Make an observation about an NBA team, a player, or any kind of league wide trend you can think of right now and chances are someone will hit you with the retort: It’s a small sample size.
Sure, the NBA season isn’t even a month old and teams have navigated less than 15 percent of the schedule so far. But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been some surprising performances and interesting things percolating around the Associate, catching our attention in the second week of November.
Of course, these trends or noteworthy performances could cease to exist a month from now. Chances are you're asking for trouble when you make a big deal out of a small sample size because you could easily look like a clown later.
“Sometimes it literally takes the season to figure out what you have, who you are, or what you’re becoming,” says Clippers coach Doc Rivers. “Same thing with individual players. In general, small sample sizes will make you wrong, most of the time. Because everyone’s going to change and evolve.”
Small sample sizes be damned, let’s highlight five surprising things we’ve seen from the early NBA season.