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Definitely the other way around. First off, from a Utah Jazz fan, congratulations! You just picked up a hell of a basketball player and an even better guy. No question Derrick's natural position is at the five. He has spent the last few years at the 4 trying to develop at least a corner 3 but he's just not enough of a shooter to be a 4 in this era. Having watched Derrick absolutely feast on opponents' centers when Derrick slid to the 5 to spell Rudy Gobert makes me glad that he's somewhere that he can start and play significant minutes at his natural position. I have to admit that I don't know a huge amount about the Pelicans but if you have a guard or forward that can run the pick and roll you just got a center that is excellent at it.
Best of luck to Derrick and the Pelicans next year.
Thanks for the kind words, and good luck to the Jazz next year. I think you guys could really make serious waves, and depending on where Kawhi ends up you could even be favourites to come out of the West.
Jrue is a lot better in the pick and roll than a lot of people think, so that's good to hear. I remember it was only a year or two ago that Jrue finished top 5 in the league in points created in the pick and roll.
That said, the transition game and early buckets are going to be our bread and butter more than any given set play, and that's where I'm really excited to see Favors. He scored extremely efficiently in ''Gentry Ball'' style possessions over the last few years, but unfortunately the Jazz playstyle didn't give him that many opportunities to do it. Hopefully he'll break out a little more in New Orleans.
Basketball.
Great addition to the squaddddd.
R.I.P. to HunnyB/FlyGirl
I haven’t heard a single Jazz fan speak poorly of Favors, not have I heard any Jazz podcasts that have spoken poorly of Favors. He was just the 2nd center on a team with a top 5 center. No harm no foul. We got a good one. He won’t be great, but he will be serviceable.
If you Jimmer it, they will come.
538 just dropped a new defensive metric they've calculated based on shots defended and opponent shot percentage, made to fit alongside DRPM.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...mpression=true
According to their new metric, DRAYMOND, the best defender in the NBA in the 2018-19 season, who played at least 2000 minutes was...
Derrick Favors.
He played over 4000 possessions last season, and put up a DRAYMOND score of +3.74. By comparison, Gobert posted a DRAYMOND score of +2.82, Ibaka posted +2.63, and Mitchell Robinson (who posted the second highest score) had +3.32.
And that's just over last season. If you look at all players over the last 6 years, Favors falls 12th, with an overall DRAYMOND score of +1.86. This compares very well with Anthony Davis, who has posted a 6 year DRAYMOND score of +2.05, and Al Horford, whose 6 year DRAYMOND score is +1.41.
I feel like we should give favors a 2 year extension soon. I think he is going to have a great season and up his value tremendously come next summer.
We had quite a few interesting conversations as we pondered and navigated the nightly canopy.
This is his opportunity to get more minutes. He can move to the 4 while Hayes or Okafor comes in to play Center. Zion can move to the 3. Redick at the 2 and Ball or Jrue at the 1. Favors and Zion both do well with getting offensive rebounds. We gotta use our frontcourt to draw lots of fouls. Get teams in foul trouble early.
Favors is HUGE. 270lbs. With him and Zion as our frontcourt they will push opponents around and exhaust them and get rebounds. 270 plus 285 equals 555lbs!
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For real. Elite rim protector, can guard down a little without too much issue because although he's big, he's still fairly mobile, and he's offensively gifted.
Shamit over at BSS did a big analysis of how different players around the league fit into Gentry Ball, which is efficient, high volume shooting early in the shot clock, and Favors did very well. While he didn't get to take that many shots super early in the clock (Utah's system just didn't run at the pace we do very often), when he did take those extremely early Gentry Ball looks, he was extremely efficient.
Basically, in the 2017-18 season, Favors shot Gentry Ball (within the first 9 seconds of the clock) attempts only 23% of the time, falling into the 12th percentile league-wide. This number was identical in the 2018-19 season. But when he DID take those shots, by god was he efficient: in 2017-18, he fell into the 95th percentile, and in 18-19, the 89th percentile in terms of early shot-clock efficiency. Man just put up insane points per possession when taking early looks.
It might take him until December to really get used to running with the consistency that Gentry demands, but I think he can do so, and when he's done so in the past it's had fantastic results.
Generally yes, it's either on a fast break or OREB, though not always.
Again, yes, a lot of Gentry Ball shots come at the rim, but not always. It's less about the where, and more about the when. The example Shamit gave in his original Gentry Ball article was Elfrid Payton: Payton's efficiency soared when shots were taken early in the clock, even if shots taken at a later time were within the same kind of distance from the rim. The concern is beating the defense, not really about where the shot is taken. Favors finishes brilliantly at the rim, but he also has a killer midrange game out to around 16 feet, and frankly I don't think it matters which shot he takes as long as he's taking it within the pace of the offense before the defense can set.
But the same would hold true for Payton too, right? His early shot clock attempts are going to primarily be wide open fast break layups, and his same-distance shots later in the clock would probably be much more contested, on average. Just thinking out loud, really, but wouldn't just about everyone in the league have higher efficiency early in the clock? I agree with what you're saying re: beating the defense...I just think that would benefit pretty much anyone (hence Gentry's preference).
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