Possibly 'best in league' defensive center tandem in hibbert and upshaw?

[vini_vidi_vici]

Raps fan here, hate that I have to preface with that, but whatever seems like protocol on RGM.

Our thread on Hibbert got locked, so thought id post here. After reading the LA Times article (linked below, "faster"), I wonder what Lakers fans are thinking it will do to help/hinder his play.

[ x ] Elite Rim Protection.
[ x ] Elite DFG differential.
[ x ] 89th percentile against SpotUps (usually the achilles heel for less mobile big men).

I think if they can get away from him to lessen his USG which it sounds like hes amenable to, and hes able to anchor the D like he said to Kobe, this should be a high upside move. With guys like LW/KB and others to pick up the slack scoring, and having be able to run shooters off the line and funnel to him, the Lakers could be surprisingly good next year. Altho injury risk (for most of the squad), and a murderers row in the west definitely tempers that.

Again, to me I could care less about the nutrionist and/or weight added or gained, its more about the added agility/workouts hes doing to get "faster". Should be interesting to see how successful he is in those adjustments after being pretty stellar defensively again last year.

His PnR D, specifcally defending the roll man, which was mentioned earlier ITT, was avg to bad (42nd percentile). But I think alot of that is mitigated by the fact he drops back, and defends the rim against ball handlers driving.

This ranking may surprise some, as the Pacers have Roy Hibbert, the league’s preeminent “drop-backer.” Indeed, of the tracked on-ball screens Hibbert has defended, he has dropped back on 96.73 percent of these. Hibbert can be lumbering on the perimeter, so this strategy is well founded. Such a strategy inherently keeps Hibbert near the basket area where he is arguably the league’s most dominant deterrent. Mahinmi is deployed in a similar fashion. The Pacers will often have their power forwards aggressively defend on-ball screens, where the help defense burden is lifted by Hibbert’s presence near the rim.

Maybe im crazy here, but like I said above in the quote, if LW can be efficient as he was last year, and KB takes on a huge USG with fairly decent efficiency, and you spread the rest of the offense around, this team could be surprisingly good. But like my Raps, I see another high variance team that im not sure where to peg, it could be great or go horribly wrong.

I dont know anything about the other options aside from Sacre (because hes canadian), and because I really only care about the Raps, but I really just wanted to comment on Hibbert and decided to use this thread as it was about the defense. Goodluck guys.

[Slava]

Good post, the issue with dropping back is that Scott to a fault had his big hedge on the pick and roll instead of being more conservative. I hope that changes with regards to Hibbert otherwise its a suicide note.

[MrWaffles]

Hi all,


First time poster on this four . Long time laker fan. just graduated college blah blab blah. Anyways, I live in Indiana and have seen and heard a lot of Pacers games. I live near Indy and let me tell you.. It was a Christmas celebration when Hibbert was traded to the Lakers

The pacers were dying to trade him but no one wanted him due to his lack of skill and his weak mentality. When Roy got traded, every pacer fan in a 100 mile radius was crying tears of joy.

Roy is no where near a top 10 center. He's slow, he falls a lot, doesn't finish around the rim that well anymore. Hell, his defense was barely better than Jordan Hills last year.

This year will be rough watching Roy without young boys. I wish him the best but I expect nothing more than 2 boards a game from him. I rather have ups haw start over him honestly. Maybe with Roy losing weight and Kobe making him cry during every practice, Roy may gain some fire and play to his all star self...

[vini_vidi_vici]

Good post, the issue with dropping back is that Scott to a fault had his big hedge on the pick and roll instead of being more conservative. I hope that changes with regards to Hibbert otherwise its a suicide note.

I agree, I think it would be silly to acquire Hibbert to hedge. I think what they should do is let the Gs/Ws go over screens (as you dont want 3s (volume of 3s/3PTr has a huge correlation on ORTGS, the more of them, the better for your ORTG), and funnel everything to Hibbert inside.

The Raps were a team that was one the bigger hedge teams in the league last year, and alot of that was because we had mobile bigs (Amir/JJ/Patterson/Hansbrough/etc..) but despite that we had a guy who dropped back almost as much in JV. Now JV isnt close to Hibbert in terms of defending SpotUps/Rim Protection, but FWIW it didnt work because we got murked in the midrange (worst FG% against in the NBA). Now alot of that is the team around him aswell, but I saw so much 1-5, 2-5 PnR, im still having nightmares about it. So I think it will be interesting to see if Scott does change the defense, because as you said, having Hibbert come to the high post extended is not the proper use of your assets, and likely be suicide.

PnR D is weird because theres so many ways to do it effective, Hedge/Show/Drop/ICE/Over/Under/Trap/Double/etc.. screens, and its really a matter of playing to the personnel, and where you want the Opps shot to come from, not one set way is better than others. Ill def be watching some Lakers games to see what happens with all this, it helps they are on national TV alot too.

Aside from the defense, what do you guys expect from the offense?? To me, thats as big a question mark. LW is a high USG 1v1 player (ISOs/PnR to score/etc..), and same with Kobe. I think they are going to given leeway in that respect, but how much? Who else are you counting on scoring? Who facilitates if neither of KB/LW are great volume passers?? And where do your 3s come from?? I remember the Scott remark on 3s (was it last season?), but in todays game they are very valuable (see above) and it seems like youre missing that.

[Slava]

Good post, the issue with dropping back is that Scott to a fault had his big hedge on the pick and roll instead of being more conservative. I hope that changes with regards to Hibbert otherwise its a suicide note.

I agree, I think it would be silly to acquire Hibbert to hedge. I think what they should do is let the Gs/Ws go over screens (as you dont want 3s (volume of 3s/3PTr has a huge correlation on ORTGS, the more of them, the better for your ORTG), and funnel everything to Hibbert inside.

The Raps were a team that was one the bigger hedge teams in the league last year, and alot of that was because we had mobile bigs (Amir/JJ/Patterson/Hansbrough/etc..) but despite that we had a guy who dropped back almost as much in JV. Now JV isnt close to Hibbert in terms of defending SpotUps/Rim Protection, but FWIW it didnt work because we got murked in the midrange (worst FG% against in the NBA). Now alot of that is the team around him aswell, but I saw so much 1-5, 2-5 PnR, im still having nightmares about it. So I think it will be interesting to see if Scott does change the defense, because as you said, having Hibbert come to the high post extended is not the proper use of your assets, and likely be suicide.

PnR D is weird because theres so many ways to do it effective, Hedge/Show/Drop/ICE/Over/Under/Trap/Double/etc.. screens, and its really a matter of playing to the personnel, and where you want the Opps shot to come from, not one set way is better than others. Ill def be watching some Lakers games to see what happens with all this, it helps they are on national TV alot too.

Aside from the defense, what do you guys expect from the offense?? To me, thats as big a question mark. LW is a high USG 1v1 player (ISOs/PnR to score/etc..), and same with Kobe. I think they are going to given leeway in that respect, but how much? Who else are you counting on scoring? Who facilitates if neither of KB/LW are great volume passers?? And where do your 3s come from?? I remember the Scott remark on 3s (was it last season?), but in todays game they are very valuable (see above) and it seems like youre missing that.

Ideally on offense, I'd like to see a pick and roll oriented scheme where if you don't get a good look you go to the post with Kobe, but we do not have any good dive men, the best is probably Tarik Black.

I think Scott is going to continue what he does and use a mix of triangle and basic NBA sets because his priority more than to establish an offensive identity is to develop the younger players and the way he is going about it is to run as many basic NBA sets as he can so they can familiarize themselves with what the rest of the league runs. There might be some plays to use Kobe and Russell off the screens to get them some open shots.

I don't know how the bench unit works with possibly Lou and Young on it. That could be a feast or famine everyday with a lot of questionable shot selection.

[Jody Smokz]

Hibbert also wasn't competing against the better offenses in the NBA night in and night out in the East. You play 30 teams out of conference. So he only sees the best of the West teams that are heavy PnR (GSW, LAC, SAS, OKC, HOU) 10 times out potentially out of 72 games. When you are lining up against teams that have offenses that don't executed well (WAS, NY, CHI) or are young teams (MIL, DET) you aren't getting exploited as much.

Instead of going against those teams 10 times a year he's about to go against them 20 times a year. I read he's dropping weight, we'll what that does for his mobility.