For almost any basketball player on earth, Sunday night would have been the game of a lifetime. Luka Doncic made eight 3-pointers against Toronto. He grabbed 15 rebounds, dished six assists, took five steals and scored 45 points. His coach says it feels like a supernova. The Lakers have gone interstellar by ignoring teamwork. They just let Doncic be the biggest ball hog in the NBA.
The stat is called usage rate. It counts how many of a team's possessions end with one player's shot, drawn foul or turnover. The average starter sits just under 20%. That makes sense in a game with five players. Doncic's career rate is already the highest in NBA history, according to Stats Perform. This year it has climbed to 40%. He's scored at least 40 points in half his games, including 52 against Utah, the top total in the league.
Heliocentrism
The wonks call it heliocentrism, an offense that orbits one star. The Lakers let LeBron James go this offseason and handed the franchise to Doncic, 27. An offense that topped out ninth-best in the James era now scores 120.3 points a game, third in the league. The concept has a troubled history. The only higher usage rate on record belonged to Russell Westbrook in 2017, after Kevin Durant left Oklahoma City. Westbrook averaged a triple-double. His team limped out in the first round of the playoffs.
The teammates don't mind watching. Collin Sexton guarded Doncic last season in Charlotte and gave up 38 points. He's a Laker now. "It's definitely good to be on his side," he said. The front office is betting the story ends differently than Westbrook's. For now, every night, one man decides how the Lakers do.
Our read
This is an Investments and Risk story, module IN04, in a basketball uniform. A 40% usage rate is concentration. It produces the best offense in years right up until the star rolls an ankle, and then there's no second plan. Markets work the same way. The S&P 500 gives its biggest companies the biggest share. The top ten names make up a large part of a regular index fund. When they run, the fund runs. When they stumble, as the chip and AI names did again Wednesday, the fund stumbles with them even as most companies rise.
Here's the check for your own money. Find your largest fund's fact sheet and read its top-ten weight. That number is your usage rate. If it's near 40%, you own a Doncic offense. Exciting, and dependent. If it's near 2%, you own equal weight, where every company gets the same possessions. Neither is wrong. Westbrook's 2017 was still a season for the record books. The point is to know which team you own before the playoffs. Our model books hold both kinds on purpose. Our model books changed little this week: a CoreWeave trim and two small swaps, nothing in the North Star. Fifteen minutes with your statement finds your number.