Basketball is not a sport, it's a way of life.

A mo' than so-so Sochan, Nick the not so quick banging to stick, Boston is now Payton's place, and more...

Quick Hits

• For any of you that have followed me here for a significant period of time or suffered me personally for even longer, you know how deep my love for Klay runs. With that undying affinity in tow, the hot start he got out to this season, making six threes in his debut with Dallas and connecting on 15 of 33 in his first three games, warmed my heart. Even if the tint of blue is now askew, I love watching Klay play with joy again.

  While the shooting has come back down to earth a bit following a combined 4-for-16 from deep over his last two games, in Dallas’ matchup against in-state rival Houston on Thursday, Klay, who was playing in his 798^th career game, became just the sixth player in NBA history to make 2,500 career threes, and the second fastest to do so since his now-estranged Splash Brother Steph accomplished it in warp speed at just 702 games. Klay now joins James Harden, Reggie Miller, Steph, Damian Lillard, and Ray Allen as the only shooters to eclipse the 2,500 mark for threes in their careers. Amazingly, if LeBron, who currently sits at 2,425 threes, maintains his pace of 2.5 made per game this season, he will become the seventh member of this club sometime around early to mid-January. Quite an accomplishment for a player who was not known for his perimeter shooting prowess for much of his career.

• It should come as no surprise that the Celtics, a team setting an all-time pace in threes attempted per game at  50.3 per contest—six more than the second-place Hornets—have multiple players in the top ten for made threes, still, the fact that Boston’s prolific long-range attack is being led by Payton Pritchard’s 29 makes does feel a bit noteworthy. Here’s a look at the NBA’s leaders in threes made as of this morning:

  
  1.        Anthony Edwards – 32 (43.2%)
  2.        Buddy Hield – 30 (51.7%)
  3.        LaMelo Ball – 30 (40.5%)
  4.        Payton Pritchard – 29 (43.9%)
  5.        Jayson Tatum – 27 (34.2%)
  6.        Derrick White – 25 (41.0%)
  7.        Jalen Green – 23 (39.0%)
  8.        Six players tied – 22

  Pritchard’s game has always been predicated on his ability to knock down outside shots—62.6% of his career field goal attempts are from distance—but the sizzling start Pritchard has gotten off to this season has been something to watch. He’s already hit five or more threes four times in Boston’s first seven games, a feat he only accomplished seven times in 82 appearances last year. Pritchard is letting it fly with impunity this year, as his 4.2 made threes on 9.4 attempts per game is quite a jump from the 1.8 on 4.7 last season. Those types of leaps early in the year typically indicate that regression to the mean is nigh. Still, in a system perfectly suited to his skillset, with a madman for a coach who will sit him down if he doesn’t get them up, don’t be surprised if Pritchard, who made 147 threes last year, challenges Wayne Ellington’s record of 218 threes made in a season (’18 w/ MIA) by a bench player.

• While far too many people were overly high on Philadelphia coming into this season given the injury history of the team’s two best players, I had a couple major concerns directly related to how healthy Joel Embiid and Paul George would prove to be during the regular season: Tyrese Maxey’s workload and the reserve players' ability to step up and produce.

  Maxey was second in the league in minutes last year at 37.5 per game, trailing DeMar DeRozan by just 0.3 minutes, while also covering the most distance per game at 15,355.2 feet—or basically three miles every time he took the court. This season, with Embiid and George yet to play in a game, Maxey's workload has increased even more, as he leads the league at 41.0 minutes per game while covering an astonishing 17,160.8 feet per contest—1,450 feet more than Keegan Murray, who is second at 15,710.2. All of this while Maxey, who increased his field goal attempts per game last season over the year prior from 15.2 to 20.3, is now taking an astronomical, and league leading, 26.0 shots per game.

  Of course, all this additional workload is because the 1-4 Sixers just don’t have anyone else who can step up and compensate for what the team loses in the absence of Embiid and George. Philadelphia is currently 26^th in the league in scoring at 107.2 per game (Utah is dead last with a putrid 99.8), with Kelly Oubre Jr. (18.0) as the only player besides Maxey averaging more than 12. Caleb Martin joins the duo as the only other player on the roster even averaging double figures. Not coincidentally, Philadelphia is also 28^th in team field goal percentage, with only KJ Martin (61.5%) and Kyle Lowry (56.5%) shooting better than 47% from the floor.

  While Joel Embiid is providing plenty of off-court distractions from Philadelphia's on-court struggles, I hope people are paying attention to the ways in which Tyrese Maxey is being overextended early on, as this seems like a recipe for injury disaster for a team that desperately needs its stars healthy to compete.

---

Ah, So(Chan)!

Well, it looks like it’s already time for an early mea culpa—I apologize Jeremy Sochan, apparently, I was somehow unfamiliar with your game. For those not watching San Antonio, the Spurs’ third-year *insert position here* player has jumped out to a surprising start, averaging 17.3 points, 8.5 boards, and 3.3 assists—each good for second on the team—on a very encouraging 50.6% from the field, adding a steal per game to boot through San Antonio’s 3-3 start. This is a stark contrast to last season’s beginning, when Sochan, who was famously fumbling through an ill-conceived attempt to play him at point, was averaging just 8.8 points, 5.5 boards, 5.2 assists and 40.4% from the floor.

Much of Sochan’s early improvement is directly correlated with Pop’s decision to return the former Baylor product to a more natural role as a versatile forward. After playing 99% of his minutes at one of the guard slots last season (per Cleaning the Glass), Sochan has played all his time at the forward slots this year, where he uses his quickness, strength, and high IQ to compensate for a jump shot that is bad enough to register as the 8^th deadly sin—for his career, Sochan is just a 34.5% shooter on catch-and-shoots, despite nearly 20% of his career attempts being taken wide open.

This season, Sochan is operating in the paint more offensively than at any other time in his career, with 53.0% of his shots coming within three feet of the basket, after averaging just 33.6% of his attempts from there in his first two seasons. He has also cut his three-point attempts per game down from 3.1 last season to just 1.8 this year, which seems sensible considering he is just a 28.5% shooter from three for his career—again, mostly on space nullifying wide open looks. But the Spurs are also working more to get Sochan the ball in positions better suited to what he does best—finishing around the rim and playmaking for others.

While the Sochan-as-lead-guard experiment was an abject failure, you understand why Pop thought it could work, as Sochan is a smart player who understands how to utilize space. Although those skills clearly didn’t translate to point guard duties, Pop has put them to better use by allowing him to function out of the post or as a cutter off the ball, where he ranks third among forwards with 3.3 points per game off of cuts.

Sochan loves to patiently sit in pockets and wait for his man to attack the driver before making a cut to the rim to offer an easy dump off for his teammates. Look at the way he waits here to time his cut perfectly to offer an easy pass for Wemby.