
Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
I think one of the things that is encouraging about Lavine, were you to acquire him, is that he's not the kind of guy who needs to be on ball. Like, yes, he's taking 20 shots a game and being lead ballhandler for Chicago now because who else do they have, really?
But in terms of off-ball game, he's shooting about 48% on C&S 3s, which make up about 52% of his 3pt volume, so it's not entirely self-created pullups (he's at 41.1% on those), and he actually averages fewer touches per game than Lonzo Ball, Coby White, Ja Morant, Colin Sexton, Devonte' Graham, et cetera. Of course, he takes more shots than those guys so his usage rate is comparatively high, but he's actually been pretty outstanding in off-ball actions this year.
In fact, if you look at what you might call ''off-ball'' offensive actions and where he ranks in terms of volume and efficiency, this is what you get:
Cuts: 4.4% of his offense, 1.58 points per possession, 97th percentile.
Off-screen: 5.3% of his offense, 1.25 ppp, 86th percentile.
Spot-ups: 11.2% of his offense, 1.3ppp, 92nd percentile
Hand-offs: 6.9% of his offense, 1.14ppp, 80th percentile
Putbacks: 2% of offense, 1.07ppp, 39th percentile.
So about 30% of his offense comes off-ball already, and he's generally really effective in those positions. The question is whether you think he could maintain most of that efficiency on increased volume: so, if he's coming off screens and cutting 20% of the time instead of a combined 9.7% of the time, is he still an 85th %ile guy or more? I think probably, though I don't buy that ''lower volume, higher efficiency'' thing people often talk about - that usually isn't the case, actually.
None of this, by the way, is me trying to claim he's not ball dominant in Chicago. He obviously is. It's just that there are signs there that he has the skills to play in a more off-ball role as well, and it's not like he'd never get ballhandler minutes here. Of course he would.