It's the shot creation abilities for others. And that's is a mark against Joel. To your point Philly did a crap job of roster construction - trade Simmons early, after it was obvious he didn't complement Joel. Could they have acquired Chris Paul 6 years ago? Or another creator?
Should Jokic have been able to make a finals during his 2 MVP seasons (or before)? Was the fact that before this year Jokic had never been to the finals because he wasn’t as good as people thought he was or a product of matchups/injuries/luck?
I mean, Embiid stats have routinely fallen off a cliff in the playoffs, he absolutely deserves a real chunk of the blame when it comes to them underachieving in the playoffs.
Simmons always had flaws, but let's not pretend like he wasn't a borderline top 20 player during his time in Philly. In his 4 full seasons there he won rookie of the year, made 3 all-star teams, was on 1st team all-defense twice and made 3rd team all-nba once (all before the age of 25). He's a shadow of what he was in Philly, back when it seemed like he was an outside shot away from being a top ten player. It's not Embiid's fault that he crumbled, but he (and Doc) absolutely threw Simmons under the bus after that Atlanta series loss, which was why he ended up leaving.
Plenty of people were down on Jokic after his early playoff exits (it's probably the biggest reason why he didn't win MVP against last year), but he had a much stronger defense than Embiid. Those injuries left the Nuggets far worse off than any team Embiid has ever played with (seriously, the 2022 playoff roster for the Nuggets was basically Jokic, Gordon and a bunch of 8th men). And Jokic's playoff numbers are insane: 28/12/7 with a TS% of .614 (compared to Embiid at 24/11/3 with a TS% of .579). And he went deeper in the playoffs at age 24 than Embiid has ever gotten.
We have a different view of Simmons time in Philly. I think by the incident you cite, his time in Philly was done. Its undeniable that Simmons has talent but that period was a combination of him being overhyped, then subsequently torn down by the media, the fans and perhaps more than a few people in the organization. You can't hand wave that away in team building because at the very least its a distraction. I really don't want to go down a Ben Simmons rabbithole here but I don't agree was truly a "borderline Top 20" player in anything other than a metric sense. I follow data but the sports are played by humans and Simmons flaws essentially negated a lot of the good stuff he did.
Has anyone broken out his threes by pure catch and shoot vs threes where he doesn't dribble but either holds the ball or does some fakes or a jab step before he shoots? It seems like he gets a decent number of shots that way these days.
Pull up against the drop? I love, and I’d bet he hits a high percentage of those. Iso pull-up on the wing needs to go lol, I’m not kidding when I say he probably shoots 15-20% on those. If he’s smoking hot, that’s fine, otherwise he needs to use it as a changeup, like you said.
Threes vs time on shot clock is the number I'm looking for. If anything less than 85% of Tatum's step back threes came with more than say 7 seconds on the shot clock id be surprised. Nearly every one comes after the initial set has broken down and we revert to pure iso to get a shot off.
The problem is that he's often the one who let the shot clock go under 7 in the first place when he takes those. They're rarely hand grenades from teammates.
I agree but that is after the initial set breaks down. Maybe he breaks the play off too soon at times but as our best scorer off the dribble I'll gladly cut him a little slack if it give him a couple more seconds to do his work. If the defense does it's job in stopping him, which is a low percentage of the time, his step-back three is a fine option against the clock knowing we are going to get something decent off.
Yeah, I'm mostly saying that he breaks plays off too soon, and once he goes below a certain point in the clock, it means he's settling for the stepback.
It's not that he bogs the offense down more than other guys. It's that, whenever he does bog it down, he does it in the same way, and that way has pretty low EV.
I absolutely want the iso pull-ups from the wings gone, but I also think he’s on the opposite of a burner right now, on them lol. 15% over his last 8 games, and was at 35.4% through the first 15. 7-44 is insane lol, that will absolutely correct a good amount. I’m fine with 3-4 pull-ups a game, because when it’s in rhythm it’s a good shot. But 5-6? Nah, time to replace those with some middies.
is it though? I doubt coaches around the league are looking at that number the past three years saying hey gotta respect the step back.
This was true at one point. Now that he's getting so good in the post, it's not anymore.
I don't know about that. Tatum's got a bunch of moves in the bag, obviously, but just because he can score out of the post doesn't mean he can scrap other ways he has of creating his shot. Part of it depends on the defender. If he gets a big switched onto him, he'll often back it out, and do the footwork dance around the three point line - either going to the stepback if the big drops too far, or using the threat of the stepback to pull the big in and then go around him.
Defenses are still really aggressive in trying to take it away, because they know if he gets it going in any game, there’s just no way to slow him down.
I am not seeing the same thing. Guys look fine letting him get to that. Eye test though so Im not very confident.
He's essentially taking as many threes (as a percentage of total shot attempts) as last year while his percentage of assisted threes has fallen from 65% to 55%. AMong forwards he's at the 99th percentile in percentage of unassisted threes. It's becoming a bigger not smaller component of his game.
Yeah, I agree with you. Eye test too but, to my eye, it seems like defenses WANT him to take a step back 3. The shot hasn't been effective for him for a while now. I am a little surprised he still goes to it as much as he does
How about where he throws up a quick 3 looking for the 2 for 1 at the end of a quarter? That seems to happen at least once a game.
Both of these match my eye test & are rather damning. Thanks for posting.
I only looked at the step backs, of which I think only 1-2 were 2 for 1s. I included 2 for 1s in my assessment, using 32 seconds left on the game clock as a stand-in for 0 on the shot clock. (I didn't include that terrible shot he took with 28-29 seconds left last night against Cleveland. That wasn't a two for one at that point..)
Just to look at this from an opposing point of view...
I think the quick decision making/passing thing is a thing of the past. Teams kept trying that until the Warriors/Heat figured out the way is to either force the ball out of his hands, or send late help once he puts the ball down.
I think we agree on all of these points it's just viewing it differently.
Yup, exactly this.
I don’t like the iso pull-up threes, but there’s going to be a fair amount of possessions every game, by every team, where 4 guys just stand around. People may not like it, but it’s just part of the deal. I don’t really overreact to that part, I just want him to cut down a couple of pull-ups per game because there is better options, for himself and others.
Since he makes about 3 3's a game, that means about 1 more unassisted 3 every 3 games. Might just be noise at this point.
