Big Men With Range

by Stop-n-Pop on Jun 29, 2008 8:02 AM CDT

Now that Kevin Love is on the squad, I'd like to bring your attention to a pretty decent thread over at the APBR that attempts to quantify the importance of having a big man who can shoot on your squad. Just a little something to think about now that the Wolves have a guy who can knock down shots all the way out to Rasheed-land.

One of the most interesting aspects of the new Wolves offense is that they can trot a lineup out there with 3 guys that shot over 40% from 3 last year while balancing them out with a low post beast and a guy who can play the high post and hit jumpers all the way out to the 3 point line. Love could have a passing field day in the high post with options around the perimeter and down low.

For all of Jefferson's inside scoring ability, his biggest weakness was his lack of a reliable jumper. Here's how he fared last year in that department:

Shot	Att.	eFG%	Ast'd	Blk'd	Pts
Jump	53%	.372	50%	7%	6.9
Close	36%	.587	52%	13%	7.4
Dunk	8%	.890	68%	5%	2.4
Tips	4%	.706	0%	0%	0.9
Inside	47%	.645	51%	10%	10.7

Over 1/2 his shots came off the j (partly because defenses collapsed around him when he was on the block) while netting significantly less than 1/2 of his points. Now that he's armed with 3 guys who can legitimately stroke it from outside as well as a frontcourt mate who can hit the open mid-range shot, Big Al should be able to rely less on the shot that hurts him the most...and that's a very good thing for the Wolves.

While there may be some issues defensively, this team has a chance to be something else on the offensive end of the court. At the very least, Love's addition should be an interesting case study into the effects of the addition of a big man who can shoot.

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Let's Hope Wittman can Make It Hum...

The highest rank in Ortg any Wittman team has ever had is 22nd, his first Cleveland team featuring Andre Miller, a quickly-growing Shawn Kemp, and Bob Sura.

Clearly, he’s never had the horses before. So we’ll see.

This team is suddenly sensible. I don’t think they’re going to win 40 games or anything this year, but they actually seem like more of a team now, rather than the mishmash of flawed, half-executed strategies they’ve been. Before now I thought that the team holding the coaches responsible (Casey firing, Wittman being given a veiled ultimatum) seemed gutless. Now that there’s a clear idea of what they should be, it’s more reasonable.

Again, I don’t plan on pushing .500 next year, but clearly, I think we have an idea of what things should at least look like offensively with the seedlings planted there for a high/low double post with shooters coming at you in waves. I now think it’s fair to make sure Witt is at least working towards that.

That is, I think it’s now rather obvious how the team should potentially look over the next few years, so a large part of his job now is to get everyone in on it. If Foye is the lead guard and he tries that right lane runner of his for 4 or 5 consecutive possesions while Big Al has position, Love is drawing his man out to no man’s land, and Miller are McCants are spotting up, well, Wittman has to intervene. If Jefferson isn’t passing out of double teams to his shooters, Wittman needs to let him know. Now that essentially all the tenured vets are expunged (a group Wittman-and most coaches-struggled to, well, coach), this is his chance to show what he’s got.

by jianfu on Jun 29, 2008 8:43 AM CDT 0 recs