We’re a better team if Jeremy Lamb starts

[nickforthreee]

i just saw a stat that said our best 2 man combination is Kemba and J Lamb, and our worst 2 man combination is J Lamb and Frank. We always play better when Lamb is starting, and he gives us more than Batum.

We really either need to get batum to accept a bench role or trade him.

I’m intrigued to see if jeremy could take his game to another level with a full season of starting.

thoughts? i know cliff will prob never bench batum

[Joest2003]

Wishful thinking but there's 20+ million reasons why batum will continue to get the start. Thing that bothers me most is that Lamb looked like he was on the cusp of having a breakout season before batum came back and his minutes went from 30+ to 20ish. I honestly think he continued to get the start he would have been close to 20ppg. Instead we have a lazy 30 year old who has no aggressiveness and is past his prime putting up 12 points on a good night....for the next 4 years. Instead of a 25 year old who was on the brink of a breakout season and becoming the 2 guard Kemba desperately needs.

[nickforthreee]

Wishful thinking but there's 20+ million reasons why batum will continue to get the start. Thing that bothers me most is that Lamb looked like he was on the cusp of having a breakout season before batum came back and his minutes went from 30+ to 20ish. I honestly think he continued to get the start he would have been close to 20ppg. Instead we have a lazy 30 year old who has no aggressiveness and is past his prime putting up 12 points on a good night....for the next 4 years. Instead of a 25 year old who was on the brink of a breakout season and becoming the 2 guard Kemba desperately needs.

i hope they realize this and aggressively try to trade batum. lamb needs kemba on the court to play his best and lamb also takes pressure off of kemba. we would be a better team.

[Joest2003]

Touching on your point above. Frank and Lamb play absolutely horrendous together. No sort of chemistry whatsoever it's hard to watch. I don't think either of them have ever gotten a assist to each other.

[catch20two]

It’s one of the most baffling things to me that he doesn’t play 30+ minutes a night never mind even starting.

This honestly could be said about Lamb in the previous seasons too but it got masked by him not playing much. Batum being injured and out of the lineup for about a month exposed this to the casual fan that didn’t pay attention to how productive Lamb can be because there’s only but so much raw production you can put up in limited minutes.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Lamb had his good moments in other seasons, but nothing like both the highs and sustained production he's had this one. He should be starting this year.

[catch20two]

Lamb had his good moments in other seasons, but nothing like both the highs and sustained production he's had this one. He should be starting this year.

That’s where I’d say it was masked.

Lamb started 5 games last season and averaged 15 points on 45% shooting (33% on 3pters), 8 rebounds, and 3 assist. He averaged 21 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 assist in the 4 games he received at least 30 minutes. He finished the season 2nd to Kemba among rotation players in points per minute while having a higher TS% than both starting wings Batum and MKG.

Look at the splits the season before that 2015-16 which was his first season in Charlotte and he averaged 15 points on 48% shooting (35% on 3pters), 8 rebounds, and 2 assist in the 5 games he got at least 30 minutes.

Of course he’s improved this year as every player should each season the more they practice on their craft but acting like Lamb didn’t know how to be this productive beforehand is kind of a stretch when the numbers are right there. He produces whenever he’s given consistent and extended minutes.

His numbers and percentages take a hit when he has to play with the bench instead of alongside Kemba. That even stands for this season as well. Almost every player on the team plays better playing alongside Kemba except maybe Batum if I can recall.

[mrknowitall215]

Batum missing the first 12 games of the season due to injury is the best thing to happen to Lamb's career yet. Lamb is considerably fortunate that Clifford didn't opt to start Treveon Graham instead attached to the reasoning of keeping players in their natural roles

[Hornet Mania]

Lamb had his good moments in other seasons, but nothing like both the highs and sustained production he's had this one. He should be starting this year.

Agreed. The legend of Jeremy Lamb outpaced the reality until this year, maybe he could have played more and performed relatively well in previous seasons but he is a visibly better player this year.

It's fair to say this situation is an indictment on Cliff and Silas . Lamb has "earned his minutes" and "put in the work over the summer" etc. etc. and yet Batum still gets featured because...Contract? Veteran? Francophilia? If you're a young player on our roster how much optimism could you feel? You won't get a chance to develop and take your lumps with playing time, even if the guy in front of you is absolute garbage. And even if you outperform the guy in front of you, that improvement will likely not be rewarded. It's wild. We've got to do better prioritizing (or at least considering!) development of our young players. That is the path to success for small-market teams, we're horrible at it and that is the biggest contributor to our failures over the years.

[Lwcasu]

To play devil's advocate, If you're trying to trade Batum, you would want him to regain as much as possible before trading him. I'm sure the front office has ran countless scenarios in regards to trading Batum. I'm also sure they don't want to attach a 1st round pick, while not gaining any value whatsoever.

[yosemiteben]

I don't feel strongly one way or the other, but I have two worries.

First, the only player on this team that is elite at something that should be capitalized on is Kemba's C&S ability. Kemba is one of the top three in the league at volume C&S 3s. Any move that we make that reduces the volume of those opportunities should be frowned upon, and I'm worried that switching Batum for Lamb does that.

Second, the bench actually needs scoring help much more than the starting group, and I'm not convinced that sticking Batum next to MCW, Graham, and Frank is the solution. I actually really like Lamb's fit with the second unit.

I have no problem with the argument that Lamb should get more minutes, but starting roles are overrated and I think we should be talking about net benefit to the team as a whole.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Kemba's catch and shoot % has gone down every year since 2014-15. Clearly having Nic out there isn't helping as much as we might wish. In theory that should be Nic's game, but apparently it isn't.

[yosemiteben]

Kemba's catch and shoot % has gone down every year since 2014-15. Clearly having Nic out there isn't helping as much as we might wish. In theory that should be Nic's game, but apparently it isn't.

Check those stats again for catch and shoot threes. In 2014-15 Kemba shot like 33%. Last season he shot 46%.

[Braggins]

It doesn't matter. The Rainman believes that Batum should be our starting SG, based on a bunch of false assumptions, so that is that and no amount of performance/evidence/results/logic is going to change that. He will roll with Batum even if it literally gets him fired. He is that big of a ****. Just accept it.

[316Hornets]

Eh, could be a blessing in disguise if we sign Lamb to a cheaper contract. By the time we resign Lamb & Kemba, Batum will have more value as an expiring and then we can build around Kemba and Lamb.

I mean sure, it'd be great to have Lamb have his breakout year now. I'd just be worried if we signed him to some huge contract based upon 1 season as a starter.

[Braggins]

Eh, could be a blessing in disguise if we sign Lamb to a cheaper contract. By the time we resign Lamb & Kemba, Batum will have more value as an expiring and then we can build around Kemba and Lamb.

I mean sure, it'd be great to have Lamb have his breakout year now. I'd just be worried if we signed him to some huge contract based upon 1 season as a starter.

Extending him early next season makes the most sense and starting Batum helps our draft position, so I actually don't mind.

Its just alarming because neither of those things are why the coaching staff is starting Batum.

[316Hornets]

Eh, could be a blessing in disguise if we sign Lamb to a cheaper contract. By the time we resign Lamb & Kemba, Batum will have more value as an expiring and then we can build around Kemba and Lamb.

I mean sure, it'd be great to have Lamb have his breakout year now. I'd just be worried if we signed him to some huge contract based upon 1 season as a starter.

Extending him early next season makes the most sense and starting Batum helps our draft position, so I actually don't mind.

Its just alarming because neither of those things are why the coaching staff is starting Batum.

There's just too much money tied up into Batum for the front office to reduce his role. It would basically be like Cho admitting he screwed up and take his walking papers. It's really the only available option for Cho(and probably Cliff too) is to hope Batum shows some sort of promise before the end of the year. Cho's probably working the trade talks hard, but I just don't think MJ is going to let him sacrifice our future to get out of this one.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Kemba's catch and shoot % has gone down every year since 2014-15. Clearly having Nic out there isn't helping as much as we might wish. In theory that should be Nic's game, but apparently it isn't.

Check those stats again for catch and shoot threes. In 2014-15 Kemba shot like 33%. Last season he shot 46%.

https://stats.nba.com/player/202689/shots-dash/?Season=2017-18&SeasonType=Regular%20Season

I'm going by Field goals frequency ... so it's counting both 2s & 3s, but the vast majority of his catch & shoots are 3s. And note, i'm not talking about his make percentage, which is 46.4% last year, but what kinds of shots he takes. You stated that anything that makes him shoot less of those is bad. I'm saying that Nic isn't helping him shoot more of them. We can quibble about shot selection and I can't really argue about whether or not those catch and shoots are better shots with Nic or not. Someone else is going to have to do that research.

2013-14 .. 22.6%
2014-15 .. 18.8%
2015-16 .. 18.9%
2016-17 .. 17.7%
2017-18 .. 15.9%

[yosemiteben]

Fair point, yeah was talking about percentage. Doesn't surprise me that he had a high number of attempts pre-Batum because he constantly took dump off shots as the shot clock expired. Also partially accounts for the jump in efficiency, but obviously there's a lot more to it than that.

Would anyone dispute though that Batum is more likely to move the ball than Lamb? That was the entire argument for moving Batum to the bench a couple weeks ago.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Fair point, yeah was talking about percentage. Doesn't surprise me that he had a high number of attempts pre-Batum because he constantly took dump off shots as the shot clock expired. Also partially accounts for the jump in efficiency, but obviously there's a lot more to it than that.

You can see when in the shot clock Kemba shot in the link above. With the exception of 2015-16 there is not a really big jump or dip in those late shots since 2013.

Would anyone dispute though that Batum is more likely to move the ball than Lamb? That was the entire argument for moving Batum to the bench a couple weeks ago.

He is more likely to move the ball. It's just that, based on the stats above, Kemba isn't the one he is moving the ball to, which is what you want, correct? Bottom line I'm not sure that Batum is helping Kemba that much at all these days. Think back to the summer, where Batum talks about studying how guys moved the ball to Dwight. Or Nic's chemistry with Cody and Frank. Those are the kinds of guys Batum is passing to. There is value in that, but it's not the value you've stated you want ... more passes to Kemba.

And to be fair, I'm not sure how much Lamb is passing to Kemba when they play together, but Lamb's passing numbers as a starter are better than they are when he comes off the bench. It's indirect, but there is enough there to make me think that it's possible that Lamb is passing to Kemba more than Nic is. If someone wants to really dig into the stats that would be an interesting thing to find out one way or the other.