🏀 Deandre Ayton was a top NBA Draft pick — but the Lakers don’t need him to play like one
My Week in Sport(s) 🏀 🏏 🏈 ⚽ 🏒
Welcome to My Week in Sport(s) — a regular newsletter from Plot the Ball.
Covered in this edition: 🏀 Deandre Ayton, 🏏 Kuldeep Yadav, 🏈 Patrick Mahomes, ⚽ Real Madrid and 🏒 Connor Bedard.
🏀 Deandre Ayton was a top NBA Draft pick — but the Lakers don’t need him to play like one
Passing judgement on an obvious draft ‘bust’ is easy; so, relatively speaking, is identifying a star. Assessing those players who fall somewhere between the two extremes of that spectrum is where things gets interesting.
The Los Angeles Lakers now have two of the top three picks from the 2018 NBA Draft on their roster. One is a five-time All-NBA selection; the other’s career has been nowhere near as impressive. That’s not to say Deandre Ayton — selected first overall in the same year that Luka Dončić went third — has been a bust, though. He’s already played more than 12,000 NBA minutes, and has been an above-average contributor (according to ‘Box Plus/Minus’) in six of his seven seasons in the league so far.
Ayton isn’t thought of as an excellent interior defender, but his seven-foot frame and rebounding ability should allow him to make some meaningful contributions when the Lakers don’t have possession. At the other end of the court, his career to date has been similarly mixed. His last NBA stop was in Portland with the Trail Blazers, where he didn’t use the ball particularly efficiently: the 27-year-old didn’t get to the rim often enough for someone his size, and was a below-average scorer as a consequence.
Earlier in his career, though, Ayton proved that he can be an efficient complementary piece on a competitive NBA team. In two of his five seasons with the Phoenix Suns, his scoring efficiency ranked in the 85th percentile among ‘bigs’. As Kevin Pelton of ESPN noted when the Lakers signed him, Ayton was especially effective as the second player in pick-and-roll actions during those two years — and those are the sequences where Dončić’s singular talent shines most brightly.
From the Lakers’ perspective, Ayton is a low-risk addition; they don’t need him to be much more than a solid contributor next to their new ball-dominant star. For Ayton, though, the stakes are higher. There’s always a nagging question with top picks who haven’t yet lived up to the highest hopes — even those who carve out respectable pro careers. Can Deandre Ayton do better than that? The NBA season starts on Tuesday; we’ll soon find out if he can raise his new team’s ceiling — as well as their floor.
🏏 Kuldeep Yadav’s exemplary record might make India rethink their conservative test approach
I’m always surprised to hear a top team honestly acknowledge a possible tactical mistake. It was refreshing, then, to hear one of India’s coaches speak last week about the decision to omit Kuldeep Yadav from their test 11 against England earlier this year.
“[I]t does maybe make you think…what happens if we had played him at Headingley?” Whenever he’s been given an opportunity, the left-arm wrist-spinner has repeatedly demonstrated his quality. In the team’s recent two-test series at home against the West Indies, Kuldeep’s return of 12 wickets was better than any other player’s; during the World Test Championship era, both his bowling average and strike rate have been miles better than the other spin bowlers who have played in the same tests as he has.
On average, each of his test wickets has cost around 15 runs less than his peers’ have. (No other Indian has a differential in double figures.) I’ll believe that the team has deviated from their conservative selection strategy when I see actual proof of it; for now, though, it’s at least notable that the coaching staff has publicly changed its tune. “[L]ooking forward,” an assistant said, “if we do have to make the brave call where we want to win Test matches, maybe we do go a batter light and play Kuldeep”.
What else I learned last week
🏈 Patrick Mahomes is attempting deeper passes again for the Chiefs
After a slow start to the season, the Kansas City Chiefs are back on track. Things are looking up for their star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, too: six games in, one of the most interesting trends in recent NFL history might be reversing direction.
Back in January, we examined how the league’s stylistic evolution was impacting Mahomes more than most other QBs. Over his first seven full seasons, the average distance that his pass attempts travelled in the air before reaching their intended target had fallen from comfortably above the NFL average to well below. So far this year, however, his completed passes have travelled a yard further in the air than they did in 2024 — and his incompletions are averaging two more air yards per attempt.
⚽ Xabi Alonso’s improved Real Madrid are still short of full strength
After eight La Liga matches, you can make a case that Real Madrid already look stronger than they did last season. By adjusted goal difference — a metric I explored last week — they have improved from a mark of +0.9 per game in 2024-25 to +1.1.
As the players become more familiar with Xabi Alonso’s approach, we might expect their performance to tick further upwards. Even in the absence of a coach effect, though, I’d be surprised if the team didn’t get better from here. Why? Some of their best talent has barely seen the field. As well as injured recruit Trent Alexander-Arnold, two players who appeared in more than two thirds of the available minutes last season — Jude Bellingham and Antonio Rüdiger — have played fewer than 25% in 2025-26.
🏒 Connor Bedard’s shot rate has remained low to start the NHL season
It’s still very early in the NHL season; no team has played more than six games yet. There are certain things I’ve already been keeping a relatively close eye on, though — like former first-overall draft pick Connor Bedard’s shot numbers.
In February, I noted that the rate of attempts on goal that Bedard was generating for himself had dropped off considerably since his rookie year with the Blackhawks. How has this part of his game looked in his third season in the league? Given that it’s early, let’s also include shot attempts that missed the net to broaden our sample. The signs aren’t too promising: Bedard has taken 12 total attempts in 86 even-strength minutes — a rate of around 8 per 60, down from 13 per 60 last year and 15 in 2024-25.
The next edition of My Week in Sport(s) will be published on Friday October 24th.
