NBA Big Man Barometer

[h=1]Is Drummond ready to start?[/h][h=3]LeBron still dominating at 4; Blatche for Comeback Player of the Year?

By Bradford Doolittle | Basketball Prospectus
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All season, Pistons rookie Andre Drummond has been a nice little story. He has put up amazing numbers on a per-minute and per-possession basis, but he has done so coming off the bench in a role that has kept him under 20 minutes per night on the season. After Detroit drafted the UConn big man in June, Drummond was thought to be very raw and it was suggested that he might be one of the few lottery picks that could use some D-League time to ripen. Never mind that -- he's developing just fine at the NBA level.

Last week, Drummond's surprising debut reached a peak. He averaged 22 minutes per night in three games, two of them Detroit wins as the Pistons continue to mount a midseason playoff push. Drummond averaged 22.7 points, 16.7 rebounds, 3 blocks and 3 steals per 40 minutes in those games, and shot 75 percent from the field. He committed one turnover in 67 minutes. Yes, the kid is limited on what he can do right at this point in his fledging career, but he's already at a point where he does almost nothing wrong.

Over his last 10 games, Drummond has compiled 1.75 WARP, ranking eighth in the league despite just 21.6 minutes per night. Every other player in the top 10 averaged at least 33 minutes. Drummond has been so good in his limited opportunities that he has now moved into the top 10 in our big man rankings for the season. All that really means at this point is that he has filled his role in Detroit's rotation about as well as it can be filled. We have no real idea what his numbers would look like if he were going against other teams' starters on a full-time basis. At this point, however, Pistons fans have to be awfully excited to find out.

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. 16-22; 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. LeBron James | Miami Heat (.930)[/h]
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James had a particularly fabulous week, even for him, sneaking just over the 30-minute minimum at power forward to return to the top of the big man charts. Over his last three games through Tuesday, James averaged 32 points and shot 64 percent from the floor, going 41-for-64. Wow.
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[h=3]2. Anthony Davis | New Orleans Hornets (.908)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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Two rookies are in the rankings this week and both are the prime challengers to Portland little man Damian Lillard. Davis, Andre Drummond and Lillard are the only rookies who have played qualifying minutes and put up an individual winning percentage over .500. Lillard has played more than 38 minutes in his 41 games, which gives him the large early value lead in the race. He also has the advantage of having the talking studio heads referring to Lillard as a shoo-in for the honor. Although Drummond has been a per-minute superstar for the Pistons, he might not get enough court time to merit a serious look. Davis will, and if he can avoid a repeat of a first half in which he's missed 13 games, the race may look very different in a couple of months.

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[h=3]3. Ersan Ilyasova | Milwaukee Bucks (.896)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
<center>Ilyasova</center>
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Earlier in the season, Ilyasova's play jumped after he was demoted from the starting lineup. However, the starter-reserve conundrum can no longer be looked at as the cause of his early struggles. He's back in the lineup under interim coach Jim Boylan and playing better than ever. Ilyasova has averaged 13 points and eight rebounds in eight games since returning to the starting lineup, and the Bucks have gone 6-2 during that stretch. Ilyasova closed last week with a total of 54 points and 30 rebounds in wins over Portland and Philadelphia.

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[h=3]4. Andre Drummond | Detroit Pistons (.879)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
<center>Drummond</center>
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The kid just won't go away. Drummond has truly become a fixture on the Barometer, with per-possession efficiency numbers that just jab you in the eye. Check out where he is in David Thorpe's and Kevin Pelton's top 25 Under 25.

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[h=3]5. Tim Duncan | San Antonio Spurs (.844)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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Duncan's fountain-of-youth season continues unabated. If you're looking for signs that Duncan is wearing down as the season progresses, you're not going to find them in his recent performances. Over his last five outings, Duncan has averaged 18.4 points, 11.8 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 3.8 blocks. That block total include a seven-swat night against Minnesota on Jan. 13, just his second such game in the last six years. We're halfway through the season, and Duncan still has career-best percentages in defensive rebounding and blocking. The block rate is his best by far. I'll have what he's eating.

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[h=3]6. Ryan Anderson | New Orleans Hornets (.709)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
<center>Anderson</center>
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"Mr. Efficiency" has proved to be an ideal sixth man for one of the league's rising teams. Anderson's game changes when he comes off the bench; he sacrifices a bit of efficiency in order to create offense for the Hornets' second unit. For the season, Anderson has a .231 usage rate and a .591 true shooting percentage as a starter, averaging 21.2 points per 40 minutes. Off the bench, his usage rate rises to .242, while his still-solid true shooting percentage falls to .539. He still averages 21.4 points per 40 minutes as a reserve, showing that he has taken two routes to get to the same place. What's more important is that the rotation works for New Orleans, which has won nine of its last 15 and has been competitive in most of its losses.

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[h=3]7. Spencer Hawes | Philadelphia 76ers (.696)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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This is Hawes' first appearance in the Barometer this season, which is bad news for a sinking Sixers team that could have used a big season by its incumbent center in the wake of Andrew Bynum's absence. Hawes averaged 16.3 points and 7.7 boards last week and shot 61 percent from the floor. For the season, Hawes ranks fourth on the Sixers in WARP but has yet to start a game. With Philly's playoff hopes fading fast, it might be time to give Hawes the nod over LaVoy Allen once and for all.

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[h=3]8.Andray Blatche | Brooklyn Nets (.678)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
<center>Blatche</center>
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Blatche is a candidate for any number of postseason honors: comeback player, most improved and, suddenly, he's in the conversation as the top sixth man for 2012-13. Blatche earned a SCHOENE forecast of a .419 winning percentage before the season; he's at .652. That in itself has to have Ted Leonsis, the owner of Blatche's former team, pulling out his hair because Blatche is an amnestied player, meaning Leonsis is paying more than $7 million this year alone for Blatche to offer so much value to the Brooklyn Nets. As for the sixth-man award, Blatche currently ranks fifth in WARP among those who would currently qualify, behind Anderson, Drummond, Manu Ginobili and Matt Barnes.

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[h=3]9. Roy Hibbert | Indiana Pacers (.676)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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Hibbert isn't quite back to where he was last season, but things are looking up for a player who struggled badly with his shot early on. Over his last 10 games, Hibbert has shot 47 percent. Not great, but better. More important, he's really anchoring the back of Indiana's stellar defense by blocking 8.1 percent of opposing 2-point shots over that 10-game stretch. The Pacers lead the league in defensive efficiency during that span, which is almost certainly no coincidence.

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[h=3]10. Blake Griffin | Los Angeles Clippers (.669)[/h]<!--INLINE MUG-->
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An underreported aspect of the first half of the season is that the Clippers have blown out the opposition so consistently that Griffin is averaging just 32.3 minutes. He is on target to be fresh as a daisy by the time the playoffs roll around, a frightening prospect for any team standing in the Clippers' way. Since his minutes have been relatively limited, Griffin's per-40-minute numbers are much more telling about his season than his per-game numbers. He's at 22.6 points, 10.6 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 1.8 steals per 40, figures that reveal just how much of an all-around star Griffin has become.

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[h=3]Three to watch[/h]
Tristan Thompson | Cleveland Cavaliers
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<center>Thompson</center>
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The second-year Thompson has really come on since the season-ending series of maladies that befell starting Cleveland center Anderson Varejao. Over the Cavs' last 10 games, Thompson's .584 winning percentage is second only to Kyrie Irving on the Cleveland roster, a pace that projects to more than 10 WARP over a full season. Thompson is a pogo stick on the offensive end of the floor and has grabbed more than 13 percent of available rebounds on that end. (That has jumped to 15 percent over the last couple of weeks.) Even more exciting for Cavaliers fans is that Thompson has become increasingly efficient, finding ways to create more offense. For the season, he has pedestrian figures of a .165 usage rate and a .515 true shooting percentage. Over his last 10 outings, those numbers have leaped to .195 and .553, respectively.

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DeMarcus Cousins | Sacramento Kings
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Cousins has really stepped up his play since his brief suspension a few weeks ago. The Kings' plan was supposed to be for Cousins and Tyreke Evans to turn into the kind of dynamic duo that Sacramento could build around. It might be too late for that, but they've played like core players in recent games. Or at least they have on offense. Cousins' true shooting percentage has been .584 over his last 10 games on a usage rate of .286, and he has grabbed nearly a fifth of available rebounds. As a result, Cousins ranks sixth in the league with 1.9 WARP over that span. Unfortunately, the Kings rank last in defensive efficiency over that stretch, and as the starting center, Cousins bears a large portion of responsibility for that.

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Carlos Boozer | Chicago Bulls

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<center>Boozer</center>
<!--END INLINE MUG-->Boozer has enjoyed perhaps his best stretch of overall play during his tow and a half seasons with the Bulls. Just last week, he had a game of 36 points and 12 rebounds, followed by 19 and 20 the next time out. For the season, Boozer is averaging 20.4 points and 12.7 rebounds per 40 minutes. But Boozer's defensive deficiencies have limited him to fewer than 32 minutes per game. Over his last 10 games, that figure has risen to more than 36 minutes, so there does appear to be a tipping point at which Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau will choose Boozer's offense over Taj Gibson's defense.

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Here are the top-25 big man projections for the week of Jan. 28-Feb. 3 (forecast for all the players who qualified for this week's Barometer rankings):
<!-- begin inline 1 -->[h=4]Big Man Barometer projections[/h]

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