Back when he still hosted his podcast JJ Redick would often talk about “lurkers” in NBA offenses. Guys who hid in the shadows of the play, not participating in most of the actions … until they popped out of seemingly nowhere to score and leave the defense scratching their heads wondering, “Where did that guy come from?”
Good basketball lurkers aren’t the best players. By definition, they’re not the stars of the show. But make no mistake, these players are great in their teams’ systems and they know how to play well with their teammates. As Redick says,
“They’re just good in their off-ball movement. They’re very intuitive in their reads. They always end up creating an advantage I think is the best way to describe it.”
These guys can even swing the entire trajectory of a franchise, as Aaron Gordon did for the Denver Nuggets. The Power Forward was Redick’s favorite example of an NBA lurker, but before joining the Nuggets in 2021 Gordon was a star in Orlando, peaking at 18 points per game and a 24% usage rate. In Denver, his individual numbers took a dip as he played alongside Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray1 but his impact on winning remained and he was instrumental to the Nuggets championship run just three seasons after arriving.
So what makes Aaron Gordon a lurker? One of the most effective plays in basketball is the Jokić-Murray pick & roll, which generates a lot of points on its own. But Gordon adds an extra dimension that makes it nearly impossible to stop. While everyone is focused on the main action, Gordon can slink back to the baseline and crouch like a lion hunting its prey, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce and throw down a thunderous alley oop dunk.
That’s effective lurking. That’s beautiful basketball.
Of course Gordon isn’t the only lurky player in the NBA. I would argue Warriors-era Klay Thompson was another, though very different example of an effective lurker. Unlike Gordon who hides out under the rim waiting for a lob pass and dunk, Thompson lurks at the three-point line. But in the same way defenses’ attentions are diverted away from Gordon to the Jokić-Murray pick & rolls, defenses playing the Warriors could lose Thompson in the chaotic post splits action, particularly while needing to keep track of the best three point shooter in history. Meanwhile, Klay stayed ready at the three-point line for a quick catch & shoot bucket. He once set the NBA record with 14 three-pointers, most coming in this catch & shoot manner.
Both Aaron Gordon and Klay Thompson are a little too good to be considered pure lurkers, and teams have learned they need to pay a lot more attention to these guys these days (knowing it’s coming and stopping it from happening are two very different things), so they have graduated from lurker status. Who has filled that spot? Who are the best lurkers in the NBA this season?
Shining a Light on NBA Lurkers
To start, we need to more precisely define what makes a lurker, statistically. I admit, there is a large component of style to this that can only come from watching NBA players actually play games2, but we can still get a good idea from looking at the numbers. We noted above that Aaron Gordon and Klay Thompson do most of their lurking damage from:
Lots of alley oops
Lots of catch & shoot threes
So to start, here are the top 20 guys this year in each of those two stats:
But, stars can have a lot of alley oops and threes too. I don’t think we’d consider Giannis (4th in alley oops) or Steph (16th in catch & shoot 3s) to be lurkers … Let’s instead look at the players with the largest portion of their points from alley oops and catch & shoot threes:
Ok, that’s more interesting. But a lot of these guys still have the ball in their hands a lot, negating the whole lurker thing. Let’s take the players in the top quartile in either alley oops or catch & shoot threes (as a percentage of points) and cut it down to the players who have a usage rate below 15%:
If we stopped here, Kai Jones would be crowned the NBA’s best lurker3. If you’re not familiar with Kai Jones’s game, you’re not alone. The third year Clippers Center has played just 7 minutes per game, averaging 2 points and 2 rebounds. While his alley oop rate checks the lurker box, a lurker is only really successful if they have an impact on their team’s point total. Somebody getting two thirds of their 2 points per game without dribbling isn’t going to be feared.
Let’s add a scoring threshold to filter out the Kai’s. How about just the guys who have broken 20 points in a game:
Ok so we should have our top guys right? We did it? Well, almost. There’s one more thing. Keegan Murray would be one of the most lurky guys this season. He gets over half his points on alley oops and catch & shoot threes and can swing games, scoring 20+ three times already this year. But, he does it a little too often for me to be comfortable calling him a lurker. He’s scored 15+ in about a quarter of his games, and is in double figures nearly three quarters of the time. Like Gordon or Thompson, he’s on the scouting report.
For reference, Gordon’s 2023-34 high was 30, and he had 20 or more 8 times in 73 games played, about 10% of the time. So as a final cut, let’s look at the guys who have only had a handful of breakout scoring games this year4. Any more and it becomes predictable. Fewer and it’s a fluke.
That gets us down to three guys, the NBA’s best lurkers so far this season. And, coincidentally, three guys who do it in very different ways, at Shooting Guard, Power Forward, and Center:
Returning to play style, these guys pass the lurky eye test. The highlight tapes below reflect the numbers: Agbaji getting most of his points on lead passes in transition or kick-outs to the corner, Camara always ready to shoot on the wings and a willing rim-runner, and Missi waiting in the low paint to finish dimes from his teammates.
None of these young guys are taking their current teams to a championship anytime soon, but with the right development program and group around them, they might just fill that Aaron Gordon or Klay Thompson role that is so critical to winning it all in the NBA. Until then, they’ll just keep doing work in the shadows.
Any lurkers (past or present) you want to highlight? Let me know in the comments!
I think we can say, slight upgrades over Nikola Vučević and Markelle Fultz in Orlando.
Shoutout to the Pudding for providing inspiration (analytical and wording) from their story about unexpected NBA performances.
Specifically, 3 to 5 games scoring within 75% of their season high.
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Where does Looooooney fall in this group?