Would not have guessed Derozan or Allen being where they are
I'd say Chicago was stuffing the ballot but Vucevic didn't get many votes.
He's the best or 2nd best player on the best team in the East. Shooting a career high .362 from 3, too. DeRozan's TS% has been pretty good the last 2+ seasons too.
.603, .591, and .584. I guess one could say he's "declining" but his career high before that was .555 and his career TS is .547. Even before the last 2+, I was a fan. I'm in the HRB camp that there's no way teams are actually worse with him on the court than off.
Chicago in some ways feels like the anti Boston. The team has average to above average passers at every position. They also lead the league in 3p% at .385, but are dead last in 3PA and 3PA/G. They are 3rd in FG%, 18th in FGA/G. 16th in FTA, 16th in FTA/G, 3rd in FT%.
C's are 24th in 3p% at .333, 12th in 3PA, and 12 in 3PA/G. They are 23rd in FG%, 12th in FGA/G. They are 4th in FT%, 9th in FTA, and 9th in FTA/G.
Makes me wonder how much better the team would be if you replaced one of Smart or Schroder with Ball. I doubt they'd be as good as the Bulls but they'd probably be closer to the 5 seed than out of the play in game. I think a player like Ball would also have in impact on Tatum's passing, and probably Brown's. It would remove some of the pressure on them to create for others and provide space.
Maybe more controversial, I think the team would be better with Zach Lavine than Jaylen Brown too. Though, lately, I've met little resistance putting Brown into the LaVine/Ingram group, and little comparing him to CJ McCollum. I fear Jaylen is too robotic to improve his playmaking in a significant way and that while he can improve significantly on D, it limits him there too. Still, he should be an average to above average defender even with those limitations. Not sure why he isn't.
I've suggested (as well as others) that he's focused too much on scoring at the sacrifice of his overall game. Hopefully this summer, he'll focus more on ball handling and defensive drills. Play making too, if he's feeling frisky. I think he needs to get the ball handling down before he worries about playmaking, especially since his vision is lacking as well.
If Brown qualified, he'd be tied for 13th in the NBA at 3.2 TO/G. You would have to go all the way down to 39th to find a player who averages less than 3 assists per game besides Jaylen. That is Jonas, who averages 2.4 APG/2.1 TO. Only 2 players in the top 60 in TO/G have less assists than TO. Towns is averaging 3.5 APG/3.6 TO, and Gobert at 0.8 APG/1.8 TO. Brown is at 2.6 APG/3.2TO. Of the top 30 players in TO/G, only 4 are averaging less than 4.5 APG. Towns, Edwards (3.5 APG/3.3), Tyler Herro (3.9APG/2.8 TO) Jayson Tatum (3.7 APG/2.8 TO).
Jaylen has 63 assists/77 TO this year. In his 5 seasons prior to this, Brown only had 2 seasons where he had more assists than TO. In 18/19, he had 100 assists/99 TO. Last year, he had a career high 195 assists and a career high 158 TO. For his career, he now has 654 assists/651 TO. I'm guessing there are very few players who average 20+ points a game with more assists than TO over the span of 5+ seasons.
His last 10 games he has 29 assists and 43 TO. 1 game with 7 TO, 2 games with 6 TO, 1 game with 5 TO, 1 with 4. The other 5 he had 3. In his first 14 games this season, he had 34 assists, 33 TO.
On a side note: Draymond Green has a 31.5% TO% this year. In 2nd, Kyle Lowry at 20.8%. Wow. Last year, he was at 31.0%. Prior to the last 2 seasons, his TO% was 19.6. In 18/19, it was 26.8%, which was his 3rd worst. So the 3 worst years have come in the last 4 seasons. Prior to the last season +, his career TO% was 19.6%. Oddly enough, the Warriors lead the league in assists and are the 2nd worst in TO.