The Abject Lunacy that is Our Bench

[slick_watts]

this might not deserve its own topic but i don't care. our team's decisions on bench rotations has been so counter intuitive- probably the single most perplexing set of decisions i've seen a coach on the thunder make.

there are 198 lineups that have played 40 minutes or more this season. our two most used lineups that don't include russell westbrook are on the list. can you guess where?

felton-abrines-george-grant-patterson is a staggering -32pp100 in 77 minutes this year. that is beyond bad. in order to simply reach neutral, this lineup would need to play like the best lineup in the league (not just among bench units, among all units) for a solid month and a half. just to reach neutral. it literally does nothing well. it's terrible on the defensive glass as you'd expect with grant at power forward. it's terrible at shooting. it's terrible at getting offensive rebounds. in fact it's the worst rebounding lineup in this sample by far. that -32pp100 ranks 194 out of 198 lineups in the sample, by the way.

you think that's bad? felton-huestis-george-grant-patterson is -41pp100 in 40 minutes this year. 2nd worst in the sample. which makes sense if you think about it since almost all the problems are being exacerbated while only improving the defense marginally. this lineup has a 34% eFG collectively. and this is the one we're now playing more of since abrines has been seemingly kicked to the curb after a few bad games.

what exactly could billy donovan possibly be searching for in this mess? the grant and patterson combo will never be a plus on defense, and will always present difficulties there. raymond felton's usage has been exploding higher and higher the more minutes he plays in these groups, which are also ruining paul george's numbers. huestis or abrines can't save the dumpster fire. what's donovan expecting to turn around here?

my guess is that the next step is playing terrance ferguson in the wing spot formerly occupied by huestis and abrines- and it will be just as bad as before.

most frustrating, and perhaps even most perplexing, is the fact that donovan played these same lineups with carmelo anthony flexed into them instead of george-- and they were reasonably successful at +6pp100 in nearly 40 minutes. this lineup has not seen the floor at all since december first.

i think that, instinctively, every thunder fan would offer similar solutions to these problems. start flexing anthony into those lineups again. consider benching anthony and start patrick patterson. maybe play dakari some as center when the matchups seem unfavorable to small ball. but donovan has been uncharacteristically obstinate with these bench structures. he's an addict and small ball (particularly- grant at pf) is his crack pipe.

it seems surreal that a season after the rockets slayed us in the playoffs precisely because our team could not compete without westbrook in the game, the bench got a lot worse. but it did. and probably way more than anyone would think before looking at the #'s like i did today.

[bondom34]

TBH this was as usual better put than I'd have done it. Just checked yesterday and Russ's on/off splits are somehow larger than last year, despite better bench personnel. That's an indictment somewhere along the line, and though they do need a big man, it's not that bad. Its an issue, and I don't see an end to it with this coach.

[bondom34]

Also to further the point, the lineups still show the same.

https://imgur.com/a/FR4XB

Grey numbers are the actual data, blue/red are percentiles with blue being generally above average and red below.

[slick_watts]

this is going to sound insane but i think the all-bench unit without george performs better than it does with him.

[bondom34]

Actually with none of the 3 on court they're a slight positive.

[InTheSabonus]

The all bench v bench+PG lineup results are strange. At first it just doesn't make sense. How could playing PG instead of Abrines or Huestis be worse than playing one of them instead of him?

I guess it could be how much we prioritise making one bench guy "the man" when we have a proficient scorer- like Kanter was. We focus on making PG the man, but he's a shocking passer and is the worst of the big 3 in isolation fg% and isolation turnover frequency. He's far better running around screens for catch and shoot opportunities than he is being the main ball handler/scorer/facilitator.

Without PG you have a bunch of guys that are willing to share the ball and a high iq player in Felton. Felton is actually shooting 50% on iso shots compared to PG's 35.6%. Felton does turn it over a little more, but it seems that even making Felton "the man" (who is also willing to facilitate) could be more effective than having PG with the bench and putting the burden on him to create.

Of course our coach would probably see those stats and think "All bench lineup=good" and not "Bench+Melo/Westbrook=Even better". Does he just not get that he's choosing the worst of the 3 to stagger? Is anyone showing him any of this? I just don't get it. It should be common sense.

[ThunderBolt]

Maybe it’s more about ego management than efficiency.

[oken]

Only regarding tonight's Clips game I think the second unit brought some order to the otherwise completely chaotic offence. They may be limited but at least they are trying to run sets instead of the "under 7 seconds" mania featuring Russell. I don't think this kind of fast break craze will work against a proper team. The reason why it is working against some upper echelon teams like Spurs is their inability to prevent supersonic drives because of their aged backcourt I guess.

[bbms]

There are three possible issues here: a) this coaching staff has scapegoated the SG position as the origin of the bench play crisis; b) Paul George does not work well as the focal point of an unit; and c) Patterson and Grant does not work well as a PF/C combo.

Maybe the Thunder should try Huestis/Robes more at PF in the bench units. I’ve been impressed by Huestis defensive play around the post.


Enviado do meu iPhone usando RealGM Forums

[spearsy23]

Bad players, bad coaching, bad roster management. It all falls on presti in the end, as good as he is at getting top end talent he's struggled to put together a complete team.

[Funcrusher]

Only regarding tonight's Clips game I think the second unit brought some order to the otherwise completely chaotic offence. They may be limited but at least they are trying to run sets instead of the "under 7 seconds" mania featuring Russell. I don't think this kind of fast break craze will work against a proper team. The reason why it is working against some upper echelon teams like Spurs is their inability to prevent supersonic drives because of their aged backcourt I guess.

What? Let's not pretend the starting rotation isn't running a semblance of an offence and is just chickenshitting out there. I don't know what you're getting at with "under 7 seconds mania," but we're not wasting possessions and playing without set roles and actions like we did earlier. And, if you ask me, we should be trying to push the pace more. Even though I think our half court offense has become solid, it's still not our strength.

[bondom34]

Lol the offense has sucked without Westbrook

[Pillendreher]

To me this all comes back to our roster construction. We're heavily under-equipped when it comes to bigmen. Adams is our only traditional Center and Patterson is our only traditional Power Forward. We're not playing both of them, ever. To make up for that, we're giving heavy minutes to both Huestis and Grant, even tho both of them offer nothing rebounding wise, are too slow to guard quicks, too weak to guard strong bigs and don't provide any interior defense save for some weakside blocks every now and then. Because we try to make up for our lack of bigmen by playing those 3/4 tweeners, Patterson is constantly out of position as a 5.

No wonder it doesn't work.

We need to get rid of Grant and get a real backup Center. Get Felton to look for his teammates and not for pullups.

[Bergmaniac]

It's very obvious that not using an actual centre for Adams' backup is not working at all. Your bench units are getting absolutely demolished on the glass. A.Abrines, R.Felton, P.George, J.Grant, P.Patterson lineup has a remarkably bad 34.4 % rebounding rate (by far the worst in the league among lineups who get significant minutes), which basically means they are outrebounded 2:1 by the other team and they give up offensive rebounds at an astonishing rate. Obviously such undersized lineups are expected to be subpar on the glass, but I had no idea things were that bad in this area.

Yet Billy won't play Dakari for some reason even against the like DeAndre Jordan. It's not like the bench offense can get any worse or that Grant is even half-decent offensive player...

[Pillendreher]

Yet Billy won't play Dakari for some reason even against the like DeAndre Jordan.

I can tell you exactly why.

1) They're not willing to play Melo next to worse defenders. Melo basically always plays next to Adams and at least one of George and Roberson.

2) Their defensive strategy calls for switchability at all times so Grant and Huestis as 3/4 tweeners have to get way too many minutes.

3) This takes away most of Patterson's minutes next to Adams, restricting him to the bench Center role which is far from ideal for him.

You gotta take away Grant and force Donovan to play Patterson at the 4.

[Old Man Game]

he's an addict and small ball (particularly- grant at pf) is his crack pipe.

So we can agree he's been hitting a crack pipe. Explains a lot honestly.

[spearsy23]

Bring back semaj

/green

[Kolkmania]

The all bench v bench+PG lineup results are strange. At first it just doesn't make sense. How could playing PG instead of Abrines or Huestis be worse than playing one of them instead of him?

I guess it could be how much we prioritise making one bench guy "the man" when we have a proficient scorer- like Kanter was. We focus on making PG the man, but he's a shocking passer and is the worst of the big 3 in isolation fg% and isolation turnover frequency. He's far better running around screens for catch and shoot opportunities than he is being the main ball handler/scorer/facilitator.

Without PG you have a bunch of guys that are willing to share the ball and a high iq player in Felton. Felton is actually shooting 50% on iso shots compared to PG's 35.6%. Felton does turn it over a little more, but it seems that even making Felton "the man" (who is also willing to facilitate) could be more effective than having PG with the bench and putting the burden on him to create.

Of course our coach would probably see those stats and think "All bench lineup=good" and not "Bench+Melo/Westbrook=Even better". Does he just not get that he's choosing the worst of the 3 to stagger? Is anyone showing him any of this? I just don't get it. It should be common sense.

As a Sixers fan this shocks me to be honest, we'd dream about George adding to our core this summer and was curious to see the general perception here about PG. Did he have the same problems in Indiana, being inefficient as a primary option?

[Pillendreher]

cleaningtheglass eliminates garbage time:



-39.4 NetRtG. That's -39.4 NetRtG in 306 possessions vs +6.6 NetRtG in 2910 possessions with Westbrook on the floor. The bench+George is so horrific in those limited minutes each game, that we have to play like a 53 win team each game with Russ on the floor just to make up for it.

Here's another stat to illustrate how absolutely horrible our bench has been. We're currently at 22-18. We've outscored opponents with Russ on the floor in 22 games and, subsequently, got outscored with him on the floor in 18 games.
In those 18 games where opponents outscored us with Russ on the floor, we're 2-16. In those 22 games where we've outscored opponents with Russ off the floor, we're 20-2. Now that of course doesn't show our bench performance in each of those games, but what it shows is this: When our best players on the floor don't outplay the oppsoing team, we're done.

Btw: Russ OFF this season per ctg: 99.8 ORtG|106.2 DRtG|-6.4 NetRtG
Russ OFF last season per ctg: 101.5 ORtG|111.0 DRtG|-9.5 NetRtG

The difference this season is this:

Russ Off, george Off this season per ctg: 112.0 ORtG|99.2 DRtG|+12.9 NetRtG|357 possessions
Russ Off, Anthony Off this season per ctg: 97.4 ORtG|112.9 DRtG|-15.5 NetRtG|605 possessions

How long will this madness go on?

[ThunderBolt]

cleaningtheglass eliminates garbage time:



-39.4 NetRtG. That's -39.4 NetRtG in 306 possessions vs +6.6 NetRtG in 2910 possessions with Westbrook on the floor. The bench+George is so horrific in those limited minutes each game, that we have to play like a 53 win team each game with Russ on the floor just to make up for it.

Here's another stat to illustrate how absolutely horrible our bench has been. We're currently at 22-18. We've outscored opponents with Russ on the floor in 22 games and, subsequently, got outscored with him on the floor in 18 games.
In those 18 games where opponents outscored us with Russ on the floor, we're 2-16. In those 22 games where we've outscored opponents with Russ off the floor, we're 20-2. Now that of course doesn't show our bench performance in each of those games, but what it shows is this: When our best players on the floor don't outplay the oppsoing team, we're done.

Btw: Russ OFF this season per ctg: 99.8 ORtG|106.2 DRtG|-6.4 NetRtG
Russ OFF last season per ctg: 101.5 ORtG|111.0 DRtG|-9.5 NetRtG

The difference this season is this:

Russ Off, george Off this season per ctg: 112.0 ORtG|99.2 DRtG|+12.9 NetRtG|357 possessions
Russ Off, Anthony Off this season per ctg: 97.4 ORtG|112.9 DRtG|-15.5 NetRtG|605 possessions

How long will this madness go on?

My guess is our only chances for change are trades, injuries, or players leaving in free agency.