(Sunday, May 26, 2019 2:17:11 PM)
Here are the most NBA-ready prospects the Knicks can target in this year’s NBA Draft.
Knicks Morning News (2019.05.27)
(Sunday, May 26, 2019 2:17:11 PM)
(Sunday, May 26, 2019 2:17:11 PM)
Here are the most NBA-ready prospects the Knicks can target in this year’s NBA Draft.
31 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2019.05.27)”
Here is a ink to a series of videos where Bob Meyers (warriors), Paul Pierce and others talk about the differences between regular season and playoff basketball and why you have to become a more complete player to excel in the playoffs. Click on the 2 minute Bob Meyers video, watch that and it brings up a thread with few others.
https://twitter.com/doobeedoo2/status/1132647201941860353
To continue the Giannis conversation, since people at this stats sites apparently haven’t noticed the stats, let’s compare him to two other physically dominant bigs who were well known to have no jump shot.
According to the shooting stats at Basketball Reference:
From 3-10 feet, Shaq shot 42.6% for his career, shot over 40% for all years stats are available, and at the broken down age of 38 still shot 42.4%.
From 3-10 feet, Dwight Howard shot 41.4% for his career, shot over 40% through age 28, and shot 45.2% at age 24.
From 3-10 feet, Giannis has shot 34% for his career, and at age 24 after six years in the league he shot 38.1%.
Even considering some potential distortion due to style of play or other factors, how is it physically possible for someone of Giannis’ immense physical gifts to be THAT bad at scoring THAT close to the basket? None of these three players really have a jump shot but why are two significantly better at scoring from the same area of the court?
One possible reason would obviously seem to be Giannis’ lack of a post up game. While being a worse post player than Shaq is nothing to be ashamed of, Howard is notorious for his primitive and underdeveloped post game. His weakness there substantially defines him as a player.
Yet after six years in the NBA and despite pretty clearly being both athletically superior and more skilled than Dwight in other areas of basketball, how in the world can Giannis be a significantly worse post player? Giannis is not dumb and he’s not lacking in physical tools, so he must simply not be working on that element of the game.
Why?
Mike
Almost as if game strategy matters.
Yes, I will absolutely spend some time today comparing Giannis with Shaq and Howard, these are very similar players and clearly fill the same role around the rim.
@2
Nobody cares because it’s meaningless. Giannis had a .644 ts% for this season, which would have been career highs for both Shaq and Dwight, and he has like 250 FG attempts at the area you singled out, while Shaq in his prime had about 700+ attempts from the same area.
You’re trying to create a narrative out of thin air to justify your preconceived ideas about the game. That’s why nobody has noticed it.
The Raptors packed the paint against Giannis and dared the other shooters to beat them, which the other shooters failed to do.
Solution: Giannis post-ups.
Brilliant
I think there is something to the theory that in this era the emphasis on analytics means players work on different skills than they used to. Look at Mitchell Robinson. Do you think he’s working on his post up game this summer or on shooting three pointers? It may never have occurred to Giannis that a post up game would be useful.
This is not difficult.
1. Toronto has an elite defense
2. Toronto packed the paint and forced Giannis into taking tougher shots, taking FTs (which he missed too often) and dishing out to secondary and ROLE players.
3. Toronto’s defense did not give the secondary and role players the easy looks they might get in the regular season. So they missed more often under greater defensive and playoff pressure.
The point being, no one is blaming Giannis for losing the series. They are saying that players are considered superstars when it’s extremely difficult to slow them down consistently (one off night means nothing). They are harder to slow down because they can score in a variety of ways, from a variety of locations, going left or right etc… The one exception to that is the inside scorer that is so ridiculously dominant he almost can’t be stopped inside no matter what you do (Shaq and Kareem are examples of that).
Giannis was slowed down because of the limitations in his game.
The difference being that the Bucks have an elite defense also. But no matter what they did (including slowing down the secondary and role players on some nights) they could NOT stop Khawi because he can do everything from everywhere.
That a difference between Giannis and Khawi.
One could be slowed down. That put more pressure on secondary and role players that were also defended well. The other could not be stopped. So he could take over when required in the 4th quarter or when his teammates were coming up short.
There is nothing wrong with saying Giannis is a great player with holes in his game. It’s a fact. If he filled those holes it would make him a better player and more likely to be able carry a team down the stretch.
Maybe Draymond Green should be working on his post game, I mean, how can you win with a big man that doesn’t have a post game in the NBA?
Yeah, except the solution to a team packing the paint around you is NOT a better post-up game. It’s making good passes to teammates, who then, in this case, missed their shots.
Though to be fair, it’s also knowing how to get fouled while shooting inside and then making the foul shots. That didn’t happen the way it needed to.
Draymond Green is a role player specifically because he can’t he can’t shoot and do many other things on the offensive side of the ball. As great a role player as he is (and he’s probably one of the best ever), you can’t build an offense around Draymond. He’s the piece you add to scorers. You need the guys that can create and score against playoff caliber defense and pressure. That’s not his job. That’s the job of Curry, Durant, and to a lesser degree Klay. What makes Durant great is not just that he’s a great 3 point shooter. It’s that he can’t be stopped even if you take that away. He’ll beat you 9 other ways.
The idea is for everyone to get better individually and as a team.
His teammates missed because playoff defenses are tougher on secondary options and role players also. They also have to get better. Of course, he could add Curry and Klay to the team. Then he wouldn’t need to expand his own game, but that’s just plain silliness.
If he wants to take that defensive adjustment away, start hitting wide open 3s at a 40% clip so they have to come up on you. Then you can go past them again. If they are taking away the 3 and have some monster in the paint, pull up from mid range wide open and knock that down 50%+.
If they are going to leave you wide open somewhere, be good enough at that thing so they can’t do it anymore. Then you are a better player PERIOD.
those stats are all fecklessly superficial. almost 40pct of giannis’ 3-10 foot shots are aborted drives on which he shot 22pct. they are better seen as a slight offset to his godlike rim %. shaq and dwight in contrast attempted roughly zero layups from 3-10 feet. aside from those his numbers are in the same ballpark. and that ballpark sucks. for all three, but by far for giannis, those shots represented poor risk rewards on a PPP basis.
giannis probably doesn’t practice his post game for the same reason he doesn’t study genomics and aaron judge doesn’t practice bunting. the opportunity cost is way too high. you can take a fade-away post shot with a 45pct efg (or pass it out to bledsoe for three) or drive to home with a 53pct efg (heavily degraded for toronto’s defense) or pass it out to bledsoe for 3. getting his post game up to 48pct efg ain’t gonna help, and a little known fact about playoff post ups is that the TO% is also terrible.
great players have holes and sometimes look bearable against bad defenses. remember when the bulls beat us in 93 despite jordan shooting like 50-150 for the series? he had holes too, his career 3 pt percentage was terrible if you subtract the 3 years the league shortened the arc. giannis can be a superstar in the playoffs and he walked over an excellent boston defense with a terrific defender in horford. it’s hard to know what to work on because the improvement gradients among skills can be all over the map. but it seems pretty obvious that giannis should exhaust all possibilities for improving his shot before wasting much time
at camp hakeem, because at least if that worked it would be a guaranteed efficiency bonanza. on the other hand if he just became post ewing it really wouldn’t be that great.
oh and btw the bucks were +10 in the series with giannis on the court and -16 without him. in a battle of two defensive juggernauts you can easily win a playoff series with his performance.
While I generally think that MBunge is wacked out, I think his criticism of Giannis is valid to an extent. In general, the more ways you have to attack a specific defense, the better. Jokic, for example, has a much more varied offensive game than Giannis, including a very advanced back-to-the-basket post-up game. When you set up on the low block, you eliminate the dribble necessary to get into the lane. The help defender is now facing towards the basket, rather than seeing the whole court as they do in the “wall” defense double-teaming Giannis attacking from the point.
Bill Russell once said that effective defense is taking away what a player likes doing and making him do what he doesn’t like doing.
It follows that if you minimize the things you don’t like doing, you make it harder on the defense.
Giannis clearly doesn’t like going to the line. While Toronto didn’t play Hack-a-Shaq on him, they clearly preferred to send him to the line rather than let him extend to the rim. All of a sudden, his TS% goes down to .518.
Other all-time greats faced similar challenges early in their careers. The Jordan Rules are a great example. Detroit made things hard on Jordan, and he responded by refining aspects of his game…going left, shooting jumpers, posting up, etc. LeBron worked on his post-up game. Dirk perfected the one-footed step-back. Magic improved his 3-pt shooting and FT shooting. Wilt became a better passer.
I’m not saying that developing a post-up game is the answer for Giannis, but more generally I think that there are significant holes in his all-around game that need to be fixed. 3-pt shooting, back-to-the-basket play, FT shooting, reading defenses and passing are all possibilities.
But no one is saying Giannis is perfect as a player. We’re just having some perspective and understanding that it is unrealistic to expect a 25 year old who improved MASSIVELY since he came into the league to be perfect or to have a damn post game out of all things he could have, which is something that has been practically phased out of the game.
It’s like, yeah obviously I would be a more complete professor if I could speak Korean, and certainly speaking Korean would be a good thing for my career if I did know it. But not speaking Korean does not mean I know less than college sophomores, which was his first contribution to this argument and led to his post today, and doesn’t invalidate the rest of my knowledge or the other 5 languages I can speak. Also, learning Korean would have an impact on how much time and effort I can spend on everything else, which makes it even less valuable considering it’s far down the line of skills that are necessary for my job.
Giannis could definitely improve his game. He needs to learn to shoot better. Part of the reason “the wall” is so effective is because his guy can play 5 feet off him,, then he has to get around a couple guys at once near the basket.
If he could shoot from three (or even 18 feet) his man has to come up on him. Then a lot of dribble drives he will beat his defender, and only have to face the helping big near the rim.
He also forced quite a bit of junk shots, turned the ball over inside, and couldn’t hit a free throw. It’s silly to blame the loss on him, but there are also a few ways he could be better.
Post play is alive and well. Horford, Embiid, Jokic, Millsap, Griffin, Aldridge, Towns, and others all have very effective post games. To say it’s been phased out of the game is naive, especially when talking about offensive bigs. Kawhi, DeRozan, George, LBJ, Durant all have very effective post games.
Also, no one is saying it’s an either-or thing. He can work on several things at once.
The draft guys at the Ringer were debating Barrett v. Clarke on the NBA podcast. KB had a similar debate 3 months ago! Two of three had Clarke ahead of Barrett. The other had Barrett 2nd over Morant. I remember laughing because the guy that liked Barrett had Tatum over Ball and I saw Tatum as a limited volume scorer pre-draft.
The debate mainly revolved around Barrett having a higher ceiling, but Clarke a lower floor. The one guy that liked Clarke the most said he’d rather have a Marion type of player over a Derozen. Problem with that argument is Marion was shorter than Clarke and had a 7′ wingspan while Clarke’s is 6’8″.
The same two that liked Clarke had Culver over RJ as well. Do we think it’s pretty much a lock the Knicks go with RJ at 3 with or without plans to trade him (assuming Cam doesn’t crush the workout)? Everyone is talking about the “consensus top-3” so it feels inevitable. Is the draft convo too stale already?
I think this must be off. If Clarke has both a lower ceiling and lower floor, he’s a worse prospect.
I don’t care about Clarke’s measurables at all (even though he ranked 4th in vertical). There’s no question in my mind that he’s a prototypical wing/stretch 4 defender at the next level. Looks like Jordan Bell with a better offensive game (less reliant on alley-oops and putbacks).
People picking basketball players over a 4″ wingspan difference are really missing the forest for the trees, IMO. Not accusing you of it, chris, but the pundit obsession with combine measurables is far too deep.
I think by lower floor he actually meant higher floor. I made the same mistake recently.
@20,
Technically a prospect with a lower floor and a lower ceiling can be considered a better prospect than one with a higher floor and a higher ceiling if you think the probability distributions of prospect productivity are different; eg if prospect 1 has an extremely high chance of obtaining a median outcome, whereas Prospect 2 has a middling or low chance and the productivity differences between their respective floors and ceilings aren’t too great. Clarke seems pretty guaranteed to stick in the league, even if his floor is someone who’s out of the league after two years because he’s been feasting on younger competition. But yeah, I don’t see a lot of situations in which the prospect with a lower floor and a lower ceiling are better prospects than one with a higher floor and a higher ceiling. But it’s not conceptually impossible, I think. Fwiw I think Clarke also has a pretty high floor–hes gonna be league average at least over his career.
That said I still take Barrett over Clarke in a vacuum but the trade down scenario makes it a much more interesting debate.
Of course. I was confused by the “but” in the passage: “…Barrett having a higher ceiling, but Clarke a lower floor.” Seemed like the sentence was set up to praise one’s floor and the other’s ceiling.
I realize that Knox was a very risky and probably bad pick last year (I still hold out hope for him, but looks bad for now) and there’s all that nonsense about the 3-on-3 stuff, but landing Mitch and Trier seem to suggest that we should trust Perry to make a well-researched and logical pick. I think Barrett’s the guy and will not be upset if they pick him there. If they trade down, it would depend on what we get and who we draft with the lower pick. My hope is that someone likes either Barrett, Culver or Hunter enough to make a lopsided in our favor trade to move up. Barrett would be a fine pick at #3. I’m ambivalent about the guys from #4-#10.
RE: Barrett comps
Does anyone see more Spree in Barrett than the Harden or Wade comps that folks in the media have been throwing around? Personally, I think the Harden and Wade comps are just silly. He doesn’t have Harden’s handle or craftiness, nor does he have Wade’s defense, length, or quickness.
None of them are good comps.
I’ve been telling y’all, the comp is Tyreke Evans
Golden State Spree or NYK Spree?
The only trades I want to see are either as part of a deal for an established star, or for another young yet cheap established “good” player that preserves cap space (like Sabonis/Collins). If someone thinks Barrett is a super star in the making fine. Maybe he is…. but a bird in the hand…. something….something.
@28..I would say Golden State Spree because of the shooting numbers and the way he attacks. When Spree became a Knick he actually expanded his game and became a 2 way player. Of course Barrett is NOWHERE near as good as Sprewell was though
Minnesota Spree.
Golden State Spree was an all-defensive second team player. I would be very impressed if Barrett reach something like this on his second year.