NBA TRENDS

One of the ongoing trends in the NBA has been toward "small ball" lineups that feature four perimeter players and a single big man, and judging by this years action it appears this NBA trend has gained steam.

The Phoenix Suns pioneered the approach two years ago under coach Mike D'Antoni, and their success has spawned countless imitators. Helping this NBA trend along, of course, have been the new rules restricting defensive contact on the perimeter, shifting the balance of the game from big plodders like Shaquille O'Neal and Tim Duncan to quick guards like Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant.

Another team-level trend I pay close attention to are blowouts. Win-loss records can be hugely misleading at this time of year, but one-sided laughers are a much stronger indication of quality.

That's why fans of last year's finalists should be a bit concerned. Miami lost its opener by an astounding 42 points to Chicago, while Houston blitzed the Mavs by 31 over the weekend. This doesn't necessarily doom the two clubs to a losing season — Miami lost a game by 36 last year and still won the title — but with the one exception, neither team lost a game by more than 24 points all of last season. For both to get hammered so badly in the season's first week is troubling.

Finally, there are NBA trends at the league-wide level. This has been perhaps the most important development of the season, and the least observed one: The pace is much faster this year. We use a measure called "Pace Factor" to track how many possessions each team uses in a 48-minute game.

Last year, the average was 92.94; this year it's all the way up to 95.83. The change may be more severe than it looks, because normally pace slowly increases as the year wears on. If that happens this year, we could be looking at an increase of 5% or more in game pace from a year ago.

That has important implications if it holds up. Obviously, teams like Denver and Phoenix that are more comfortable at a frenetic pace would appear to have an advantage. Additionally, the change appears to go hand in hand with the NBA trend toward smaller lineups I mentioned earlier — if the game is faster, then there's all the more reason to go smaller, which in turns make the game faster yet. It's a vicious cycle.

So while the big lesson is that the game appears to have quickened substantially, the biggest lesson remains that it's still early. So keep an eye on this and other developing NBA trends.

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Today's NBA Trends