Scase wrote:Maybe facilitating the offence is a better term to use. Scottie works best as an offensive hub, he sees the court better than anyone on our team, and better than most in the league, couple that with being 6'9 and he literally sees it better than most. He can make passes shorter players can't, and as you said processes info faster. Last year was a huge leap in growth for him, and there is no reason to assume more of that isn't on the way.
As I've mentioned before, the offence flows more smoothly, and results in easier shots for his teammates. Scottie is in the 97th percentile in AST% at his position, that is the highest percentile on the team. That alone is an elite mismatch, despite the fact that he isn't an ISO threat.
As for the "league centred around it" was not specific to the PnR, but rather the league not being centred around the 3 ball as it is today. The league back then was still heavily dominated by bigs scoring close to the basket, it is not anymore. You can't run a successful championship calibre offence, with the PnR being the primary/majority offensive set, like you could in Malones era.
We're not disagreeing on much, except that I think Scottie as screener is actually the key to unlocking him as a hub. I strongly believe it's just technical elements (like footwork and handle) that he needs to master.
Take something simple like Barnes executing the DHO like a play action QB, with the option to hand off or run it himself. It becomes unstoppable if he can screen as well as Sabonis. Mastering that opens up the door for Barnes to be the ball-handler for more PnRs - either to attack slower bigs or run inverted actions with IQ and bully-ball guards. A huge problem with Barnes as the PnR ballhandler now is that Toronto doesn't have any pick & pop threats, so it's going to be easier for Ds to drop cover and just live with the Barnes jumper.
That's why they need to utilize someone like IQ who can actually hurt them from outside. Then you can switch it up and unleash Barnes as the short roller a la Draymond, except that Barnes would actually be a massive threat to score once he's given momentum and space.
Barnes has the vision to see the pass, but actually generating the opportunity for the pass is the next level of playmaking.