In this edition of Small Sample Size Theatre we’re going to look at one of the hottest topics in the NBA: the Raptors offense and their current record setting pace. Everybody seem to (finally) realize that the Raptors are a very talented team and capable of being an offensive powerhouse, but a lot of people are failing to realize just how good they’ve been over the last month and not understanding that this level of offensive play may not be 100% sustainable but it’s also not something that happens by chance. This Raptors team is elite, at least on the offensive end of the floor.
Tracking offensive rating throughout history can be a little dicey; the most precise statistics are compiled by the NBA, but those only go back to the 1996-97 season. The greatest historical resource is basketball-reference.com but because they rely on estimates for possessions their numbers are a little different than the NBA’s official numbers. Looking at the Raptors numbers for this season and comparable teams from the past paints a very clear picture though: you have to be elite to put up these numbers even for a short while. The only teams who have put up offensive numbers like this for a full season: Bird’s Celtics(1988), Magic’s Lakers(1987), Jordan’s Bulls(1992, 1996), Nash’s Suns(2010) and the Shaq & Penny Magic(1995). They all topped out at 115 and change according to Basketball Reference; the Raptors are currently sitting at 117.1 so their current pace is probably not sustainable but they have a fair amount of room to fall off and still rank among the all-time great offensive teams. It’s also worth noting that each of the teams mentioned won at least 54 games and they collectively won an average of 62; this bodes well for the Raptors present 58 win pace.
A Tale of Two Teams
It didn’t seem like this was the direction the season was heading when most of the Raptors stumbled out the gate. For the first 8 games of the season the Raptors were very up and down on the offensive end and struggling heavily from the perimeter. They couldn’t seem to get on the same page and struggled to get assists. It was hard to tell which team would show up: would they be the team that struggled to top 90 points against the Kings or the team that lit up the Thunder for 112? Were they they team that hit 24% of their threes against Miami or the team that hit 40% of their attempts against Washington? The smart money was on them being somewhere in between, but they’ve ended up racing past even the best of those early season performances on a nightly basis.
The difference between what they did to open the season and what they’ve been doing recently is huge:
Just how good is that 118.3? Not only does it easily eclipse any season in NBA history, it matches the best month that the D’Antoni-Nash Suns ever managed, and they’re regarded as one of the greatest offensive teams of all time.
What Caused the Turnaround?
A team doesn’t change course like this without reason, there are always catalysts that push the team in one direction or another. This is a perfect storm of sorts for the Raptors, who had two very important changes happen at just the right time: DeMar DeRozan turned facilitator and the Raptors outside shooters caught fire.
DeRozan deserves a lot of credit for how the team has performed on offense over the last 30 days. There were some very legitimate concerns about what would happen to the Raptors offense when DeRozan cooled off after his hot start, with him taking almost 25 shots per game during his hot start and not doing much in the way of facilitating relative to his overall usage rate. Since the historic scoring binge to open the season has ended he has become the de facto point guard the Raptors have needed him to be, with his shot attempts falling and his assists climbing:
If DeRozan doesn’t make this adjustment the Raptors are not nearly as good on the offensive end right now and the sustainability of their present level of play is largely dependent on how sustainable his present level of play is.
The other thing that facilitated this change was a sharp increase in the Raptors overall three point percentage, most notably Patrick Patterson and Kyle Lowry. It’s been more than just the end of their respective slumps, though. Every perimeter player on the Raptors is currently shooting significantly better than their career average from beyond the three point arc:
None of this is to say that that the Raptors are a mere flash in the pan. They were a top 5 offensive team in each of the last two seasons so while they are performing at an historically great and probably unsustainable level at the moment it hasn’t come out of nowhere and their offensive rating is not likely to fall off a cliff anytime in the near future.
What Comes Next?
Like DeRozan’s hot scoring to start the season this is probably not sustainable for the rest of the season – though if Lowry wants to prove me wrong with his “kind of like Steph Curry but significantly better” shooting I’ll be very pleased. The Raptors historic offensive run is made up of things that are somewhat outside of their control and things that they are certainly able to control. If they fall off and how far they fall off depends on how much of this run is the result of the former as opposed to the latter.
The thing the Raptors can’t really control is kind of obvious: it’s not likely that they entire team will continue to shoot significantly better than the totality of their careers to date for the rest of the season. I tried digging for a reason why they might be shooting so much better: more open shots, fewer shots off the dribble, more early shot clock looks, etc. and could not find any significant differences outside of the percentage of assisted baskets. The Raptors are, by and large, doing exactly what they’ve done for the past 2 seasons, just doing it better than they ever have before.
And that is what they can control. DeMar DeRozan can continue to facilitate on offense the way that he has over the past month. The team can continue to run crisp sets and occasionally throw in new wrinkles to keep teams off balance. They can take advantage of their depth and versatility by throwing out combinations of players that opponents are not expecting or prepared to deal with. What they are doing right now may not technically be sustainable in the sense that they will likely finish the season with an offensive rating lower than what they have at the moment but they will once again rank among the leagues elite offensive teams and will likely finish the season as the best Raptors team of all time yet again.
