The Bismack Biyombo Thread

[JT2006]

adam morrison had bad games too

[Nanogeek]

My main concern is I'm seeing the same arguments/excuses I saw for Adam Morrison and Alexis Ajinca. And we know how they turned out. I get people want to be optimistic. But lets not kid ourselves. Biyombo is a D-league player right now. Whether he becomes something more - much less an Ibaka-like talent is completely unknown.

is that supposed to be some kind of relevant point? reads like complete hypocritical gibberish if you were wondering

Its a thread about Biyombo and my post was about Biyombo.

[Nanogeek]

dont care about your opinions of Bizs quality of play, i just hate when people say stuff like "people at one time had optimism for Adam Morrison and look how that turned out!!" as if thats some kind of intelligent, relevant point. its just really a really stupid way to think.

were we all "making the same excuses we were making for Morrison and Ajinca" last year for Kemba when he was stinking it up? but look how that turned out!!!11!1!!!

My point is people have been unreasonably optimistic before. And if Biyombo was performing as well in his second year as Kemba is in his then you'd have a point. He isn't. You don't.

[Nanogeek]

Then evidently you were not scrutinizing other players like you are Biz. Remember a guy named Micheal Ruffin. This Dude once took five shots from the field and 16 free throws. Want to know how many points he had at the end of the night? Ten. When my man retired he had more career fouls (942) than points. (716) As far as efficiency goes Biz is far from the bottom of the list. He is actually top two hundred for all current nba players. Which is not bad at all for a second year player. Biz looks bad at times. But that is just looks. He is much better than his clumsiness appears.

Biyombo ranks #314 in player efficiency rating (PER).

Biyombo ranks #319 in Defensive Rating (which is supposed to be his strong suit!).

Biyombo ranks #296 in Offensive Rating.

Biyombo ranks #263 in Win Shares.

If we redid the 2011 draft and picked players based on their Win Shares/48 Biyombo would be pick #39.

[SWedd523]

Wow what horrible cherry picking. Decided I'd focus on this one in particular though

Biyombo ranks #263 in Win Shares.

If we redid the 2011 draft and picked players based on their Win Shares/48 Biyombo would be pick #39.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/draft/NBA_2011.html

He's actually 28th, but that's beside the point as that is a horrible metric to use. Kemba is behind guys like Jimmy Butler, Derrick Williams, and Lavoy Allen if you use that same measure.

[JT2006]

Wow what horrible cherry picking. Decided I'd focus on this one in particular though

Biyombo ranks #263 in Win Shares.

If we redid the 2011 draft and picked players based on their Win Shares/48 Biyombo would be pick #39.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/draft/NBA_2011.html

He's actually 28th, but that's beside the point as that is a horrible metric to use. Kemba is behind guys like Jimmy Butler, Derrick Williams, and Lavoy Allen if you use that same measure.

don't bother

[Nanogeek]

Wow what horrible cherry picking. Decided I'd focus on this one in particular though

Ok cherry pick four states where he is excelling relative to the rest of the league. I'm willing to be convinced Biyombo is actually performing at some great level as a few seem to imply.

Biyombo ranks #263 in Win Shares.

If we redid the 2011 draft and picked players based on their Win Shares/48 Biyombo would be pick #39.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/draft/NBA_2011.html

He's actually 28th, but that's beside the point as that is a horrible metric to use. Kemba is behind guys like Jimmy Butler, Derrick Williams, and Lavoy Allen if you use that same measure.

Fair enough. Lets look at just Win Shares. Kembra ranks #13 amongst 2011 draftees. Biyombo ranks #29. Its gets worse also. Now, all this proves is Biyombo is sucking it up right now. And that is my point. Looking at some of the posts on this thread we are led to believe Biyombo is doing well or is maybe actually even good. My point is he is not and there isn't a shred of evidence supporting he is good right now.

Drawing parallels to Ibaka is wrong too because Ibaka was performing much better in his first year than Biyombo is this year. Will Biyombo develop into some Ben Wallace type defensive godling? I don't know. And I hope he does. But he's showing no signs of that right now. And this starry eyed fanboyism that I'm seeing from some people is annoying because this team has seen plenty of that before with other "amazing prospects".

[Snidely FC]

I think pulling stats like Win Shares in discussing Biz is irrelevant BECAUSE RIGHT NOW THE CATS DON'T WANT TO WIN.

It's tempting as a fan of a bad team to want one player to make all the difference, but I prefer to look at Biz as a building block.

I see a really inexperienced player (remember, no college ball) who, last year focused on simply catching the ball, but this year has tried some offensive moves, the ball hasn't gone in, but the moves are there, they're halting, but they're there. That's progress. Last year I saw lots of complaints about Biz not rebounding, this year on some nights he's our best rebounder. People complain he hasn't shown any glimpses of potential. What about his recent 10 & 17 game?

Big men peak at age 29 in this league. If this team wanted to win Biz would play 5 minutes a game. He's gonna continue to make a ton of mistakes. Don't give up on Biz until the team starts to try to win and see how he fits then. I'd rather have a young player like Biz trying really hard to improve than a young player like Mullens who thinks he's something he's not or seems oblivious to which of his skills actually help the team.

[catch20two]

If Biyombo is such a work in progress that'll take 4-5 years to even start looking like a serviceable NBA player like some of you believe then he shouldn't be starting. Maybe we need to go back to giving him limited minutes. As funny as it may sound maybe we need to put him under the same protection program aka sporadic minutes that the Pistons have with Drummond. There's no way that Biyombo could be gaining confidence by getting outplayed by his matchups, traveling every time he get the ball in the post, missing layups, and getting yelled at by his teammates. If anything we are hurting his development by playing him like he's anywhere close to being ready to make a consistent impact on the floor.

[fatlever]

i agree that biz shouldnt be starting. its too much for him right now, regardless of how awful the rest of the bigs are on this team. he needs minutes to develop, but he should be limited to about 10-20 minutes and not as a starter. he is not ready.

when biz comes in the game, dunlap should call a couple of plays to get him the ball in the post, just to get his feet wet. its not good for him to go entire quarters w/out touching the ball on offense.

would also like to dunlap to make the game a little easier for biz by telling him not to cheat so much on everyone elses man. goal number one is to protect the paint, goal number two is to rebound. he doesnt need to be chasing guard around the perimeter. let the defense funnel players towards biz and he blocks the shot or alters the shot.

[Nanogeek]

I woudn't mind seeing him in the D-league. Then he can learn at a slower pace and we can be sure there is some ability to progress.

BTW - at the time of the draft DraftExpress put Biyombo's ceiling as "a smaller, poor man's Dwight Howard" and his floor as "Taj Gibson". It'd be great if he could produce like Taj Gibson.

As for why he's starting? Bobcats are playing for a lottery pick this season.

[Eoghan]

i agree that biz shouldnt be starting. its too much for him right now, regardless of how awful the rest of the bigs are on this team. he needs minutes to develop, but he should be limited to about 10-20 minutes and not as a starter. he is not ready.

when biz comes in the game, dunlap should call a couple of plays to get him the ball in the post, just to get his feet wet. its not good for him to go entire quarters w/out touching the ball on offense.

would also like to dunlap to make the game a little easier for biz by telling him not to cheat so much on everyone elses man. goal number one is to protect the paint, goal number two is to rebound. he doesnt need to be chasing guard around the perimeter. let the defense funnel players towards biz and he blocks the shot or alters the shot.

I agree wholeheartedly with the 2nd paragraphs. I don't know why Biz shouldn't be starting, he's not the sort of player that has a fragile ego IMO. Play against the best and with the best to become the best. If he played limited minutes he'd be much worse b/c he'd never touch the ball at all.

It's not like he's got a Duncan as a teammate to watch from the bench either. Plus, we're tanking, so why not play him minutes galore and build that chemistry to build on for next year.

[KembaWalker]

Bismack will blossom. He might take more time we'd like but even as a player right now its not like he's a bust. He's a 20 year old kid playing a mans position starting in the NBA. and its not like he hasn't shown anything. hes a 10reb/36min guy already (Hibbert whom he faced tonight didn't reach this feat until age 25). He can get blocks. He just needs more coaching and more experience. its not like we drafted a megabust like Vesely or something. Patience...

wonder if there is any Congo national team type stuff he will participate in. I think it would be good for him to spend some time on a team that he is the best player on and a good offensive option.

[Damon_3388]

I said elsewhere before the 2011 Draft that Biyombo is Mouhamed Sene 2.0, and I still stand by that statement.

Comparing their respective pre-draft highlight videos (from pretty much the same age, length of time playing the game, and level of competition at the Nike Hoop Summit), they looked virtually identical (there was one up of Biyombo's Draft Express page that was just straight game footage highlights like the Sene one, but it's not accessable anymore):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6Ho_dsWHvk[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_SB-ZKAhGM[/youtube]

Biyombo is shorter and has a slightly bigger frame than Sene, but apart from that, they pretty much seem like the same player to me. Difference is, Sene played 260 minutes total in the NBA (5.53 per game), and was out of the league by the time he was 23, whereas Biyombo has started more games at NBA level (60) than Sene ever played, has seen 23.77 minutes of court time per game in his career, and is the worst team in the league (two years running). This extra exposure would highlight Biyombo's weaknesses even more, and make his shortcomings all the more glaring and apparent, but may also allow him to reach his full potential, as he's getting the opportunity to actually play and develop his game.

To be honest though, I'm not sure why anyone would expect anything more than what they're currently getting from Biyombo, especially if his age is legit.

[BlackOutBuzz]

Just some random (probably meaningless) stat-compiling...

So I noticed that Biz, once he got past his Biz-arre (ok, that was bad) 3-game streak without a block, has accrued at least 2 blocks in each of his last 4 games. That said, his rebounding numbers took a dive as soon as the blocks came back. So I looked at our last 10 games, half of which he compiled at least 2 blocks.

Rebound totals in games with less than 2 blocks: 10 - 7 - 11 - 7 - 17 (10.4 average)
Rebound totals in games with 2 or more blocks: 7 - 5 - 5 - 3 - 5 (5 average)

Worth noting that those last four numbers in the greater than 2 blocks column are from our last four games, while the last 3 in the less than 2 segment are from the 3 games before that...when we won 2 of 3 (and the one loss was only by 2 to Cleveland). Biz's lines in those wins...

Chicago: 5-11-0 blocks
Detroit: 10-17-0 blocks

I'm probably drawing too much from one player's performance, but it's interesting that our only string (albeit a short string) of recent success came during the only time where Biz wasn't swatting shots and instead grabbed 35 boards in a 2-1 jaunt (since then he has 18 rebounds in 4 losses...BUT IN THOSE HE GOT BLOCKZZZ!!!).

I don't get to watch a lot of games, but was this stretch an anomaly or did Biz's mindset temporarily change from shot-blocker to more of a rebounder? Perhaps the decision to swing at fewer shots allowed him to better position himself for rebounds...and the numbers suggest he does a pretty damn good job of pulling down the boards when the blocks aren't there.

I realize it's way too small of a sample size to come to a definitive conclusion but the streakiness of it (rebounds then blocks) interested me.

[Eoghan]

That's interesting, kudos for that.

I think the problem is that nobody Biz is paired with in the frontcourt can rebound or play defense to save their life. It's always Biz and Hakim or Tyrus or Adrien (okay except he and Biz together is horribly undersized). Haywood and Biz probably be our best rebounding front court but then the 2nd unit would be beyond pathetic.

[amcoolio]

I said elsewhere before the 2011 Draft that Biyombo is Mouhamed Sene 2.0, and I still stand by that statement.

Comparing their respective pre-draft highlight videos (from pretty much the same age, length of time playing the game, and level of competition at the Nike Hoop Summit), they looked virtually identical (there was one up of Biyombo's Draft Express page that was just straight game footage highlights like the Sene one, but it's not accessable anymore):


Biyombo is shorter and has a slightly bigger frame than Sene, but apart from that, they pretty much seem like the same player to me. Difference is, Sene played 260 minutes total in the NBA (5.53 per game), and was out of the league by the time he was 23, whereas Biyombo has started more games at NBA level (60) than Sene ever played, has seen 23.77 minutes of court time per game in his career, and is the worst team in the league (two years running). This extra exposure would highlight Biyombo's weaknesses even more, and make his shortcomings all the more glaring and apparent, but may also allow him to reach his full potential, as he's getting the opportunity to actually play and develop his game.

To be honest though, I'm not sure why anyone would expect anything more than what they're currently getting from Biyombo, especially if his age is legit.

Bismack has put together some really nice games in his career so far, he has just been very inconsistent and can have 3 to 4 absolutely horrible games in a row before having another nice game. Thats what separates him from the euro busts of the past. A lot of that has to do with no quality frontcourt players to learn from since he entered the NBA and very bad coaching. I fully expect Bismack to be in the NBA for 10+ years...he is just on a painfully slow learning curve. By age 24 he should (and definitely could) average 10/10/2 which is totally reasonable for the #7 pick in a weak draft. Thats four years from now so he has plenty of time to develop.

A big reason I am not concerned (and I don't think my fellow Bobcats fans should be either) is that with the way he is playing he is not going to get overpaid for his 2nd contract...We can totally get him on a 4 year 12 million dollar extention which is low risk/high reward if he continues on this slow path. I'd rather him blow up after we give him that contract than before and have to give him something crazy like 4 years 40 million, if he blows up at all.

[Radu_Hornets]

Just some random (probably meaningless) stat-compiling...

So I noticed that Biz, once he got past his Biz-arre (ok, that was bad) 3-game streak without a block, has accrued at least 2 blocks in each of his last 4 games. That said, his rebounding numbers took a dive as soon as the blocks came back. So I looked at our last 10 games, half of which he compiled at least 2 blocks.

Rebound totals in games with less than 2 blocks: 10 - 7 - 11 - 7 - 17 (10.4 average)
Rebound totals in games with 2 or more blocks: 7 - 5 - 5 - 3 - 5 (5 average)

Worth noting that those last four numbers in the greater than 2 blocks column are from our last four games, while the last 3 in the less than 2 segment are from the 3 games before that...when we won 2 of 3 (and the one loss was only by 2 to Cleveland). Biz's lines in those wins...

Chicago: 5-11-0 blocks
Detroit: 10-17-0 blocks

I'm probably drawing too much from one player's performance, but it's interesting that our only string (albeit a short string) of recent success came during the only time where Biz wasn't swatting shots and instead grabbed 35 boards in a 2-1 jaunt (since then he has 18 rebounds in 4 losses...BUT IN THOSE HE GOT BLOCKZZZ!!!).

I don't get to watch a lot of games, but was this stretch an anomaly or did Biz's mindset temporarily change from shot-blocker to more of a rebounder? Perhaps the decision to swing at fewer shots allowed him to better position himself for rebounds...and the numbers suggest he does a pretty damn good job of pulling down the boards when the blocks aren't there.

I realize it's way too small of a sample size to come to a definitive conclusion but the streakiness of it (rebounds then blocks) interested me.

that's very interesting you got here IMO.
Send a e-mail to rick Bonnel. Maybe he'll make an article about it and change the way Biyombo play.

[Bassman]

Biz shows up on occasion, but the fact is he is not making significant progress. I don't see evidence that he can develop into a true starter in this league. He was a reach at #7. Cho got a man-crush over this guy and we gave up a pick to get him. That type of effort carries more responsibility than just another lottery pick. I think he's slightly better than some other failed experiments (Ajinca, McMay) but being picked that high makes it potentially hurt just as much.

He has had flashes, mostly on defense and occasionally in rebounding. Biz regularly gets beaten due to his lack of size, which will not change no matter his effort or extra experience. He is not built to add a lot of weight & muscle. He continues to struggle with his handle, his shot, his footwork, and his BBIQ. Some of those will improve, but they are not attributes that are coming naturally to him.

I really wonder what other GM's and coaches think of him. Playing him starter minutes has given them plenty of tape to evaluate his game. I believe fans on our board overvalue him compared to those in the business. I'd gladly include him in as part of a trade to get a starting PF or C.

[SWedd523]

Cho got a man-crush over this guy and we gave up a pick to get him

No, we gave up a pick to get Tyrus