Since being traded to the Philadelphia 76ers final month, Quentin Grimes has been taking part in one of the best basketball of his profession. In 15 video games (12 begins) with the Sixers, Grimes is averaging 19.3 factors, 5.2 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.5 steals whereas taking pictures 50.2 p.c from the ground and 37.6 p.c from three. Much more impressively, over his final seven video games, he’s averaging 26.1 factors, 5 rebounds, 4.4 assists and a pair of.1 steals, taking pictures 53.5 p.c from the ground and 38.9 p.c past the arc.
The Mavericks traded Quentin Grimes and a 2025 2nd spherical choose to the 76ers for Caleb Martin.
Martin has performed 3 video games for the Mavericks, averaging 2.7 PPG.
Quentin Grimes is averaging 25.7 PPG in March. pic.twitter.com/M2XbNIG13M
— Underdog (@UnderdogFantasy) March 13, 2025
Now, individuals are questioning whether or not this latest run is a couple of function participant experiencing an out-of-body heater or is Grimes blossoming right into a star earlier than our very eyes?
How Actual Is Grimes’ Manufacturing?
All season lengthy, the Sixers have been decimated by accidents. It’s very true these days, as they’ve been with out 4 main scorers in Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, Paul George and Jared McCain for various quantities of time.
These absences have opened up alternatives for Grimes to flash his off-the-dribble recreation – a device in his arsenal for a while now. As early as December (again when Grimes and Luka Doncic have been nonetheless on the Dallas Mavericks), I used to be tweeting about Grimes’ means to place the ball on the ground and assault. Throughout his time with the Sixers and Mavericks this season, Grimes has a real taking pictures proportion of 60 on his drives, which ranks within the eighty fifth percentile league-wide.
What his new gig has supplied him is only a larger platform to indicate off this present – going from 3.9 drives per recreation with the Mavericks to eight.8 with the Sixers.
What we didn’t find out about Grimes is he additionally has some pull-up taking pictures methods in his bag. You recognize that Dyson Daniels fellow, the defensive dynamo some individuals are saying is one of the best perimeter stopper within the league? Simply the opposite evening Grimes hit him with this powerful fadeaway:
This wasn’t a one-off prevalence, both. He made certain to offer the best shooter of all-time the enterprise throughout a nationally televised outing, too:
Grimes Is Filling A Essential Function
Grimes’ scoring surge jogs my memory of certainly one of my favourite excerpts from Seth Partnow’s e-book, “The Midrange Concept: Basketball’s Evolution Within the Age of Analytics.”
“[T]he worst workforce within the NBA begins each recreation with round 80 factors, 25 rebounds, and 10 assists. These stats should be gathered and awarded over the course of the sport. However throughout the hundred or so possessions in a mean contest, a workforce with 5 even vaguely believable NBA gamers goes to make some photographs and get some stops. … A participant’s manufacturing must be considered much less when it comes to the share of those free numbers he accumulates, however slightly the quantity he provides to the beginning pile.”
We see this confusion happen much more steadily in March and April. At this level of the season, a handful of the groups have thrown within the towel and purposefully sit their greatest gamers to lose video games and enhance their draft place (tanking). And since there are nonetheless factors available, gamers begin placing up numbers at charges we’ve by no means seen from them earlier than.
I concern that is greater than possible what is occurring with Grimes. He isn’t including a lot to the pile as he’s accumulating the ground of numbers you’d see from a contemporary NBA workforce. That is particularly clear whenever you watch his course of as a main possibility.
On this clip, the protection deploys drop protection towards him. In drop protection, when your defender will get caught on the display screen, you’re purported to both circulate right into a dribble pull-up or assault the slower huge with a downhill drive. Grimes did neither. As an alternative, he opted for a compelled pocket move, which was bobbled, earlier than turning into a clumsy layup despatched into the stands.
Right here’s one other instance towards drop protection. This time, his defender fully falls out of the play, leaving the massive man in a two-on-one conundrum. All Grimes must do is take a dribble to bait the middle towards him, so he can hit the pocket move to his roll man. Sadly, Grimes takes one dribble too many and it results in a turnover.
Most of Grimes’ main ball-handler possessions finish in contested jumpers or decision-making sequences missing the smoothness you see from gamers meant to be true NBA-level creators.
Grimes is placing up numbers, however that’s as a result of somebody has to and he’s the one man Philadelphia has to do it proper now.* That is bolstered by the Sixers’ lack of change in offensive ranking when he’s off the ground. Since Grimes joined the squad, their offensive ranking solely improves by 0.1 factors per 100 possessions when he’s on the court docket, in comparison with when he’s off it.
(*For those who’re questioning why I really feel this fashion about Grimes and not Trey Murphy III, it’s as a result of Murphy is greater, has higher numbers, put them up for an extended time frame and did that in a time when one-third of the league wasn’t tanking.)
Why There’s Nonetheless Worth In This Manufacturing
Now, this isn’t completely to say Grimes’ profession month has been all for not. This expertise leaves him higher ready for when he can return to his function as a three-and-D participant.
In 2025, the three-and-D label isn’t as limiting. Gone are the times the place all this archetype was requested to do was defend their tail off whereas standing idly within the nook on offense.
No, no. Given all of the improvements concocted by trendy protection to place ancillary offensive gamers in uncomfortable conditions (the fly-by closeout, blitzing main offensive gamers and forcing their teammates to beat them, and many others.), function gamers should be capable of assault closeouts and do some creating for themselves.
Largely by advantage of this latest run, Grimes has confirmed he can fulfill these duties higher than most of his friends, which can make him one of many hottest three-and-D commodities in the marketplace when he hits restricted free company this summer time. That’s sufficient to make sure his stretch of offensive efficiency carries worth past merely filling up a field rating for a shedding workforce.
