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These guys get around don't they? Glad to see them out and about.
“They don’t want to be here.”
This puts to rest that theory. Meanwhile some numbskull is trying to trademark Taco Tuesday.
LeBron is still celebrating #TacoTuesday
— ESPN (@espn) August 27, 2019
(via @KingJames) pic.twitter.com/BcRHVY22uU
Now this is funny
Pat Riley and D-Wade enjoying life pic.twitter.com/L0ecjSOZLG
— NBA Central (@TheNBACentral) September 1, 2019
Zion, naw & jaxson Hayes at university of new Orleans
— Billy bando (@KingJaydee26) September 2, 2019
Playing basketball pic.twitter.com/kqlFu4eyWj
well this is cool as hell
Sent from my SM-S903VL using Tapatalk
Jaxson Hayes is used to being the underdog. Look out for this season pic.twitter.com/S3cJ2rk7Nc
— Pelicans Dive (@PelicansDive) September 2, 2019
Just saw this hype reel from Hayes. It's nothing new, really, just stuff from the Summer League games, some clips from his time at Texas, stuff like that, but I just wanna point out something that struck me.
The finish he makes at 15 seconds in is absurd. Off a spin move, from maybe 8 feet, over a defender up off the glass, and it just drops in. The touch on a move like that is so ridiculous, and we saw him hit a couple of similar moves in Summer League as well.
It's true that Hayes dunked a lot in college, but even for people who are finishers only, he was incredibly efficient. Hayes shot 86.7% at the rim in college. I will repeat that, because it deserves repeating: Hayes shot 86.7% at the rim in college.
For comparison, the NBA's best finishers this year shot:
Rudy Gobert: 74.3% from 0-3 feet
Clint Capela: 74.7% from 0-3 feet
Giannis Antetokoumnpo: 76.9% from 0-3 feet
DeAndre Jordan: 70.5% from 0-3 feet
Anthony Davis: 76.7% from 0-3 feet
Now, obviously the NBA players were finishing against better defenses, better individual defenders, etc etc, so I'm not saying that Hayes will walk into the league a better NBA level finisher than Giannis, AD, or Gobert. But that number, and what it implies about Hayes' ceiling as a finisher, is beyond boggling. For comparison, even Zion (who was a top tier finisher all year long at Duke) only shot 74.7% from two point land, and it's not like Zion was diluting his finishing numbers with a ton of long midrangers. Again, 74.7% from 2 is still elite, top tier finishing (the same as Clint Capela finished, and higher than Gobert finished, this year in the NBA) but compared to Hayes' 86.7%... wow.
There are a couple of reasons for this. Obviously, despite the flashes of versatility, Hayes was finishing mostly dunks, whereas Zion played a lot of ball-handling, driving possessions that had him doing layups through tons of traffic, so his finishing was much more contested. And the Texas offense that Hayes played in limited his offensive game a lot and did reduce him to a that rim-finishing-only guy that his highlights imply: he shot more jumpers for us in Summer League than he did in his entire college year, for example, and looked encouragingly good doing so.
But yeah. Just saw that one finish in that video and it reminded me how transcendent Hayes was as a college finisher. Truly just off the charts within the paint.
Lonzo getting adjusted to the NOLA lifestyle (and gators)
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) September 5, 2019
(via @ZO2_) pic.twitter.com/DSYvqNP85c
Got bored while on the train the other day and did a little bit of research. Figured I might as well post it here, in case anyone is interested.
Essentially what I did is this: I took a bunch of guys from our roster, aside from rookies who have obviously never played before, and I just assembled their key stats from last year and found where they each ranked at their respective positions in those stats. I avoided stats which aren't that useful when there's been so much roster turnover (like net rating, for example) and instead, I basically used stats which either account for various teammates, or are entirely individual. So, the stats I used were: PER, TS%, BPM, RPM, D-PIPM, O-PIPM, Overall PIPM, wins added, and on/off stats. I just figured that if we knew roughly where everyone was last year for real, instead of relying on memories which are probably a little faded after a long off-season of nothing, we could get back into the mindset of where our team legitimately is in terms of quality as training camp approaches.
Keep in mind that last season, league average TS% was 56%, so really anything above that is above average, anything below is below average.
So, here we go:
Player: Jrue Holiday [SG]
PER: 19.4
TS: 55.5%
BPM: 2.8 RPM: 4.61 (3rd among SGs) Wins Added: 12.28 (1st among SGs, 11th in the NBA)
D-PIPM: 1.0 (7th among SGs) O-PIPM: 3.0 (2nd among SGs)
Overall PIPM: 4.0 (1st among SGs, 16th in the league)
On/Off: +14.5
Player: Lonzo Ball (PG)
PER: 11.7
TS: 48.7%
BPM: 0.5 RPM: -0.32 (37th among PGs) Wins Added: 2.67 (33rd among PGs)
D-PIPM: 1.8 (4th among PGs) O-PIPM: -1.2 (72nd among PGs)
Overall PIPM: 0.6 (21st among PGs)
On/Off: +0.8
Player: Brandon Ingram (SF)
PER: 13.4
TS: 55.5%
BPM: -2.8 RPM: -1.77 (57th among SFs) Wins Added: 1.55 (46th among SFs)
D-PIPM: -0.4 (60th among SFs) O-PIPM: -1.0 (25th among SFs)
Overall PIPM: -1.4 (59th among SFs)
On/Off: -0.2
Player: D. Favors (C)
PER: 21.8
TS: 62.4%
BPM: 4.3 RPM: 2.59 (13th among Cs) Wins Added: 6.51 (15th among Cs)
D-PIPM: 1.3 (27th among Cs) O-PIPM: -0.1 (27th among Cs)
Overall PIPM: 1.2 (22nd among Cs)
On/Off: +0.5
Player: JJ Redick (SG)
PER: 15.1
TS: 60.2%
BPM: -0.7 RPM: 1.18 (10th among SGs) Wins Added: 6.64 (7th among SGs)
D-PIPM: -0.2 (68th among SGs) O-PIPM: 1.3 (12th among SGs)
Overall PIPM: 1.1 (11th among SGs)
On/Off: +5.8
Player: Josh Hart (SG/SF)
PER: 9.3
TS: 52.6%
BPM: -0.7 RPM: -0.06 (24th among SGs) Wins Added: 3.51 (22nd among SGs)
D-PIPM: 1.6 (3rd among SGs) O-PIPM: -2.0 (119th among SGs)
Overall PIPM: -0.5 (50th among SGs)
On/Off: +3.6
Obviously, haven't done Zion, Hayes, NAW, or Melli because rookies, and also haven't done Miller because he'll be missing pretty much the entire season. So there's 6 guys who will be seeing the court for us this year.
Bit of a mixed bag, really. Jrue and BI are about league average in TS%, while Reddick and Favors are far above league average. Lonzo and Hart both fall below average there, with Lonzo being terrible (no surprise). Jrue ranks as, by PIPM, the best overall SG in the NBA, and also has a huge on/off stat to support it, alongside his very high RPM, and his giant wins added stat. By the same metrics, Hart ranks as a very good defender but a poor offensive player, while still falling into a positive on/off.
Favors holds the team's highest PER, and the highest TS%, and falls into the top 25 of all centres with regards to the advanced stats, and that's pretty impressive considering that he was actually playing at the PF position for much of last year due to Gobert hanging around. Expect to see some of these numbers get even gaudier this season, as he gets the chance to actually play his true position next to a smaller guy in Zion.
Lonzo ranks very well in the defensive numbers, but poorly in the offensive ones. Obvious reason why: can't shoot threes, doesn't finish at a high level, can't shoot free throws. Despite all of that, his passing and defense manage to keep him above water, letting him fall into the top 25 of PGs by PIPM, and allowing him to maintain a slight positive on/off number.
Ingram is the guy who really gets jiggered by a bunch of these stats. He's the only guy here to have a negative on/off number, as well as one of only two guys to have a negative BPM. He has the lowest RPM here by a pretty large margin, and fails to fall within the top 50 at his position by PIPM. He really has a lot to prove this next year if he wants to become a legitimate positive player for his team.
Still, between Jrue, Lonzo, Favors, Reddick, and Hart, we have 5 of the 6 guys here with positive on/off numbers, and four of these six names fall within the top 25 at their respective positions by PIPM, which is awesome. If Zion can produce at a strong level (Luka Doncic posted a 1.4 PIPM this season, good for top 65 in the NBA, so something like that) then we would have a starting lineup that is 4/5ths positive, with 2 guys who could come off the bench at net positives too. That's pretty cool.
.@Zionwilliamson really just broke the club
— ESPN (@espn) September 13, 2019
(via @PelicansNBA) pic.twitter.com/CjRkXwiMwZ
“I’m too tall”
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) September 13, 2019
As we all can relate, it’s the club’s fault @hayes_jaxson pic.twitter.com/QCzMRWbrj1
Looks like Lonzo doesnt shoot from the opposite side of his body anymore and he's sticking to it.
https://www.nba.com/pelicans/video/t...koutv2-2809080
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