2019-20 Around the NBA: Archived

[Dahlsim]

playing off an old school size advantage front line.

You are not realistic. Jokic is miles away from "old school". He is best passing big ever. He is hitting threes at 40 % clip. And yes, he can also post up. Although he often goes to his trademark high arching mid range fade away shot, which is just incredibly difficult.

Besides, Rockets are the only one really going small. Clippers have traditional big and they are starting him. Harrell can also be called traditional, even though he is not so tall. Lakers usually start with traditional big. Utah has Gobert. OKC has Adams. Portland has Nurkic. Mavs playing KP at five are actually "innovators" moving away from traditional bigs forcing others to adjust - exactly what you want from them. Which big of the above can run around KP on the three point line? None. They were hiding them on DFS or Maxi on defense, so they could stay near the rim. If we would have just a bit better players in these positions, we would be killing the mismatches.

There are reasons for low minutes on Bobi. 5 seasons in the league and he never played more than 15 mpg. He can do damage on offense and he gets exploited on defense. He can be a surprise here and there. We have seen him be that. We have also seen games where he was totally ineffective offensively and exploited defensively. You can't claim Mavs result would be totally different if we played him more. But I agree, it felt they could try it a bit more.

Jokic is miles away from "old school".

That's actually more an issue with your interpretation of "old school" then what I actually said or meant.   Remember a guy name Wilt Chamberlain?  Well maybe you don't but that guy was "old school" post domination to the max but one year they challenged him to pass more and he just went out and led the league in assists, as a center. 

There's a huge difference between what a player can do and what the game plan allows the player to actually do.  You never know for instance that many players are good until the team uses them that way. 

Look, I understand your logic but just because a bunch of coaches do something a certain way doesn't man that's the only thing that makes sense.  That was really my point.  Coaches had the 3 point line for a very long time before they started changing their habits and suddenly somebody applied analytics and said "Hey, what if we shot a lot of these?".   
The entire mindset of NBA coaches was different. 

 We have also seen games where he was totally ineffective offensively and exploited defensively.

Actually, we haven't seen a lot of that, we have seen short spans of minutes like that but not "games like that" because he doesn't play games.  Historically when he's played longer minutes he has not gotten torched like that over time.  
I've seen almost every NBA star get torched and play poorly over longer spans than you can ever say you saw Boban perform poorly.  Heck Paul George, Westbrook, Harden, they all just got bounced with some poor performances sprinkled in.  So what? 

I'm suggesting to you that its not just Boban's minutes but the way he is used when is on the floor. 
He has to be allowed to impact the offense more in his minutes. 

Not many of coaches now know how to use a dominant inside big man within today's context.  Shaq made this very point talking about Boban in this very series when they interviewed Boban after he torched he Clippers. 
How would Shaq be used today?  How would Wilt be used or Olajuwon?  Would they get Bobaned to the Bench? 

You can't claim Mavs result would be totally different if we played him more.

I don't have to claim it.  You can claim what would happen, the few times, very few he gets a lot more minutes he showed it.  So you speculate and I'll pull clips.