8/14/2023 0 Comments Rudy gobert stats rankingsBoth are well-above average playmakers, but Butler turns the ball over a little less and offensive rebounds a fair amount more. In fact, Butler’s offensive profile is superficially similar to DeRozan’s as both are midrange heavy (at the expense of 3-pointers) but use their excellent foul drawing to still manage good efficiency numbers despite their poor shot profiles. Working with just a few “extra” scoring attempts per game, either through turnovers a team doesn’t commit on one end or forces from the opponent on the other, can make an enormous impact in a league where around 10 percent of games are decided by two points or fewer. Over the last three seasons, just like much of the rest of his career, Paul has been the best in the NBA at winning the possession game by a huge margin: It’s hard to directly measure this, but one way I like to illustrate it is to examine his impact on turnover rates, both offensively and defensively. The reasons he has been able to do so are related both to physical skill - Paul has shot an absurd 54.3 percent on long twos over the last three seasons - but more importantly being perhaps the best decision-maker in the game. Paul continues to defy the odds, and really logic, by aging so gracefully. Though the single-year version of the stat is subject to huge variance, Paul finished third in RAPM this past season, matching his third-place ranking in 3-year RAPM and just ahead of his sixth place in 5-Year RAPM, all of which shows how remarkably consistent his impact has been, across three teams, even into his mid 30s.ĬP3 staying healthy (and staying in OKC past the trade deadline!) was the biggest factor in the Thunder’s surprising run to fifth in the Western Conference. Back in charge of his own team after a two year detour in Houston, CP3 demonstrated that reports of his demise as an All-Star-level player have been greatly exaggerated. Further, continued movement towards spacing, movement and multi-skilled players at every position could devalue it further.Ĭhris Paul: The lion in winter. However, because of those drawbacks, this level is just about the ceiling for this player archetype in today’s NBA. Similarly, with the increasing frequency of teams downsizing positionally, a throwback defensive center can get put in some odd spots, though I think that concern has been overblown as a cause of Utah’s recent playoff exits relative to the lack of shot creation mentioned. This is why even though Gobert remains Utah’s best player, Donovan Mitchell is its most important guy, as Mitchell’s development as a creator will be required to compliment Gobert. Most notably, with one max salary slot occupied by the center, finding the elite shot creation necessary becomes difficult. Still, there are limitations inherent in building around a defensive center. Only Brook Lopez has been similarly effective at all-around rim protection as Gobert over the last few seasons. As the chart shows, shot blockers have a tendency to either be “foul-y” (Robinson, Jackson Jr., Theis) or pursue shotblocks to the point of being pulled out of position for rebounds (Whiteside, Turner). However, he had the highest overall defensive impact, in part because even while blocking shots, he was similarly elite at both not fouling and preventing offensive rebounds. Gobert was 10th in the NBA this season in block percentage. (The Opponent FTA RAPM and DREB RAPM columns above use similar methodologies as the overall RAPM model, but estimate each player’s impact on each of the “ four factors” rather than on the scoreboard.) While the gaps in scoring efficiency and playmaking seem small, those are the margins at this level: This depresses their overall efficiency to a degree. Especially relative to their skill level and athleticism, neither gets to the rim a ton, nor do they shoot a lot of free throws. They also can be a little too reliant on jumpshooting. Both are good-but-not-great playmakers for others. The differentiators between these players and the wings a little higher up the list are small. But at other times, he showed areas for improvement, such as his difficulty making an impact against Miami’s zone in the Eastern Conference Finals. Meanwhile, in this year’s postseason, Tatum showed the ability to take games over, such as the seemingly easy 29-12-7 line he put up in Game 7 against the Raptors. But he is also only a year removed from having an MVP-level season in OKC derailed by the shoulder injuries that cost him the first part of the 2019-20 campaign and perhaps got the ball rolling on LA’s failure to develop a consistent team identity. People had a lot of fun with “Playoff P” given his struggles in the Clippers’ second-round loss to Denver.
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