🇬🇷🇺🇸 • 🏀 Xs & Os • Coach • Team & Agent Consulting • @The_BBall_Index Founder • Lakers Exceptionalism Pod
Apr 18, 2024 • 18 tweets • 6 min read
🧵: Denver has the #1 post up offense both by volume & efficiency.
So I logged all 800+ Nikola Jokic post up scoring possessions this year to see how he and Denver fared based on defensive approach.
There are very clearly right and wrong answers to defending him.
There's a large difference in efficiency for Jokic post ups when you let him play 1v1 vs when you send help.
It's been that way ~all season.
Overall the difference has been 0.22 points per play.
Vs some players & teams you'd rather play 1v1. Definitely not vs Jokic.
Mar 1, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Here are the 3 key schematic areas LA needs to fix offensively before the playoffs:
1. Countering when opponents send help on LA's post ups 2. Reorganize the playbook to deploy sets to beat coverages being shown 3. Build in switch beating sets
I'll explain more detail below.
1. Countering post help
We went over this in-depth on the most recent @LakersExPod. The data on how often LA faces help when posting up & counters it correctly was insane.
EASY low-hanging fruit there since the counters exist already. It's an accuracy & frequency thing.
Feb 28, 2021 • 31 tweets • 6 min read
Rewatching Lakers/Blazers now. I’ll thread some thoughts here.
A few things stand out from the first 4 minutes:
- POR isn’t sending help in the post?? Have they not scouted LA and where LA struggles?
- LA is catch hedging Dame P&R and POR is getting Kanter short roll scoring & playmaking working well as a counter
- KCP at the POA vs Dame 😬
Feb 26, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This is where basic stats can miss a ton of context.
3PT% doesn’t = 3PT talent because of that.
Steph has far and away been the top 3PT guy this season. Once you account for his shot difficulty that’s pretty clear in our 3PT Shot Making metric:
That graphic (here it is again) shows 3PT shooting adjusted for difficulty (distance, openness, pull up/off dribble, etc.) & the other axis shows shot difficulty.
Steph’s been killing it on really high difficulty -> lower % than he otherwise could have.
If I'm a random team and Lonzo can be bought low I'd be down to buy low.
For all the gnashing of teeth about him he's been fine this year, has shown consistent growth in several key spots, has a handful of areas you can immediately optimize, and is like 23.3 years old.
Here are just a few encouraging areas:
Offensive optimization ratings for staffs he's played under so far in his career:
Walton: F
Gentry: D+
SVG: D+
Even w/decent pieces around him we're clearly not seeing them put together well. An above avg caliber scheme would help.
Oct 31, 2020 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
More good/bad on Thompson:
His Finishing at Rim metric, which looks at degree of difficulty to evaluate rim scoring, has been lower than 95%+ of NBA players for the past 3 seasons.
He was one of the NBA's worst roll men this year. He's not the same guy he used to be there.
His perimeter defense, on the other hand, had been really strong up until this past season. Defending in ball screen situations and off-ball situations he's been awesome, and on-ball he's been below avg but not awful (better than many bigs)
This year the film & data is way worse
Oct 31, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
If you add Draymond's efficiency percentiles together for the 7 non miscellaneous scoring play types he had >10 of this year your TOTAL is 95%.
Spot Up: 21st percentile
Transition: 11%
Post: 8%
P&R Ball Handler: 14%
P&R Rolls/Pops/Slips: 12%
Cuts/Dump Offs: 8%
Iso: 21%
The 95% number itself doesn't mean anything, but from these we saw how incredibly inefficient he was this past year across the board.
To clarify, 8th percentile post play means he was more efficient in the post than just 8% of the players being compared (minimum 10+ possessions)
Oct 31, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
LA’s playoff C rotation was BIG (Dwight) - Big (AD/McGee) - Small (Morris).
It provided versatility, and AD phased McGee out (as he should) as that middle option as the playoffs progressed and LA used AD more at C.
JaVale is a regular season innings eater at C w/AD playing PF.
JaVale will almost certainly opt in, so adding someone like TT either replaces those small or BIG options and loses LA versatility or takes up a Cook/Dion bench spot LA could much more use on a bench wing.
I’d be off signing TT, especially w/how he has played the past 3-4 years.
Oct 28, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Some notes on Ben Simmons' 3PT assisting:
21.5% of Ben Simmons' assisted 3s this past season were for corner 3s
8.3% of his assisted 3s from ball screens were for corner 3s.
35.3% of Ben Simmons' assists were in transition. Of the 282 players with 50+ assists this season, Simmons ranked 2nd highest in % of his assists via transition.
36.8% of his 3PT assists were in transition. The rate there (of 251 guys w/25+ total 3PT assists) was also 2nd.
Oct 21, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I, and others I know, have turned down NBA offers at entry or intern levels due to poor pay rates, in general and/or relative to rates in other industries.
A healthy hiring environment looks nothing like the NBA’s setup.
That setup hurts diversity(!), innovation, & performance.
