NBA Season 2017-18: Top 5 Transition Scorers
Teams that like to play with brisk pace are spearheaded by point guards that love to explode right off the gates and run down the floor before anybody else on the court, including their own teammates. The defence is usually caught napping and that gives way to drive-in lanes, open floor spaces and uncontested bonus buckets.
Fastbreak offence catches them off-guard, even before all five defenders have taken position enough to counter the onslaught. The offence often has a man advantage and always has more open space than it would in a half-court set.
For an individual to go coast-to-coast and score with precision at supersonic speeds requires superhuman levels of ball-control and court vision.
Who were the most effective ballers last season when it comes to pushing the ball in transition? I'll take you through the best in the business.
#5 Kevin Durant, Victor Oladipo & Devin Booker - 5.4 points per game
Durant and Oladipo like to run when they have the ball in their hands. They would weave through traffic, dribble the ball ahead of themselves and pull the defence towards themselves in order to open the floor for the trailing teammates. The same description can be used to describe Booker's transition routines.
Although the trio scored the same number of transition points per game last season, Oladipo led the three in terms of transition points per possession at 1.15, with Durant (1.11) & Booker (1.06) close behind.
This is understandable knowing that Booker resides in a team that relies heavily on his ability to run down the floor and get a bucket relatively frequently than the Warriors or Pacers rely on KD or Dipo for the same.
Durant has been taking care of transition plays ever since his OKC Thunder days, and so it's no surprise that he is as proficient as anybody else in the league in controlling the ball in at high speeds and filling lanes.
Oladipo has been given the wheels to push the tempo of the Indiana Pacers. Their style of offence has bestowed him with an identity of his own, which would not have been possible had he remained under floor-general Westbrook at OKC. He can see the floor clearer, pass better and run faster, along with finishing strong at the rim.