level where the Giannis trade questions can be held at bay. His 16.3 points, 5.6 assists, and 1.9 steals per game on 62% true shooting have been just enough support for Giannis to push them across the line.

When analyzing Rollins, there just isn’t a lot of data. He was a second-round pick, spent time in the G-League, and before this season, he had played 960 minutes across 81 games and three seasons. Of the little bit of data we do have, the good news is that Rollins isn’t just riding hot 3-point shooting. He’s at 38.5% this season, but converted 41.4% in his prior action. He’s only at 172 career 3-point attempts, but from what we’ve seen, combined with career 81.4% free throw shooting, it’s fair to call his performance stable.

Within the arc, Rollins is probably riding a bit above his level. He’s converting 86.2% of his shots zero to three feet from the basket and 53.8% from three to ten feet. I just find it exceedingly unlikely that Rollins was marooned in the G-League and at the end of benches despite being a solid 3-point shooter and elite finisher. However, Rollins is converting 60.3% of his twos, so even with some regression, he still should be able to be at or above league average efficiency from the field.

Thus far, he has shown himself to be a solid distributor. His passing volume isn’t particularly high, but he has kept his assist-to-turnover ratio at around 2:1, which is acceptable for his creation load. Defensively, Rollins has been solid and is a significant upgrade on what Damian Lillard provided the Bucks. I think some people are probably overrating his defense a tad because of the whiplash, but he is no worse than average on defense.

The Bucks didn’t unearth an All-Star in Rollins, but they did find a stable two-way point guard. He’s young enough that you should expect him to improve down the line, but I think his first two weeks are representative of his ceiling, not his baseline. For a player who was on the periphery of the league so recently, this is a massive breakout, but in terms of the Bucks’ playoff aspirations, it will probably amount to little.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.