12-05-2019, 01:06 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-05-2019, 03:19 PM by HanspardsShowerVoice.)
Listening to Morey on the Book of Basketball 2.0 podcast just further cemented my belief that the fans are way more infatuated with the idea of the "bruiser big" than the Mavs front office probably is. The Mavs are going to be building a roster that is "Luka Friendly", which is not necessarily the same thing that ws "Dirk Friendly" a decade ago, so I think we can quit trying to recreate the 2011 Mavs roster and trying to find the next Tyson Chandler. They're not going to pay premium money for some Andre Drummond type to come in and clog up the paint for Luka. Morey claims Yao Ming was actually a bad fit with Tracey McGradey on offense, because Yao clogged up the lane for McGrady's penetration and creation off the dribble game. They didn't fully realize how bad it was at the time, even though McGrady constantly brought it up, because they were trying to make due with what they had, but Morey said looking back at what they know know with modern analytics it was an awkward fit. Then he brought up what caught their eye about Capella in the draft, and Morey said they were looking for a rim roller skillset in a big during the Harden era because they didn't want some some burly guy clogging up the lane for Harden's dribble penetration. They had Nene for that when needed, but they didn't put premium assets into that role, and Nene played around ~14 minutes per game for the Rockets.
Another interesting point he brought up is that his analytics allowed him to find guys like Nene who was an undervalued as a big because Nene never racked up great individual rebound numbers. But basketball isn't like baseball where you just aggregate everyone's individual numbers and it makes up your total team output, some guys have effects on the total overall 5 man totals that never show up in their individual stats. In Nene's case, while he didn't have great individual rebound numbers the Rockets as a team were great rebounders when he was on the floor because he blocked out a lot of other big bodies. So you can point to KP and DP and say the Mavs are weak rebounders because no one is racking up huge individual rebound numbers, but the Mavs as a whole are actually a good rebounding team. If all the 7 footers on the floor were crowded around the rim and it was just a contest of who had the tallest, strongest players within 2 feet of the rim Luka is not grabbing 18 boards in a game.
Finally, I think there is a lot of conventional wisdom out there that eventually the pendulum is going to swing back the other way and big men are going to become valued again. Morey said he sees a future where the traditional 5 is just obsolete, and everyone just puts their 5 best players on the court and figures it out. I suspect Morey is more likely to be right.
Another interesting point he brought up is that his analytics allowed him to find guys like Nene who was an undervalued as a big because Nene never racked up great individual rebound numbers. But basketball isn't like baseball where you just aggregate everyone's individual numbers and it makes up your total team output, some guys have effects on the total overall 5 man totals that never show up in their individual stats. In Nene's case, while he didn't have great individual rebound numbers the Rockets as a team were great rebounders when he was on the floor because he blocked out a lot of other big bodies. So you can point to KP and DP and say the Mavs are weak rebounders because no one is racking up huge individual rebound numbers, but the Mavs as a whole are actually a good rebounding team. If all the 7 footers on the floor were crowded around the rim and it was just a contest of who had the tallest, strongest players within 2 feet of the rim Luka is not grabbing 18 boards in a game.
Finally, I think there is a lot of conventional wisdom out there that eventually the pendulum is going to swing back the other way and big men are going to become valued again. Morey said he sees a future where the traditional 5 is just obsolete, and everyone just puts their 5 best players on the court and figures it out. I suspect Morey is more likely to be right.