2021-2022 ROSTER TALK: [ARCHIVED]

[F Gump]

Serious question...who do you like for the starting C role.  In general, the shot blockers out there aren't mobile.  The mobile centers aren't shot blockers.  Do we run it back with Powell/Maxi?  If not, who is a realistic target that fits our scheme?

I don't disagree that current Holmes doesn't look great.  But, Historic Holmes is pretty good at what we ask our C to do.  Here are the O-Lebron, D-Lebron and Lebron for the last three seasons for Holmes:

19-20   0.56  2.07  2.63

20-21   0.91  0.90  1.80

21-22   -1.34  0.68  -0.66

So, is this a 28 year old who is falling apart?  Did he play for a contract and check out?  Both are certainly possible.  Or, is he on a bad Sacramento team and needs a change of scenery.  I see another Dinwiddie situation where he's done good things in the past (per 36, Holmes is a 16/10 guy with a TS% of .683 the last three seasons), but is having a bad season on a bad team.  I think I read somewhere last season that he was 8th in the league in block percentage (this season he's a full point below his career average).  For comparison, Powell on a per 36 basis is 13/8 with similar TS% but has about half the block percentage.  Both Powell and Holmes have been nicely positive for multiple seasons for their teams in On-Off until this season where both are negative.

My issue with Holmes himself (the ability as a player) is 2-fold:
1 I'm not convinced he's all that great as a defender. When I see him play, it's offensive contributions around the lane (or nothing) that I see. Mostly, when I see the Kings play, he's invisible.
2 His own team(s) have never seemed to value him very highly. The contracts aren't great, and they look for an alternative. That tells me something.

His box score line tends to look better than the eye test. I don't see a guy who deters other teams from driving, or who controls the lane, yet that's the Mav "flaw" I see many saying needs to be fixed, then he becomes cited as the answer. I don't see that when he plays.

You cite his TS%, but he would be replacing Powell whose TS% is even better.

Re who I want at center, my point is that we seem to be trending to make the question binary -- "status quo" vs Holmes -- when we should be asking whether Holmes is enough of an upgrade (or any at all) to even move the needle while eating up $11M in salary.

It's hard to eval what players would look like on your team until you actually get them and plug them into the mix, but looking at the data, the guesses, the eye test, and so on, I don't think Holmes would offer much better or worse than what we already have. I really think he would probably be "Powell Jr" more or less, doing the same stuff, ideally a bit better at some things but maybe not even as good.

Now maybe we need to have 3 big guys to rotate at C rather than 2 (with Maxi getting some run at PF too), but I think that would be a mistake in roster building and cap management, esp if you are paying them all $10-11 per while also having 2 other centers filling roster spots.