fivethirthyeight--2020-11-17--After Beating Cancer, This Syracuse Point Guard Is Coming For The Record Books

Just the fact that Tiana Mangakahia is returning to the court for Syracuse this season would be remarkable in and of itself .
Mangakahia , a fifth-year senior from Brisbane , Australia , had considered entering the 2019 WNBA draft .
But she decided instead to return to Syracuse and play her senior season in 2019-20 .
Mangakahia missed all of the 2019-20 season after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in June .
She underwent a double mastectomy in November , trained relentlessly as she beat back the disease , and a year later , she ’ s been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an extra year of eligibility .
Her coach , Quentin Hillsman , finds himself marveling regularly that the point guard — who stayed in Syracuse to fight the disease — is back at full strength .
But the process was easier for everyone , Hillsman said , because Mangakahia made it that way .
“ From the diagnosis , to day one seeing her back on the court again , it ’ s just a toughness , ” Hillsman said in October .
“ That ’ s a long road , not just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And she just came in with a great attitude .
… I never saw her down , to be honest with you .
So she wouldn ’ t allow us to feel sorry for her , and she wouldn ’ t allow us to be down.
” As he prepares for the season ahead , Hillsman recognizes that Mangakahia has been kept in the program ’ s orbit by a special set of circumstances .
But to simply leave it there — an inspirational story , an easy figure to root for — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ levels of playmaking Mangakahia provides and just how dangerous her presence makes the Orange this year .
After transferring from Hutchinson Community College in Kansas before her sophomore year , Mangakahia posted an assist percentage of 61 in 2017-18 .
It ’ s worth putting this in context because it ’ s as astonishing a stat as any women ’ s basketball player has put up in recent memory .
The runner-up in the stat that season , Taeler Deer of Texas State , posted an assist percentage of 44.7 , a difference @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way , the gap between Nos .
1 and 2 was as large as the gap between Nos .
2 and 145 in the nation that year .
Over the five years of charting this stat at HerHoopStats , no other player has reached the 60 percent mark , or even come close .
No one has even breached the 50 percent assist rate … Except Mangakahia , who did it her junior year , leading the nation with a 52.2 percent mark in the 2018-19 season .
It ’ s one thing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ category .
It ’ s another to redefine the ceiling of that category , especially when distributing the ball is the most important job at her position .
Notably , while her assist rate dipped some from her 2017-18 high , she cut her turnover percentage significantly , from 26.1 to 20.8 .
She elevated her shooting from beyond the arc as well , from 28.9 to 37.1 percent .
Mangakahia was making better decisions , and she was still finding her teammates at rates no one has ever seen .
More impressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had set for herself .
So it ’ s worth considering her 2020-21 statistical benchmarks in that context as well .
“ One thing when I look at players who get picked high [ in the WNBA draft ] — first five picks — is they score a lot of points , ” Mangakahia said .
“ My average scoring is like 17 .
When I look at players getting picked top 10 , top five , they ’ re averaging over 20 points a game.
” It ’ s not as if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ totals .
She scored 44 in a game against Florida State in February 2019 , and did so on just 20 field-goal attempts , and she routinely tops 20 , including a 26-point output in November 2018 against Chennedy Carter and Texas A & M .
But working against her own scoring average , and Hillsman ’ s desire to see her play more selfishly on offense , could make her a threat to topple even her own oversized assist records : Syracuse is stacked this year .
Backcourt mate Kiara Lewis , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a redshirt junior last year and scored 17.6 points per game , will move off the ball to play the two guard next to Mangakahia .
Digna Strautmane and Emily Engstler , both versatile wings , and forward Maeva Djaldi-Tabdi are another year more experienced .
And a monster recruiting class — seven newcomers , including three ESPN Top 100 players — will provide endless opportunities for Hillsman to play at the frenetic pace he prefers , since he can throw waves of players at opponents .
It was a strategy that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ game , and it should enhance the number of transition opportunities for Mangakahia as well .
If the timeline for Mangakahia looked terribly unfair just a few short months ago , it all looks to be lining up for her now .
Most WNBA talent evaluators have her projected to go in the first round of the 2021 draft , assuming she returns to play at her previous level .
And because the Olympics were postponed a year , Mangakahia ’ s dream of playing for Australia is a real option .
Even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ help her , Hillsman believes .
“ I think a lot of it is actually watching the game , ” he said .
“ Being on the sideline and seeing things — there were times after games she and I were talking and she ’ d say , ‘ I understand what you ’ re saying now.
’ The best teacher is obviously doing it .
But the second-best teacher is just doing it , watching it and understanding it .
And now she understands it .
I think that ’ s different @ @ @ @ @ @ @ everything.
” When she gets back to the court , she ’ s returning as both a prospective top draft pick and a beacon of hope for others afflicted by breast cancer .
She knows it , and she ’ s up for that role .
“ I hear about that every day , almost , ” Mangakahia said in October , which was Breast Cancer Awareness Month .
“ I get messages on my Instagram .
… It makes me appreciate everybody who was there for me when I was going through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be thinking about everybody who has to go through a hard time and obviously , always there for anybody who wants to reach out.
” Mangakahia ’ s story is inspiring and heartwarming .
But when it comes to basketball , she ’ s not finished writing it quite yet .

Just the fact that Tiana Mangakahia is returning to the court for Syracuse this season would be remarkable in and of itself.
Mangakahia, a fifth-year senior from Brisbane, Australia, had considered entering the 2019 WNBA draft. But she decided instead to return to Syracuse and play her senior season in 2019-20.
Then everything changed.
Mangakahia missed all of the 2019-20 season after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in June. She underwent a double mastectomy in November, trained relentlessly as she beat back the disease, and a year later, she’s been cleared by the NCAA to return with an extra year of eligibility.
Her coach, Quentin Hillsman, finds himself marveling regularly that the point guard — who stayed in Syracuse to fight the disease — is back at full strength. But the process was easier for everyone, Hillsman said, because Mangakahia made it that way.
“From the diagnosis, to day one seeing her back on the court again, it’s just a toughness,” Hillsman said in October. “That’s a long road, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. And she just came in with a great attitude. … I never saw her down, to be honest with you. So she wouldn’t allow us to feel sorry for her, and she wouldn’t allow us to be down.”
As he prepares for the season ahead, Hillsman recognizes that Mangakahia has been kept in the program’s orbit by a special set of circumstances. But to simply leave it there — an inspirational story, an easy figure to root for — is to miss both the previously unmatched levels of playmaking Mangakahia provides and just how dangerous her presence makes the Orange this year.
After transferring from Hutchinson Community College in Kansas before her sophomore year, Mangakahia posted an assist percentage of 61 in 2017-18. It’s worth putting this in context because it’s as astonishing a stat as any women’s basketball player has put up in recent memory.
The runner-up in the stat that season, Taeler Deer of Texas State, posted an assist percentage of 44.7, a difference of 16.3 percentage points. Put another way, the gap between Nos. 1 and 2 was as large as the gap between Nos. 2 and 145 in the nation that year. Over the five years of charting this stat at HerHoopStats, no other player has reached the 60 percent mark, or even come close. No one has even breached the 50 percent assist rate …
Except Mangakahia, who did it her junior year, leading the nation with a 52.2 percent mark in the 2018-19 season. It’s one thing to be the very best in a category. It’s another to redefine the ceiling of that category, especially when distributing the ball is the most important job at her position.
Mangakahia dropped dimes at unthinkable rates Top 10 player seasons by assist rate in Division I women’s college basketball since 2015-16 Season Player School Assist Rate 2017-18 Tiana Mangakahia Syracuse 61.0% 2018-19 Tiana Mangakahia Syracuse 52.2 2016-17 Drea Toler UC Santa Barbara 48.1 2016-17 Cherise Beynon New Mexico 47.7 2016-17 Curtyce Knox Texas A&M 45.9 2019-20 Ivy Wallen North Alabama 45.3 2018-19 Shakyla Hill Grambling 44.9 2018-19 Aisia Robertson New Mexico 44.8 2019-20 Sabrina Ionescu Oregon 44.7 2017-18 Taeler Deer Texas State 44.7 Source: Her Hoop Stats
Notably, while her assist rate dipped some from her 2017-18 high, she cut her turnover percentage significantly, from 26.1 to 20.8. She elevated her shooting from beyond the arc as well, from 28.9 to 37.1 percent. Mangakahia was making better decisions, and she was still finding her teammates at rates no one has ever seen.
More impressive: These were precisely the goals she had set for herself. So it’s worth considering her 2020-21 statistical benchmarks in that context as well.
“One thing when I look at players who get picked high [in the WNBA draft] — first five picks — is they score a lot of points,” Mangakahia said. “My average scoring is like 17. When I look at players getting picked top 10, top five, they’re averaging over 20 points a game.”
It’s not as if Mangakahia is incapable of those eye-popping scoring totals. She scored 44 in a game against Florida State in February 2019, and did so on just 20 field-goal attempts, and she routinely tops 20, including a 26-point output in November 2018 against Chennedy Carter and Texas A&M.
But working against her own scoring average, and Hillsman’s desire to see her play more selfishly on offense, could make her a threat to topple even her own oversized assist records: Syracuse is stacked this year.
Backcourt mate Kiara Lewis, who held the fort at point guard as a redshirt junior last year and scored 17.6 points per game, will move off the ball to play the two guard next to Mangakahia. Digna Strautmane and Emily Engstler, both versatile wings, and forward Maeva Djaldi-Tabdi are another year more experienced. And a monster recruiting class — seven newcomers, including three ESPN Top 100 players — will provide endless opportunities for Hillsman to play at the frenetic pace he prefers, since he can throw waves of players at opponents. It was a strategy that lifted Syracuse into the 2016 NCAA title game, and it should enhance the number of transition opportunities for Mangakahia as well.
If the timeline for Mangakahia looked terribly unfair just a few short months ago, it all looks to be lining up for her now. Most WNBA talent evaluators have her projected to go in the first round of the 2021 draft, assuming she returns to play at her previous level. And because the Olympics were postponed a year, Mangakahia’s dream of playing for Australia is a real option.
Even her time away from the court should help her, Hillsman believes.
“I think a lot of it is actually watching the game,” he said. “Being on the sideline and seeing things — there were times after games she and I were talking and she’d say, ‘I understand what you’re saying now.’ The best teacher is obviously doing it. But the second-best teacher is just doing it, watching it and understanding it. And now she understands it. I think that’s different. … I think this will change everything.”
When she gets back to the court, she’s returning as both a prospective top draft pick and a beacon of hope for others afflicted by breast cancer. She knows it, and she’s up for that role.
“I hear about that every day, almost,” Mangakahia said in October, which was Breast Cancer Awareness Month. “I get messages on my Instagram. … It makes me appreciate everybody who was there for me when I was going through it. And so I’ll be thinking about everybody who has to go through a hard time and obviously, always there for anybody who wants to reach out.”
Mangakahia’s story is inspiring and heartwarming. But when it comes to basketball, she’s not finished writing it quite yet.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-18--Chris Paul Helped Blake Griffin Shine. Can He Do The Same For Deandre Ayton?

The Phoenix Suns were famously the worst team invited to the NBA bubble in Walt Disney World , beginning play six games back of the No .
8 seed with only eight games left .
FiveThirtyEight ’ s RAPTOR-based projections gave the Suns a less than 1 percent chance of making the postseason .
Naturally , the Suns then proceeded to take the bubble by storm , going 8-0 in the seeding games behind sparkling performances from Devin Booker , Deandre Ayton ( except for the one time he missed a COVID-19 test ) and just about everyone else , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only because of a tiebreaker .
Now the Suns are pushing all their chips to the middle in an effort to build on that success .
On Monday , the Suns acquired Chris Paul and Abdel Nader from the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for Kelly Oubre Jr. , Ricky Rubio , Ty Jerome , Jalen Lecque and a ( protected ) 2022 first-round pick .
Almost immediately , most basketball fans began dreaming on a Paul-Booker backcourt .
My mind instead turned to Ayton , because throughout his career , Paul has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of all kinds of big men .
In New Orleans , he partnered with David West and Tyson Chandler , helping turn the former into one of the league ’ s best pick-and-pop threats and the latter into one of its premier dive men .
With the Clippers , Paul teamed with Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan to form Lob City , rocking rims all over the country .
In Houston , he and Clint Capela became nearly as unstoppable a duo as Capela and James Harden .
And last year in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with all of his bigs : Steven Adams , Danilo Gallinari ( admittedly more of a stretch big ) and Nerlens Noel , for the most part , but even Mike Muscala and Darius Bazley got in on the fun every once in a while .
In Ayton , Paul gets his most versatile dance partner since Griffin .
Remember , though , that it took a few years for Griffin to become the type of all-around player we now see .
Ayton is actually a better shooter right now than Griffin was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ayton has hit shots outside of 8 feet at a 40.6 percent clip in his young career , per NBA Advanced Stats , compared with just 33.6 percent for Griffin in his rookie season in L.A. , before CP3 arrived .
( Griffin was and is a significantly more adept passer . )
More important from the Suns ’ perspective , though , is how Paul ’ s pick-and-roll brilliance will aid Ayton in his pursuit of stardom .
With all due respect to Booker , Rubio , Jerome , Lecque , Troy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Anthony Melton , Jevon Carter , Jamal Crawford , Tyler Johnson , Elie Okobo , Isaiah Canaan , Jawun Evans and Jimmer Fredette , Paul is by far the best operator with whom Ayton will have played in his young career .
There ’ s a reason they call him the Point God — he ’ s not just one of the best in the league , he ’ s one of the very best of all time .
Paul has a special combination of quickness , pace , precision , vision , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him to find creases in defenses that few others can access .
He is arguably the best midrange shooter in the history of the league , and despite his size , he can get that shot at any time , over any defender , with his body facing in just about any direction before he decides to turn and unspool it toward the rim .
Because he has that particular set of skills , Paul is able to find success with damn near any kind of pick-and-roll partner , from rim-runners like Chandler @ @ @ @ @ @ @ West and Griffin and even pure pick-and-pop threats like P.J .
Tucker and Ryan Anderson .
He can do it in optimal , shooting-oriented environments like the one he had in Houston or even in the spacing-starved ecosystem in which he so often operated in L.A .
Despite Griffin ’ s shooting shortcomings at the start of their partnership and Jordan ’ s total lack of range , for example , the CP3-Blake pick-and-roll pairing was an extremely fruitful one .
In their Clipper careers , the duo paired for 3,899 regular-season ball @ @ @ @ @ @ @ points per possession , per Second Spectrum tracking data .
While that wasn ’ t the most efficient of Paul ’ s pick-and-roll pairings over the years , it was still quite good — and far more efficient than Ayton pick and rolls have been during his first two NBA seasons .
In fact , Paul has paired on at least 200 pick and rolls with 11 different big men during the Second Spectrum era , and nine of those partnerships have proven more efficient than Ayton pick and rolls in two seasons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believe that Paul won ’ t be able to make Ayton an even more efficient ball-screen scorer than he has been so far .
Of course , Paul ’ s mastery extends beyond the pick and roll .
He ’ s a premier half-court operator in all senses of the term , and he excels at getting the ball to his teammates in positions where they can succeed .
For example , according to Second Spectrum data provided to FiveThirtyEight , the average NBA post-up touch since 2016 has started 13.9 feet away @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on entry passes thrown by Paul during that time have come just 12.3 feet away from the rim .
A difference of more than a foot and a half means the world to a post scorer like Ayton , who is already better at establishing position close to the basket than the players Paul has been feeding .
In his two seasons , Ayton ’ s average post touch came just over 10.5 feet away from the hoop , per Second Spectrum .
Give a big man who excels at getting himself open @ @ @ @ @ @ @ passer who also happens to be a knockdown shooter , and he ’ ll become even more dangerous .
Surround that pairing with even more shooting — in the form of Booker , Mikal Bridges and Cameron Johnson — and he ’ ll become more dangerous still .
And Ayton is already an above-average post scorer to begin with .
His 1.014 points per direct post-up ranks 37th out of the 109 players with at least 100 post-ups over the past two seasons , per Second Spectrum .
Paul prefers a slower style @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has ranked inside the top 10 in pace since the 2013-14 Clippers ) , which should mesh with Ayton as well ; but he ’ ll also be sure to reward the big man with feeds if and when he runs the floor , ensuring him a decent helping of easy baskets .
He ’ ll undoubtedly aid Ayton ’ s efforts to become a better defender , too .
Ayton already made strides on that end during his second season — especially in the bubble — and now has the look of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better on defense for most of his career .
Paul is no longer the world-class defender he was in his prime , but he ’ s still a good one , and few players work consistently harder on that end than he does .
The example he sets and the stinginess he provides at the point of attack should each help Ayton progress further .
Of course , Paul is also 35 years old .
He ’ s got two years remaining on his contract , assuming he picks up the $ 44.2 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2021-22 season , and he ’ s already defied the typical aging curve for players his size by remaining effective this deep into his 30s .
He ’ s undoubtedly nearing the end of the line .
And while there are many great advantages to having him on your roster , there are also some drawbacks .
Just ask Jordan or Griffin or Harden .
Paul is so smart , so demanding and such a perfectionist that anything less than full effort and flawless execution is deemed unacceptable .
Because he so rarely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get away with that type of leadership — for a while .
But the taskmaster style can eventually wear thin .
The Suns surely know that , though , and they can ’ t realistically view him as a long-term fixture .
Instead , he ’ s more like an oasis in the desert , there to give Ayton and Booker the fuel they need to reach another level — and , if all goes according to plan , help take the Suns back to the playoffs in the process .

The Phoenix Suns were famously the worst team invited to the NBA bubble in Walt Disney World, beginning play six games back of the No. 8 seed with only eight games left. FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR-based projections gave the Suns a less than 1 percent chance of making the postseason. Naturally, the Suns then proceeded to take the bubble by storm, going 8-0 in the seeding games behind sparkling performances from Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton (except for the one time he missed a COVID-19 test) and just about everyone else, ultimately falling short of the play-in round only because of a tiebreaker.
Now the Suns are pushing all their chips to the middle in an effort to build on that success. On Monday, the Suns acquired Chris Paul and Abdel Nader from the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for Kelly Oubre Jr., Ricky Rubio, Ty Jerome, Jalen Lecque and a (protected) 2022 first-round pick.
Almost immediately, most basketball fans began dreaming on a Paul-Booker backcourt. My mind instead turned to Ayton, because throughout his career, Paul has made a habit of getting the best out of all kinds of big men.
In New Orleans, he partnered with David West and Tyson Chandler, helping turn the former into one of the league’s best pick-and-pop threats and the latter into one of its premier dive men. With the Clippers, Paul teamed with Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan to form Lob City, rocking rims all over the country. In Houston, he and Clint Capela became nearly as unstoppable a duo as Capela and James Harden. And last year in Oklahoma City, he formed beautiful partnerships with all of his bigs: Steven Adams, Danilo Gallinari (admittedly more of a stretch big) and Nerlens Noel, for the most part, but even Mike Muscala and Darius Bazley got in on the fun every once in a while.
In Ayton, Paul gets his most versatile dance partner since Griffin. Remember, though, that it took a few years for Griffin to become the type of all-around player we now see. Ayton is actually a better shooter right now than Griffin was when he and Paul teamed up: Ayton has hit shots outside of 8 feet at a 40.6 percent clip in his young career, per NBA Advanced Stats, compared with just 33.6 percent for Griffin in his rookie season in L.A., before CP3 arrived. (Griffin was and is a significantly more adept passer.)
More important from the Suns’ perspective, though, is how Paul’s pick-and-roll brilliance will aid Ayton in his pursuit of stardom. With all due respect to Booker, Rubio, Jerome, Lecque, Troy Daniels, Jared Harper, De’Anthony Melton, Jevon Carter, Jamal Crawford, Tyler Johnson, Elie Okobo, Isaiah Canaan, Jawun Evans and Jimmer Fredette, Paul is by far the best operator with whom Ayton will have played in his young career. There’s a reason they call him the Point God — he’s not just one of the best in the league, he’s one of the very best of all time.
Paul has a special combination of quickness, pace, precision, vision, shooting touch and spatial awareness that allows him to find creases in defenses that few others can access. He is arguably the best midrange shooter in the history of the league, and despite his size, he can get that shot at any time, over any defender, with his body facing in just about any direction before he decides to turn and unspool it toward the rim.
Because he has that particular set of skills, Paul is able to find success with damn near any kind of pick-and-roll partner, from rim-runners like Chandler, Jordan and Capela to short-rollers like West and Griffin and even pure pick-and-pop threats like P.J. Tucker and Ryan Anderson. He can do it in optimal, shooting-oriented environments like the one he had in Houston or even in the spacing-starved ecosystem in which he so often operated in L.A.
Paul is also a Pick God Chris Paul’s pick and roll pairings with big men of at least 200 picks, plus all pick and rolls run for Deandre Ayton, by points per possession Pick-and-Roll pairing Picks Points per possession Paul-Faried 207 1.399 Paul-Gallinari 568 1.225 Paul-Hawes 311 1.202 Paul-Jordan 5,030 1.166 Paul-Adams 921 1.154 Paul-Tucker 395 1.144 Paul-Griffin 3,899 1.142 Paul-Capela 1,521 1.123 Paul-Nene 484 1.089 Suns-Ayton 3,836 1.062 Paul-Anderson 269 1.046 Paul-Davis 218 1.015 Source: Second Spectrum
Despite Griffin’s shooting shortcomings at the start of their partnership and Jordan’s total lack of range, for example, the CP3-Blake pick-and-roll pairing was an extremely fruitful one. In their Clipper careers, the duo paired for 3,899 regular-season ball screens that yielded an average of 1.142 points per possession, per Second Spectrum tracking data. While that wasn’t the most efficient of Paul’s pick-and-roll pairings over the years, it was still quite good — and far more efficient than Ayton pick and rolls have been during his first two NBA seasons.
In fact, Paul has paired on at least 200 pick and rolls with 11 different big men during the Second Spectrum era, and nine of those partnerships have proven more efficient than Ayton pick and rolls in two seasons. There’s little reason to believe that Paul won’t be able to make Ayton an even more efficient ball-screen scorer than he has been so far.
Of course, Paul’s mastery extends beyond the pick and roll. He’s a premier half-court operator in all senses of the term, and he excels at getting the ball to his teammates in positions where they can succeed. For example, according to Second Spectrum data provided to FiveThirtyEight, the average NBA post-up touch since 2016 has started 13.9 feet away from the rim. But post touches on entry passes thrown by Paul during that time have come just 12.3 feet away from the rim.
A difference of more than a foot and a half means the world to a post scorer like Ayton, who is already better at establishing position close to the basket than the players Paul has been feeding. In his two seasons, Ayton’s average post touch came just over 10.5 feet away from the hoop, per Second Spectrum.
Give a big man who excels at getting himself open close to the basket an elite entry passer who also happens to be a knockdown shooter, and he’ll become even more dangerous. Surround that pairing with even more shooting — in the form of Booker, Mikal Bridges and Cameron Johnson — and he’ll become more dangerous still.
And Ayton is already an above-average post scorer to begin with. His 1.014 points per direct post-up ranks 37th out of the 109 players with at least 100 post-ups over the past two seasons, per Second Spectrum.
Paul prefers a slower style of play (none of his teams has ranked inside the top 10 in pace since the 2013-14 Clippers), which should mesh with Ayton as well; but he’ll also be sure to reward the big man with feeds if and when he runs the floor, ensuring him a decent helping of easy baskets. He’ll undoubtedly aid Ayton’s efforts to become a better defender, too. Ayton already made strides on that end during his second season — especially in the bubble — and now has the look of a player who should be average or better on defense for most of his career.
Paul is no longer the world-class defender he was in his prime, but he’s still a good one, and few players work consistently harder on that end than he does. The example he sets and the stinginess he provides at the point of attack should each help Ayton progress further.
Of course, Paul is also 35 years old. He’s got two years remaining on his contract, assuming he picks up the $44.2 million player option he holds for the 2021-22 season, and he’s already defied the typical aging curve for players his size by remaining effective this deep into his 30s. He’s undoubtedly nearing the end of the line.
And while there are many great advantages to having him on your roster, there are also some drawbacks. Just ask Jordan or Griffin or Harden. Paul is so smart, so demanding and such a perfectionist that anything less than full effort and flawless execution is deemed unacceptable. Because he so rarely makes mistakes himself, he can even get away with that type of leadership — for a while. But the taskmaster style can eventually wear thin.
The Suns surely know that, though, and they can’t realistically view him as a long-term fixture. Instead, he’s more like an oasis in the desert, there to give Ayton and Booker the fuel they need to reach another level — and, if all goes according to plan, help take the Suns back to the playoffs in the process.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-18--Republicans Won Almost Every Election Where Redistricting Was At Stake

Joe Biden may have won the White House , but down-ballot races were much better for Republicans .
In fact , the GOP ’ s victories in state-level elections could pay dividends long after Biden leaves office , thanks to their influence over next year ’ s redistricting process .
Every 10 years , after the census , congressional and state legislature districts are redrawn to account for population changes .
This gives whoever is drawing the maps the power to maximize the number of districts that favor their party — a tactic known as gerrymandering .
And as we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ represented the last chance for voters to weigh in on who would draw those maps .
Both parties went into the election with a chance to draw more congressional districts than the other , but the end result was just about the best-case scenario for Republicans .
As the map below shows , Republicans are set to control the redistricting of 188 congressional seats — or 43 percent of the entire House of Representatives .
By contrast , Democrats will control the redistricting of , at most , 73 seats , or 17 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ off ?
By winning almost every 2020 election in which control of redistricting was at stake : • The GOP kept control of the redistricting process in Texas by holding the state House .
Given that Election Data Services estimates Texas will have 39 congressional seats for the next decade , this was arguably Republicans ’ single biggest win of the 2020 election .
• Republicans successfully defended the Pennsylvania legislature from a Democratic takeover , although they ’ ll still need to share redistricting power over its projected 17 congressional districts , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ veto power .
• Republicans held the majority in both chambers of the North Carolina legislature , which will enable them to draw an expected 14 congressional districts all by themselves .
• Amendment 1 passed in Virginia , taking the power to draw the state ’ s 11 congressional districts out of the hands of the all-Democratic state government and investing it in a bipartisan commission made up of a mix of citizens and legislators .
• In Missouri ( home to eight congressional districts ) , Gov .
Mike Parson was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ redistricting control in Republican hands .
• In an upset , Republicans managed to keep their majority in the Minnesota state Senate , thus ensuring Democrats wouldn ’ t have the unfettered ability to draw the state ’ s projected seven congressional districts .
The parties will share redistricting responsibilities there .
• The GOP kept control of the state House in Iowa , with its four congressional districts .
• Republicans maintained their supermajorities in the Kansas Legislature , enabling them to pass a new congressional map ( worth four districts ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s veto .
• Finally , Republicans surprisingly flipped both the state Senate and state House in New Hampshire ( worth two congressional districts ) , seizing full control of both the state government and the redistricting process .
The one state where Republicans may not have gotten their preferred outcome is New York , where we still don ’ t know who will control the redistricting process because the state is taking so long to count absentee ballots .
If Democrats win a supermajority in the state Senate , they will have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s projected 26 congressional districts .
Democrats are close to clearing that bar , but we won ’ t know if they make it for , potentially , weeks .
Regardless of the outcome in New York , the overall redistricting picture is the same : The GOP is in almost as good a position as it enjoyed in the last redistricting process , when Republicans controlled the drawing of 55 percent of congressional districts and Democrats controlled only 10 percent after 2010 ’ s GOP wave .
As a result , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans this decade than at any point since the 1970s ( and Republicans have been able to win multiple chambers in state legislatures despite losing the statewide popular vote ) .
It now looks as if we ’ re headed for another 10 years of Republican-favoring maps .
Democrats were able to win the House and several state legislatures in 2018 thanks to shifting vote patterns in the suburbs in particular , but Republicans in many states will now have the opportunity to draw new gerrymanders that account for this realignment .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still be less biased in the 2020s than it was in the 2010s .
While it ’ s true that Republicans are set to draw many more congressional districts than Democrats , they will still draw fewer than they did in 2011 .
In addition , at least 167 districts , or 38 percent of the House , will be drawn by independent commissions or by both parties sharing power .
That ’ s up from 145 ( 33 percent ) in 2011 , in part because states such as Colorado , Michigan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recent years .
These reforms should translate into fewer gerrymandered seats overall — by either party .
Furthermore , some redistricting processes still controlled by one party — think Ohio ’ s or Utah ’ s — have new rules in place designed to encourage more neutral maps .
So ultimately , we ’ ll have to wait and see what the often-messy redistricting process produces in each state — and you can rest assured that will be a major focus of FiveThirtyEight ’ s coverage in 2021 .

Joe Biden may have won the White House, but down-ballot races were much better for Republicans. In fact, the GOP’s victories in state-level elections could pay dividends long after Biden leaves office, thanks to their influence over next year’s redistricting process.
[Related: Republicans Are On Track To Take Back The House In 2022]
Every 10 years, after the census, congressional and state legislature districts are redrawn to account for population changes. This gives whoever is drawing the maps the power to maximize the number of districts that favor their party — a tactic known as gerrymandering. And as we wrote last month, the 2020 election represented the last chance for voters to weigh in on who would draw those maps. Both parties went into the election with a chance to draw more congressional districts than the other, but the end result was just about the best-case scenario for Republicans. As the map below shows, Republicans are set to control the redistricting of 188 congressional seats — or 43 percent of the entire House of Representatives. By contrast, Democrats will control the redistricting of, at most, 73 seats, or 17 percent.
How did Republicans pull that off? By winning almost every 2020 election in which control of redistricting was at stake:
The one state where Republicans may not have gotten their preferred outcome is New York, where we still don’t know who will control the redistricting process because the state is taking so long to count absentee ballots. If Democrats win a supermajority in the state Senate, they will have total veto power over the state’s projected 26 congressional districts. Democrats are close to clearing that bar, but we won’t know if they make it for, potentially, weeks.
Polls were off for the 2020 election, but not by much | FiveThirtyEight
Regardless of the outcome in New York, the overall redistricting picture is the same: The GOP is in almost as good a position as it enjoyed in the last redistricting process, when Republicans controlled the drawing of 55 percent of congressional districts and Democrats controlled only 10 percent after 2010’s GOP wave. As a result, the House map has been more biased toward Republicans this decade than at any point since the 1970s (and Republicans have been able to win multiple chambers in state legislatures despite losing the statewide popular vote ). It now looks as if we’re headed for another 10 years of Republican-favoring maps. Democrats were able to win the House and several state legislatures in 2018 thanks to shifting vote patterns in the suburbs in particular, but Republicans in many states will now have the opportunity to draw new gerrymanders that account for this realignment.
That said, the House map overall might still be less biased in the 2020s than it was in the 2010s. While it’s true that Republicans are set to draw many more congressional districts than Democrats, they will still draw fewer than they did in 2011. In addition, at least 167 districts, or 38 percent of the House, will be drawn by independent commissions or by both parties sharing power. That’s up from 145 (33 percent) in 2011, in part because states such as Colorado, Michigan and Virginia passed redistricting-related ballot measures in recent years. These reforms should translate into fewer gerrymandered seats overall — by either party.
Furthermore, some redistricting processes still controlled by one party — think Ohio’s or Utah’s — have new rules in place designed to encourage more neutral maps. So ultimately, we’ll have to wait and see what the often-messy redistricting process produces in each state — and you can rest assured that will be a major focus of FiveThirtyEight’s coverage in 2021.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-18--How Georgia Turned Blue

How Georgia Turned Blue

In 2008 , Barack Obama won about 47 percent of the vote in Georgia , a huge improvement for the Democrats from four years earlier , when John Kerry received just 41 percent in the state .
And with the Atlanta metro area booming in population , it seemed like a state that hadn ’ t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992 was about to turn blue — or at least purple .
But it didn ’ t .
Instead , Georgia was stuck in swing-state-in-waiting status .
Obama dipped to 45 percent in 2012 — and Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The party ’ s candidates for U.S. Senate and governor in 2014 won 45 percent of the Georgia vote , as did Hillary Clinton in 2016 .
That is , until 2018 , when Stacey Abrams broke through the 46 percent ceiling and hit 48.8 percent in her gubernatorial campaign .
And this year , of course , Joe Biden won the state with 49.5 percent of the vote .
Meanwhile , U.S. Senate candidate Jon Ossoff got 48.0 percent , and is now headed to a runoff election .
Georgia ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seat is also headed to a runoff , with the combined total for the Democratic candidates at 48.4 percent .
So how did Georgia go from light red to blue — or at the very least , purple ?
The answer is pretty simple : The Atlanta area turned really blue in the Trump era .
Definitions differ about the exact parameters of the Atlanta metropolitan area , but 10 counties are part of a governing collaborative called the Atlanta Regional Commission .
Almost 4.7 million people live in those 10 counties , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s population .
Until very recently , the Atlanta area wasn ’ t a liberal bastion .
There was a Democratic bloc that long controlled the government within the city limits of Atlanta and a Republican bloc that once dominated the suburbs and whose rise was chronicled in historian Kevin Kruse ’ s 2005 book “ White Flight : Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism.
” In 2012 , Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney each won five of the 10 counties in the Atlanta Regional Commission .
But in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 10 counties .
In 2018 , Abrams won those eight counties by larger margins than Clinton , and Biden then improved on Abrams ’ s margins in most of them .
For example , Romney carried Gwinnett — an Atlanta-area suburban county that is the second-largest county in the state — by 9 percentage points in 2012 .
But then Clinton won there by 6 points in 2016 , Abrams won by 14 points in 2018 , and this year , Ossoff won by 16 and Biden won by 18 .
Likewise , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suburban county , Romney won by 12 points in 2012 , but then Clinton carried it by 2 , Abrams by 10 , Ossoff by 11 and Biden by 14 .
( We ’ ll come back to Biden doing slightly better than Ossoff and what that might mean for the runoffs . )
Those are big gains in big counties .
And there are other indications that suburban Atlanta is trending blue .
Parts of Cobb County are in the district of Rep. Lucy McBath , who in 2018 flipped a U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for decades .
( She won reelection this year , too . )
Meanwhile , Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux flipped a U.S. House seat that includes parts of Gwinnett County , one of only a handful of seats that Democrats won control of this year .
Republican sheriff candidates in Cobb and Gwinnett counties were both defeated in this November ’ s election .
And Gwinnett ’ s five-person county commission is now made up of five Democrats , as its sole Republican member declined to run for reelection and a Democrat won her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suburbs in the coded way the political media often invokes them as a synonym for “ areas slightly outside of the city limits of major cities where lots of middle-class white people live.
” Gwinnett County is 35 percent non-Hispanic white , 30 percent Black , 22 percent Hispanic and 13 percent Asian .
Cobb County is 51 percent non-Hispanic white , 29 percent Black , 13 percent Hispanic and 6 percent Asian .
Democrats have also made gains in the more urban DeKalb and Fulton counties , which both include parts of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pretty Democratic leaning .
In Fulton , which is about 45 percent Black and Georgia ’ s most populous county , Obama won in 2012 by 30 points , Clinton by 41 , Abrams by 46 , Ossoff by 42 and Biden by 46 .
In DeKalb , which is 55 percent Black and the state ’ s fourth-largest county , Obama won by 57 points , Clinton by 63 , Abrams by 68 , Ossoff by 64 and Biden by 67 .
There is a third shift happening , too : Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conservative-leaning , exurban parts of Atlanta .
In Cherokee County , Georgia ’ s seventh-largest county and one that is nearly 80 percent white , Obama lost by 58 points , Clinton by 49 , Abrams by 46 and Biden by 39 .
“ Exurbs are where a big chunk of the GOP base is .
And you can ’ t win Georgia [ as a Republican ] without running up the margins there , ” Atlanta Journal-Constitution political reporter Greg Bluestein told me .
We should emphasize , though , that there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be in describing these shifts .
Trump did better than in 2016 in some heavily Black Atlanta precincts ( while still losing them overwhelmingly ) , according to a New York Times analysis .
So it could be the case that many of Biden ’ s gains are among non-Black Atlanta-area voters , although it ’ s important to emphasize that many Black people in the Atlanta area live in racially mixed areas .
County and precinct analyses have some limitations , and more detailed research will help us nail down exact shifts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the story is clear : Biden won Georgia because he did really well in the Atlanta area , far better than Obama eight years ago and significantly better than Clinton , too .
Biden won about 65 percent of the two-party share of the votes in these 10 Atlanta-area counties , up from Clinton ’ s 59 percent in 2018 .
He also gained in the other 149 Georgia counties in Georgia , but it was smaller : Clinton received about 34 percent of the vote outside the Atlanta area , while Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ complicated question then is not how Georgia went from light red to blue , but why Democrats gained so much ground in the Atlanta area .
Here are four theories , ranked in order of importance in my view : That the Democrats flipped Cobb and Gwinnett counties with Trump on the ballot , gained ground in 2018 and then improved on their 2018 performance in 2020 suggests that anti-Trump sentiment is a pretty big factor here .
Abrams , Biden , Clinton and Ossoff are four very different political figures , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidates who ran in the cycle before , suggesting these gains aren ’ t really about the individual Democratic candidates .
Additionally , all four did better in the Atlanta area than Obama — and it ’ s hard to argue any of those four ( let alone all four ) are better politicians than Obama .
In fact , the anti-Trump theory hinges on two things : 1 ) Some people in the Atlanta area shifted from voting Republican to voting Democratic ; and 2 ) Some shifted from not voting at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But here ’ s why that might not be the whole story : Democrats didn ’ t just start making gains in the Atlanta area in 2016 … The Atlanta area is getting more liberal From the 2004 presidential election to the 2012 election , Democratic margins grew by double digits in nine of the 10 counties that make up the Atlanta metro area .
( Remember that Obama did much better than Kerry . )
So Atlanta was already getting more liberal before Trump was a major political figure .
What @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of all , the share of people in the Atlanta area who are Asian , Black and/or Hispanic has increased dramatically in the last two decades , and those three groups tend to vote for Democratic candidates .
Take Gwinnett County .
It was 67 percent non-Hispanic white in 2000 ; it is now around 35 percent white .
Likewise , Cobb County was 72 percent white in 2000 , 62 percent in 2010 and is about 50 percent white now .
In part because of those changes in the Atlanta metro area @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Georgia that is white dropped from 68 percent in 2000 to 58 percent in 2018 , according to Pew Research Center .
That drop is the biggest decline in the percentage of white voters in all but eight other states .
“ Demographic change is likely a big part of the story , combined with higher participation from some of the faster-growing groups , ” said Tom Bonier , who runs a Democratic-leaning political data firm called TargetSmart .
Secondly , the Atlanta metro area is one of the fastest growing in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a pretty strong job market that is drawing people from other states .
So it ’ s likely that many of the 2016 and 2020 Atlanta-area Democratic voters either weren ’ t living in the area in 2012 or weren ’ t of voting age then ( e.g.
, the children of people who have moved to Atlanta in the past two decades ) .
In other words , these aren ’ t people shifting to the Democratic Party because of Trump — these are Democrats who just happened to show up in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Trump ’ s rise .
They probably would not have backed Republican presidential nominee Sen.Ted Cruz either .
“ Existing white voters [ in Georgia ] are being replaced by younger whites and out-of-state transplants who are more progressive , ” said Bernard Frega , a political scientist at Atlanta ’ s Emory University who studies voter turnout .
It ’ s hard to precisely quantify these voting shifts caused by demographic and population trends and really hard to determine if they would have happened in a world without Trump .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saying for years that the party could turn the state blue by courting recent transplants and the growing population of people of color … Abrams won 1.9 million votes in 2018 , almost double the 1.1 million votes of Georgia ’ s 2014 Democratic gubernatorial nominee .
Biden won almost 2.5 million votes , compared to Clinton ’ s 1.9 million .
There are probably lots of reasons for the increased number of Democratic voters — particularly anti-Trump sentiment and Georgia ’ s changing demographics .
Plus , Republican voter turnout in Georgia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Trump era has just boosted turnout among all groups .
All that said , it ’ s worth isolating the role of Abrams , because she has executed a specific , turnout-based strategy in Georgia for nearly a decade and has pushed for the Democratic Party to join her in implementing it .
In 2014 , Abrams , then a member of the Georgia House of Representatives , co-created a group called the New Georgia Project that focused on getting people of color in the state who haven ’ t previously participated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In 2017 and 2018 , Abrams ran for governor and diverted from the normal Southern Democrat strategy of centering a campaign on winning as many white swing voters as possible .
Abrams did try to win white swing voters , but also invested heavily in boosting turnout among voters of all races in the Atlanta area and among Black people in particular in the state ’ s more rural areas .
After her narrow defeat in the governor ’ s race , Abrams implored her party to invest in Georgia for the 2020 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Abrams ’ s top political adviser , Lauren Groh-Wargo , publicly released a 16-page memo dubbed “ The Abrams Playbook ” that laid out why Georgia was a prime pickup opportunity if Democrats concentrated on boosting turnout among people of color in the Atlanta area .
And by the end of the 2020 campaign , with polls suggesting Georgia was close , Democrats went all in on the state , as Abrams had been calling for .
The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA , which had been focused only on Arizona , Florida @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Wisconsin , expanded its operations to Georgia .
On the day before the election , Biden ’ s campaign sent one of its most important surrogates to the Atlanta area : Obama .
It is really hard to know how much Abrams ’ s efforts mattered .
Perhaps anti-Trump sentiment and more liberal people moving to the Atlanta were by far the most important factors in boosting Democratic turnout in Georgia .
But it ’ s hard to dismiss Abrams ’ s role — after all , Democrats won Georgia , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out .
Joe Biden may have had a unique appeal Biden did a bit better than both Ossoff and Abrams in the Atlanta area .
So it ’ s possible that Georgia shifted from very purple ( 2018 ) to just barely blue ( at least at the presidential level in 2020 ) because the former vice president is kind an ideal candidate for Georgia — popular with Black voters but also more of a draw for some moderate white voters than the 33-year-old Ossoff or a Black woman like Abrams .
On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ between the 2020 presidential race and other recent contests could have been distaste for Trump .
Maybe Pete Buttigieg , Sen. Amy Klobuchar , Sen. Kamala Harris or any other person running against Trump would have also carried the state if he or she were the Democratic nominee .
What does this very blue Atlanta mean for future Georgia elections — not only for the Jan. 5 runoffs for the U.S. Senate seats , but also Abrams ’ s likely 2022 gubernatorial campaign and subsequent presidential elections ?
It ’ s hard to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lean in the Atlanta area that made Georgia really competitive for Democrats happened when Trump was the defining figure in American politics .
So it ’ s possible that , without Trump in the White House , Democrats will once again be stuck earning 46 to 48 percent of the vote in Georgia .
Take the U.S. Senate runoff elections .
Are there some voters there who didn ’ t back Trump but were comfortable with a more traditional Republican like Sen. David Perdue .
Does that hold true in the runoff ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the state ’ s Senate special election .
The Democrats narrowly lost the popular vote there , so are there some Georgia voters who are willing to support Republicans like Rep. Doug Collins and Sen. Kelly Loeffler ( the leading Republicans in that race ) but not Trump ?
Remember , the Democrats are losing badly in most areas of Georgia outside of Atlanta — and the state is only competitive if the Atlanta area stays as blue as it has been during the Trump era .
If some Atlanta-area voters no longer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the GOP , do they go back to the GOP in the Senate runoffs and in subsequent elections ?
We don ’ t know the answer to this question now and may not for a few election cycles .
For now , it ’ s not clear if Georgia is a swing state , a state that swung once or something in between .

Perry Bacon Jr. (perry.bacon@fivethirtyeight.com)

In 2008, Barack Obama won about 47 percent of the vote in Georgia, a huge improvement for the Democrats from four years earlier, when John Kerry received just 41 percent in the state. And with the Atlanta metro area booming in population, it seemed like a state that hadn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992 was about to turn blue — or at least purple. But it didn’t. Instead, Georgia was stuck in swing-state-in-waiting status. Obama dipped to 45 percent in 2012 — and Democrats seemed capped at exactly that number. The party’s candidates for U.S. Senate and governor in 2014 won 45 percent of the Georgia vote, as did Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Georgia Senate runoffs are in full swing | FiveThirtyEight
That is, until 2018, when Stacey Abrams broke through the 46 percent ceiling and hit 48.8 percent in her gubernatorial campaign. And this year, of course, Joe Biden won the state with 49.5 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, U.S. Senate candidate Jon Ossoff got 48.0 percent, and is now headed to a runoff election. Georgia’s special election for its other U.S. Senate seat is also headed to a runoff, with the combined total for the Democratic candidates at 48.4 percent.
[Related: Republicans Won Almost Every Election Where Redistricting Was At Stake]
So how did Georgia go from light red to blue — or at the very least, purple?
The answer is pretty simple: The Atlanta area turned really blue in the Trump era. Definitions differ about the exact parameters of the Atlanta metropolitan area, but 10 counties are part of a governing collaborative called the Atlanta Regional Commission. Almost 4.7 million people live in those 10 counties, or around 45 percent of the state’s population.
Until very recently, the Atlanta area wasn’t a liberal bastion. There was a Democratic bloc that long controlled the government within the city limits of Atlanta and a Republican bloc that once dominated the suburbs and whose rise was chronicled in historian Kevin Kruse’s 2005 book “White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism.”
In 2012, Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney each won five of the 10 counties in the Atlanta Regional Commission. But in 2016, Clinton won eight of the 10 counties. In 2018, Abrams won those eight counties by larger margins than Clinton, and Biden then improved on Abrams’s margins in most of them. For example, Romney carried Gwinnett — an Atlanta-area suburban county that is the second-largest county in the state — by 9 percentage points in 2012. But then Clinton won there by 6 points in 2016, Abrams won by 14 points in 2018, and this year, Ossoff won by 16 and Biden won by 18. Likewise, in Cobb County, another large Atlanta-area suburban county, Romney won by 12 points in 2012, but then Clinton carried it by 2, Abrams by 10, Ossoff by 11 and Biden by 14. (We’ll come back to Biden doing slightly better than Ossoff and what that might mean for the runoffs.)
Those are big gains in big counties. And there are other indications that suburban Atlanta is trending blue. Parts of Cobb County are in the district of Rep. Lucy McBath, who in 2018 flipped a U.S. House seat that the GOP had held for decades. (She won reelection this year, too.) Meanwhile, Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux flipped a U.S. House seat that includes parts of Gwinnett County, one of only a handful of seats that Democrats won control of this year. Republican sheriff candidates in Cobb and Gwinnett counties were both defeated in this November’s election. And Gwinnett’s five-person county commission is now made up of five Democrats, after Democrats flipped three seats on the commission this year.
Cobb and Gwinnett are not suburbs in the coded way the political media often invokes them as a synonym for “areas slightly outside of the city limits of major cities where lots of middle-class white people live.” Gwinnett County is 35 percent non-Hispanic white, 30 percent Black, 22 percent Hispanic and 13 percent Asian. Cobb County is 51 percent non-Hispanic white, 29 percent Black, 13 percent Hispanic and 6 percent Asian.
Democrats have also made gains in the more urban DeKalb and Fulton counties, which both include parts of the city of Atlanta and were already pretty Democratic leaning. In Fulton, which is about 45 percent Black and Georgia’s most populous county, Obama won in 2012 by 30 points, Clinton by 41, Abrams by 46, Ossoff by 42 and Biden by 46. In DeKalb, which is 55 percent Black and the state’s fourth-largest county, Obama won by 57 points, Clinton by 63, Abrams by 68, Ossoff by 64 and Biden by 67.
There is a third shift happening, too: Democrats are losing by less in the more conservative-leaning, exurban parts of Atlanta. In Cherokee County, Georgia’s seventh-largest county and one that is nearly 80 percent white, Obama lost by 58 points, Clinton by 49, Abrams by 46 and Biden by 39.
“Exurbs are where a big chunk of the GOP base is. And you can’t win Georgia [as a Republican] without running up the margins there,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution political reporter Greg Bluestein told me.
We should emphasize, though, that there are limits in how precise we can be in describing these shifts. Trump did better than in 2016 in some heavily Black Atlanta precincts (while still losing them overwhelmingly), according to a New York Times analysis. So it could be the case that many of Biden’s gains are among non-Black Atlanta-area voters, although it’s important to emphasize that many Black people in the Atlanta area live in racially mixed areas. County and precinct analyses have some limitations, and more detailed research will help us nail down exact shifts among demographic groups.
But overall, the story is clear: Biden won Georgia because he did really well in the Atlanta area, far better than Obama eight years ago and significantly better than Clinton, too. Biden won about 65 percent of the two-party share of the votes in these 10 Atlanta-area counties, up from Clinton’s 59 percent. He also gained in the other 149 Georgia counties in Georgia, but it was smaller: Clinton received about 34 percent of the vote outside the Atlanta area, while Biden received about 37 percent.
The more complicated question then is not how Georgia went from light red to blue, but why Democrats gained so much ground in the Atlanta area. Here are four theories, ranked in order of importance in my view:
Anti-Trump sentiment
That the Democrats flipped Cobb and Gwinnett counties with Trump on the ballot, gained ground in 2018 and then improved on their 2018 performance in 2020 suggests that anti-Trump sentiment is a pretty big factor here. Abrams, Biden, Clinton and Ossoff are four very different political figures, but all made gains relative to the Democratic candidates who ran in the cycle before, suggesting these gains aren’t really about the individual Democratic candidates. Additionally, all four did better in the Atlanta area than Obama — and it’s hard to argue any of those four (let alone all four) are better politicians than Obama.
In fact, the anti-Trump theory hinges on two things: 1) Some people in the Atlanta area shifted from voting Republican to voting Democratic; and 2) Some shifted from not voting at all to voting (for Democrats).
But here’s why that might not be the whole story: Democrats didn’t just start making gains in the Atlanta area in 2016 …
The Atlanta area is getting more liberal
From the 2004 presidential election to the 2012 election, Democratic margins grew by double digits in nine of the 10 counties that make up the Atlanta metro area. (Remember that Obama did much better than Kerry.) So Atlanta was already getting more liberal before Trump was a major political figure.
What might help explain that shift? First of all, the share of people in the Atlanta area who are Asian, Black and/or Hispanic has increased dramatically in the last two decades, and those three groups tend to vote for Democratic candidates.
Take Gwinnett County. It was 67 percent non-Hispanic white in 2000; it is now around 35 percent white. Likewise, Cobb County was 72 percent white in 2000, 62 percent in 2010 and is about 50 percent white now. In part because of those changes in the Atlanta metro area, the share of the voting-eligible population in Georgia that is white dropped from 68 percent in 2000 to 58 percent in 2018, according to Pew Research Center. That drop is the biggest decline in the percentage of white voters in all but eight other states.
“Demographic change is likely a big part of the story, combined with higher participation from some of the faster-growing groups,” said Tom Bonier, who runs a Democratic-leaning political data firm called TargetSmart.
[Related: Americans Became More Divided By Class In 2020]
Secondly, the Atlanta metro area is one of the fastest growing in the country. It’s got a pretty strong job market that is drawing people from other states. So it’s likely that many of the 2016 and 2020 Atlanta-area Democratic voters either weren’t living in the area in 2012 or weren’t of voting age then (e.g., the children of people who have moved to Atlanta in the past two decades). In other words, these aren’t people shifting to the Democratic Party because of Trump — these are Democrats who just happened to show up in Atlanta’s electorate at the time of Trump’s rise. They probably would not have backed Republican presidential nominee Sen.Ted Cruz either.
“Existing white voters [in Georgia] are being replaced by younger whites and out-of-state transplants who are more progressive,” said Bernard Fraga, a political scientist at Atlanta’s Emory University who studies voter turnout.
It’s hard to precisely quantify these voting shifts caused by demographic and population trends and really hard to determine if they would have happened in a world without Trump. But at least one Georgia Democrat has been saying for years that the party could turn the state blue by courting recent transplants and the growing population of people of color …
What divided the electorate in 2020 | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
Stacey Abrams had a playbook for turning Georgia blue
Abrams won 1.9 million votes in 2018, almost double the 1.1 million votes of Georgia’s 2014 Democratic gubernatorial nominee. Biden won almost 2.5 million votes, compared to Clinton’s 1.9 million. There are probably lots of reasons for the increased number of Democratic voters — particularly anti-Trump sentiment and Georgia’s changing demographics. Plus, Republican voter turnout in Georgia also surged this cycle, so maybe the Trump era has just boosted turnout among all groups. All that said, it’s worth isolating the role of Abrams, because she has executed a specific, turnout-based strategy in Georgia for nearly a decade and has pushed for the Democratic Party to join her in implementing it.
In 2014, Abrams, then a member of the Georgia House of Representatives, co-created a group called the New Georgia Project that focused on getting people of color in the state who haven’t previously participated in the electoral process to vote. In 2017 and 2018, Abrams ran for governor and diverted from the normal Southern Democrat strategy of centering a campaign on winning as many white swing voters as possible. Abrams did try to win white swing voters, but also invested heavily in boosting turnout among voters of all races in the Atlanta area and among Black people in particular in the state’s more rural areas.
After her narrow defeat in the governor’s race, Abrams implored her party to invest in Georgia for the 2020 presidential election. In September 2019, Abrams’s top political adviser, Lauren Groh-Wargo, publicly released a 16-page memo dubbed “The Abrams Playbook” that laid out why Georgia was a prime pickup opportunity if Democrats concentrated on boosting turnout among people of color in the Atlanta area.
And by the end of the 2020 campaign, with polls suggesting Georgia was close, Democrats went all in on the state, as Abrams had been calling for. The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA, which had been focused only on Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, expanded its operations to Georgia. On the day before the election, Biden’s campaign sent one of its most important surrogates to the Atlanta area: Obama.
It is really hard to know how much Abrams’s efforts mattered. Perhaps anti-Trump sentiment and more liberal people moving to the Atlanta were by far the most important factors in boosting Democratic turnout in Georgia. But it’s hard to dismiss Abrams’s role — after all, Democrats won Georgia, and pretty much exactly the way she laid out.
Joe Biden may have had a unique appeal
Biden did a bit better than both Ossoff and Abrams in the Atlanta area. So it’s possible that Georgia shifted from very purple (2018) to just barely blue (at least at the presidential level in 2020) because the former vice president is kind an ideal candidate for Georgia — popular with Black voters but also more of a draw for some moderate white voters than the 33-year-old Ossoff or a Black woman like Abrams.
On the other hand, the distinguishing factor between the 2020 presidential race and other recent contests could have been distaste for Trump. Maybe Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Kamala Harris or any other person running against Trump would have also carried the state if he or she were the Democratic nominee.
What does this very blue Atlanta mean for future Georgia elections — not only for the Jan. 5 runoffs for the U.S. Senate seats, but also Abrams’s likely 2022 gubernatorial campaign and subsequent presidential elections?
It’s hard to answer this question, because the Democratic lean in the Atlanta area that made Georgia really competitive for Democrats happened when Trump was the defining figure in American politics. So it’s possible that, without Trump in the White House, Democrats will once again be stuck earning 46 to 48 percent of the vote in Georgia. Take the U.S. Senate runoff elections.
Are there some voters there who didn’t back Trump but were comfortable with a more traditional Republican like Sen. David Perdue. Does that hold true in the runoff? It’s the same question in the state’s Senate special election. The Democrats narrowly lost the popular vote there, so are there some Georgia voters who are willing to support Republicans like Rep. Doug Collins and Sen. Kelly Loeffler (the leading Republicans in that race) but not Trump?
Remember, the Democrats are losing badly in most areas of Georgia outside of Atlanta — and the state is only competitive if the Atlanta area stays as blue as it has been during the Trump era. If some Atlanta-area voters no longer view Trump as the defining figure of the GOP, do they go back to the GOP in the Senate runoffs and in subsequent elections?
We don’t know the answer to this question now and may not for a few election cycles. For now, it’s not clear if Georgia is a swing state, a state that swung once or something in between.
CORRECTION (Nov. 19, 2020, 10:40 a.m.): A previous version of this article incorrectly described the 2020 election results for the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners, stating that only one Republican had been on the board and one seat had flipped. In fact, Democrats flipped three seats on the five-person board in 2020, leaving it with five Democrats and no Republicans.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-18--With A Win Over Ohio State, Indiana Would Be In The Big Ten Driver’s Seat. Wait, What?

The crown jewel of the Big Ten Conference college football slate was scheduled for Halloween : Ohio State vs. Penn State .
Marketing-wise , it would be difficult to eclipse a whiteout primetime matchup in Happy Valley .
After all , this was a meeting that in recent years set records for ratings and attendance , deciding divisions and trips to the College Football Playoff .
Instead , the Buckeyes ran out to a 14-point lead in less than 10 minutes and breezed past the still-winless Nittany Lions in an empty Beaver Stadium .
The actual can ’ t-miss tilt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weekend , when No .
3 Ohio State hosts No .
9 Indiana .
Cut yourself some slack for not bookmarking this game when the schedule was released .
Indiana hasn ’ t entered a season ranked in the AP Top 25 in more than 50 years , since just after last winning the conference in 1967 , and before this year , no coach in over 70 years had an overall winning record at the school .
Last season was the program ’ s best in two decades : The Hoosiers went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Arguably the program ’ s claim to fame entering 2020 was that they were considered the least annoying team in the Big Ten by Spencer Hall .
Even Indiana coach Tom Allen understands how surprising his team ’ s success has been to most of the country .
“ I get it , basketball is a big deal in this state , ” he told ESPN .
If success is cyclical , it has opted to bypass the folks in Bloomington entirely .
That is , until now .
It seems like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the undefeated Hoosiers .
Indiana entered the season opener against Penn State with a pitiful 1-22 all-time record in the series , only to win in an overtime thriller .
In subsequent weeks , it snapped a 24-game losing streak to the Michigan Wolverines and picked up its first victory in East Lansing in 19 years .
Its win over Michigan State came by way of a shutout , the first instance of the Spartans getting blanked at home since 1985 .
And now , a program with 19th century roots is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ showdown .
So how did Indiana get here ?
The Hoosiers have garnered success mostly by way of a voracious defense that ranks fourth in efficiency through four games , having already scored more points off turnovers than they did in five of the past 14 seasons .
Behind a pressure-heavy defense , Indiana is setting the tone for Big Ten defensive units .
The Hoosiers have the nation ’ s highest interception rate and the conference ’ s highest sack rate .
Opposing quarterbacks have produced a QBR of 26.8 against Indiana @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nation .
Last weekend , Payton Thorne and Rocky Lombardi combined to produce an adjusted QBR of 4.0 against Indiana , which is Michigan State ’ s worst single-game performance for which data is available .
A prolific defense is a necessity when Justin Fields is waiting in the wings .
With Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence sidelined after a positive COVID-19 test , Fields is now one of a handful with strong odds to win the Heisman Trophy .
Over three games , Fields has eviscerated defenses , posting a nation-leading 96.4 QBR @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 92.6 and a whopping zero interceptions .
Fields ’ s counterpart across the field will be Michael Penix Jr. , who has a top-50 QBR ( 69.7 ) , go-go-gadget arms and a David-vs.-Goliath mindset .
“ I feel like we ’ re going to shock the world , ” he said in September .
With an up-and-coming quarterback and an aggressive defense , Indiana is fielding its best team in a long time by just about every efficiency metric .
There ’ s a constant cadence in college football of familiar names @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Indiana may have gone from victim to vanquisher in a matter of months , but that doesn ’ t mean the Hoosiers have won respect from betting markets : Ohio State opened in some areas as a 20.5-point favorite in one of college football ’ s games of the week .
But if Indiana could pull off a win this weekend in the Horseshoe , it would pick up the inside track to the playoff .
That ’ s a twist no one saw coming .

With A Win Over Ohio State, Indiana Would Be In The Big Ten Driver’s Seat. Wait, What?
The crown jewel of the Big Ten Conference college football slate was scheduled for Halloween: Ohio State vs. Penn State. Marketing-wise, it would be difficult to eclipse a whiteout primetime matchup in Happy Valley. After all, this was a meeting that in recent years set records for ratings and attendance, deciding divisions and trips to the College Football Playoff.
Instead, the Buckeyes ran out to a 14-point lead in less than 10 minutes and breezed past the still-winless Nittany Lions in an empty Beaver Stadium.
The actual can’t-miss tilt of the Big Ten calendar comes this weekend, when No. 3 Ohio State hosts No. 9 Indiana. Cut yourself some slack for not bookmarking this game when the schedule was released.
Indiana hasn’t entered a season ranked in the AP Top 25 in more than 50 years, since just after last winning the conference in 1967, and before this year, no coach in over 70 years had an overall winning record at the school. Last season was the program’s best in two decades: The Hoosiers went 8-5 and lost in the Gator Bowl. Arguably the program’s claim to fame entering 2020 was that they were considered the least annoying team in the Big Ten by Spencer Hall.
Even Indiana coach Tom Allen understands how surprising his team’s success has been to most of the country. “I get it, basketball is a big deal in this state,” he told ESPN.
If success is cyclical, it has opted to bypass the folks in Bloomington entirely. That is, until now.
It seems like every week has been a historic one for the undefeated Hoosiers. Indiana entered the season opener against Penn State with a pitiful 1-22 all-time record in the series, only to win in an overtime thriller. In subsequent weeks, it snapped a 24-game losing streak to the Michigan Wolverines and picked up its first victory in East Lansing in 19 years. Its win over Michigan State came by way of a shutout, the first instance of the Spartans getting blanked at home since 1985. And now, a program with 19th century roots is days away from its first-ever top-10 regular-season showdown.
So how did Indiana get here?
The Hoosiers have garnered success mostly by way of a voracious defense that ranks fourth in efficiency through four games, having already scored more points off turnovers than they did in five of the past 14 seasons.
Behind a pressure-heavy defense, Indiana is setting the tone for Big Ten defensive units. The Hoosiers have the nation’s highest interception rate and the conference’s highest sack rate. Opposing quarterbacks have produced a QBR of 26.8 against Indiana, the 10th-best defensive mark in the nation. Last weekend, Payton Thorne and Rocky Lombardi combined to produce an adjusted QBR of 4.0 against Indiana, which is Michigan State’s worst single-game performance for which data is available.
A prolific defense is a necessity when Justin Fields is waiting in the wings. With Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence sidelined after a positive COVID-19 test, Fields is now one of a handful with strong odds to win the Heisman Trophy. Over three games, Fields has eviscerated defenses, posting a nation-leading 96.4 QBR, a cartoonish adjusted completion percentage of 92.6 and a whopping zero interceptions.
Fields’s counterpart across the field will be Michael Penix Jr., who has a top-50 QBR (69.7), go-go-gadget arms and a David-vs.-Goliath mindset. “I feel like we’re going to shock the world,” he said in September.
With an up-and-coming quarterback and an aggressive defense, Indiana is fielding its best team in a long time by just about every efficiency metric.
There’s a constant cadence in college football of familiar names hammering away at familiar punching bags. Indiana may have gone from victim to vanquisher in a matter of months, but that doesn’t mean the Hoosiers have won respect from betting markets: Ohio State opened in some areas as a 20.5-point favorite in one of college football’s games of the week. But if Indiana could pull off a win this weekend in the Horseshoe, it would pick up the inside track to the playoff. That’s a twist no one saw coming.