With New Orleans taking on a red hot Phoenix tomorrow, I guess this is timely.

One of the early trends of the season has been the revival of Steve Nash. The Suns completed one of the more impressive Eastern swings recently, with wins over Philadelphia, Miami, and Boston easily offsetting a loss at Orlando. And Nash, for sure, has been very solid. A lot more solid than some may have expected. Consider, for example, some of his trends the last three years:

Considering the trends from 2007-2009 (universally downwards in PER, TS%, eFG%, AST%, and ORtg), Nash has had a very impressive start to 2010. Couple that with team wins, a statistic that people very often use to overrate individual players, and Nash's value seems to inherently increase. But is Nash's pace- which, by the way, is just a shade shy of his "MVP" years, a.k.a. Chris Paul's rookie and sophomore years- sustainable?

My initial inclination is no. The primary driver of Nash's overall efficiency is his assist rate right now. He leads the league, right ahead of Paul, in assists per possession. A huge reason for this is that his team is shooting outlandishly from the field right now. Jason Richardson, a career 37% three point shooter, is shooting 58% on nearly 40 attempts. Grant Hill and Goran Dragic have put down 50% of their attempts. Channing Frye, who had made 20 threes in 4 years prior to this, has made 22 in 8 games. And even Jared Dudley has nearly attempted 30 threes. The Suns are shooting over 47% as a team from three. As a team, their eFG% of 57% is far and away the best in the league, and is totally unsustainable. Last year's leaders- also the Suns, unsurprisingly- shot 54.5 eFG%, a significantly lower figure. Last year's three point leaders- the Kings, surprisingly- were far and away the NBA's best at 40.6%.

The Suns will cool down, and it will affect Nash's assist numbers. So his overall efficiencies will go down. However, there may be a good case that he will sustain his own shooting figures. Last year's lower numbers (Nash's "lows" obviously being highs for anyone else) may very well have been anomalous.

Of course, I need to talk about Chris Paul at this juncture.

These numbers have earned Nash early MVP and All-Star starter buzz and Paul... nothing:

Are Paul's shooting rates as unsustainable as Nash's assist rates? Oh, absolutely, probably more so. But over the first two weeks of the season, they're not even playing the same game! By Win Shares, Paul has been twice as valuable as Nash!

Lately, I've been hearing a lot of commentators say "you know, I'd just put Chris Paul a hair above Deron Williams. Just the slightest of tiny edges on Steve Nash." We've finally seemed to reached the point where Paul is acknowledged to be better than his competition by most people, but most are reluctant to state it firmly. Tomorrow, we'll see the announcers talk about how this is a matchup of the league's two best point guards. That's probably true... but it's also a matchup of the league's second best lead guard and league's best player.

A 28 points win a night after a 16 point loss. It was a pretty interesting Staples double dip for New Orleans, and we learned quite a few things. In no particular order, a double recap:

Emeka Okafor

It's tough to say he was bad. But he definitely wasn't good. Versus the Lakers, he put up a stat line of 10 pts (5-12), 14 rebounds, and a blocked shot. Versus the Clippers, he went for 2 points (1-2) and 6 rebounds. He played 26 and 25 minutes respectively on Monday and Tuesday. I'd argue that the Lakers' game was the poorer showing. Against the LAC, the Hornets' offense didn't really require him. As a result, Byron Scott drew up very few plays for him, certainly a wise move with the perimeter showing.

But against the Lakers, we finally saw some of the bad side of Emeka, some of the things that Charlotte fans have been complaining about for years. He had a couple cases of brick hands and missed at least four wide open layups. If this is going to be the season that he puts it all together- in the ilk of his first 6 games- then he'll need to have a short memory and forget this one fast. Not the best Los Angeles trip for the big guy- a poor showing one night, and then denied a chance to redeem himself the next.

JuJu, the Starter?

As much as we've bashed Byron over the last year, he has given Julian Wright a very fair shake this season. He's started him, he's drawn up plays for him, he's even defended him in the media after horrible games. For a long while, I hid behind the "Byron killed Julian's career by not playing him properly as a rookie/sophomore" argument. Now? I renounce it. Julian Wright is simply not very good at basketball right now.

He's struggled defensively, missing easy rotations. More annoyingly, he's just as tentative with his dribble now as he was his rookie season. Simply put, JuJu has not grown much over the last 2+ years. And the blame has gradually shifted from Byron Scott to Julian himself. It's absolutely the right call to bring him off the bench; nothing he's done warrants a starting role.

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Haha.

Yep. Yep yep yep.

I've made clear who I want starting at the 2, despite his struggles. Honestly though, I don't have anything against trying out a committee and seeing who performs. I'm just dubious when that committee includes Devin Brown.

A fifth starter who plays with Chris Paul, David West, and Emeka Okafor needs to be able to shoot and not take over offensive plays with those three guys on. Devin Brown does not fit this bill at all. He really has no range to speak of, as he shot 29% from three last season and 30% the year before. The unfortunate thing is Brown seems to think he's good at shooting- he attempted almost 100 last year after 146 the year before. Byron Scott, for whatever reason, has allowed him to indulge this fantasy. Moving him into the starting lineup into a role that has frequently been on the receiving end of kickouts for three does not, well, solve this issue. At all.

There is really just one positive to Brown's game, and that's his ability to get to the foul line on broken plays. On units that don't have much creativity, he can force himself to the hole and occasionally pick up some cheap points. Thing is, this skill set will not be needed with Paul/West/Okafor on the floor. In the slightest.

Baskeball Prospectus' defensive stats indicate that Brown is actually a pretty solid defender. That's the one area I could see this move sort of working. If he can do a good job over the next few games on some upcoming opponents, then who knows. Perhaps he wrests control of the job from Mo-Pete for good. He's already shown the inexplicable ability to completely avoid Byron's doghouse.

In sum, I see this failing pretty badly on offense, and maybe, maybe, yielding some defensive results. Either way, Byron has indicated that this is a "6 game tryout." Which means we can start the Marcus Thornton countdown- Thursday, November 19th vs. Phoenix.

12 more days, people.

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Morris Peterson has always been the definition of a fringe starter. There are reasons to sit him, but there are also some reasons to start him. And perhaps chief among those is the way he fits into most any offense. Nobody wants an invisible player on the court, but nobody wants the 5th man to stick out any either. For much of his career, Mo struck that balance well.

Five miserable performances into the 09-10 season, is his time in that role over?

A trip down memory lane may be in order to predict his future.

For starters, the precipitous decline in PER over the past 5 years is ominous.

2006: 15.3
2007: 13.2
2008: 11.2
2009: 10.7
2010: 7.2 (5 Games)

It's not entirely unexpected either; wings in the mold of Mo-Pete tend to fade and fade hard as they hit their 30's. Two of Mo's most comparable players are George McCloud and Jaren Jackson... which is never a good thing. But while PER can be useful for comparing high value players, it often needs additional corroboration in its measure low value players who exist in different playing systems.

For example, in Toronto, Peterson's scoring role was far more pronounced. He averaged more than 3 FTA/36. In the long run, this seems pretty mediocre. Given Mo was averaged just around 10 FGA/game, though, it speaks to his more creative role. Upon his arrival in New Orleans, Peterson was transformed exclusively into a spot shooter. As much as people associate "Princeton offense" with Byron Scott (and others on that New Jersey staff, like Eddie Jordan), Peterson's role was hardly one characterized by off the ball cuts to the hoop. It was him hanging out on the corners or the wing, hoping for the kickout. It's only natural that his overall value would diminish in this system.

But how does one explain away Mo's decline with the Hornets? Changing system is one thing, but as we're all familiar with, the Hornets run virtually the same offense they did when Mo arrived.

The answer lies hidden in his floor percentages. Oddly enough, even as Mo's three point ability has remained stable, he's become a very  poor two point shooter.

Clearly, his skills are in decline. He can hit the standstill three, but he can't do much else at all. Then again, the Hornets need Peterson to literally do only two things: (1) make open threes and (2) perimeter defense.

Mo has looked awful to start the year because both those things, arguably, haven't been there. In terms of defense, images of Rodrigue Beaubois blowing by him on four consecutive possessions still lingers in my mind. But in a relative sense, who else do we have defensively? James Posey has lost a step on the perimeter; leaving him on small forwards and power forwards is easily our best bet moving forward. I'm more than willing to give Peterson some more time to evaluate his defense. The three point shooting? He's been poor; however, it's 5 games, and it certainly looks like statistically insignificant.

In the 9 years prior this season, Mo's three point percentage has never deviated outside of the 30-40% range. It hasn't come close to the low end since a poor third season in the league. Basketball Prospectus' projection system has him very similar to last year. Basically, it's too early to say that Mo has lost his three point shot; in fact, all signs point to the contrary. It's the one aspect of his game he's kept as he ages, and the one aspect he's likely to keep for a while longer.

The moral of the story: Morris Peterson may be done as an average basketball player, but in the role the Hornets have created for him, he still has value. The numbers say his shot will recover, without much doubt. His contract runs till 2011, and the two aspects of his game we utilize most- shooting and perimeter defending- will remain until then. Off the bench, the value of both those things plummets. He no longer has Chris Paul to create threes for him, and his perimeter defense is inherently less valuable if he guards the opposition's bench.

I'm all for Marcus Thornton getting minutes (as Byron has alluded to recently). From a relative value added sense though, I think it makes more sense to bring Thornton off the bench. From what we've seen of him at LSU, he doesn't need Chris Paul as much as Mo does. And Mo is the far safer defensive bet at this point. Essentially, Thornton can (potentially) do things off the bench that Mo cannot; on the flip side, Thornton's creative ability is diminished as the fifth starter.

Projecting Mo's future is tough; defending his recent play is even tougher. For all his struggles though, there still isn't a better fifth starter option on this roster.