NBA Big Man Barometer

[h=1]LeBron James embracing role at 4[/h][h=3]Look for Amar'e Stoudemire and Serge Ibaka to have big weeks[/h]
By Bradford Doolittle | Basketball Prospectus


All season, it's been tough to think of fresh blurbs to write about LeBron James, simply because you run out of superlatives, and there is never really any part of his game that merits criticism. He's good. He's the best. He's so remarkably consistent, you can set your watch by his nightly box score line. In this week's Barometer, we've finally got something unusual to observe about James, and it's got nothing to do with the fact that on Wednesday against Golden State, he became the youngest player to reach 20,000 points.

No, what's striking about James' week is this: He didn't qualify for the Barometer. With Miami going through a rough stretch and rebounding being the most obvious culprit in the slump, Erik Spoelstra has veered off a bit from his pace-and-space philosophy. Last week, we coded James for just 27 minutes as a power forward, leaving him three shy of qualifying for both this week's rankings and next week's projections. He spent 77 percent of his court time at small forward, the position at which he's starred for the past decade.

James still earns a coveted spot in the Barometer by maintaining his throne atop the season rankings. He's more than 500 minutes over the minimum for qualifying in that category, so he's a sure bet to maintain his status as the game's best "big man" -- for this season at least. As for the pace-and-space experiment, it'll be interesting to see what happens in the weeks leading up to the trade deadline. If Spoelstra determines that's he's got to have a center on the floor in most of his configurations, then lineups with James at 4 may become more the exception than the rule.

Details on how the Big Man Barometer is compiled and the true position system can be found here.

[h=3]Top 10 Big Man Performances[/h]Week of Jan. 9-15; players listed by winning percentage. Any player who played at least 30 minutes total at center or power forward last week is eligible for the rankings. Also included at the bottom are big man projections for next week.

[h=3]1. Kevin Durant | Oklahoma City Thunder (.856)[/h]
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Poor Kevin Durant was forced to play more out of position with Serge Ibaka out of the lineup. During four Thunder wins, Durant struggled his way to 35.5 points per game on 57 percent shooting.

Clearly he was overmatched. Durant is still at least a couple of years away from truly challenging James' title as the NBA's best player, but he may be ready to wrest the MVP award away from the King this season.
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[h=3]2. Andre Drummond | Detroit Pistons (.853)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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Before the season, it seemed like almost a foregone conclusion that New Orleans' Anthony Davis would win the rookie of the year award. Davis has been plenty good, but he has also missed a fair amount time because of injury. That's left him a little behind Portland's Damian Lillard, who has emerged as the revelation from this year's draft class.

As the Hornets rapidly improve as a team, Davis' resume keeps getting stronger, and it's going to be an excellent two-player race for the honor during the season's second half. What does all this have to do with Drummond? Well, in 19.7 minutes per game, Drummond has compiled the most WARP of any rookie in the league (4.47). He's more than a win better than Lillard and nearly two wins better than Davis.

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[h=3]3. Dwight Howard | Los Angeles Lakers (.754)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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Howard has been a beast since returning from injury as the Lakers embark on what they hope will be a season-saving stretch of success. Howard actually just logged one game during the range that we use for the weekly rankings, and he's lucky that we round the minutes up -- he played 29:47 in that game. Counting Wednesday's game, however, Howard has totaled 53 points and 30 rebounds in two games while hitting 23 of 29 from the floor.

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[h=3]4. Amir Johnson | Toronto Raptors (.751)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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The Raptors have been playing a lot better lately, especially at home. Johnson and Ed Davis have continued the good frontcourt chemistry they developed off Dwane Casey's bench now that they are both in the starting lineup. All of this is kind of bittersweet for Raptors fans. While it's nice to see the team win and it's especially nice to see Davis evolve into something more than a guy who dunks lob passes, the fact of the matter is that the team's foundation was supposed to be young veteran Andrea Bargnani and rookie center Jonas Valanciunas.

There is plenty of time for Valanciunas to develop into a franchise player, but the time for Bargnani to do the same has probably expired. Nevertheless, a future big man rotation of Valanciunas, Davis and Johnson isn't a bad place for a rebuilding team to begin.

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[h=3]5. Emeka Okafor | Washington Wizards (.711)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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The Wizards have made a habit of going on winning streaks after their season is irretrievably lost. Last spring, Washington won its last six, giving it a 20-46 record and a warm, fuzzy feeling heading into the summer. It also helped convince Ernie Grunfeld to make a playoff push by acquiring Okafor and Trevor Ariza from the Hornets to team with Nene on a veteran frontline that seems out of step with where the franchise resides on the winning cycle.

Okafor has justified that faith recently, and lo and behold, the Wizards are winning games again -- three straight before losing a one-point contest at Sacramento on Wednesday. Last week, Okafor averaged 13.7 points and 11 rebounds and helped anchor an effective Wizards defense.

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[h=3]6. DeMarcus Cousins | Sacramento Kings (.687)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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For all the unwanted headlines Cousins continues to generate, he still ranks as one of the 40 best players in the league and is Sacramento's only current candidate to become a legit franchise player. This is despite the fact that Cousins is a big man shooting only 44 percent on 2-point shots. Last week, Cousins shot 51 percent, but even more importantly he totaled 32 free throw attempts in three games. That's the player the Kings need Cousins to be.

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[h=3]7. Kenneth Faried, Denver Nuggets (.685)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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Faried is ruining our ability to describe him as Dennis Rodman with dreadlocks. He's just scoring the ball too often. He averaged 15.7 points in three games last week and shot 61 percent from the floor. He leads the Nuggets in WARP for the season and has emerged as the rare low-usage, foundation talent.

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[h=3]8. Jared Sullinger | Boston Celtics (.680)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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Sullinger continues to prove his worth as a stathead favorite. Last week, he averaged 11.3 points and 10.7 boards off the Boston bench as the Celtics pushed their winning streak to six games. (Which was snapped on Wednesday by New Orleans.) Sullinger shot 77 percent from the floor and totaled 11 offensive boards -- a third of Boston's total as a team. The Celtics grabbed more than 30 percent of their own misses last week, which helped fuel an uptick in offensive efficiency.

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[h=3]9. Elton Brand | Dallas Mavericks (.673)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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Now that Dallas' big man rotation is mostly healthy, Brand has settled into become a bench player for the first time in his career. He's proven to be an efficient and value option in that role. Last week, he averaged 10.5 points, 5.8 boards and 1.5 blocks in 22.1 minutes while shooting 68 percent from the field. Seems like he's adjusting just fine. Brand didn't shoot the ball well early this season, so his improved touch is a boost to a team looking to make a push for the postseason.

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[h=3]10. Antawn Jamison | Los Angeles Lakers (.665)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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After disappearing from Mike D'Antoni's rotation, Jamison got a second chance when the Lakers were bitten by the injury bug and emerged as an effective stretch 4 in L.A.'s new offense. Last week, Jamison averaged 13.3 points and 7.5 rebounds in 29.7 minutes and hit 37 percent from 3-point range.

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[h=3]Three (or four) to watch[/h]
Serge Ibaka | Oklahoma City Thunder
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Pekovic is another big guy who has been ailing, but at least he's been able to get onto the floor. With Love out, his numbers could escalate considerably. Pekovic has averaged 21 points, 14.3 rebounds and shot 62 percent over his past three outings.

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Robert Sacre | Los Angeles Lakers
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The Lakers' recent spate of big-man injuries left Sacre to start three straight games in the pivot. What we saw was a player who is clearly not ready for prime time. Sacre shot 36 percent from the floor in those games, and his WARP for last week (-0.45) ranked 368th out of 369 players who saw action. (Minnesota's Dante Cunningham, another injury replacement, was at -0.65.)

Sacre has been on the Lakers' D-League shuttle for most of the campaign, but his .449 field-goal percentage in five games for the L.A. Defenders isn't what you want to see from a big man. Sacre's rookie-minimum contract recently became guaranteed, but it's about more than maintaining a roster spot for the former Gonzaga pivot. With Jordan Hill out for the season, Sacre is angling to pick up meaningful spurts of minutes down the stretch. But he's got to pick up the pace, because even though he'll get paid for this year, his contract for next season is subject to a team option.

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Amar'e Stoudemire | New York Knicks

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<!--END INLINE MUG-->Stoudemire is seven games into his return from knee trouble, and has just been cleared to play 30 or minutes per game. Meanwhile, Knicks coach Mike Woodson said he'd continue to use Stoudemire off the bench for the time being. So far, Stoudemire's play hasn't been starter-worthy, so that's not really a tough call for Woodson to make. Stoudemire has already accumulated enough negative WARP (-0.32) to rank behind every Knick on the roster except James White.

The Knicks have survived without him just fine all season, but it's still essential that Stoudemire return to form. That's because not only is it a near certainty that Woodson will continue to use him for 25-30 minutes per night, but Stoudemire still is using an above-average number of possessions when he's on the floor. There is nothing that can torpedo a team's rotation more than a player who plays a lot, burns through possessions and doesn't contribute much in a positive sense. So far, the Knicks have been 11.7 points per 100 possessions worse with Stoudemire on the floor. He's got to ramp it up, and soon.

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Here are the top 25 big man projections for the week of Jan. 21-27 (forecast for all the players who qualified for this week's Barometer rankings):
<!-- begin inline 1 -->[h=4]Top 25 Big Man Projections[/h]

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