Decentralized: The 6'9" Center

Wammy Giveaway · Post #1 » by **Wammy Giveaway** » Wed Oct 2, 2019 8:20 pm

An article today by Nigel Roxbury at Clips Nation revealed that JaMychal Green is another 6'9" body who can play center. Montrezl Harrell will also play center, and he's 6'9". Then there's Patrick Patterson, who was forced to play center for the Thunder, and he's 6'9," a concept that, with the help of assistant coach Rex Kalamian (whom Patterson knows back with Raptors), may be revisited this year.

See a common factor here? With Ivica Zubac as the only true seven footer who got ran off the floor by the Warriors, Clippers could be forced to ditch the center position entirely. As much as Doc Rivers wants to maintain a sense of tradition with seven footers playing exclusively at the 5, we've seen in the Lob City era how bad this was. Sure, they did have DeAndre Jordan who could set picks for Paul, Griffin and Redick, but his scoring was extremely limited to lob-jams and thunderous dunks at the rim, not to mention how bad his free throw shooting was, despite incremental percentage improvements. Think of Spencer Hawes, Byron Mullens and even your beloved Boban Marjanovic - they all had some kind of weakness to their game that Doc couldn't bring out of them, whether it was manageable or beyond fixable due to his mess-ups as coach/GM/father.

With a seven foot center, you can turn size into an obstacle for opposing shooters, and verticality into a preventative measure. Shots at rim are easier and nearly unguardable without a player who can match his height. Bigs are not speedy; they will take time to advance from half-court to half-court. It is also not uncommon for their free throw shooting to be decent or mediocre (though drawing fouls in general for your other shooters compensate for this upshot). If your big is extremely limited, as in a foul shield to protect your valuable players from being fouled out, like Lou Amundson and Ryan Hollins, then it really becomes an issue. In the past, guys like Olajuwon, Shaq, Chamberlain, Kareem and Duncan were the seven foot standards (the latter being an exception as a power forward/center hybrid, or cent-ward) - we're not having those guys anymore, I'm afraid.

Small-forward centers are practically the opposite. Speed, smarts and physicality make up for size - you can run the court faster, study on your opponents to time your jumps accordingly for blocks, and bully through other guards, making for intense defensive highlights. To see Harrell plow through a defensive specialist and some help defense, hopping into the air to throw the rock down the hatch for 2-points feels sort of liberating. There's more risk to having 6'9" centers on the floor, while their energy is not suspect, it is select in that over time, these guys will tire themselves out slightly quicker than true bigs. Shots at rim are fairer for opponents if the guarding opposition is not a seven foot player.

The additions of superstars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George might mitigate most of the undersized problems at 5, but could you imagine if Harrell, Patterson and Green, all 6'9" guys, perform decent or even better than their current starting center in Zubac? If this becomes true, I would not be surprised if Zubac is traded this year.

What's your take on the 6'9" guys? Do you think the Clippers are better off without a true seven footer, and that Doc should give up on even keeping tradition alive based on his past experiences from Lob City era? If Zubac is traded, would you rather keep tradition by going after another seven foot commodity, or fill it with a player who can play center, even if he's not truly one (ie: a power forward or small forward) and is completely undersized?

In other words, are the Clippers prepared to fake the 5 like how they did in faking the 3?

esqtvd · Post #2 » by **esqtvd** » Wed Oct 2, 2019 8:56 pm

The Warriors won 3 rings starting a real center but going to 6'8" Draymond as soon as possible, and giving him the bulk of the minutes. That remains the model, I think.

BTW, Trezz is only 6'8" and has only played center to this point. We're all anxious to see if his shooting range has expanded, which would mean he can see some minutes at the 4.

As for JaMychal, Basketball Reference says he played 63% of his 23 playoff mpg at C last year, so you're onto something. We shall see what happens against the elite 7-footers like Embiid and Jokic [and Gobert], but fortunately those are few and far between.

Yogatti · Post #3 » by **Yogatti** » Wed Oct 2, 2019 9:45 pm

Warriors Nuggets 1/15/19: 142-111
Warriors Nuggets 3/8/19: 122-105
Warrior Nuggets 4/2/19: 116-102

As you can see none of the games were even close. Warriors beat them to submission playing small ball so all this talk about how we should fear the Nuggets because of this “unstoppable” 7 footer Jokic is nonsense to me.

As for Joel Embiid, he got shutdown by Al Horford who is 2 inches shorter than him. I’m pretty sure our front court can handle him.

esqtvd · Post #4 » by **esqtvd** » Wed Oct 2, 2019 10:14 pm

Yogatti wrote:Warriors Nuggets 1/15/19: 142-111
Warriors Nuggets 3/8/19: 122-105
Warrior Nuggets 4/2/19: 116-102

As you can see none of the games were even close. Warriors beat them to submission playing small ball so all this talk about how we should fear the Nuggets because of this “unstoppable” 7 footer Jokic is nonsense to me.

Well, in the first game, Curry, Klay and KD combined for 89 points and led by 20 at halftime. In the last 2, Jokic went head-to-head with a real C, DeMarcus Cousins.

In the only game vs the Clippers with Zubac, the Nugs blew us out, 123-96. Jokic only had to play 28 minutes.

Yogatti wrote:As for Joel Embiid, he got shutdown by Al Horford who is 2 inches shorter than him. I’m pretty sure our front court can handle him.

Horford's pretty good, esp on defense. We don't have a big this good.

2018, an All-Star and 2nd team All-Defense
http://www.celticshub.com/2018/01/02/is-al-horford-a-future-hall-of-famer/

I hope you're right about us handling Jokic, but he's only 24 and gets better every year. As for Embiid, I guess we don't have to worry about him until the Finals.

Post #5 » by **TrueLAfan** » Thu Oct 3, 2019 3:59 pm

This is why I was thinking we’d go after Noah instead of Patterson. I have no problem with Noah going up against top big men. Outside of Zu, our biggest players are Motley, who’s a very good G league guy, and Kabengele, who's a (raw) rookie. That just seems weird. I get it that the league is going in different directions in terms of frontcourt play. OTOH, the Warriors aren’t a model; they’re a singular team. And other great teams of the last few years? There’s still plenty of big men that need to be dealt with.

It just seems to me that having JaMychal, Harkless, a little bit of PG and 5-10 mpg from Trezz is kind of an abundance of riches at PF. That’s without Kabengele or Motley, who are serviceable garbage time players. OTOH—Zu and Trezz at C, with JaMychal for small ball and Kabengele and Motley for extra minutes …not as strong. Not as much veteran size. I’d rather have Noah and slide Trezz to Pf for a few minutes. Put it this way—come playoff time, Noah could be a serious help. I posted this in another thread…a frontcourt of Noah and Trezz in crunch time is kinda breathtaking. The energy and D and, most importantly, size would be great.

Wammy Giveaway · Post #6 » by **Wammy Giveaway** » Thu Oct 3, 2019 4:47 pm

TrueLAfan wrote:It just seems to me that having JaMychal, Harkless, a little bit of PG and 5-10 mpg from Trezz is kind of an abundance of riches at PF. That’s without Kabengele or Motley, who are serviceable garbage time players. OTOH—Zu and Trezz at C, with JaMychal for small ball and Kabengele and Motley for extra minutes …not as strong. Not as much veteran size. I’d rather have Noah and slide Trezz to Pf for a few minutes. Put it this way—come playoff time, Noah could be a serious help. I posted this in another thread…a frontcourt of Noah and Trezz in crunch time is kinda breathtaking. The energy and D and, most importantly, size would be great.

If Clippers don't pick up a true big at all, it's probably for the best. Have you seen how some centers do it half-ways because they feel they can size their way to scoring? Doesn't that remind you of anyone in Clippers past? What if I told you that Michael Olowokandi did the exact same thing, leading to his arrogant, cocky, overconfident run that contributed to his draft bust career? Then you add in the other bigs Doc trotted out during Lob City for the sake of tradition. West may have noticed the Clipper's overall reliance on nostalgia and false fanaticism over bigs, possibly deciding that the Clippers may be better off without them for their own good. Shorter guys give a lot more heart and effort than bigs these days who are only valued for their size.

(P.S.: You're gonna need RealGM admins to help you out with that accidental double quote post up there)

Post #7 » by **TrueLAfan** » Thu Oct 3, 2019 11:53 pm

Well, there are plenty of big men who play with considerable effort. And I don't think Doc played (and got a lot out of) DJ, for instance, because he was a "traditional" big. He was the best option available. Against the Warriors, JaMychal was the backup for the same reason.

Anyway, I'm not against a "traditional big" at all, but I guess it depends on your definition. Noah, for instance, is a (very) high energy player that is both a rim protector and a valuable high post offensive player because of his excellent passing skills. Of course I don't want a disinterested guy like Kandi. But I see young players like Zu and Mitchell Robinson and Bam Adebayo, and Jarrett Allen and plenty of others and I think there's still life in the traditional big world yet.

esqtvd · Post #8 » by **esqtvd** » Fri Oct 4, 2019 3:15 am

TrueLAfan wrote:Well, there are plenty of big men who play with considerable effort. And I don't think Doc played (and got a lot out of) DJ, for instance, because he was a "traditional" big. He was the best option available. Against the Warriors, JaMychal was the backup for the same reason.

Anyway, I'm not against a "traditional big" at all, but I guess it depends on your definition. Noah, for instance, is a (very) high energy player that is both a rim protector and a valuable high post offensive player because of his excellent passing skills. Of course I don't want a disinterested guy like Kandi. But I see young players like Zu and Mitchell Robinson and Bam Adebayo, and Jarrett Allen and plenty of others and I think there's still life in the traditional big world yet.

It's one thing to give away a few inches but giving away 30-50 pounds on top of that is fatal. JaMychal and Moe only go about 225. At least Trezz is 240. [Zu is listed at 240 as well.]

I remember DJ used to feast on undersized Cs but was pretty quiet against the true centers. That's what a Zubac is for--to stop average centers from looking like All-Stars, and to try to limit the damage from real All-Stars. He's not enough of an offensive threat to make a Draymond pay, but that's where our small-ball 5s come in.

Most nights, we're not going to win the starting center matchup--you're only looking to not lose it too badly, and make it up elsewhere. And a big part of that includes having Trezz available for 10-15 mpg to feast on backup centers, which was key to our success last year, plus the last 5 minutes in crunchtime as our best big.

That only leaves 5-10 mpg to deploy Trezz elsewhere. We're putting a lot on Zu. More than I thought at first.