Ranking the NBA’s best duos in the 2021 season is not an easy picking. Let’s have look at them.
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Picking the best duos for any given season of the NBA is not for the faint heart.
Here are the Top 5 duos who have dominated the 2021 season:
They are in the 5th year of their partnership, which is at this point more like a kinship.
They cause problems to defences with their hand-offs, and even the best opponents can suffer death by a thousand back cuts. Jokic knows where everyone on the floor is at all times but seems more acutely aware of Murray’s whereabouts than most.
Murray, has a unique grasp of where Jokic wants him to be. You can sometimes see the two directing each other
Jokic and Murray have pieced together an incredible work across the court. Their partnership is, right now, the league’s standard-bearer.
Just as there is some reluctance to tab the Jazz as bona fide contenders, there’s also a hesitance to mention Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell in the same breath as the NBA’s marquee duos.
Gobert’s impact does, in fact, extend to the other side. He is not a shot creator, per se. But his gravity is its own form of facilitating. Defences react to his rolls, on which he’s averaging 1.27 points per possession.
Donovan is averaging a career-high 25.4 points per game this season and has a personal-best 56.8 shooting percentage. He’s swishing 37.3 % of his pull-up three and helping the Utah Jazz to another successful season in the NBA.
Injuries make placing the Anthony Davis-LeBron James partnership extremely difficult. Davis hasn’t played since Feb. 14 while dealing with a right calf strain, and James is currently out with a high right ankle sprain.
This is a seamless pairing. LeBron’s playmaking is a natural complement to Davis’ play-finishing, and Davis anchors the defence in an all-encompassing way that both simplifies LeBron’s role and emboldens his performance at the less-glamorous end.
LeBron has tallied more time without Davis than with him, through which the Lakers are 6.4 points per 100 possessions. LeBron is shooting 36.6% on step-back threes and 37.4 on all pull-up triples.
The tone of conversation surrounding the Clippers does not align with their record. It is easy to forget they have the third-best record in the Western Conference. Their ability to reach the rim and generate free-throw attempts and their crunch-time performances is by many measures, a serious contender.
Their defensive durability provides with extra power to the team and the Leonard-George coupling easily ranks among the league’s most ideal pair
Don’t be fooled by the Suns’ “modest” net rating when Chris Paul and Devin Booker are on the floor. They have formed a dominant and dynamic pairing.
They started the season indulging more your-turn-my-turn stuff as they learned to play off one another. Having two of the most dangerous in-between scorers alive is a boost for the Suns offense. Defences are caught off guard when Booker and Paul are dribbling around screens.
Both rank between the 76 and 80 percentiles in scoring efficiency as the pick-and-roll ball-handler making them the 5th ranked due for this season.
