Xatticus wrote:Knightro wrote:pepe1991 wrote:Gasol was much better and was way more involved in screen actions than Lopez who was pretty much nothing more than spot up shooter only.
Just look at screen asssist numbers:
Gobert 478
Vuc 351
Gasol 217
Mo Bamba 122
.... Brook Lopez 119
Lot of PFs , including Giannis and Ben Simmons, were better screen setters than Lopez.
In whole season he only "rolled" from pick&roll and attacked rim 113 times, Marc Gasol 233 times, Vuc 288, Turner, who also shoots 3s, 303.
Lopez for Bucks become nothing more than glorified 7 foot Tony Snell. Player that really can't put ball on the floor, can't attack off dribble, isn't much of a passer but from time to time can make open shots, but since he was on team with Brogdon, Mirotić, Giannis, Bledsoe, Middleton he looked that much better. Given that they lost Mirotić and Brogdon i kind a expect drop in Bucks W/L column and them being worst than last year.
Gotta be careful with this kind of logic.
Just because guys like Gobert, Vucevic and Gasol were more involved in screen actions than Lopez doesn't mean that they're *better* than Lopez at setting screens. It just means they were tasked with setting screens more often than Lopez was in their respective offensive systems.
Let's do some math...
Gobert
Points off 3PT: 0
Points off screens: 1107
Total: 1,107
Vucevic
Points off 3PT: 252
Points off screens: 797
Total: 1,049
Lopez
Points off 3PT: 561
Points off screens: 275
Total: 836
Gasol
Points off 3PT: 297
Points off screens: 497
Total: 794
Score one for heavy screen setters, right? Not necessarily.
Inherently a huge portion of the value that a "stretch 5" is going to provide a team beyond actually hitting threes comes from the ability to pull the opposing center away from the basket, thus creating more favorable driving lanes which in theory will lead to more more drives total as well as more successful drives.
Let's dive a little deeper...
Let's look at what Giannis and Bledsoe (the Bucks two main driving players) did with Lopez ON the court v. Lopez OFF the court.
Giannis
FG% at rim Lopez ON: 75.4%
FG% at rim Lopez OFF: 70.5%
Bledsoe
FG% at rim Lopez ON: 69.6%
FG% at rim Lopez OFF: 65.1%
At the very least it appears both players were helped by Lopez's ability to pull the opposing center away from the rim.
This.
There are a lot of plodding bigs in the NBA that lack the mobility to sag and recover. If you have someone that can get into the paint at will and a center that can shoot the three, the defense has to pick their poison. This was Milwaukee's offense in a nutshell.
Brook started to shoot 3s 3 years ago, on Nets
2016-17 season, had off rating of 104,7 , def rating 108,5, OBPM +1,40
2017-18 season, Lakers -106 off rating ,106,8 def rating , OBPM , +0,20
2018-19 season, Bucks, 114,9 off rating, 103 def rating , OBMP , +0,50
So being same player like last year, in two years prior, on teams without Giannis,Brogdon, Middelton he had negative net rating . Always was solid offensive player ( was allstar when he played like post-up big ), but his off rating jumped for almost 7 points.
As from dragging center away from rim, most teams don't defend Cs at 3 point line in general.
Lopez despite being "great"shooter, still made 122 out of 187 of them when nobody was close ( closest defender +6 feet away), additional 55 when he was "open" (4-6 feet away from him) . And on that shots he wasn't really Steph Curry type effective, he was just right there at league average on 36% mark and actually well below average for open shots.
Also in playoffs aside from Jokić ( guarded by Kanter...) and Gasol ( 4th to 5th offensive option on his team ) not a single C had good shooting numbers. Raptors litearlly had that " you think Brook Lopez can beat us with jumpshot -lol let him try" approach as he was left wide open all the time. His tendency to do nothing but shoot allowed Raptors to even switch Fred Van Vleet who is like 5'5 and Brook was still doing nothing but camping.
in this video you can see it yourself, at 1:46 mark you have best example of how unwilling he was to move, while having matchup where player who weights 1/2 of his weight, and is half of person ( in height ) he is on him.
From 2:19 to 2:34 mark you can see him having Vleet and Lowry on his side defending him, once again, instad of looking for post position, he just drifts away from paint and relocates himself at 3 point line for no reason
At 2:45 he has 6'7 Green in matchup who doesn't even care about him, rather clogs the paint leaving good 18 foot between them of space, once again, instad of rushing to the paint and crushing Vleet and Green, Lopez just stands like a wood
And as video goes on you can see how little Gasol was guarding him at 3 point line, it was almost exclusively 6'0 Lowry. Because you won't block his 3 attemp, so why use center? Just use guard to bother him and stop him from making dribbles or passes.
To me that's big issue with bigs taking shots. Only stupid and really poorly coached teams will have strict man to man defense and keep their C on your C at 3 point line, smarter team will just rotate to keep guards in front and it's not like there is single NBA C , aside from maybe Embiid , who can take 3 dribbles and attack your PG off dribble and dunk on your defense ( and even Embiid will do it like 3 times a year ). So what's real value of your C shooting 3s if non of them ever actually shoot 40%+ or have any volumen to beat you ,especially in playoffs? Wanna shoots some 3s? Fine, do it. But don't let it be only thing you do on the floor well on offense.
Going through some Bucks videos, i would just trade Lopez for actual point guard with IQ ( Bledsoe, Lopez for CP3, since they missed chance on Conley) and play Giannis at C. Decision making of Bledsoe , Lopez and GIannis in that playoffs was painful. Their inability to make extra passes made them lose 4 games in a row last playoffs. Also they won't recover from losing Brogdon, that player was one of few players on that roster with advanced BBIQ.
Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. -John Lennon