NBA Weekly Recap: November 7

Story posted November 8, 2021 in CommRadio, Sports by Patrick Lepre

The NBA season is starting to ramp up as another week goes by. Here is a weekly recap of the most significant talking points this week.

Warriors atop the West

The Golden State Warriors, despite not having Klay Thompson, currently find themselves the top seed in the West.

Players like Jordan Poole, Andrew Wiggins and Damion Lee are stepping up massively for this team.

An underrated player so far this season for the Warriors has been Nemanja Bjelica who has the best net rating in the league with 26.2.

The Warriors definitely have one of, if not the best, second units in the entire NBA. The chemistry on this team this season has been arguably the best by any team so far.

Golden State is a team that has fun and it rubs off on all the players when they take the court.

Sixers on top of the East

In what may be a big shock to a lot of NBA fans the 76ers currently have the best record in the East at 8-2.

Even with the mess of a situation with Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris missing time and Joel Embiid not looking like himself to start, they lead the East.

One of the key factors so far the 76ers has been a fantastic start from guard Seth Curry this season.

So far Curry is averaging, by a wide margin, the most points he has in his career with 17.1 points per game. 

Tyrese Maxey also has had a great start in his second season as an NBA player. Maxey is averaging 14.2 points per game and 4.7 assists a game.

With the role players having a great start to the season it’ll be interesting to see if those players play at this level all season, with Embiid eventually figuring his game out along the way.

Shooting Percentage Down

One of the bigger talking points again this season has been the poor shooting percentage by the league, as the shooting averages are the lowest they have been for a while.

The league average for 3’s is the lowest it’s been since the 1998-1999 NBA season at 34.2%.

Field goal percentage, in general, is also the lowest it’s been since the 2003-2004 NBA season at 44.6%.

While some argue this is because of the new foul rules, this could also be due to the new Wilson ball that the NBA is using for the first time this season.

Paul George even came out and said this “ball doesn’t have the same touch and softness.”

Duncan Robinson and Nikola Jokic have also come out and spoke about the ball affecting their game. It’s also early in the year so players have to get adjusted back to their game, but new rules and a new ball are bound to cause some sort of problem.

However, with the best basketball players in the world they should figure it out eventually.

Thunder own Lakers

For the second time, this season the Thunder have come from behind and beaten the Lakers for their second win of the season and against the Lakers.

This time the Lakers had a lead of 19 at one point. Realistically even with Lebron James injured this team should be able to beat the Thunder who are far too young and inexperienced to have championship hopes like this Laker team does.

However, this Thunder team isn’t scared of the Lakers. This is not good for the Lakers if teams in situations like the Thunder aren’t stepping down against them. Once again it was Russell Westbrook in the waning seconds of the game who turned the ball over and missed the go-ahead shot in the end.

Westbrook probably could have gotten a better look for himself or someone else at the end of the game but decided to pull up from deep and shoot a heavily contested shot.

It was a poor game overall for the Lakers as their bench also struggled heavily outside of Carmelo Anthony who had 21 points and shot 8-18 from the field.

This loss was another bump in the road for this Lakers team to start this season.


Patrick Lepre is a first-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email pjl5466@psu.edu.