Thursday, June 26, 2014
The Chandler Trade
Here's a quick scouting report on the guys the Mavericks gave up in the deal:
- Jose Calderon: His per-game statistics don't really show it, but Calderon is a guy in the middle of a steep decline. There are still plenty of positives - he's a big PG (6'4 210) and he's an absolutely elite shooter, so he can shoot over the top of smaller guards, and he hardly ever makes mistakes with the ball or turns it over. However, at the age of 32, he is rapidly losing foot-speed and athleticism and he's not a guy who could really afford to lose anything in that department.
This affects his game in a number of ways. For starters, Calderon can no longer really get to the rim or beat his man off the dribble. That means, as a PG, he can't really create shots for others. For the most part, he's become a secondary ball-handler and a spot-up shooter, a role he filled well in Dallas playing off of Dirk Nowitzki and Monta Ellis. The problem is that a secondary offensive player whose also an atrocious defensive player doesn't give you a lot of flexibility with the rest of your line-up.
Make no mistake about it - Calderon is one of the worst defensive guards in the NBA. You can count on one hand the number of starting PG's that can't light him up. Conversely, on the other side of the ball, if you put a bigger, longer 2 guard on him, he's pretty much useless offensively. If he can't leverage his size to get a shot, he's not creating anything off the bounce and he doesn't have the quickness to turn the corner on the pick-and-roll.
In essence, if you are going to have Calderon as your starting PG, you need to play him with a SG who can defend either guard position at a high level (so Calderon can be hidden on the worst offensive player in the back-court) and who can also create his own shot and initiate offense as a primary playmaker (so the other team can't cross switch their 2 guard on Calderon and choke off your offense). Long story short, a two-way SG of that caliber is going to be an All-Star caliber player.
Dallas really couldn't afford to go with the Monta Ellis-Jose Calderon back-court next season since those two were such defensive sieves it put a tremendous amount of pressure on the other three spots on the floor - and when one of those spots is occupied by Dirk Nowitzki, that's not going to work. In terms of his overall impact on the game, Calderon was one of the bottom 5 starting PG's in the league ... AND he's only getting older and he has 3-years and $24 million on his deal.
- Shane Larkin: You really can't hold Larkin's statistics against him as a rookie. Not only is Rick Carlisle notoriously loathe to play rookies, he got injured before summer league, missed the first month and a half of the season and then was buried in the rotation behind Calderon, Ellis and Devin Harris. Nevertheless, in the moments he did get on the floor, he showed flashes of potential and my guess is he will be able to stick in the league long-term.
The big concern with any small PG like Larkin (5'10 170) is always defense. I still remember the game that brought that home for me - a home game against the Denver Nuggets early in the season. I'm watching the Nuggets warm-up and I'm thinking - who is Little Boy Shane going to guard on this team? He's not guarding Ty Lawson, he's not guarding Andre Miller, he's not guarding Randy Foye and he's not guarding Nate Robinson.
The Nuggets don't have the best or biggest guard rotation in the league but they have a bunch of professional scorers. Forget Lawson, whose an All-Star caliber PG. If Miller, Foye and Robinson couldn't score on a younger and smaller guard, they wouldn't be in the league for much longer. That's just how life is for a 5'10 guard - you are going to be bleeding points on defense in 90% of your match-ups. That's the difference between playing in the ACC and the NBA.
Larkin is a much better PG than Robinson, but he needs to have some of his mentality on the court. If you're going to give up 10-12 points on defense, you have to be able to get those points back on offense. You can't come let the game come to you at that size - you have to be super-aggressive and you have to be able to stick 3's off the dribble. Larkin was more of a pure PG in college, but in an NBA game, he has to use his speed and scoring ability and he has to do it quickly.
I could see Larkin maxing out as an Isaiah Thomas type player in the right system - Suga Shane came out of school as a sophomore, which is crazy for a player his size. Isaiah, in contrast, was a four-year senior who came into the league ready to make a point. At the same time, you can find little PG's like that anywhere. Pierre Jackson was a 2nd-round pick who could have been had for a song last season. Jahii Carson (Arizona State) may not even be drafted this year and he's got some big-time ability for a 5'10 PG.
- Sammy D: He's got good size and length and he's not a complete incompetent on offense, so he's still an NBA-caliber C who can squeeze a few more seasons in the league. At this point in his career, though, he's purely a backup or a member of a rotation like he was in Dallas. I think this will be more of an issue in the East - Dalembert can match-up with big-time C's but he has a hard time staying on the floor when opponents go small on him.
He can't really take advantage of smaller players on offense and his defense is no longer at the level where you can play him big minutes as a one-way player. Every once in a while he will have a throwback game where he gets a couple of easy shots around the basket early, which boosts his confidence on offense and intensity on defense, but he's not a guy whose going to consistently produce for you on a night-to-night basis. Carlisle had a really quick hook on him for a reason.
On the whole, I was really impressed with the package the Mavs gave up for Tyson Chandler, even if he's no longer the player he was in 2011. Calderon was a guy I thought Dallas would have to give up in a salary dump or just eat his contract - I'm stunned he became an asset in a trade considering how much money he has left on his deal. There are a lot of backup PG's in the league I'd take over him. And while Larkin has talent, the world isn't running low on 5'10 guards.
The key for the Knicks is what they do with the No. 34 pick. And if you've followed the Mavs at all, you know there was very little chance they were going to turn that pick into anything. For all the strengths of the Mavs FO, they are one of the worst drafting FO's in the league. At a certain point, that's going to come back and kill this franchise, but for now, in the YOLO win for the moment present where they build around a 36-year old Dirk, I love this trade.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Isaiah Austin: What Could Have Been
In one of the most stunning and heart-breaking twists of the pre-draft process, Baylor sophomore Isaiah Austin was found to have a genetic condition that ended his NBA career before it even had a chance to begin. He was a fringe first-round pick, but he had as much pure talent as any player in this year's draft. He's a Dallas kid, so I've watched him for a long time and I'm still kind of in shock that I won't get a chance to watch him anymore.
At 7’1 220 with a 7’5 wingspan, Austin had a very unique combination of strengths and weaknesses. He was almost unprecedented a player in the history of basketball - there has never been a player with his size with his ability to shoot 3’s, put the ball on the floor and block shots. At the same time, there were not many precedents for a player with his shockingly thin frame. He was a big man in name only - 7’1 and weighed less than Marcus Smart.
Austin was taking the positional revolution to its logical conclusion, with young big men modeling their games on Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Garnett instead of Tim Duncan and Shaquille O’Neal. These days, the tallest players on the court want to spend their time 25+ feet from the basket. A generation ago, a player with his skill-set would have been inconceivable. A 7’1 player who could take the ball between his legs might as well have been a work of science fiction.
The theoretical advantages for his combination of length, skill and athleticism are obvious. Austin could shoot over the top of every PF in the NBA and cover them up on defense. Like Anthony Davis and John Henson, he functioned as a mobile shot-blocking platform at the college level, with the ability to contest shots from any part of the floor. To approximate the way his length can impact the game, imagine a guard with a broomstick in each hand.
However, when that theory was put into practice at the college level, there were some pretty clear drawbacks. With his painfully thin legs and high center of gravity, Austin had a lot of trouble establishing post and rebounding position against smaller and more thickly built big men. He could be pushed off his spots easily and he had a very difficult time playing through contact. A 7’1 player with no mass is like a giant see-saw - easy to knock off balance.
In terms of projecting him to the next level, the biggest question for Austin was how much weight he could add to his frame. In the NBA, his first priority would have been putting some meat on his bones. Some guys are never able to do it - Brandan Wright has been in the league 7 seasons and he’s still 6’9 210, the same weight he was in college. Wright has excellent per-minute numbers, but his lack of strength makes it impossible to play him 30-35 minutes a night.
At the same time, Wright has gotten better in each of his seven seasons and he is only starting to peak at a time when most careers are winding down. Big men take longer to develop than guards but they tend to have much more staying power - a skilled 7’1 player like Austin could have spent two decades in the NBA. He’s not a guy who would have made an immediate impact, but he had as much long-term potential as any player in this draft.
Austin underwent shoulder surgery in the summer after his freshman season at Baylor, which prevented him from doing much work in the weight room. He didn’t need to become super bulky - just enough core strength to offer some modicum of resistance against stronger players. If he could have done that, his ceiling was frightening. There’s not much you can do against a 7’1 player who can create his own shot, stretch the floor and protect the rim.
The holy grail of a small-ball coach is a big man who can maintain the team’s floor spacing and its interior defense at the same time. For the most part, those are two mutually conflicting imperatives - a team that plays a bunch of 6’7 shooters upfront can’t protect the rim while a team that plays 7’0 gargantuas has to slow the tempo and pound the ball inside. Austin’s ceiling was a player who offered the best of both worlds - a stretch 5 who can block 2-3 shots a game.
As a stretch 4, Austin could pair with a center to give his team an almost unprecedented amount of length and shot-blocking around the rim while still letting his team team play 4-out basketball on offense. In the modern NBA, the two most important skills a big man can have are outside shooting and shot-blocking and Austin had them in spades. If Austin didn’t exist, he would have to be constructed - a player with his skill-set is the next step in the evolution of the game.
The only real historical precedent for a guy with his skill-set is Jonathan Bender, another freakishly gifted 6'11+ player whose career was cut short by injury and medical issues. It took a generation for a chance to see a Jonathan Bender 2.0 and it might take another generation for a 3.0, but the progression of the game makes that player inevitable. The dream of Jonathan Bender and Isaiah Austin has been deferred, but it will come again.
At 7’1 220 with a 7’5 wingspan, Austin had a very unique combination of strengths and weaknesses. He was almost unprecedented a player in the history of basketball - there has never been a player with his size with his ability to shoot 3’s, put the ball on the floor and block shots. At the same time, there were not many precedents for a player with his shockingly thin frame. He was a big man in name only - 7’1 and weighed less than Marcus Smart.
Austin was taking the positional revolution to its logical conclusion, with young big men modeling their games on Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Garnett instead of Tim Duncan and Shaquille O’Neal. These days, the tallest players on the court want to spend their time 25+ feet from the basket. A generation ago, a player with his skill-set would have been inconceivable. A 7’1 player who could take the ball between his legs might as well have been a work of science fiction.
The theoretical advantages for his combination of length, skill and athleticism are obvious. Austin could shoot over the top of every PF in the NBA and cover them up on defense. Like Anthony Davis and John Henson, he functioned as a mobile shot-blocking platform at the college level, with the ability to contest shots from any part of the floor. To approximate the way his length can impact the game, imagine a guard with a broomstick in each hand.
However, when that theory was put into practice at the college level, there were some pretty clear drawbacks. With his painfully thin legs and high center of gravity, Austin had a lot of trouble establishing post and rebounding position against smaller and more thickly built big men. He could be pushed off his spots easily and he had a very difficult time playing through contact. A 7’1 player with no mass is like a giant see-saw - easy to knock off balance.
In terms of projecting him to the next level, the biggest question for Austin was how much weight he could add to his frame. In the NBA, his first priority would have been putting some meat on his bones. Some guys are never able to do it - Brandan Wright has been in the league 7 seasons and he’s still 6’9 210, the same weight he was in college. Wright has excellent per-minute numbers, but his lack of strength makes it impossible to play him 30-35 minutes a night.
At the same time, Wright has gotten better in each of his seven seasons and he is only starting to peak at a time when most careers are winding down. Big men take longer to develop than guards but they tend to have much more staying power - a skilled 7’1 player like Austin could have spent two decades in the NBA. He’s not a guy who would have made an immediate impact, but he had as much long-term potential as any player in this draft.
Austin underwent shoulder surgery in the summer after his freshman season at Baylor, which prevented him from doing much work in the weight room. He didn’t need to become super bulky - just enough core strength to offer some modicum of resistance against stronger players. If he could have done that, his ceiling was frightening. There’s not much you can do against a 7’1 player who can create his own shot, stretch the floor and protect the rim.
The holy grail of a small-ball coach is a big man who can maintain the team’s floor spacing and its interior defense at the same time. For the most part, those are two mutually conflicting imperatives - a team that plays a bunch of 6’7 shooters upfront can’t protect the rim while a team that plays 7’0 gargantuas has to slow the tempo and pound the ball inside. Austin’s ceiling was a player who offered the best of both worlds - a stretch 5 who can block 2-3 shots a game.
As a stretch 4, Austin could pair with a center to give his team an almost unprecedented amount of length and shot-blocking around the rim while still letting his team team play 4-out basketball on offense. In the modern NBA, the two most important skills a big man can have are outside shooting and shot-blocking and Austin had them in spades. If Austin didn’t exist, he would have to be constructed - a player with his skill-set is the next step in the evolution of the game.
The only real historical precedent for a guy with his skill-set is Jonathan Bender, another freakishly gifted 6'11+ player whose career was cut short by injury and medical issues. It took a generation for a chance to see a Jonathan Bender 2.0 and it might take another generation for a 3.0, but the progression of the game makes that player inevitable. The dream of Jonathan Bender and Isaiah Austin has been deferred, but it will come again.
The Lessons of Moneyball
At The Classical, an excerpt from my e-book takes a look at the business of scouting what was actually going on in the paradigm-changing book.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Aaron Gordon
At RealGM, an excerpt from my e-book looks at why the Arizona freshman is one of the most underrated players in this year's draft.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)