(07-01-2024, 08:06 PM)Dundalis Wrote: The chances of a player shooting worse over a large enough sample size next to Luka is slim IMO, unless there's something fundamentally wrong with your mentality coming in to the team (Grant Williams). We've already seen it with a multitude of players. You will have the most consistently wide open looks of any time in your career.
To me the athleticism thing is slightly overblown. We leant on athleticism particularly on offense partially as a way to make up for just not being a very good shooting team. Its the same thing as NBA fans constantly saying Luka was too unathletic early on. You can make up for it in other ways, and from the looks of it the way Marshall makes up for it is with length and intense physicality defensively. That can 100% make up for lesser athleticism on the defensive end. This team being a top 10 and significantly better shooting team next season is already pretty much guaranteed I would say. Do you wanna keep the athleticism, yeah, but again, if we are just shooting way better as a team, that can make up for whatever added athletic benefit DJJ gave last season. There are plusses and minuses across the board, unfortunately you have to give and take a little, you don't get to tick off every box on acquisitions.
IMO Marshall's last season was significantly better than anything DJJ produced in his career prior to Dallas, and DJJ's season I think was heavily a production of playing with Luka offensively, and Lively and Gafford defensively, DJJ's production was far more them that it was him having some huge mid career improvement. Marshall will get a turn having the massive role boost of playing alongside those guys now. I could see DJJ's shooting and defense fall off a decent amount with the Clippers, especially if hes given an explanded role due to the contract he will get, and the loss of PG.
It depends on whether you are looking at his career average or the small sample of his last season. He prolly will improve on his career average, but it’s a much bigger question if he can improve or maintain his recent year due to regression.
I have a hard time saying Marshall had a better season playing 18 minutes off the bench on mediocre team vs starting on a finals team. Especially since he really struggled prior seasons in bigger role. I think he is a good fit playing role did last season, but I would not have been excited if we were planning on starting him.