Average three point shooter, below average mid range shooter, terrible finishing around the rim and decent assist to turnover ratio. The Bucks have defended better when he's off the floor, while not losing much on offense for his career.
The Evolution of King James
Just a few months after his 28th birthday, LeBron James is on the brink of his fourth NBA MVP award, joining an elite club of four-time winners restricted to Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bill Russell. No Kobe. No Shaq. No Duncan. No Magic. No Bird. But since winning his first MVP in 2008-09, LeBron's game has evolved drastically. He's a vastly different player now than the one he was in 2011. In fact, each year he's won the MVP, he's done so in a distinctive way. LeBron is a basketball scientist and his game is his laboratory; his ongoing research is returning brilliant results in awestruck gymnasiums from Boston to Los Angeles to London.
But James is not only the NBA's most valuable player, he is also the league's most versatile player. We can clearly see that LeBron is great at basketball, but we're less astute when it comes to identifying the radical shifts in his game over time. I spoke to James in Miami after the Heat beat the Detroit Pistons, their 25th consecutive win. When I asked him what he thought the biggest change in his game has been since his rookie season, he immediately honed in on his scoring. His first word says it all.
"Efficiency. I'm just a more efficient player. I take no shots for granted. When you're a young player, you cast up low-percentage shots, and you're not really involved with the numbers as much as far as field goal percentage and things of that nature. As I've grown, I've made more of a conscious effort to become a more efficient player and I think it's helped my team's success over the years."
Over the years, James has attempted thousands of field goals, but those shots are going in at much higher rates recently. In James's rookie year he shot 42 percent from the field and 29 percent from beyond the arc. This year those numbers are 56 percent and 39 percent, respectively. There are two reasons for that substantial improvement in his field goal percentage: (1) He's a much better shooter now, and (2) also a larger share of his shots are close to the basket now.
James won the NBA MVP in each of his last two seasons in Cleveland. He was a great player then, but the Cavs used James as more of an on-ball point forward. Then-Cavs coach Mike Brown was often criticized for his simplistic offensive sets, which involved James handling the ball and little else. Brown — who failed to engineer an offense that optimized LeBron — was often derided as "the only coach in the NBA who could stop LeBron James." That may be unfair, but those teams failed to win a title, and when you compare his shooting patterns in Cleveland to his patterns in Miami, there are striking differences. Some of these differences have to do with changing teammates or shifting strategies, and the maturation of the player. But, no matter how you slice it, the changes are profound.
In James's last season in Cleveland his shot chart resembles that of a point guard. His clusters of shooting activity are similar to those of Kyrie Irving or Chris Paul. James was very active in front of the basket and along both wings, where his game featured a lot of off-the-dribble 3s and long 2s. Although he shot 50 percent from the field, there was virtually no post game, and aside from a cluster at the rim, there wasn't much activity close to the basket. He was perimeter-oriented.
Lost in the hubbub of James's signing with Miami were the strategic implications of integrating the league's reigning MVP into an organization with different leadership, different philosophies, and superstar teammates. James was already the NBA's Swiss Army knife — but the Cavaliers coaching staff only knew how to utilize the bottle opener. Before he landed in Miami, the Heat coaching staff was already hard at work engineering stratagems that would optimize James's unique skill set. One thing was clear: He would handle the ball less and assume a less central role on the court.
In his first year in a Heat uniform, James took fewer 3s and was much more active in the paint, but he was still spending a lot of time away from the basket. His early Miami patterns were similar to his Cleveland patterns: no hint of a post game; too many long 2s; his game was still too perimeter-oriented. And after losing the 2011 NBA Finals, James and coach Erik Spoelstra were more determined than ever to tweak their offensive approach.
According to Spoelstra, "It took the ultimate failure in the Finals to view LeBron and our offense with a different lens. He was the most versatile player in the league. We had to figure out a way to use him in the most versatile of ways — in unconventional ways. It seems like a 'duh' moment now, but we had to go through the experiences and failures together."
In the last game of the 2011 Finals, James was almost listlessly loitering beyond the arc, hesitating, shying away, and failing to take advantage of his freakish stature. His last shot of those Finals was symbolic: an ill-fated 25-foot jump shot from the outskirts of the right wing — his favorite 3-point shot location that season. The next morning, newspapers and blogs didn't forget to remind us that James wasn't a clutch player. Although few would admit to it now, countless media personalities took the opportunity to opine that LeBron James simply didn't have "what it takes" to win championships in this league.
But something was about to change.
That loss, and maybe some of those demeaning characterizations, fueled one of the greatest and most important transformations in recent sports history. James was distraught, but somehow channeled that into ferocious dedication to his craft. Spoelstra was perplexed and desperate to correct course; he told me, "Shortly after our loss to Dallas in the Finals, LeBron and I met. He mentioned that he was going to work on his game relentlessly during the offseason, and specifically on his post-up game. This absolutely made sense for us. We had to improve offensively, and one of the best ways would be to be able to play inside-out with a post-up attack."
It's no secret where and when James first worked on his low-post game. Fueled by that loss to the Mavs, he went to Houston in the summer of 2011 to learn from a master: Hakeem Olajuwon.
"I wanted to get better," James said of his decision to work with Olajuwon. "I wanted to improve and I sought out someone who I thought was one of the greatest low-post players to ever play this game. I was grateful and happy that he welcomed me with open arms; I was able to go down to Houston for four and a half days; I worked out twice a day; he taught me a lot about the low post and being able to gain an advantage on your opponent. I used that the rest of the offseason, when I went back to my hometown. Every day in the gym I worked on one thing or I worked on two things and tried to improve each and every day."
Translating new moves developed in offseason workouts into actual in-game NBA improvements is deceptively difficult. James knew that working on practice moves in the gym was only half the battle.
"The biggest thing isn't how much you work on things, it's 'Can you work on something, then implement it into a game situation?'" James says. "Can you bring what you've worked on so much and put it out on the floor with the finished product? I was happy that I was able to do that and make that transformation."
After his summer workouts, James checked in with Spoelstra to let him know about his summer project. "Spo and I had a conversation. I told him how hard I worked on my low-post game. I knew we needed low-post scoring; we were more of a perimeter-oriented team my first year here, the year we lost the Finals, and I knew I had to get better, and in order for us to get better we had to be more efficient in the low post, so I took that approach."
It worked. James emerged from that summer transformed. "When he returned after the lockout, he was a totally different player," Spoelstra says. "It was as if he downloaded a program with all of Olajuwon's and Ewing's post-up moves. I don't know if I've seen a player improve that much in a specific area in one offseason. His improvement in that area alone transformed our offense to a championship level in 2012."
James's shot selection in the 2011-12 campaign was completely different, and completely dominant. For the first time in his career, his game was heavily asymmetric. James spent a lot more time on the left side of the court than the right, especially down on the left block, a spot that he now refers to as his "sweet spot." He took fewer 3s and spent most of his time closer to the basket. Good things happen for Miami when James is in the post and near the basket. Not only is he his team's leading scorer, he's its best passer and its best rebounder. LeBron's migration to the left block not only helped his scoring efficiency, it opened up space elsewhere for spot-up shooters like Shane Battier. When you study his most common shot locations before and after the Hakeem trip, it's almost like you're looking at two different players.
It's not hard to find people around the Heat who will tell you that the summer following that Finals loss to Dallas is what transformed James from a runner-up into a champion. Up through those 2011 Finals, James had yet to fully take advantage of his size and the inherent matchup nightmares he brings to every game. Battier says James is far better at exploiting that fact now.
"He understands that he's got a physical mismatch pretty much every night, and the best place to take advantage of that is on the block," he says. "He's worked at that. Scoring on the block is not a right in this league, you have to have a game down there, and he's worked on that. Now he's got a few moves that are really tough to stop down there."
The 2011 trip to Houston, and subsequent adjustments, obviously worked. The Heat beat the Thunder in the Finals, and LeBron was named the MVP of both the regular season and the Finals. But James wasn't satisfied. He recommitted himself to improving even more in the summer of 2012. This season, LeBron still loves the left block, but he's also introduced a few more tricks.
This season he's back to shooting 3s and fewer midrange shots.
"You know, I changed. I didn't shoot many 3s last year, I kind of played more in the post, and more in the midrange, but I felt like I worked on 3s enough this past offseason that I could make another change — and the least efficient shot in our game is the midrange shot — so I thought maybe I could move it out, improve my 3-point shooting, continue to work on my low-post scoring, and then leave the midrange to be my next journey."
James told me that when he was working on his 3s, he'd punish himself until he met a lofty set of self-enforced shooting milestones.
"It's work," James says. "It's a lot of work. It's being in workouts, and not accomplishing your goal, and paying for it. So, if I get to a spot in a workout and want to make eight out of 10, if I don't make eight of 10, then I run. I push myself to the point of exhaustion until I make that goal. So you build up that mentality that you got to make that shot and then use that in a game situation — it's the ultimate feeling, when you're able to work on something and implement it."
Last year James achieved that ultimate feeling by developing and implementing that left-block game. This season he's doing it with his much-improved long-range shot and his continued dominance attacking the basket and finding open shooters. "Our team is built around perimeter attacking, getting to the rim, and when guys clog up the paint, we're able to kick it out for 3s."
James is also a very good passer. Using optically tracked performance data from the SportVU system, we can start to visualize this vital aspect of his game. LeBron's dominance near the basket forces defenses to collapse in upon him, which opens up shots along the perimeter. The Heat decorate the perimeter with some of the league's most elite spot-up shooters, including Ray Allen and Battier. James is highly aware of the whereabouts of these teammates, and he's always cognizant of who might be open where and when. As a result, he commonly fires long passes to spot-up shooters in the corners as soon as he notices a collapsing defender.
The reintegration of his own 3-point shot is justified in part by James's newfound comfort. He's shooting 39 percent from 3-point range this season, far and away the highest such mark in his career. In Cleveland, James was frequently forced to create his own shot and rarely had good catch-and-shoot chances. That's different now. In fact, when we look at the SportVU data to see where he spends his time on offense, there are four distinct pockets of space.
Three of these areas are, unsurprisingly, on that dominant left side — on the wing beyond the arc, on the elbow, and on the block — but there's one anomalous spot on the right. James spends a surprising amount of time in the right corner, a spot usually reserved for spot-up shooters like Battier or Rashard Lewis. LeBron says, "Our offense puts me in the right corner sometimes; in one of our sets I'm kind of in the right corner, or I'm running in transition and D-Wade is handling the ball so I'm kind of giving him space." Although the sample remains small, James is hitting an obnoxious 53 percent of his shots from that right corner. The league's most overqualified spot-up shooter is hitting those shots at an elite rate and providing yet another way for his team to succeed.
Simply put, LeBron James remains both the NBA's most valuable and its most versatile player. He is acutely aware of his own game and his team's strategy. He continues to find new ways to integrate his own evolving talents with those of his teammates, and he makes everyone better in the process. While it's simple to label James a physical freak with outrageous basketball talents, that sells his progress, work ethic, and intelligence short. LeBron James is a basketball nerd who just happens to possess once-in-a-generation talent.
[h1]The Great J.R. Smith Sleep Study[/h1]
I have mixed feelings about J.R. Smith.
His PER as of this writing is 16.7; his WS/48, .110. By those measures, he is an above-average player.
But those numbers don't come close to encompassing the tumultous experience that is watching Earl Smith III play basketball.
This season, J.R. Smith has 13 games in which he scored more than 20 points and shot better than 50%. But he's played four games in which he took at least 11 three-pointers and 0 free throws.
One of the biggest reasons for James Harden's success is his shot selection. He's not the most athletic player in the league, but he never takes a bad shot.
J.R. Smith is one of the most athletic guards in the league. But he's a terrible decision maker. He has a surprisingly bad handle. And his signature move is one of the worst shots in basketball: The stepback jumper, often from just inside the three-point line.
And yet, his numberspaint him as an above average player. Some of that has to do with his play over the past few weeks, as he's seemingly figured out after almost a decade in the league that a free throw is the easiest way to score.
But aside from that, there are those nights when J.R.'s terrible decisions pan out; when the stepbacks fall. There's no way to predict it. Knicks fans know: Sometimes you get Good J.R., and sometimes you get Bad J.R.
So sometime in January, I took it upon myself to figure out why. And since I have no access to the man himself, I did what so many of my fellow lazy 20-somethings do when they need an answer: I went on the internet.
Lucky for me, J.R. Smith is a prolific tweeter. Every day when he wakes up, he tweets #GreatMorningWorld.
See? Knowing that, I realized I could fairly approximate how much sleep he was getting each night. And knowing that, I thought it might be interesting to compare how much sleep he got with how he performed on the court.
And thus, the Great J.R. Smith sleep study was born.
Obviously, this is nowhere near scientific. But here's what I did: I tracked J.R. Smith's tweets for the entire month of February, and compared the amount of sleep I thought he got with his box score from that evening's game. That only came to about 11 games.
There were nights when it totally panned out.
On Feb. 10, J.R. had this touching exchange with a woman whose cover photo is NSFW.
(If it doesn't show up, he gave her a winky face.) That was at 2:16 a.m.; the Knicks played the Clippers at home less than 10 hours later. J.R. had apparently expended all this energy on winky faces, since he took nine shots and made just one.
But overall, there was no real correlation that I could discern. Case in point: The latest tweet he sent before sleeping that month was the night before the Knicks lost to the Toronto Raptors at home.
His night started with this:
I still can't decipher what his next tweets meant. But his night presumably ended at around 4 a.m., when he sent this last message.
I wake up really early—5 a.m. most mornings. When I saw that tweet, as a Knicks fan, my first thoughts were dark. But as a nerd who was keeping track of J.R. Smith's sleep patterns, I was excited. A bust of a game would be mean that there was a way to predict when Bad J.R. would strike.
But eight hours later, J.R. awoke, ready for the world.
That night, he led the Knicks in scoring 26 points on 17 shots. It was Good J.R., even with a late night tattoo excursion. There was no correlation between a good night's sleep and a good night of basketball.
So the Great J.R. Smith study turned out to be inconclusive. Like wild Pokemon, Good J.R. and Bad J.R. appear at random.
Still, it was a fascinating exercise to read J.R.'s tweets every day. And at least I picked up some killer comebacks.
Is Shabazz Muhammad overrated?
Last week's drama involving UCLA star Shabazz Muhammad made clear what statistical analysts have long known about the NBA draft: Age matters. The Bruins have been listing Muhammad's birthday as Nov. 22, 1993, but an investigation by the Los Angeles Times found that Muhammad's birth certificate is actually dated a year earlier, making Muhammad 20, and not 19 -- older than the typical college freshman. If Muhammad declares for the NBA draft as expected, the difference could cost him a few spots in the lottery. It should.
While Muhammad's unusual case is an extreme example, history shows that age is key to understanding how college players end up developing in the NBA. In fact, age is one of just two factors that make up my rankings of college players. The other is their performance during the previous season, translated to its NBA equivalent based on the past performance of rookies and adjusted for strength of schedule.
The rookie translations generally do a good job of separating newcomers who are ready to contribute right away from those who are too raw to contribute. But in terms of projecting value beyond the first season, as measured by wins above replacement (WARP) in the players' first five years in the NBA, age proves almost equally important. Based on regression, age makes up about 40 percent of the WARP projection for rookies, with translated performance accounting for the other 60 percent.
That's bad news for Muhammad. First off, his NBA translation is poor, pegging him for a .313 winning percentage -- far worse than replacement level (.410) -- due to his low numbers in assists, steals and blocks. Because players develop so quickly in their teens and early 20s, such a projection isn't a death knell for a freshman. Eric Bledsoe, for example, rated similarly playing out of position at Kentucky.
That's where Muhammad's age is problematic. Because age, not class, predicts future development, we're now effectively comparing Muhammad to more polished sophomores. The extra year takes a significant chunk out of his WARP projection, dropping it from 1.0 WARP per season to 0.4 -- a figure that usually lands a prospect in the second round. My database, which includes all college rookies since 2005 and selects ones dating to 2000 (based on the availability of team stats), has just a handful of lottery picks with a WARP projection of 0.5 or lower.
Leaving out Terrence Ross, who is still developing, none of the other players became regular starters, and Joe Alexander is one of the biggest busts in recent draft memory. Muhammad isn't necessarily consigned to the same status -- he profiles as similar to Golden State's Harrison Barnes, who narrowly escaped this list (0.6 projected WARP) and has started for a playoff-bound team as a rookie. Still, Muhammad's combination of age and underwhelming performance at UCLA should give teams drafting in the lottery major cause for concern.
Muhammad isn't the only player on whom the numbers disagree with conventional wisdom. Let's take a look at five favorites of the stats, five players the scouts prefer and five lottery picks on whom they agree.
STATS SAY ...
Kyle Anderson, F, UCLA
Big Board rank: 42 | 1.9 projected wins above replacement (WARP)
(Rank: 11)
Why the stats like him: Anderson used his size and wingspan to rack up 62 steals and 30 blocks as a freshman. Usually, that combination of skills suggests a quality NBA defender.
Why scouts are skeptical: Anderson's nickname is "Slow Mo," and it's apt. Despite his length, Anderson will be hard-pressed to defend NBA perimeter players, and he can be outmuscled by big men.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, SG, Georgia
Big board rank: 31 | 2.2 projected WARP (7)
Why the stats like him: Caldwell-Pope shouldered a heavy offensive load at Georgia with reasonable efficiency. Young for a sophomore -- he's three months younger than Muhammad -- Caldwell-Pope has room to develop.
Why scouts are skeptical: As Caldwell-Pope's jumper goes, so goes his overall performance. As a result, he made better than 40 percent of his shots just three times in his last 10 games.
Sam Dekker, SF, Wisconsin
Big board rank: 76 | 2.6 projected WARP (4)
Why the stats like him: Coming off the bench, Dekker made 57.1 percent of his 2-point shots and 39.1 percent from beyond the arc. Ken Pomeroy's similarity scores say the best match for his freshman campaign is lottery pickBen McLemore.
Why scouts are skeptical: Dekker is seen as a better college player than a pro. Before he can even think about the NBA, he'll have to crack Bo Ryan's starting five first.
P.J. Hairston, G/F, North Carolina
Big board rank: 37 | 2.4 projected WARP (6)
Why the stats like him: After moving to power forward as part of North Carolina's small-ball starting five, Hairston emerged as an elite scorer. Among players who used at least a quarter of their team's plays, Hairston ranked in the nation's top 10 in offensive rating.
Why scouts are skeptical: Playing on the wing as a pro, Hairston will have to improve his ballhandling. Part of the reason he was so efficient is that he rarely tries to make plays for others.
Jarnell Stokes, F/C, Tennessee
Big board rank: 96 | 1.9 projected WARP (13)
Why the stats like him: Stokes' size and strength make him an elite offensive rebounder, a skill that tends to translate nicely to the NBA. He's also a fine shot-blocker and played half of this season at age 18 after graduating early from high school.
Why scouts are skeptical: Stokes isn't a particularly accurate finisher around the rim, in large part because shot-blockers give him difficulty.
SCOUTS SAY ...
Archie Goodwin, SG, Kentucky
Big board rank: 21 | 0.6 projected WARP (50)
Why the stats don't like him: Among a group of Kentucky freshmen who collectively failed to live up to the hype, Goodwin stands out. He's not yet ready to score efficiently in the NBA and projects to make just 22.4 percent of his 3-pointers.
Why scouts do: There's no denying Goodwin's ability to put points on the board, and part of his struggles as a freshman can be traced to spending time running John Calipari's offense as a point guard -- something he won't be asked to do as a pro.
Alex Len, C, Maryland
Big board rank: 11 | 1.0 projected WARP (33)
Why the stats don't like him: Len is still very much a project and could be overmatched against NBA competition next season. He's weak on the glass for a 7-footer and hasn't yet polished the skills to overcome that deficiency.
Why scouts do: Skilled 7-footers are a commodity, and the Ukrainian is young enough to make strides quickly as a pro.
Ben McLemore, SG, Kansas
Big board rank: 2 | 1.7 projected WARP (19)
Why the stats don't like him: As a scorer, McLemore should be just fine in the NBA. The numbers don't suggest he'll develop the all-around game to justify a top-five selection, and he's already 20.
Why scouts do: McLemore's combination of size and skill are hard to find outside the lottery. If he can be convinced to play more aggressively on offense, he could be an elite scorer.
Shabazz Muhammad, SF, UCLA
Big board rank: 7 | 0.4 projected WARP (53)
Why the stats don't like him: The biggest Muhammad red flag is his poor steal rate. Besides their intrinsic value, steals are especially important for prospects because they are the best single statistical indicator of athleticism. The only perimeter player in recent history to develop into a full-time starter with so few steals is another UCLA product, Arron Afflalo of the Orlando Magic.
Why scouts do: Muhammad's powerful frame will allow him to post up smaller defenders and gives him the potential to become a strong one-on-one defender.
Mason Plumlee, PF, Duke
Big board rank: 14 | 0.3 projected WARP (56)
Why the stats don't like him: At 23, Plumlee needs to be ready to contribute right away to justify a spot in the lottery, but his translated numbers score right near replacement level. He lacks a signature statistical skill.
Why scouts do: Plumlee boasts the requisite size and athleticism for an NBA big man, and he started the season as one of the best players in the country through December.
BOTH AGREE ON ...
Nerlens Noel, C, Kentucky
Big board rank: 1 | 4.0 projected WARP (1)
What both like: Before his ACL injury, Noel scored far and away as the best prospect in this draft. The difference between his WARP projection and the No. 2 prospect (Georgetown's Otto Porter) is as large as the gap between Porter and No. 7.
Victor Oladipo, SG, Indiana
Big board rank: 6 | 2.0 projected WARP (9)
What both like: Oladipo's athleticism shows up all over his statistics, nowhere more than at the defensive end. Only one other player in my database (Renaldo Balkman) had a combination of a steal rate better than 3.0 and a block rate better than 1.5. And Oladipo is a much better offensive prospect than Balkman, the infamous Isiah Thomas selection taken one pick ahead of Rajon Rondo.
Otto Porter, SF, Georgetown
Big board rank: 4 | 3.1 projected WARP (2)
What both like: Porter's all-around game will ease his transition to the NCAA. Compared to other small forwards in my database, Porter is among the top 25 percent in six key categories and does not have a single statistical weakness (among the bottom 25 percent). Plus Porter is nearly seven months younger than Muhammad.
Marcus Smart, PG, Oklahoma State
Big board rank: 3 | 2.5 projected WARP (5)
What both like: Rebounding is a surprisingly important indicator for point guards because it demonstrates the athleticism to excel at the position. Smart is great on the glass and has the best steal rate of anyone in this year's draft, another positive marker.
Cody Zeller, PF, Indiana
Big board rank: 8 | 2.1 projected WARP (
What both like: Besides Noel, Zeller is the other top-10 player who lands in the same spot in both rankings. His polished game has just one statistical weakness: shot-blocking.
[h1]The Great J.R. Smith Sleep Study[/h1]
I have mixed feelings about J.R. Smith.
His PER as of this writing is 16.7; his WS/48, .110. By those measures, he is an above-average player.
But those numbers don't come close to encompassing the tumultous experience that is watching Earl Smith III play basketball.
This season, J.R. Smith has 13 games in which he scored more than 20 points and shot better than 50%. But he's played four games in which he took at least 11 three-pointers and 0 free throws.
One of the biggest reasons for James Harden's success is his shot selection. He's not the most athletic player in the league, but he never takes a bad shot.
J.R. Smith is one of the most athletic guards in the league. But he's a terrible decision maker. He has a surprisingly bad handle. And his signature move is one of the worst shots in basketball: The stepback jumper, often from just inside the three-point line.
And yet, his numberspaint him as an above average player. Some of that has to do with his play over the past few weeks, as he's seemingly figured out after almost a decade in the league that a free throw is the easiest way to score.
But aside from that, there are those nights when J.R.'s terrible decisions pan out; when the stepbacks fall. There's no way to predict it. Knicks fans know: Sometimes you get Good J.R., and sometimes you get Bad J.R.
So sometime in January, I took it upon myself to figure out why. And since I have no access to the man himself, I did what so many of my fellow lazy 20-somethings do when they need an answer: I went on the internet.
Lucky for me, J.R. Smith is a prolific tweeter. Every day when he wakes up, he tweets #GreatMorningWorld.
See? Knowing that, I realized I could fairly approximate how much sleep he was getting each night. And knowing that, I thought it might be interesting to compare how much sleep he got with how he performed on the court.
And thus, the Great J.R. Smith sleep study was born.
Obviously, this is nowhere near scientific. But here's what I did: I tracked J.R. Smith's tweets for the entire month of February, and compared the amount of sleep I thought he got with his box score from that evening's game. That only came to about 11 games.
There were nights when it totally panned out.
On Feb. 10, J.R. had this touching exchange with a woman whose cover photo is NSFW.
(If it doesn't show up, he gave her a winky face.) That was at 2:16 a.m.; the Knicks played the Clippers at home less than 10 hours later. J.R. had apparently expended all this energy on winky faces, since he took nine shots and made just one.
But overall, there was no real correlation that I could discern. Case in point: The latest tweet he sent before sleeping that month was the night before the Knicks lost to the Toronto Raptors at home.
His night started with this:
I still can't decipher what his next tweets meant. But his night presumably ended at around 4 a.m., when he sent this last message.
I wake up really early—5 a.m. most mornings. When I saw that tweet, as a Knicks fan, my first thoughts were dark. But as a nerd who was keeping track of J.R. Smith's sleep patterns, I was excited. A bust of a game would be mean that there was a way to predict when Bad J.R. would strike.
But eight hours later, J.R. awoke, ready for the world.
That night, he led the Knicks in scoring 26 points on 17 shots. It was Good J.R., even with a late night tattoo excursion. There was no correlation between a good night's sleep and a good night of basketball.
So the Great J.R. Smith study turned out to be inconclusive. Like wild Pokemon, Good J.R. and Bad J.R. appear at random.
Still, it was a fascinating exercise to read J.R.'s tweets every day. And at least I picked up some killer comebacks.
