Originally Posted by
MichaelMcNamara
The popular narrative is that Zion and BI struggle to be their full selves when they are on the court together, and to some extent it is true. BI's effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage is higher w/o Zion that with him. His FTA's per minute go down, and he settles for more long 2's. Zion is effective either way, but his usage goes way down (33% vs 27%) and the defense is poor, as you imagine.
All that said, they still beat the opponent by a solid margin when both are on the floor, and the offense overall is amazing (almost 119 o-rating). The issue has been the lineups when those guys are staggered. The offense regresses to average, but the defense is terrible, so... a net negative to each. Now, you have replaced Adams and Bledsoe with Jonas and CJ, so there is a legit pathway to an above average offense on staggered lineups, but the difference between a net neutral and a net positive with these units will be the defense. You gotta get that defensive rating down from 117 or 118 to the 112, 113 range.
Obviously, you start with Herb here. Lineups with BI and Herb together were in the 109, 110 range. Lineups with BI but not Herb were at 116 defensive rating. I think those two are the core of the BI centric staggered lineups. With Zion, you need Nance and Trey's length and versatility. I would also want Daniels defensive rebounding and length. So, going into the season, my staggered lineups would be as follows:
Ingram-Centric
Jose
CJ
BI
Herb
Jonas
Zion-Centric
Graham
Daniels
Trey
Zion
Nance
How would you all stagger?