Porzingis Postup Debate - Rick Carlisle vs TNT

[reckoner07]

- Some good points and counterarguments in this video, which some people have already discussed in this thread
Not just about KP posting up but value of overall post play in general..

 

Excellent piece! Thanks for sharing. Its worth summarizing I think.  

Its worth noting at the beginning that TNT guys Charles and Shaq actually point out that the driving paint shot they show of KP does fit in the type of shot they 'have no problem with' and think they should see more vs. the long 3's even though he missed the gimme almost point blank shot he earned.   You have to think if he took more of those, which wasn't a 'post up' but was a close to the basket paint shot he would have to get a good touch back and high %. 

The video does make a number of the points that have been described in this thread but it also makes a few significant additional points. 
Their analysis agrees with Carlisle that KP has been a poor post up option and therefore coach's position makes sense as to why that's not the way they use him in their offense.  On the other hand they also point out that KP is missing shots including shots in the post that he was better at in New York.  They said he was 16th in the league in the Post out of 50 players with at least 100 post ups while right now he's showing the same rust on his shots off the post up that his 3 pt % is showing.  They conclude it's silly to go entirely away from it. 

They point out that by his last season in NY before injury he had reached almost 40% 3pt but overall they completely disagree that KP has proven to be 'historically' great out on the perimeter above the break.  Perhaps the potential is there because as they say the stroke looks good and this year you have to allow for rust coming back from the long injury absence. 

Back to post ups though.  We've now seen a couple of recent Mavs clunkers, including dents in that vaunted #1 offensive showing teams adjusting and learning to slow it down or even shut it down, Thunder, Lakers. 

They point out that Luka's effectiveness and value off of post ups for the Mavericks defies Carlisle's position on the value of the post up for the Mavs. Because Luka scores well and is a great passer out of the post its appears that Mavs should be using this more.   
They make a great point about post up play increasing your team's odds of getting offensive rebounds and that the straight post up putbacks could rightly be charted as part of the original post up shots efficiency itself since it comes as a direct result of the post up.  That analysis would change that true shooting % in measuring the efficiency of the post up. 

They make a point about the effectiveness of the post again not measured directly just by converting the post up but by its ability to generate high percentage and efficient shots off passes to cutters and generate high quality 3 point shots which the analytic darlings love the most.  
They cite the great GSW teams as a great case in point as they generate a lot of high quality offense with post ups as the setup. 

A lot of this supports my general sense that while the Mavs get good overall offensive numbers, they still miss out by not having these type of inside scoring options as viable in their system.   This shows as the Mavs struggling more often they should generating tough baskets when the defense slows the pace and is able to force 1/2 court creation. This plays into a higher number of empty possessions and turnovers when trying to hold a lead against teams that raised their defensive focus.  That means losing leads to big runs faster than they normally should.

 
Here's where the video misses:

1.  Carlisle says, it's not beneficial to post Luka, except sometimes when Luka is sometimes matched on a smaller guy. Guy ignores latter part of Rick's statement, and begins talking about how they should post him up, up to 4 times a game - when he's on smaller guys.

2. The guy tries to make the argument of how many cuts come out of the post for other teams and players. That's' not how this offense is designed, and it's not how Rick wants his offense to flow.  Point being that this offense doesn't gain as much assist value from KP in the post, versus what he might produce with another team.  

3. The assumption that the video makes about "what about the rebounds? what about the assists? these have to count!" is silly. All of that is built into the robust statistical models that the PhD statisticians use.

4.  The guy started out great basically showing how KP can't post up well because of his high center of gravity.  I thought we were fundamentally on track there. Then he went off the rails.

5. I think the video misses that Carlisle was using hyperbole around his general beliefs to create a little bit of absurdity in response to the TNT guys... trolling them, trying to get them going with more. "KP is a historically efficient shooter" - come on man, Rick is not dumb. That is 100% intentional.

wug?