* First of all remember that while 11 games is enough to make some reasonable claims about what has happened thus far, it's not nearly enough to accurately predict what will happen the rest of the season. Players regularly have 15-game stretches that are far better or far worse than their norms.
* Out of the players who are in the regular rotation (sorry Jeremy and DeMarre), the team has only four players who have performed above average to date: Millsap, Hayward, Marvin, and Favors.
* Al currently leads the NBA in total rebounds (and is 4th per game) ... when a stat accused of overvaluing rebounds lists Al as slightly below average right now, that's indicative of a guy who has performed below expectations.
* Randy Foye has been quite bad so far. We don't notice because of a couple of good scoring nights (Yay Points!). But overall, yikes — and Hollinger agrees (11.3 PER). Basically Randy has done well at spot-up 3's and FT's. He is really bad at 2's, rarely rebounds, rarely gets to the line, gets few assists, all while fouling a ton ... basically he does nothing well except shoot spot-up 3's and hit FT's. The most concerning thing to me is that this performance falls into the range of his career. Even more concerning than this, he has actually played more than Derrick Favors. Which is important because ...
* Derrick Favors has been the most productive player yet ranks 8th in minutes played. Teams will never reach their potential unless its most productive players play the most minutes. Either other bigs need to really step up or Favors needs to take their spot.
* Our PG situation is really bad. We'll get to Mo in a bit, but our backup PG's have been primarily Tinsley with a bit of Foye. Egads. No wonder our offense has rarely had any flow.
* Mo has been slightly below average (like Foye, this is largely unnoticed because of a couple of noticeable hot spells). This is also, unfortunately, consistent with his career norms.
* Kanter has been struggling a lot. This surprises nobody. I would be going crazy with his playing time if he was performing like he was last year. But he hasn't yet. So I am very happy with his playing time ... enough to work through problems and improve if he's got it in him, but at the bottom of the regular rotation.
* DeMarre (in limited time) has been good. A huge chunk of this is shooting 12% higher than his career average. So I wouldn't bet my house that it will last. At the same time, hopefully he can continue to be a decent NBA player... something I have regularly questioned and would love to eat crow about.
