Say it ain't so.. DJ shooting jumpers??!!!

[Clemenza]

http://clipperholics.com/2017/07/19/la-clippers-welcome-montrezl-harrell/

Go ahead and chuckle but I'm legit intrigued. If this guy can knock down three to four 10-13 foot jumpers a game this could potentially be game changing for the offense



This season can't start soon enough!!

[esqtvd]

http://clipperholics.com/2017/07/19/la-clippers-welcome-montrezl-harrell/

Go ahead and chuckle but I'm legit intrigued. If this guy can knock down three to four 10-13 foot jumpers a game this could potentially be game changing for the offense



This season can't start soon enough!!

Dunno about 6'8" Montrezl as our center but DJ just got Willie Reed shoved up his ass.

Watch on YouTube

[og15]

Wait, I don't get it, that article is saying that Harrell is similar to DJ in that he doesn't have any outside game...

Okay, I saw a different article on the side, the one you linked was talking about Harrell, and scrolling down didn't show anything about DJ.

Here's the DJ article: http://clipperholics.com/2017/07/19/deandre-jordan-might-be-shooting-jumpers-now/

[esqtvd]

miss

[og15]

I got a little excited because I was expecting like a video of him taking 10, 15 foot jumpshots. This is just him toying with us, no jumper here, let's all move on

[Neddy]

I have a strong feeling that DJ will be displaced once Reed establish himself to be nearly as good as DJ at a fraction of the price.

[LACtdom]

I have a strong feeling that DJ will be displaced once Reed establish himself to be nearly as good as DJ at a fraction of the price.

We could trade DJ for Kyrie... Cavs love rebounders on big contracts.

[Neddy]

I have a strong feeling that DJ will be displaced once Reed establish himself to be nearly as good as DJ at a fraction of the price.

We could trade DJ for Kyrie... Cavs love rebounders on big contracts.

it won't happen, but if it does, our guard depth looks something like

Kyrie / Beverly / Lou / Teo / Austin / Evans / Thornwell.

lol Doc won't sit his own son or the younger version of Jamal. Teo won't ever see the floor. but if he does, damn the floor spacing would be amazing.

again, it's a fantasy dream but Kyrie / Blake / Gallo / Beverly / Teo on the floor all at the same time would have a crazy ball movement and a ton of open jumpers. lol basically 3 PGs and 2 PFs. and only 1 guy playing real D.

[Neddy]

oh and a conventional 5 on the floor doesn't look so terrible either.

Kyrie - Beverly - Gallo -Blake - Reed

[nickhx2]

see, doc, this is where having first picks gives you some extra options. when random crazy only in the NBA stuff happens where a star player wants to not play with lebron anymore.

[LACtdom]

I have a strong feeling that DJ will be displaced once Reed establish himself to be nearly as good as DJ at a fraction of the price.

We could trade DJ for Kyrie... Cavs love rebounders on big contracts.

it won't happen, but if it does, our guard depth looks something like

Kyrie / Beverly / Lou / Teo / Austin / Evans / Thornwell.

lol Doc won't sit his own son or the younger version of Jamal. Teo won't ever see the floor. but if he does, damn the floor spacing would be amazing.

again, it's a fantasy dream but Kyrie / Blake / Gallo / Beverly / Teo on the floor all at the same time would have a crazy ball movement and a ton of open jumpers. lol basically 3 PGs and 2 PFs. and only 1 guy playing real D.

If we keep Lou i'm going to cry. It took us 6 or so years to get rid of Jamal, only to get another version of him.

But clearly if we traded for Kyrie we would need to change up our roster a fair bit.

[Neddy]

We could trade DJ for Kyrie... Cavs love rebounders on big contracts.

it won't happen, but if it does, our guard depth looks something like

Kyrie / Beverly / Lou / Teo / Austin / Evans / Thornwell.

lol Doc won't sit his own son or the younger version of Jamal. Teo won't ever see the floor. but if he does, damn the floor spacing would be amazing.

again, it's a fantasy dream but Kyrie / Blake / Gallo / Beverly / Teo on the floor all at the same time would have a crazy ball movement and a ton of open jumpers. lol basically 3 PGs and 2 PFs. and only 1 guy playing real D.

If we keep Lou i'm going to cry. It took us 6 or so years to get rid of Jamal, only to get another version of him.

But clearly if we traded for Kyrie we would need to change up our roster a fair bit.

we all know what the remaining trade assets are, which is Lou and Austin. but doc loves inefficient scorers off the bench among his rotational guards.

at this point, it is what it is. I really hope doc proves me wrong.

[QRich3]

Lou Williams is the opposite of an inefficient scorer though. I've been hearing a lot people talking about him like he's just another Jamal recently, and I wonder if those people are just lumping every 6th man under the same umbrella or they just haven't paid any attention to him. But it couldn't be more wrong, he's one of the top scorers in the game. Fantastic efficiency on high volume, and a decent turnover rate.

DJ + Beverley for Irving + Frye could be a good trade for both teams, I'm on the fence about it, but it'd be an interesting proposition for sure. Depending on the direction the Cavs want to take, they'll probably get a better package though.

Also, I said this before, but thinking someone like Willie Reed can just do what DJ does is like saying you don't need Steph Curry because Darren Collison can shoot for you too. Yeah, they both can do it capably, but one is the best in the game at it and the other's just decent. Losing DJ would be a big blow to both the defense, and specially the offense. There's not one player in the game that can bend an opposing team's defensive scheme when he rolls to the hoop like DJ can.

[og15]

^Clint Capela does it at a similar level with a little more finishing skill than DJ. Capela can do a little bit off stuff off the dribble too, some euro steps etc. Also Whiteside is another guy who draws a lot of attention as a roll man and is an elite finisher, and Gobert also is a big draw as a roll man. Developing in that role is also Nerlens Noel who also similar to Capela has more finishing skill and on ball stuff added in, Philly had to many bigs and couldn't fit him into that roll, but in a better structured situation, he's another. Anthony Davis of course, but he's at a different level than those guys.

There aren't a plethora of guys at that finishing level and with that much draw as a roll man around the league, but DJ is not the only one.

Lou Williams is an interesting one. His shot selection and foul draw make him efficient, quite efficient in the RS, certainly far superior to old Jamal, and even better than early Clippers Jamal who was actually efficient. but the playoffs have not been very friendly to his game, similar to Jamal. His defense is also quite poor, might be worse there than Jamal even.

[nickhx2]

for me it's not about whether williams is more efficient, or better than crawford (i mean really how hard is that). it's that we're going to have a shot-dependent player who can't defend and whom doc rivers will 99.9% over-rely upon.

if teo is really as bad as they say, and we just doc rivers just forced us to watch 2 agonizing seasons of paul pierce/jamal crawford lineup combinations, what the hell else are we gonna get if it's lou/teo?

[QRich3]

^Clint Capela does it at a similar level with a little more finishing skill than DJ. Capela can do a little bit off stuff off the dribble too, some euro steps etc. Also Whiteside is another guy who draws a lot of attention as a roll man and is an elite finisher, and Gobert also is a big draw as a roll man. Developing in that role is also Nerlens Noel who also similar to Capela has more finishing skill and on ball stuff added in, Philly had to many bigs and couldn't fit him into that roll, but in a better structured situation, he's another. Anthony Davis of course, but he's at a different level than those guys.

There aren't a plethora of guys at that finishing level and with that much draw as a roll man around the league, but DJ is not the only one.

The thing is, they look like they are, but numbers wise, none of those guys get even close to the level of efficiency DJ's displayed. Actually, his efficiency finishing pick'n'rolls has been as far ahead of the rest as any other guy at any other facet of the game that I can remember in my time watching the NBA. His efficiency was in the 99.1th percentile last season, far ahead all of those guys save maybe Gobert, and it was in the 97th percentile last year, again with quite an advantage over all of those guys. NBA's site doesn't save synergy numbers before that, but I distinctly remember reports of him also leading the league the previous two seasons. That's on a high volume too, and it includes the time Paul's been injured, for those who think he's just a product of catching his lobs. With this big a sample size and this big a lead over everyone year after year, I think it's safe to say he's just the best roll man in the league and has been clearly ahead of everyone for a few years.

About Lou, I personally wouldn't put a lot of weight on a bunch of games of below average efficiency when he's got 10+ years of good averages. You can put it on the difference of the way the playoffs are played vs the regular season, I think playoffs basketball actually benefits him, he's the kind of smart player that thrives when the game slows down, knows how/when to attack off the dribble or settle for a jumper, is a master on 2-for-1's, etc. He's the opposite of Jamal in that aspect, and I'm very comfortable running the 2nd unit's offense through him. Being a bad defender is not great, but two-way players are rare for a reason. I would actually try to trade Austin for a real 3&D player that can play alongside Milos (someone like Courtney Lee perhaps), so that I don't have two trigger happy SG's as my only options. Austin is younger and has more room to grow, but he likely won't ever be the player Lou is.

[og15]

I'm not worried about Lou in the regular season, but he's played something like 50 playoff games in his career. His efficiency drops drastically, it's something like 48% TS in the playoffs. Playoff defense doesn't work well for him.

Sent from my LG-D852 using RealGM mobile app

[QRich3]

I'm not worried about Lou in the regular season, but he's played something like 50 playoff games in his career. His efficiency drops drastically, it's something like 48% TS in the playoffs. Playoff defense doesn't work well for him.

Why do you think that is though? The type of shots he takes doesn't change, he still takes most of them at the rim or from 3 and he even gets pretty much the same number of assisted shots. He gets slightly less to the line in the postseason, but that happens to most players. The main difference in his numbers is he shoots 25% from 3 in those 52 games, and with almost 20000 minutes in his career to draw from, I'm gonna choose to attribute that to randomness and the burden of playing against better defensive teams (he's only gotten to the 2nd round twice and played most of his playoff games against considerably higher seeds).

I don't think there's anything inherently problematic with the way he plays in the playoffs. Jamal yes, when your shot selection is horrible it's gonna be easy to contain you in a more controlled environment. But again, Lou is not a similar player to Jamal.

[og15]

The why is a good question. Even if you are playing tougher teams, if it happens consistently every year, even with the Raptors against a lower seeded Wizards, there's something there about how his game translates to the intensity of playoff defense. Last year's first round vs OKC might have been the only series he's ever shot well his whole career.

He's 30 or 31 now, so I'm not expecting any improvements, but I'm interested to see what he can bring outside of the regular season. I don't know if Lou has good shot selection, he's efficient, but that doesn't necessarily mean his shot selection is good, but it's possible, we'll see, haven't watched enough of his game to make a conclusion.

[Ranma]

With regards to the topic of this opening post, I actually think that DJ is physically capable of shooting from the perimeter much like his free-throw shooting, but his lack of mental discipline doesn't allow for him to produce or maintain good shooting mechanics. When he was playing backyard hoops with Griffin in an old video, he looked fine just goofing around.

Yes, the rim is more forgiveable and lowered, obviously, but there's nothing inherently wrong with the fluidity of his motion at the charity stripe. He just has to make the commitment to fine-tuning his shot. Yeah, I know he takes a lot of practice shots but there's a difference between working hard and working efficiently. He seems more inclined to try to produce while going with bad habits, which can work I guess, but he'd be better off going outside his comfort zone and tweaking his mechanics a little instead of reinforcing bad form.

Whatever the case, it's not like I want to fool around this late stage of his career. DJ is what he is. He's never going to have that winner's mentality nor have the intestinal fortitude to be a great player. But he's an athletic player who can still be useful with his extraordinary athleticism despite his mental shortcomings.

I'm just reminded of how Mike Dunleavy, Sr. encouraged Chris Kaman to take more shots from the perimeter, which changed his game from effective low-post presence to wannabe Dirk Nowitzki. Man, did that experiment go downhill fast.