Everything VanVleet

[slaw]

His assist to turnover ratio is making José blush

He can’t play PG. He is a catch and shoot guy. Any other thing he does is not maximizing his usage or something.

[Zak24gege]

I think Lowrys still going to get in. And we have never got 3 all stars. Kemba, Brogdon, Simmons & Lowry should be the ones who get in for sure. Kyrie might miss more time then we think with his injury but if he comes back he will get in on name alone. So that leave one spot, between Dinwiddie, Beal, Bledsoe,Trae and Fred. One of those guys will make it, 2 if Kyrie is out for a long period of time.

Other than Brogdon, does Indiana have any all-star candidates? Oladipo is due back soon, however, given how much time he has missed he may take a while to get his game back.

[Jclaw]

He can’t play PG. He is a catch and shoot guy. Any other thing he does is not maximizing his usage or something.

This may have preemptively answered my question but....are we now comfortable saying FVV, assuming we can sign him, can be our future starting point guard? 40/40/(almost) 90 splits. His assists per game put him at 8th in the league. Clearly a good character guy. I’ll put Slaw down for a no. Anyone else?

[planetmars]

Playing on a team with Lowry was the best thing that ever happened to Fred. They play very similarly. Kyle is the better player but he's also like 8 years older. Fred has earned a new contract with the Raptors, and I think Masai will give it to him.

Fred's best quality is defense. He's a ball hawk. Despite being 6'0 or whatever he is.. it's the on ball defense that makes him a keeper. Finding a 2-way PG in this league is really, really hard.

My biggest worry with this franchise was finding a Kyle replacement. And Fred is that. He may never reach Kyle's peak, but I don't think he has to. Kyle needed to prop up a team that had DeMar on it.

We have a foundation now that we didn't have when Kyle was at his peak. Fred gets to play with Siakam and OG and TD now. And anyone else that fits that mold of hyper-defensive players that love to run (like RHJ, Norm, etc). So even if Fred won't have the impact Kyle had, it's not really required. Especially if Masai can pull off a big signing in a couple of years. I mean even if strikes out on Giannis but gets us a Dipo, Beal or Gobert, we'll be kicking ass for a long, long time.

[DanH]

His assist to turnover ratio is making José blush

Well, hold up, Freddy's been great not turning the ball over but his AST/TOV ratio is just under 3, a pretty standard PG number. Jose racked up a few in the 4.5 range when he was here. But Jose is not a fair bar.

Fred is still a far more dangerous weapon off the ball, but his progress towards being functional on the ball in the half court is very promising. Still too often finds himself trapped at the rim, or bailing on actions that lead nowhere with little time left on the clock, but there is progress, for sure. It's why he still can't carry a bench unit himself. But playing off a star or ball dominant player like Pascal he's very good.

[Jclaw]

Well, hold up, Freddy's been great not turning the ball over but his AST/TOV ratio is just under 3, a pretty standard PG number. Jose racked up a few in the 4.5 range when he was here. But Jose is not a fair bar.
.

Full disclosure...my comment was steeped in recency bias based on his one 11 assist no turnover game 😉

[slaw]

This may have preemptively answered my question but....are we now comfortable saying FVV, assuming we can sign him, can be our future starting point guard? 40/40/(almost) 90 splits. His assists per game put him at 8th in the league. Clearly a good character guy. I’ll put Slaw down for a no. Anyone else?

Oh, sarcasm doesn't work on the internets, I forgot. He can absolutely play PG and he can absolutely be the starting PG when Lowry is done (or steps back), which is what the last two years have been about: having him expand and explore his game so that he can grow beyond being a catch and shoot guy. It's almost like there was a plan or something..... Just like with OG, who has been mostly a spacer, you can see they are slowly having him handle the ball more and get more comfortable off the dribble, etc. Davis is another current example of a guy who they are forcing out of his comfort zone by making him handle the ball more as a PG than his game would suggest.

You have to force players into uncomfortable positions to grow their games even if that means you aren't exclusively using their best skills in the here and now.

[golden]

Oh, sarcasm doesn't work on the internets, I forgot. He can absolutely play PG and he can absolutely be the starting PG when Lowry is done (or steps back), which is what the last two years have been about: having him expand and explore his game so that he can grow beyond being a catch and shoot guy. It's almost like there was a plan or something..... Just like with OG, who has been mostly a spacer, you can see they are slowly having him handle the ball more and get more comfortable off the dribble, etc. Davis is another current example of a guy who they are forcing out of his comfort zone by making him handle the ball more as a PG than his game would suggest.

You have to force players into uncomfortable positions to grow their games even if that means you aren't exclusively using their best skills in the here and now.

That's 100% the difference between Nick Nurse and Dwane Casey. Nurse wants every single player on the roster to be able to dribble, shoot the 3, and pass and make smart decisions on the fly. It's crazy how it doesn't even look strange these days to see Chris Boucher or Dewan Hernandez grab the defensive rebound and lead the break up the floor in transition.

In theory, that makes your team difficult to scheme against in the playoffs, puts tremendous pressure on the defense and increases your roster's overall talent level. To back that up, Nurse is willing to punt a few regular season games in order to develop those skills, and then he gradually reigns it back in as the games get more important. With a chip in his pocket, Nurse also appears emboldened this year to publicly call out his players for lack of effort on defense.

In contrast, Casey's philosophy was to "Ride or Die" with 2 guys baiting fouls on offense, allowing them to float on defense and telling everybody else to "stay in their lane". If DeRozan had come in as a rookie under Nurse, I'm pretty sure he'd be a much different player today.

[DanH]

I don't think anyone minds players being given free rein to expand their games in spurts, or when it would be most helpful. For example, if Fred is playing with a bench unit, he should be creating as much offence as possible, to stretch those skills and also because they actually need him to. If Fred is running the offence for possessions on end while Siakam sits in the corner, that's a much less advantageous situation in which to let Fred try more of that.

Certainly down the stretch of games when it's winning time it is nice when they slot players into the right roles. Which has been happening at a decent clip of late, I've enjoyed that.

[golden]

I don't think anyone minds players being given free rein to expand their games in spurts, or when it would be most helpful. For example, if Fred is playing with a bench unit, he should be creating as much offence as possible, to stretch those skills and also because they actually need him to. If Fred is running the offence for possessions on end while Siakam sits in the corner, that's a much less advantageous situation in which to let Fred try more of that.

Certainly down the stretch of games when it's winning time it is nice when they slot players into the right roles. Which has been happening at a decent clip of late, I've enjoyed that.

I don't have the numbers, but I would guess that Fred drops off significantly when he's separated from Siakam and other starters. From the eye-test, Fred + Bench (without Pascal) doesn't seem all that effective.

[DanH]

I don't have the numbers, but I would guess that Fred drops off significantly when he's separated from Siakam and other starters. From the eye-test, Fred + Bench (without Pascal) doesn't seem all that effective.

It's a disaster, specifically because Fred is not good at that sort of thing. But that's the place to try it, because who else is worth trying in that role? Norm is no good as the primary creator. Should go a little better with Serge at least there as a scorer outlet for Fred to work with. Obviously the ideal is Lowry comes back and you can stagger him and Pascal, but it was good to give Fred that run while the two were out.

The defence is almost the same whether Fred is playing with Siakam or without him. But the offence falls off a cliff by 20 points per 100 possessions when Fred plays without Pascal in a 116 minute sample (93 vs 113 ORTG). When he's on the court with Pascal, he carries a reasonable 21% usage rate and a 57 TS%. Without Pascal he slides into that primary role more often and jumps to 24% usage (with his AST% jumping by 8% as well, so a total usage increase on the order of 10%), and his TS% drops to 51% while his turnover rate jumps from 8% to 13%.

Yes, it's just the effect of playing with the bench. But when Pascal plays with the bench, you don't see the same problems, because he's supposed to be creating the offence for players around him, while Fred is really primed as a secondary guy. Using Fred as the proxy for the starters (like we used Pascal as the proxy for them for Fred above), Pascal actually sees the team put up a higher ORTG away from Fred, along with a better DRTG, Pascal sees a usage spike (28 to 32%, AST% about the same), and although Pascal also sees an efficiency dip (58 to 52 TS%), his turnover rate drops and the offence is still clicking around him, because the bench guys can be part of a functional offence if someone is running it effectively.

[golden]

It's a disaster, specifically because Fred is not good at that sort of thing. But that's the place to try it, because who else is worth trying in that role? Norm is no good as the primary creator. Should go a little better with Serge at least there as a scorer outlet for Fred to work with. Obviously the ideal is Lowry comes back and you can stagger him and Pascal, but it was good to give Fred that run while the two were out.

The defence is almost the same whether Fred is playing with Siakam or without him. But the offence falls off a cliff by 20 points per 100 possessions when Fred plays without Pascal in a 116 minute sample (93 vs 113 ORTG). When he's on the court with Pascal, he carries a reasonable 21% usage rate and a 57 TS%. Without Pascal he slides into that primary role more often and jumps to 24% usage (with his AST% jumping by 8% as well, so a total usage increase on the order of 10%), and his TS% drops to 51% while his turnover rate jumps from 8% to 13%.

Yes, it's just the effect of playing with the bench. But when Pascal plays with the bench, you don't see the same problems, because he's supposed to be creating the offence for players around him, while Fred is really primed as a secondary guy. Using Fred as the proxy for the starters (like we used Pascal as the proxy for them for Fred above), Pascal actually sees the team put up a higher ORTG away from Fred, along with a better DRTG, Pascal sees a usage spike (28 to 32%, AST% about the same), and although Pascal also sees an efficiency dip (58 to 52 TS%), his turnover rate drops and the offence is still clicking around him, because the bench guys can be part of a functional offence if someone is running it effectively.

And this is why I'm still skeptical when people say that FVV can replace Lowry. For years, Lowry has the had the effect of elevating role players, which raises the level of the whole team. Pascal seems to have inherited that ceiling raising gene from Lowry and Fred benefits from that now. Even going back to the vaunted bench mob of 2017-18, Fred hasn't shown an ability to be effective as a PG/creator without Pascal and/or without an equal or better ball-handler beside him.

God help us if Pascal gets injured for any extended length of time.

[inthepaint]

This may have preemptively answered my question but....are we now comfortable saying FVV, assuming we can sign him, can be our future starting point guard? 40/40/(almost) 90 splits. His assists per game put him at 8th in the league. Clearly a good character guy. I’ll put Slaw down for a no. Anyone else?

I think slaw was being sarcastic

[slaw]

I don't have the numbers, but I would guess that Fred drops off significantly when he's separated from Siakam and other starters. From the eye-test, Fred + Bench (without Pascal) doesn't seem all that effective.

It's almost like Siakam is a #1 option and budding superstar and FVV is a solid, complimentary guard......

[slaw]

I don't think anyone minds players being given free rein to expand their games in spurts, or when it would be most helpful. For example, if Fred is playing with a bench unit, he should be creating as much offence as possible, to stretch those skills and also because they actually need him to. If Fred is running the offence for possessions on end while Siakam sits in the corner, that's a much less advantageous situation in which to let Fred try more of that.

Certainly down the stretch of games when it's winning time it is nice when they slot players into the right roles. Which has been happening at a decent clip of late, I've enjoyed that.

Not everything is about immediate returns. Each instance in a basketball game is not an isolated event....