1) Roster overload or roster stacking via placing multiple players of similar size and with a similarly high skill level-athletic combination in the same lineup is not exactly a new concept. In the 80s we saw it clearly in the “Twin Towers” concept of pairing two potentially dominant centers together, or in Boston’s front line, Bird and McHale especially, or with Detroit playing essentially two point guard level initiators in Isaiah Thomas and Joe Dumars and then bringing a third skilled small scorer in Vinnie Johnson off the bench. In the 90s, we have Jordan and Pippen.

Of course, we could go on listing famous player combinations down the line, but the trend, at least at first glance, seems to have accelerated in recent seasons with small guard combinations like James Harden and Chris Paul in Houston, or Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum in Portland. There have also been big forward combinations like Kawhi Leonard and Pascal Siakam, a pairing that could be seen as a major feature of last year’s NBA championship.

This year this trend seems to have exploded. We see talk about “Big Twos” but the deeper narrative seems to me to be the way that many of the contenders have their offensive initiation threats stacked heavily towards players of similar size.

There’s a fivesome of super big teams pairing bigger players with uncommon levels of skill in the Los Angeles Clippers (Kawhi, George), the Los Angeles Lakers (Lebron, Davis), the Philadelphia 76ers (Embiid, Simmons, Harris, Richardson), the Bucks (Giannis, Middleton, and Lopez) and the Celtics (Tatum, Hayward, Brown).

There’s also a fair amount of teams doing the same with smaller players, who are generally quicker and often even more skilled in Houston (Harden, Westbrook, Gordon), Golden State (Curry, DLo), Portland (Lillard, McCollum) and the Utah Jazz (Conley, Mitchell). If Carsen Edwards is better than expected and earlier than expected, it’s also possible the Celtics could feature here (Kemba, Carsen) as well, and we probably shouldn’t forget about Toronto with Lowry and VanVleet, especially with how important the latter was as a two guard in the Finals.

That leaves an obvious question: how can defenses hope to cover these groups of players? It’s often difficult enough to find personnel to defend one such player at a time. Now teams have to focus on two, and that might often leave one of them with a favorable matchup that a team need not even hunt.

2) If one wants to see the benefits of overloading, we could look at the postseason success of Portland, a Western Conference Finalist last season, or Houston, a postseason injury of Chris Paul away from likely competing for the Finals in 2017-18, or the 2018-19 Toronto Raptors. The Raptors were a difficult postseason matchup in large part because of the pairing of Leonard and Siakam.

Let’s take a look at these players. Both 6-foot-8 or taller, both strong, both with a combination of athleticism and dribble-pass-shoot ability to make matching up with either particularly difficult. If they are well constructed teams usually have perhaps one player who can match up with players such as these. Almost no team had, or currently has, two.

3) For a moment, let’s put aside the fact that a one-on-one matchup between Kawhi and basically anyone is a mismatch. Even were it not true, a special problem would still be placed upon opponents by the pairing of like players such as these. If we look at last year’s Finals, it becomes apparent at to just how.

First, we see that it makes unfortunate crossmatches even more likely. This highlight video begins with Siakam abusing Curry on multiple possessions. But even when a team has hypothetically favorable defensive matchups, as when Green was guarding Siakam, it becomes apparent that sometimes “hypothetically favorable” is just that, hypothetical.

Indeed, Siakam was able to gain advantages on Green and turn these into baskets. A stride length advantage that turned into a layup on the opposite side of the rim. A quickness advantage that turned into an open layup on a spin off a post shimmy. The ultimate result of which is this: that later in the game, Green knows he has to surrender ground to Siakam’s first step, giving Siakam space to get off a clean jumper.

The problem here for Golden State is that if Green couldn’t stick with Siakam, then it was almost certain that he was going to have real problems with Kawhi as well. And yes, of course almost everyone has problems with Kawhi, because Kawhi’s combination of handling, quickness, strength and shot accuracy is a load.

4) What happens here is that Green, the heart of the Warrior’s defensive success, is, at least when Siakam and Kawhi share the court, left without a viable defensive matchup. That’s trouble for Golden State, since Green’s switchability and team defense is one of the aspects that helps leverage the Warriors’ defense towards one of the league’s best. Yet much of this is negated when a team can consistently attack him directly.

If we’re looking for reasons why Kevin Durant’s injury was so monumental for the Warriors, this one is perhaps just as great as what the Warriors lost in scoring. Durant’s defensive strengths would have shifted Green into a more team oriented help role, allowing him to better disrupt Toronto’s offense.

However, with Durant out for almost the duration of the series and Thompson out for part of it, we saw the opposite with the Raptors able to use their size and athleticism to lessen Green’s impact. As we could see it often enough on the court, it’s not surprising that this loss of impact also showed up also in the numbers.

5) It’s not exactly the first time it’s happened either. For instance, whenever we’ve seen Green matched up against Lebron, James essentially treats Green as if he’s not there.

Note the similarity of this drive to the first clip of Siakam beating Draymond.

6) Of course, Golden State had an answer for Cleveland via Andre Iguodala and his ability to disrupt Lebron at the point of attack. More than just affecting Lebron, Iggy’s ability to do so often set the table for the rest of GSW’s defense in ways which can be easy to overlook, as they aren’t always obvious at first glance.

We’re talking about extra time to get into post-ups and less efficiency from them, eventually meaning less Lebron post ups, and as efficient Lebron post ups were in effect limiting Cleveland turnovers, eventually play from Cleveland likely to lead to more turnovers. But we’re also talking about defensive responsibilities translating down the line with teammates more likely to be put in situations in which they can thrive. As the simplest expression of this concept, if Draymond Green only rarely has to worry about being Lebron’s primary defender, not only is he freed up to then make help plays on Lebron, but to make plays like this one.

It’s a concept we readily and actively accept on offense, which is that the point of attack player’s ability to warp the shape of the defense has consequences to the team’s success down the line. Thus these players can be, and often are, thought of as table setters for their team’s offensive success. Yet the converse is also true. If there’s a defender who can to some degree prevent such an offensive player from acting as he normally does, then he in essence can set the table for the defense, which is now acting more often from relative positions of strength than positions of weakness, in much the same way.

And it’s in this area that Golden State is most likely to be hurt by Iguodala’s absence. With Iggy gone, Green is going to be tasked with being a primary defender on players like Lebron, Kawhi and George, and thus will be less often in positions where he can help. It’s twofold loss, since Golden State figures not only to be worse at the point against these players but also to have less persuasive options in terms of covering up mistakes.

7) Thus of major importance for the point-of-attack defender is not just that he potentially is better at shunting the initial impetus of the play and thus reducing the likelihood of a score, but also that he makes it more likely that players whose greatest strengths are in team help capacities can display them, in this case precisely because they are not called upon to be a man-on defender.

We’ve not only seen series or games in recent seasons in which much of Draymond Green’s defensive value is negated, but also RPM king Robert Covington specifically against the Celtics in the playoffs two seasons ago, when he was asked to guard the Celtics smaller, quicker point guards. It’s not really Covington’s fault that he was asked to do a task too often that did not suit his strengths, but really a failure of the roster, in that they had but one player in TJ McConnell who was up to it, and his lack of scoring ability made him a seemingly unideal fit on the offensive end.

The Players Who Might Help

8) In regards the coming season and specifically the playoffs, the quality of a team’s point of attack defenders, as well as their specific strengths and weaknesses, will likely play a large part in what teams ultimately advance. And as most of these stacked units are locked in contract-wise for multiple seasons, it’s a problem that the league could continue to face as a whole the next two to four seasons. As such, it’s a problem we could think about attacking by discussing prospects in the draft, since it’s not just a present but a future problem. However, an answer that comes from the draft likely eschews the problem for the coming seasons and with it, possibly a team’s chances, as even next year’s best defensive draft prospects probably won’t provide real impact for a season or two after they are drafted.

Though just to cover the bases, some of the best point of attack defensive prospects include Isaac Okoro, Scottie Lewis, Tyrese Maxey, Wendell Moore, perhaps Romeo Weems (though the exciting thing about him is perhaps team defense potential), perhaps Amar Sylla, Anthony Edwards, Aaron Henry, Tre Jones, Nate Hinton, Dru Smith and Xavier Tillman.

9) Still, teams that are seeking immediate answers or even answers next year know better than to be waiting for late round college and international prospects to pan out. That means they should be looking at players available in the current player pool, or those likely to become available. Right now, that list begins, unsurprisingly, with Andre Iguodala.

We’ve gone over some of Iguodala’s defensive strengths above. What we haven’t spoken much about is how he’s an excellent team defender, or how his point of attack prowess extends down to the smallest, quickest players as well.

This fact, to go along with the fact that he has offensive skills that fit (off the catch shooting, shot selection, decision- making both quick and correct, dribbling ability, passing ability on the move and otherwise) makes him quite unique, not just among the list of potentially available players, but also relative to the league as a whole.

Unfortunately, for the team’s wishing to acquire him, Iggy also has a price tag to match at over $17 million dollars, a cap figure that not only makes matching a contract without surrendering real talent potentially difficult, but also means that the team’s acquiring him might have to worry about luxury tax consequences.

10) Besides being really good at basketball in ways that make him a potential swing player for the current season, there’s at least one reason we should pay attention to Andre Iguodala’s basketball profile. That’s because he enlightens us to a particular type of profile that may have latent scoring efficiency, and in particular upside in shooting efficiency due to both increased proficiency and more advantageous shot distribution. That’s is, the profile of the primary or secondary initiator who moves into a semi or completely off-ball role.

There are a several hallmarks, a few of them statistical, of this type of player we can see after the fact, which can enlighten us to who may yet have this latent upside.

The first is that there is a hypothetical way to put this player into an off-ball role. Often times this has to do with the player’s size. The taller the player is, the easier it is to shunt him into roles with less offensive responsibility. However, it can also have to do with context, such as Jason Kidd being allowed to play more of the role of a receiver in his second stint in Dallas rather than the ball-dominant penetrator he was when he came into the league or while in New Jersey.

The second is in the assisted makes profile of the player. These players tend to go from profiles with a number of assisted makes to profiles with very few, or at least much less, and in shooting a higher percentage of shots off the catch, we tend to see a 3-point spike.

That’s Iguodala’s profile, where we can see his best shooting seasons, asides from a career year in Philadelphia, tend to be accompanied by assisted makes from 3 being near or well above 90 percent. We also see a precipitous drop in distance efficiency when he’s in the 70 percent to 80 percent range. Note that the assisted numbers from 3 are correlated to a great degree with the number of assisted makes he has from 2 as well.

That was Iguodala. This is Jason Kidd’s, a profile that is incomplete because basketball-reference doesn’t carry shooting data for the beginning of his career. Yet, we see essentially the same phenomena. Lower percentages when less 3s were assisted, followed by a real spike from 3 from 2007 to 2010 when Kidd is counting over 91 percent of his makes from 3 as assisted buckets.

And now Jeff Hornacek’s career shooting numbers. The beginning of his career was either pre-KJ or with KJ as a rookie. Then KJ moves Hornacek to off-guard and we see a spike in 3 point percentage. Then the Barkley trade occurs, after which Hornacek’s 3-point percentage tanks, first to a still quite proficient 39 percent, and then to 31 percent as Hornacek is asked to play more minutes at point guard. Lastly, Hornacek is traded mid-season 93-94 to Utah, placing him once again in a shooting guard role, after which Hornacek proceeds to shoot 43 percent from 3 for the rest of his career and in his age 31-36 seasons when players are supposedly past their prime.

So assisted makes are a potentially major indicator. The last one is shot distribution, with players who are inefficient on-ball ending up having to take too many mid-range shots and very often too many long 2s.

Andre Iguodala is again a good example here.

Note that Iguodala’s lowest shot totals by far from 10 feet to 3 correspond to his years with Golden State and his first two seasons in Philadelphia. These are also the years, for the most part, in which Iguodala shot best from distance. I don’t believe that’s a coincidence. After all, we see a similar pattern from Jason Kidd as well.

The reason being somewhat obvious with players who have their shots created for them being far less likely to get stuck shooting more difficult shots at the end of shot clocks, or after the offense gets stuck and can no longer be progressed.

10) The reason I point this out now is because aside from Iguodala, none of the players I’m going to point out as potentially good buy low prospects have reliable offensive profiles. If they did, they likely wouldn’t be potential targets by trade or free agency. And thus, we have to look for indicators that proffer the potential for offense, or to attempt to contextually find a way to place them on the floor.

Players who present some argument, even if it may take a fair amount of faith, for shooting improvement are guys like Frank Ntilikina, De’Andre Bembry, Andrew Harrison, Sindarious Thornwell, Lonzo Ball, Barry Brown and D’Marcus Simonds.

Players who offer big wing defense but seem relegated to a dunker role on offense are guys like Andre Roberson, Josh Huestis (now signed in Europe), Horace Spencer and Ismael Sanogo. It’s a group that is much more difficult for most of the league to conceptually fit on a roster.

Lastly, there are the players whom we probably know who and what they are on both sides of the ball. A guy like Jae Crowder fits here. And also the specialists who could be situationally useful, a guy like Lucas Nogueira, though I struggled to find anything about his current contract.

Player 2: Frank Ntilikina, Arguably The Best Buy Low Prospect

11) Frank Ntilikina is by far my favorite buy low player outside of Iguodala. Rumors had him being available for an early 2nd round pick in 2018, and if that’s so, with Ntilikina being in many ways the player that Philadelphia needs to complete its roster, it’s somewhat surprising that a trade didn’t occur, as Frank has the ability to disrupt some of the league’s best players.

Paul George there. Next, James Harden.

And for good measure, Donovan Mitchell, who has athleticism on both Harden and George.

This from a player who just recently turned 21 entering his third season. One listed at 6-foot-6, 200 pounds on basketball-reference, as he was when he came into the league.

I’m pretty sure that’s no longer the case.

12) The problem for Frank is offense. Namely the fact that Frank can’t shoot. The NBA profile is ugly from just about everywhere.

Though if we look closer, we see the two statistical hallmarks of shooting upside. Unfortunate percentages of unassisted makes from both 2 and 3. Entirely too many mid-range shots being taken, with numbers close to 50 percent for Frank’s career from three feet to the 3-point line. Contrast that with Iguodala who last year was at 17 percent. So there’s perhaps considerable upside in putting Ntilikina in a situation to shoot more shots off the catch, as well as removing shots from the mid-range.

And that’s before we even get to the point that Frank has never played with a legitimate initiator who could provide him service, the types of players who have 3 percent to sometimes even 10 percent + average net effects on teammates’ True Shooting. Or that Frank, prior to the NBA has shot at pretty much every level for which he’s been age appropriate.

And we can see 38 percent on 112 3-point attempts going back to his last year at Strasbourg.

There’s one off the catch. Here’s a 2-point jumper off drift movement.

And besides a nice mid-range fadeaway, that’s what we’ve mostly seen at the beginning of the FIBA World Cup: off the catch makes.

If one was participating in workout video season, we can see how Frank is building on his work with Tim Martin.

This next one focuses more on off-the-dribble maneuvers.

Though it’s the off-the-catch jumper that I believe is where most of the upside lies if he can find a team that can provide him the context to get him there a good portion of the time. Who knows? It’s possible we’re not just talking about a stationary player or a player who can attack closeouts, but one who can hit off of more complex actions.

Here’s Frank shooting off the hop after a curl movement. For a second round pick, or a fake first that becomes two seconds, which the Markelle Fultz trade might have set as the going rate for such a “reclamation” project, Ntilikina seems well worth the risk. I’m not sure he even is a reclamation project, so much as a the chance for a smart team with patience and a plan to take advantage of one without much of either.

Player 3: Is DeAndre Bembry The Second Best Buy Low Prospect?

13) DeAndre Bembry is perhaps my third favorite buy-low player on the market. I haven’t seen any trade smoke regarding Bembry, but with a new regime for the Hawks recently drafting De’Andre Hunter and Cam Reddish to go along with Kevin Huerter the year before, it’s not difficult to see that Bembry probably isn’t in the Hawks’ long-term plans at guard or wing.

So why do I like Bembry? First, he’s really athletic and also potentially dynamic on defense against a wide variety of players. Here he rips small guard Ian Clark.

And now doing the same to 6-foot-8 big wing Tobias Harris.

That rip is from a game in which Bembry also guarded Ben Simmons quite ably. Beyond that, Bembry’s full season On/Off numbers are the type that begin to suggest that these highlight level plays are backed up by actual substantive ability on that side of the ball in many different phases.

Yes, one season is a small sample, but the play is backed up by video evidence going back to college. The biggest potential pitfall in using On/Off data is that Atlanta features a number of almost disastrous defenders relative to position. But when we see Trae Young and John Collins were among the players Bembry was most paired with, it becomes more doubtful that the totality of his positive defensive effect is from minutes distribution and backup effect.

That’s the top of 3-man combinations table, which features Collins-Young as Bembry’s most significant pairing. Here’s the 2-Man combinations table.

14) The question then is DeAndre Bembry’s offense. And there, Bembry’s profile is not quite as favorable as Frank’s. He’s a mediocre free throw shooter, and there’s nothing statistically in his NBA profile to suggest clear upside. However, Bembry does have some positive markers going back to college, namely a career that saw him make 104 unassisted 2s and 3s combined.

However, the most interesting feature of Bembry’s offense is that a creative team with the right roster personnel might find situations in which they don’t need to feature Bembry as a shooter due to his very real first step and very real explosion to go along with an ability to make decisions and passes on the move.

Indeed, Bembry averaged over 5.5 attempts at the rim per 36 minutes, despite only shooting 11.5 shots per 36. But I’m not speaking of Bembry as a pure dribble-driver so much as what happens if a team with a point guard that draws traps — let’s say Steph Curry, James Harden or Damian Lillard — can find a way to place Bembry into 4-on-3s in a court that is horizontally spaced.

I’d wager that any play Green can make in such a situation is a play Bembry could make as well. And for at least a handful of teams, that the ability to place Bembry in such actions can be a fallback option as a way to getting De’Andre on the court offensively if he doesn’t end up improving as a shooter.

Player 4: I Still Have Some Belief In Sindarius Thornwell

15) Sindarius Thornwell is also a potentially versatile defensive player, one whose foot speed, reactions, anticipation and strength are simply much better on the court than he might test off of it.

Unfortunately, Thornwell’s offensive skill level may not be able to carry him onto an NBA floor.

Neither is Thornwell the dribbler or passer that Bembry is, so if Thornwell is going to get time in high leverage minutes in the NBA, the 3-pt shot is going to have to be there. And right now, that’s a major question. It’s obvious the Clippers didn’t believe in it.

His shot is neither pretty nor does it have good rotation. Though Thornwell’s senior season does feature some potentially positive targeting information, with 43 unassisted makes from 2 and 3 combined, a solid percentage of 2-point jumpers made at 36 percent, as well as 40 percent overall from 3 and over 80 percent from the free throw stripe on a fair number of attempts.

What we saw Thornwell’s senior season was a real comfort from 15 feet and in.

As well as the confidence to shoot when he had his feet set. Here, we even get one off a pick-and-pop.

And if Miles Bridges is going to gets minutes at power forward defensively, there’s no reason Thornwell as a player with great strength for his size, couldn’t be doing the same.

The two contextual factors we might point to that might speak favorably for Thornwell are these. The best passer he’s played with is Lou Williams.

And that he’s new to the league and sometimes it can take time to adjust to the new distance of the NBA line. Regardless, Thornwell’s targeting information to this point of his career is, considering the totality of the profile, not worse than Jae Crowder’s was through his first two seasons in Dallas, and Crowder did eventually shoot well enough to become playable and even had one season in which he shot close to 40 percent from 3.

Thornwell is currently on a minimum contract with the Cavaliers, but given their roster, he’s probably viewed as the 14th or 15th man, and it seems likely he could be available at some point this season, either as a free agent or for cheap enough that a deal might make sense considering both risk and reward.

These On/Off defensive numbers from Thornwell’s rookie season are the type that are only generally possible considering how bad the team was offensively when he was on the court, or that his most paired player was Lou Williams, when the player in question has some talent. Of course, it could merely be a small sample quirk, but it’s also what the limited tape we have is telling us, and is very much in line with the player he was at South Carolina.

Player 5: Andrew Harrison Was Set Up To Fail, What If A Team Put Him In A Situation To Succeed?

16) Andrew Harrison is next. He’s another player like Ntilikina whose scoring profile has probably suffered so far, perhaps considerably, from being asked to play point guard when he has the offensive game of a shooting guard or small forward, a player that should be asked to be the third or fourth option.

For those who watched him in college, it shouldn’t be a question that placing this level of burden on Harrison’s scoring was placing him in a position to fail.

Less than 20 percent of his 2-point makes were assisted and 60-75 percent of his 3s. His game was dead before the word “Go” was said.

But there’s reason for hope. That reason is that despite the on-the-move numbers being slightly questionable, Harrison has indeed shot from both 3 and the foul line in college and the NBA G-League. In college, he shot 37 percent from 3 (188 attempts) and 78 percent from the free throw line. In the G-League, he shot 37% from 3 (204 attempts) and 78 percent from the line. And given the proper context, Harrison was allowed to shoot a plethora of shots off the catch.

It’s not just that his rhythm is fairly decent off the catch, but that again we see some potential in more complex actions a player simply doesn’t get a chance to shoot if possessing the ball. (Watch the first two clips.) The fact that Harrison can indeed occasionally hit pull-ups at lower levels should be an indicator for us, not that we should expect him to make them at high rates in the NBA since we’re talking about a player who can’t create separation on offense, but that there is upside beyond what he has shown in his off-the-catch game.

As for Harrison’s defense, he’s a little smaller than the players mentioned above. More of a true guard defender, but one who can slide and uses his 6-foot-5 frame well. This was basically always evident at Kentucky, and was arguably the strongest part of Harrison’s college game.

Then the G-League.

And it’s also what we saw at the beginning of Harrison’s tenure in Memphis.

Again, when you were as bad as Harrison was on offense, it’s often difficult for one’s team to perform better when the player in on the court on defense. And while I’d bet some of this here is indeed luck related (team worse at finishing possessions by rebounding and stealing the ball but insanely better at forcing turnovers is strange tandem of team stats), it’s difficult to imagine Harrison is not at least an average defender, if not slightly better.

To go along with some legitimate reasons to believe he’ll shoot at some point, Harrison seems a very strong buy low investment. And unlike the others listed above, while he is signed to a camp deal with the Warriors, it looks, right now at least, like it’ll be difficult for the Warriors to keep him due to being hard-capped. That means he should in short order be available without trading assets, for nothing more than a contract near the minimum and a roster spot.

Player 6: Barry Brown, Ace Situational Defender With Avenues To Shoot Given Context

17) Barry Brown is another player whose off-ball shooting probabilities we may underrate due to playing point guard in college. There are some real reasons to bet on Brown as a shooter given enough time and an off-ball context, though therein also lies the conflict. As a 6-foot-3 player, it’s difficult for many teams to conceptually fit him on the court as an off-ball player, and ideally a 3rd or 4th option. It’s easier for teams with a big wing handler like the Lakers, Clippers, Bucks or Sixers, but more difficult for many others. And even they might not buy Brown as a shooter.

After all, at first glance, the numbers are not super promising.

Low 3-point percentage throughout with a trajectory that does not seem to be pointed in the right direction, with Brown regressing a fair amount as a free throw shooter from 17-18 to 18-19.

However, if we consider the final two years in tandem versus the first two, we see several areas of profound improvement, with Brown’s 2-point shooting rising to an impressive 50.1 percent, even as his attempts rose, and with his free throw percentage jumping from around 62 percent in the first two seasons to about 75 percent in the last two. Indeed, the one area we see a drop is in both 3-point percentage and 3-point attempts per minute might also be a subtle arrow pointing to some latent shooting upside, since Brown moved from playing off of Justin Edwards, Wesley Iwundu and Kamau Stokes early in his career to sharing initiation duties with Stokes.

That’s especially true these last two seasons, with it being additionally important that Brown was KSU’s only player that could reliably create offense for himself off the dribble.

18) The 50 percent number from 2 is low-key an indicator of scoring possibility. It often suggests a player who can get to the rim or has reasonable or very good touch from mid-range, and in many cases both. That’s the case with Brown.

There aren’t a great many players who would profile as potentially plus NBA defenders and feature a season with 98 unassisted makes at the rim, to go along with 44 unassisted makes on jumpshots. He can get to the rim, yes.

However, it’s the unassisted jump shots which really separate Brown’s junior season from a player like Shaq Harrison, a similar prospect coming out of college in some regards (here mainly speaking about overall athleticism, suddenness, agility, easy rise and defensive ability) and one who has graded, by some metrics at least, to be among the league’s best guard defenders in spite of low rent offense.

4) Lowering the minutes restriction to 800, Shaquille Harrison was the top rated perimeter defender. Mitchell Robinson rated very highly as both an interior and perimeter defender. pic.twitter.com/tC4Htxm8Xl — Steve Shea (@SteveShea33) May 28, 2019

Here’s Shaq Harrison’s junior season hoop-math numbers.

With the shot data seen next to each other, the major differences between Barry Brown and Shaq Harrison as prospects become somewhat apparent, with Brown the obviously more proficient shooter and the player we’d be much more likely to place bets on shooting coming out of college. And that should be even more so the case after Brown’s senior season, despite the fact that his 3-point percentage, free throw percentage and True shooting percentage all dropped.

The key here is in the unassisted jumper profile, with Brown’s makes off the dribble jumping to 61 from 44 the season before. It’s a very solid number for a season, one that not only speaks potentially to shot difficulty but the ability to make them often enough.

It’s not too difficult to get from here to the efficiency upside case made for many handlers in moving off the ball.

19) If the case for Barry Brown rested on offensive potential, there perhaps wouldn’t be a huge case for Barry Brown. However, Brown is an example of player whose defensive potential is high enough that we should probably be searching for contexts in which his offensive game might play up, rather than trying to fit him into accepted schemes and formats as applied to smaller basketball players.

In regards to this defensive potential, the numbers are of course there. I’m talking about a season approaching 3.0 steals per 40 (his sophomore year in which he had 82 steals overall) and breaking the 60 steals number three times, as well as solid enough guard rebounding numbers, and this year featuring as perhaps the most important defender on a top 3 KenPom defense (88.3 rating). That’s not even to mention unreported events, turnovers forced by Brown greatly exceed steals as one, or the times in which Brown shunts the play to such an extent that he deters a shot entirely as another.

You’ll see that more than a few times as I clip out for you a fair number of Brown’s defensive possessions from the first time he faced Trae Young on January 16th, 2018. It was perhaps Trae Young’s worst game of his college career with 20 points on 21 shots, 2-10 shooting from 3 and only 4 free throw attempts to go along with 12 turnovers against only 6 assists.

We can’t say it was all Brown. After all, KSU is rightfully very focused on stopping Young and thus they threw bodies at him to help. But Brown this game had a fairly amazing performance. (At some point in the early clips, I think I missed a note, so all notes might not all align with the right plays. Sorry in advance. The film is the important thing. Watch. Make up your own mind.)

Play 1- Brown with perfect lock-and-trail defense on Young, then hounding Young after the catch and with the help of a trap forcing a turnover.

Play 2- Brown fights over a pick and forces a steal.

Play 3- Brown guards Trae Young initially well enough to take him out of the play entirely.

Play 4- Same as above, but the play ends in a steal.

Play 5- Trae Young gets shot happy from deep instead of going against Brown. Young misses a shot we know he can make, but still not a lot of air room.

Play 6- Brown clears a screen into a trap with the helping defender into recovery switch before a 3 can be hoisted. Then Brown feints a double. It’s a play that shows awareness of team concepts as much as anything else.

Play 7- Brown stays with Young in lock-and-trail off of out of bounds play. No airspace. Helps force a turnover on bad bounce pass.

Play 8- More man-on off-ball defense to on-ball dense. Deflection of a pass for a steal.

Play 9- Trae Young moves the defense and gets an assist under pressure.

Play 10- Brown gets screened in transition. Trae Young hits a 3 over the switch pick up.

Play 11- Brown not on Young. A show of off ball activity and awareness of distance between man and ball.

Play 12- Late getting over a screen. Ends up in an assist as Young stretches KSU’s defensive concept which has Brown tracking back to Young after help comes.

Play 13- Sticks Young. Young gets the assist as unnecessary help comes from short corner

Play 14- On Young’s hip, Young makes what looks like an unforced error. Kind of error an offensive player can make when the thought of the defense in his head.

Play 15-

Play 16- Brown gets ball stolen then steals the ball back. Missed layup puts Young into transition where he draws a foul.

Play 17- Young passes the ball out of a trap and then gets ball back and forces up an off-balance shot from distance. Short.

Play 18- Chest bump on semi-transition layup with help coming to help force the miss.

Play 19- Forced turnover on the drive.

Play 20- Gets Young to give up the ball. Out of the play. Loses him on the offensive glass. Young layup.

Play 21- Young with backdoor cut for layup and foul.

Play 22- Good hands to get the deflection on ball on the drive, but not enough to stop the dribble. Gives up on the play. Young misses makeable layup.

Play 23- Young gives up the ball. Good contest on the off-the-catch 3. Miss.

Play 24- Forces Young to kill dribble against baseline on drive. Little angle to make the pass. Deflection by KSU.

Play 25- Young wins for a floater.

Play 26- Help from a trap forces Young to kill advantage on screen win. Young doesn’t even hit iron on deep 3. Think Brown clearly in Young’s head here. Rushed attempt.

Play 27- More lock-and-trail to on-ball defense to killed Young possession.

Play 28- Young wins for a layup.

Play 29- Clears two screens. Young gets open look but feels Brown pressure from behind. Miss.

Play 30- Young wins with Nash type body extension on a drive.

Play 31- KSU throwing bodies at Young gets Young to pick up dribble in no man’s land. Turnover.

Play 32- More lock-and-trail. More bodies thrown at Young. Another surrendered play to watch what teammates do.

Play 33- Young assist to cutting man.

Play 34- Connected defense. Young gets angle for floater, but doesn’t anticipate help defender. Charge.

That’s a fair bit of tape from a single game against one of the NBA’s best up and coming players, indeed one who many NBA guys couldn’t remotely stay attached to. And while Brown isn’t 100 percent successful, we should hardly expect any player to be 100 percent successful when it comes to defending a player as talented as Trae Young. Yet, what we do see is a player physically talented enough and tenacious enough to greatly knock this talented offensive player off of his stride in such a way that I don’t believe it’s necessarily a stretch to ponder if Brown could step onto an average NBA team today even with much to learn and perhaps be one of the better defensive options versus small skittery point guards such as Young, Curry or Kemba Walker.

If that’s the case, the question of how to make it so Brown is playable on offense becomes a weighty one and one worth trying to answer. And if the answer to that question ultimately boils down to another —Brown’s jumpshot in an off-ball role — it’s perhaps worth giving him the context to see if Brown can answer it affirmatively. If Brown does prove proficient as a small defender, the reward here seems to outweigh the risk of rostering him, or at the very least giving Brown a tryout via an Exhibit-10, that it shouldn’t be a question of if Brown deserves a chance, but instead where.

20) Fred VanVleet, who was very important to the Raptors winning the title not just because of his shooting but because of his defense on Curry, is not as dissimilar from Brown as it might first appear. VanVleet was 6-foot point guard who went undrafted because most of the NBA believed he was below the athletic threshold for the NBA. Statistically, there were several very negative offensive indicators that doubled the report. Most specifically, VanVleet’s finishing, which plummeted to below 50 percent as a senior and his ability to create quality shots for himself (15.9 TSA per 40 with 52.3 TS% as a senior).

Yet, a funny thing happened on the way to the Raptors winning a title. Not only was it discovered that VanVleet’s strength and tenacious defense translated against smalls, but Nick Nurse and I believe Dwayne Casey before him, discovered that VanVleet’s dribble-pass-shoot skills et on offense, as he definitely has trouble winning at the point of attack, make him even better in the offensive shooting guard role playing off of Kyle Lowry rather than as a point guard

Indeed, VanVleet played somewhere near 60 percent of his playoff minutes in this shooting guard role alongside Kyle Lowry. And many of the big shots that he hit came precisely from off-ball catch-and-shoots on openings created by others in the Raptor offense.

So with VanVleet we get to the college point guard making a role change to a less demanding offensive position for slightly different reasons than for Brown, and yet if Brown is to be successful, his career is likely going to tell a similar story.

21) In general I believe we should begin to think about basketball, and teams are already beginning to do this to a great extent, not just as the value a group of individuals bring to a team (all in one metrics like RPM or BPM) but within the context of pairings and groupings of players that create context for each to be more valuable within the unit than they might be outside of it.

The Lowry-VanVleet pairing, which allows VanVleet to shift into an offensive 2-guard role, is one such pairing. It adds a lot of value to VanVleet’s offensive game. However, there it is also conditional. By that I mean that the game as whole must itself provide context that allows two small players like Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet to play next to each other without being a detriment to the defense. That happened in both the Finals and Conference Finals of the 2019 playoffs with Golden State and Milwaukee.

However, when Toronto played Philadelphia in the Conference Semifinals, this pairing couldn’t get on the floor because Philadelphia very often presented only one offensive player that presented itself as natural matchup for either Lowry or VanVleet, and that was JJ Redick. Thus, perhaps one of more than a few reasons why Toronto struggled more against the Sixers than against other teams is that one of its most valuable weapons with VanVleet in the shooting guard role was almost a non-starter versus Philadelphia.

This is an issue that could definitely face a small player like Barry Brown, pending the construction of the team he is on. In the NBA, very few 6-foot-3 players prove to have enough defensive versatility to keep their value as the players they guard get bigger, and if Brown is more like the rule than exception here, the minutes available to him in a series could be limited by the opponent. If the opponent is big enough, it’s possible no viable defensive matchup will present itself that allows both he and the team’s point guard to get on the floor at the same time.

It’s an issue to consider, but it seems far from a deal-breaker.

Player 7-Horace Spencer, The Small Ball Center Who Can Potentially D Big Wings

22) That’s also an issue for our next class of players: the potential wing stoppers/defenders with dunker skills. Andre Roberson is the headliner here. And I’ve also spent a fair amount of time in the past talking about both Josh Huestis, who fits in this category so long as he doesn’t have a jumper, and Ismael Sanogo. However, the player I want to talk about here is Horace Spencer, who is easy to overlook because he was one of four players in Auburn’s four/five rotation and one who didn’t get many minutes.

At 6-foot-8 and 225 pounds with somewhere around a 7-foot wingspan, the center Spencer perhaps most resembles in terms of size is Jordan Bell (6-foot-8, 225, 6-foot-11 wingspan). And Bell, despite the fact that Spencer is stronger and more fluid as a mover, probably is the best statistical comparison as well.

Here’s Spencer’s per 40s.

And here’s Bell’s.

Bell’s a better passer, and it seems like a better finisher on the surface. But with both profiles we see, at least until Bell’s junior year, lower than expected minutes for a player whose defense is dominant and low TSA totals that suggest, accurately, limited skills as offensive players. Comparable rebounding totals. Fairly astounding rim protection numbers as freshmen, both at or slightly over 4.5 blocks per 40, before developing more perimeter responsibility as defenders.

Another useful name to look at might be Montrezl Harrell as a strong undersized four/five in college who played excellent defense, and whose athleticism, less stiff than Bell’s, in some ways has more in common with Spencer.

23) An interesting aspect of Spencer’s profile that makes it especially hard to gauge him statistically is the nature of Auburn’s four/five rotation with he, Chuma Okeke, Anfernee McLemore and Austin Wiley splitting most of the available minutes. That actually plays with Spencer’s statistical profile and on-court effect to quite an extent. This is something we can see to an extent if we look at the 2017-18 season when Wiley was suspended, and McLemore, at the end of the season, injured.

Spencer’s numbers are at their best this season perhaps for this reason. And indeed, the last seven games of the season, when McLemore was out, Spencer’s per 40 numbers jump to 9.8 2PA, 5.2 FTA, 12.8 points, 11.4 TRB, 3.8 AST, 2.6 TO, 2 STL and 3.8 BLK. And that’s against an SEC and NCAA Tournament schedule.

Those numbers are good enough that we haven’t seen their like over a full season in the last ten years. Which is not to say we haven’t seen them. They are Bo Outlaw numbers.

And while Outlaw may have been skilled in some ways that Spencer is not, I think these players do start to spin a fairly accurate tale about what we can expect from Horace Spencer’s offensive game. Which is to say that he’s almost certainly destined for the dunker role.

23) Covering the bases, we should just take a quick look at the advanced statistics before getting into Spencer’s uniqueness and why I’m covering him in this piece.

The first thing you might notice is how much better Spencer’s efficiency as a scorer is in his junior season than in his overall career. If we investigate further, we can see why in the hoop-math data.

Note Spencer’s 78 percent finishing at the rim and 72.1 percent free throw, both high watermarks for him. Though if we look further, we can see also an alarmingly high percentage of Spencer’s shots come in the mid-range (he’s decently proficient) and those are areas of the floor that an NBA team’s system would largely restrict Spencer shooting from. Meaning that if the other seasons display similarly alarming shot distribution tendencies (they do, though sometimes in other ways), we can expect perhaps some efficiency upside.

Yet, that’s only the first thing we notice. The next we notice is that Spencer’s advanced defensive numbers are exceptional all around in his junior season. 22% DRB%. 3.5% STL%. 8.5% BLK%. A 9.2 DBPM. Since advanced stats have been kept on Sports-Reference, that’s only been done by three players with 25 assists or more in a season. Justin Jackson and Nerlens Noel are the other two.

That’s good company, and it should point to the fact that Horace Spencer is being underrated perhaps because he looks stranger as a prospect than he really is, due to minutes allocation, and perhaps due to high fouls. (9.5 fouls per 100 possessions is a high rate, but Kevon Looney, moved to center, fouls at a similar rate in the pros, and he’s not the only successful player to carry such a high rate.) Or perhaps because we’ve gone really crazy about the idea that every player needs to shoot.

24) Now, I’ll try to show you what I like about Spencer and why I believe he can play in the NBA, and indeed have a potentially somewhat unique place. Like the Barry Brown-Trae Young game, I will do the same for Horace Spencer’s possessions on Zion Williamson, which should enlighten us not only to Spencer’s strength, agility and movement skills, but also to his fight as a defensive player.

Play 1- At first glance, that doesn’t look like a great possession. It ends with Williamson getting great position and scoring a bunny. But Zion is considered a once in a generation prospect for a reason. He’s going to win a fair amount of the time, and he’s going to make it look easy. On the other hand, look how hard Williamson has to work versus Spencer to get there. Those five seconds it takes to make the feed into the post are four more than it would take versus most college players and that’s with an entirely uncontested entry from Bolden. In the NBA, in which a half court possession might sometimes begin with 16-18 seconds left on the shot clock, those ticks might be (and often are) enough to dissuade the offensive team from pursuing the post action entirely.

Play 2- This looks like a routine boxout, but when you watched this game and saw how easily Williamson was able to discard Okeke on rebounding actions which is really the reason Spencer is matched up with Zion in the first place, it’s something to note.

Play 3- Another Zion possession in which Duke forgets about Zion completely.

Play 4- This play is the reason why most people will know who Horace Spencer is. The amazing thing here, and one that should alert us to potential higher-level athletic qualities from Spencer in terms of strength and balance, is that it’s Zion and not he who’s dropped after this collision.

Play 5- And here, finally some perimeter defense on Zion, with a successful slide into help that causes Zion to pick up his dribble.

Play 6- On this one Zion decides not to attack Spencer head on, then is forced wide and right on a drive and into a horrible miss.

Play 7- Lastly, another boxout of Zion, though this one on a free throw. Mike Gribanov contends he didn’t see a single player play Zion better than Horace Spencer last season. It’s only a few possessions, but I’m relatively certain I agree.

Play 8- That’s not to say the game was all good. Spencer did give way too much space to Cam Reddish at one point. But there was certainly a lot more good than bad.

Play 9- Some defense on RJ Barrett for good measure.

Play 10- This time bothering Barrett out of a zone look, with some help from Wiley who really causes the miss.

Play 11- A steal.

Play 12- Another, though I believe this one was credited to Okeke.

Play 13- A non boxscore play that shows comfort with perimeter concepts as Spencer here helps cut off a drive, while still being athletic enough to get a sound contest on a corner 3.

25) The reason I’ve clipped out these plays is because Zion is pretty much the prototypical size/speed/power/agility package for a big player with handling skill. If a defender can affect him from a perimeter position, it stands to reason he might be able to affect other big wings as well. Of course, a player like Kawhi, who has incredible handling to go along with his size and athletic gifts, presents other challenges, but Kawhi is also fairly unique with respect to the level of his dribbling brilliance and far from the only big wing handler in the league.

I don’t know for sure Spencer will be able to affect them, but I do know he’s shown qualities that demonstrate, given the chance, he may be able to do so. And given how few players in the league we could even give that hope to, it’s a chance that really warrants a look, especially given the fact that there are already at least a few undersized centers who present themselves mostly as screeners, finishers and putback artists on offense. So there’s an already paved street that presents some possibility for a player like Spencer should he be met with opportunity.

Conclusion

There’s really not much more to say, and even if there was, I’ve now written a piece that is Kaiser-length, almost no one will be left to read it. However, I don’t believe we spent enough time last season investigating just how the stacking of tall, athletic skilled players, in ways we’ve rarely seen, was a serious advantage for Toronto. Or that the Lowry-VanVleet unit that played so many highly effective minutes in Toronto’s last two series itself is another form of stacking.

And while I don’t necessary believe we’re seeing Toronto’s influence this season in regards how many teams have developed stacked or overloaded rosters that will be difficult to defend in part precisely because of this stacking, it’s now the NBA’s reality. It’s a reality that more likely than not will have a part to play in who eventually becomes champion. More than that, as almost all the players in question are signed for several seasons beyond this one, it doesn’t seem that this reality is likely to change anytime soon. And thus, how teams choose to address it on defense will be of great importance. Of course, that begins with the roster, with the players available to address the problem.

Only one, Andre Iguodala, has skills which make him an absolute no brainer in this regard. All the others are risks who, given what it will likely take to acquire them, seem likely to be worth taking a chance on given the potential reward. The one factor not to be overlooked, especially with Iguodala, but also with a player like Ntilikina, is that it’s not just about potentially acquiring the player. It’s also about creating a pathway in which one also, to a certainty, will not have to face him. After all, we’ve seen dominant important defensive performances alter which team we call champion. And even if it’s not obvious, as games are often decided by a possession or two or three, a player who is just a few possessions better per game on defense than those currently on the roster can potentially have quite the positive effect on a series outcome, so long as they can find a place to play on offense.