Centers Roaming, Bigger Defenders, Curry Flurries, Mid-Range Trends, Blazers' Defense & Magic's Rising Stars

Welcome to the NBA Librarian Weekly, where we curate and summarize the best NBA content of the week.

<1000 words each week. I consume so you don’t have to.

In Today's Edition:

1. Who Let the Centers Out??

2. How Demoralizing is a Curry Flurry?

3. Point Guard Defenders Are Getting Bigger

4. NBA Dunking Data: Take Off Distance + Avg Vertical

5. More Mid-Range Down the Stretch? Only in Close Gam …

6. Highs and Lows of Karl-Anthony Towns’

7. The Blazers Burgeoning Identity

8. Magic Corner: Spotlighting Franz and Goga

Who Let the Centers Out??

An interesting trend in the NBA is how teams are deploying their centers as roamers or weak-side defenders. Owen’s newsletter does a fantastic job of breaking this down — if you're curious about the nuances of modern defense, this is a must-read.

Sengun's Defensive Transformation

• This season, Alperen Sengun has doubled his matchups against guards (30%) while contesting more shots at the rim, ranking 3rd in total contested shots within six feet (behind Wembanyama and Holmgren). Opponents are shooting 53.6% at the rim against him, down from 59.6% last season, helping Houston’s defense improve from 11th to 2nd in Opponent Rim FG%.

The League-Wide Trend:

• Centers defending guards has become more common, jumping from 14.6% of matchup minutes in 2018 to 20.6% in 2025!

Identifying "Incents":

• “Incents” are guards who are often guarded by centers due to their reluctance to shoot, like Ben Simmons (defended by centers 43% of the time).

• These players are typically light on shooting and resemble what Owen calls “Tony Allen with Wi-Fi.”

Great graphics in here too. Highly recommend.

How Demoralizing is a Curry Flurry?

Early last week, Steph Curry took over the game against the Mavericks with one of his patented “Curry Flurries,” a streak of consecutive 3-pointers in a quarter. These flurries naturally boost the Warriors' win rate — but by how much exactly?

Streaks (made shots in a row):

• 2 threes: 59% win rate

• 3 threes: 67.9% win rate

• 4 threes: 87.5% win rate

• Overall: 65.4% win rate, with 75% in fourth-quarter streaks.

Multiple threes in a quarter (not streaks):

• 2 threes: 54.4% win rate

• 3 threes: 64.9% win rate

• Overall: 59.2% win rate

Compared to games without streaks (57.9% win rate) or multiple threes in a quarter (55.4% win rate), a streak adds 7.5%, while multiple threes in a quarter add 3.8% to the Warriors' chances of winning.