The regular season is halfway through this season, the mid-season deal has been settled, and the competition between teams will become more and more intense, especially the competition between teams that aspire to win the championship and have ideas for the playoffs will be white-hot, after all, the eighth result of the East of the big favorite Nets is by no means a reflection of their strength, and the Nets must be in a state of impatience, so they will definitely use all their strength to fight for home advantage in the playoffs.
The Lakers, who are also determined to win the championship, and the Hawks, who advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals last season, will never give up this season, and they will definitely launch an impact on the playoffs in the second half of the season, in addition, the competition for heavy honors such as MVP, scoring champion, and best rookie in the regular season will also enter the most critical stage, today we will take stock of the ten players who are expected to explode in the second half of this season, Ayton is the last attempt for the top salary, and Harden will return to the peak.
Tenth, Wizards Leader Kuzma
As the 27th pick in 2017, the obscure Kuzma could contribute 16.1 points and 6.3 rebounds in the first season of his career, dwarfing the talented Lonzo Ball of the same year, and in the second season, Kuzma could average 18.7 points and 5.5 rebounds per game, and the unexpected performance made the Lakers management feel very pleased.
However, with the arrival of James and Davis, Kuzma's role in the Lakers is getting less and less, and finally the Lakers who won the championship gave up the young talent, but the tree moved the dead, Kuzma came to the Wizards and showed obvious progress again, so far in the season, Kuzma can average 16.2 points, 8.7 rebounds and 3 assists per game, Kuzma is not only the Wizards' second scorer and number one rebounder, but also the ability to end the game at key moments has also been recognized, facing the Pistons in the game Kuzma slashed 22 points, 5 rebounds and 6 assists, and killed the opponent with a three-pointer.
At the beginning of the season, the Wizards gave people a bright feeling, the team's record once ranked first in the East, but with the deepening of the season, the team showed an unstable side, the team boss Bill also suffered a serious injury reimbursement for the season, but Seion lost the horse, Bill's injury gave Kuzma a lot of opportunities, the current Kuzma has become the wizards' offensive core, the Second Half of the Season Wizards' record may not be able to improve, but Kuzma's personal performance will definitely improve significantly.
Ninth place, Kanningan
Although most of the season, the best rookie has nothing to do with Cunningham, but as the season deepens, Cunningham's performance has become better and better, and can currently get 15.7 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game, and is currently ranked third in the best rookie list.
It is true that the Cavaliers Mobley and the Raptors Barnes are outstanding in the same rookie competition, but compared with Cunningham they have two disadvantages in the competition for the best rookie, the first factor is that the Raptors and cavaliers are a playoff-level team, although Mobley and Barnes both play an important role, but they are not the absolute core of the team, the Raptors are Led by VanVleet and Siakam, and the Cavaliers are dominated by Garland and Allen, so the tactical status of Mobley and Barnes is not high.
In contrast, Cunningham has an almost absolute core tactical position in the Pistons, so that once Cunningham finds the feel, his personal data is expected to explode. Secondly, Mobley and Barnes are both frontcourt players, and the potential on the offensive end is not great compared to Cunningham, who plays mainly point guard, so Cunningham is still the biggest favorite for the best rookie this season.
Eighth place, desia cam
Siakam in the 18-19 season, for the Raptors to win the first championship in team history, Siakam became Leonard's right-hand man, after Leonard left in the 19-20 season, Siakam became the absolute offensive core of the Raptors, this season Siakam can average 22.9 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1 steal 0.9 blocks per game, with excellent performance, Siakam became the starter of the All-Star Game.
But in the playoffs Siakam appeared Waterloo, Siakam averaged only 17 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game, the shooting percentage fell to 39.6%, the three-point shooting rate was only a pitiful 18.9%, and finally the Raptors, who ranked second in the East in the regular season, stopped in the second round of the playoffs, and the offensive efficiency of Siakam in the 20-21 season was still not improved, at this time Anunoby and VanVleet began to rise, Siakam stood on the sidelines, and at this time, Siakam came to the trough of his career.
Just when everyone thinks that Siakam is invisible to everyone, this season Siakam has quietly come out of the quagmire, and so far this season, Siakam can average 22.1 points, 8.7 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 1.3 steals per game, unconsciously Siakam returned to the throne of the Dragon King, although VanVleet was selected for the All-Star Game this season, but the future Siakam will still be the leading big brother of the Raptors, after all, Siakam's offensive and defensive attributes are not comparable to VanVleet, and Siakam is expected to continue to improve in the second half of the season.
Seventh place, Simmons with the ball to play
This season's trade deadline whistle trade, let Simmons finally relieved, last season's playoffs due to Simmons's poor performance led to the team's loss, unwilling to accept criticism Of Simmons openly broke with the team, vowed never to play for the 76ers again, so far this season, Simmons has not played, Simmons also suffered a huge loss of nearly $20 million, with the completion of the transaction, Simmons finally has the ball to play.
Simmons is the 16-year draft draft champion, 2 meters 08 height main point guard, so that Simmons in the same position to dominate, the top passing ability and solid defensive ability is the embodiment of Simmons's value, but Simmons's poor shooting ability seriously restricts his personal development, unfortunately, knowing the personal bottleneck, Simmons has not improved the ability to shoot for so many years.
Back to the point, the second half of the season Simmons is expected to play the best performance of his career, some people suspect that Simmons has not played for several months, the state must be plummeting, the author believes that as a top player, Simmons will never waste time in vain, there is no game to play, Simmons will also insist on training, maybe Simmons's shooting ability has improved significantly, and Simmons in the second half of the season will definitely be riveted to prove himself.
Sixth, Tatum, who had high hopes
Tatum is one of the talented players who have emerged in recent years, the attention is not inferior to Luka Doncic, the Celtics even cleared all obstacles for Tatum's growth, the All-Star Game Durant was absent due to injury for two consecutive years, president Xiao Hua's preferred substitute player is Tatum, and even Tatum, who has performed so poorly this season, has once again become the starter of the All-Star Game, which shows that Tatum has become a star player in the league.
This season, Tatum can average 25.5 points, 8.4 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game, but Tatum's offensive efficiency is indeed quite low, this season's Tatum shooting rate is only 43.1%, three-point shooting rate is only 42.4%, this is still the recent Tatum state to pick up, the data has recovered, most of this season Tatum's shooting rate is less than 40%, three-point shooting rate is less than 30%, To know that Tatum's average number of shots per game this season is 20.6, ranking first in the league, it can be seen how bad Tatum's performance is.
Recently, Tatum's state has obviously shown signs of recovery, as a highly anticipated young talent, Tatum can not always be so iron, coupled with the recent good things, he has been selected as the starter of the All-Star Game, the team has finally advanced to the playoffs, and Tatum is expected to usher in a big explosion in the second half of the season.
Fifth place, the underperforming Davis
At present, the Lakers have achieved a bad record of 26 wins and 31 losses, temporarily ranking ninth in the West, this season James can average 29 points, 7.9 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 1.6 steals and 1 block super data, the average score per game is the highest in the past 12 years of career, it can be said that the 37-year-old James is really old and strong, the Pot of the Lakers' poor record has always been The pot of Westbrook has been carried by Westbrook, and the author believes that the main reason for the Lakers' poor record is the decline in Davis' dominance.
So far this season, Wesbrook can average 23.5 points, 10 rebounds, 2.9 assists, 1.3 steals and 2.3 blocks of gorgeous data, but friends watching the game can certainly see that Davis's dominance has dropped significantly this season, and the most intuitive performance is that he is at a disadvantage in the competition with super frontcourt players like Alphabet Brother, this season's Lakers and Bucks two games, Alphabet Brother can average 45.5 points, 11.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game, and even Alphabet Brother has played Davis out of the psychological shadow.
Davis's most important problem is because of the glass attribute of the body, always trembling on the court, dare not go all out to play, the second half of the season if Davis does not change such a state of play, then the Lakers really have no future, not to mention the championship, it is really difficult to enter the playoffs, to know that the West is not in the playoffs at this stage, but there are still three teams that still want to impact the playoffs, they are pelicans, Blazers and Kings.
Therefore, in the second half of the season, the entire Lakers team will force Davis to do everything in his power to win the game, otherwise, the Lakers this season will really become a joke.
Harden, the fourth place, returned to happy basketball
The blockbuster news in recent days is that James Harden left the Nets and joined the Philadelphia 76ers, from Durant's euphemistic expression, it is not difficult for us to find that the fundamental reason why Harden left the Nets is that he is not happy, indeed Harden's play style in the Nets is completely different from the monitor, scoring such as Harden because he has a stable hand of tandem team ability, so Harden has become the organizer on the court, such an arrangement is the best choice for the Nets' big three. But such an arrangement seriously disrupted Harden's rhythm of the game.
Last season, Harden could only get 24.6 points on the field, to know that harden in the 19-20 season, Harden can still cut down 34.3 points per game, harden's personal performance this season is still not satisfactory, averaging only 22.5 points, 8 rebounds and 10 assists per game, the shooting percentage is the second lowest in his career 41.4%, the three-point shooting rate is the lowest 33.2% in his career, which shows that Harden's offensive state in the Nets is completely absent, coupled with Durant's injury high hanging free card and Irving's intermittent games, Harden was heartbroken.
Since the championship is hopeless, simply seek another high, so Harden chose to leave, the second half of the season to the 76ers Harden will usher in a data blowout, at least Harden has become the 76ers team's absolute core of the outside line, the 76ers Embiid and Harden a combination of inside and outside is still very worth looking forward to.
Third place, Doncic, who is fighting alone
Doncic's offensive efficiency this season is not very efficient, so far in the season, Doncic has averaged 27.2 points, 9 rebounds and 9.1 assists per game, shooting 45.2%, and the three-point shooting rate is less than 32.9% of the league average, which is also the data after Doncic's state has picked up as the season deepens, most of the time Doncic's three-point shooting rate has not exceeded 30%, which is not this season Doncic lost the qualification for the All-Star Game.
At the last moment of the friendship deadline, the Lone Ranger sent Porzingis, who had been very much expected, to the Wizards, in exchange for Dinwiddie and Bertans, Porzingis did live up to the Expectations of the Wizards, but for this deal, the Lone Ranger still lost a lot, after all, Bertans has proved unreliable, and it is difficult for Dinwiddie after the injury to return to the past, so the Lone Ranger's deal can be said to completely liberate Doncic, so Doncic must make a big deal on the offensive end.
In the two games of the Lone Ranger against the Clippers, Doncic cut down 51 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists and 45 points, 15 rebounds and 8 assists respectively.
In second place, Ayton was the last-ditcher for the top salary
What kind of contract can Ayton get in the offseason is a very concerned news for fans and friends, the current Ayton can average 16.4 points and 10.3 rebounds per game, compared with last season's improvement is not up to, we all know that last season's offseason Suns did not send Ayton an early contract extension, this season may be the management's test of Ayton again, but from the current point of view, Ayton is still unlikely to get the maximum salary.
Ironically, Ayton has missed 11 games this season, the Suns have a record of 46 wins and 10 losses in the league, and substitute centers McGee and Biyombo have played well, and even fan friends joke that McGee and Biyombo have teamed up to destroy Ayton's dream of a maximum salary, and whether Ayton can get a maximum salary in the offseason is crucial in the second half of the season.
In yesterday's suns beat the Bucks, Ayton with 14 shots 12 cut 27 points and 7 rebounds data to lead the Suns to defeat the momentum of the Bucks, this game, alphabet brother only got 18 points, 7 rebounds and 8 assists data, personal performance is far from his average level, it can be seen that Ayton has begun the battle for the right name, the second half of the season Ayton is expected to usher in an outbreak, for his top salary dream and work hard.
The Suns' competitive state this season has shown an unstoppable side, but in the playoffs and even the Finals stage, whether the Suns can beat Jokic's Nuggets in a seven-game four-win game, whether they can beat the Bucks, Heat and 76ers of alphabet brothers, etc., are all hard battles to test Ayton's goodness, if the Suns win the championship and Ayton performs well, then Ayton's maximum salary cannot run.
The first place, the current league male number one letter brother
This season against the Lakers' two games, alphabet brother respectively cut 44 points, 13 rebounds, 8 assists and 2 blocks and 47 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal and 1 block of the super data, two games alphabet brother cut 91 points, 23 rebounds and 11 assists of the super god data, in the game, the alphabet brother crushed Davis at both ends of the offensive and defensive ends, to know that Davis has always been a representative player in the frontcourt players in attack and defense, and now the confident alphabet brother is already the league's male number one.
So far this season, alphabet brother can average 29 points, 11.2 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal and 1.4 blocks of comprehensive data, the Bucks have achieved 35 wins and 22 losses, the fourth place in the East, with excellent performance Alphabet brother in the MVP list temporarily ranked third, some people will say, so good performance of the alphabet brother there is room for growth?
The author believes that the alphabet brother in the second half of the season still has a big possibility to usher in the outbreak, at present, Durant and Curry have fallen behind in the MVP competition, MVP will most likely be produced in Jokic, Embiid and alphabet brother three, but the 76ers with the addition of Harden, Embiid's performance will inevitably decline by a certain extent, Embiid is likely to be the first to fall in the MVP competition.
Followed by Jokic, although Jokic is the biggest hit in MVP this season, but it is difficult for the lone Jokic to lead the Nuggets to make a breakthrough in the record, so that Jokic, who has no record advantage, is likely to compete for the alphabet brother, at present, the Bucks are one of the most neat teams in the lineup, and the resistance of the alphabet brother is also reliable, in the second half of the season, the Bucks are expected to continue to make breakthroughs in the record, and even the Bucks are the biggest favorite of the First Seed in the East, if the Bucks become the first in the East, Then the alphabet brother will most likely get the regular season MVP again.
The imposing alphabet brother still hopes to continue to improve in the second half of the season, after all, the body is the capital of the revolution, and the physical talent of the alphabet brother is unique in the league, facing the temptation of the scoring king and the regular season MVP, the alphabet brother will definitely do his best in the next game.