Everything Valanciunas

[iblastoff]

I'd say it would be a long stretch. JV is playing for the 2nd seed in the East, and this team has enjoyed huge success with JV as the starting C for the last few years. Monroe in Milwaukee is not the same.

i dunno. i feel like we'd probably still be 2nd in the east even without JV anyway.

[LJ2]

The odd thing is that JV , to me at least, looked much more mobile (and effective) late last season and the playoffs. This started around the same time he supposedly changed his diet.

I'm not sure how playing professional sports affects it, but I know when I hit my mid 20's I started to put on a lot more weight without changing my diet. Metabolism slows down a bit, muscle maturity etc.. Could be genetics playing a role.

[rocwell]

i dunno. i feel like we'd probably still be 2nd in the east even without JV anyway.

I guess... but take out Kyle and we're done. .500 team imo

[lewro]

would it be a stretch to say that if the raptors don't find a better fit for JV's role, he could go the way of the likes of greg monroe? who went from a pretty solid starting center to being benched and barely playing anymore in milwaukee, just due to clash in style of play.

It hasnt got there yet but it is the reason I asked about his market value in the trade chatter thread. Vuc, nurkic and monroe have weak markets. Kanter became a late 1st, 2nd and parts. Now he's sort of 6th man role instead of a D big like Adams. Detroit did well to get a borderline allstar stuck on the bench out of it. That's an upgrade for them. If we do trade jv then I'd hope for a 3 team deal in which we got something like a healthy favors in return.
It's not that bad atm but if he's just used as a screener/rebounder than he's not worth 5th pick imo. I think he needs to be in a grizzly system with a Conley type but there aren't a lot of situations like that and grizzlies have gasol locked up.

[slaw]

I'm not sure how playing professional sports affects it, but I know when I hit my mid 20's I started to put on a lot more weight without changing my diet. Metabolism slows down a bit, muscle maturity etc.. Could be genetics playing a role.

It's all down hill after 25.

Now, with the right diet, training and, most importantly, excellent genes, you can stay healthy and looking good well into life. That and the drugs. Mostly the genes. And then also mostly the drugs. The drugs work better if you have good genes.

[McRealistic]

i dunno. i feel like we'd probably still be 2nd in the east even without JV anyway.

I agree with you but with JV playing at high level ( 18 pts, 12 rebound) and active on defence, we are at least competitive with Cavs. Without JV, We have no chance.

Cavs is in a ALL IN MODE now. They have spent so much money. The ONLY WAY we can catch up with them is for DC and JV playing like we are hoping and then MU get us a real PF.

We need to decide if we are serious about competing with the Cavs or our goal is East Final again.

[Superjudge]

Oh wait, is he a stiff again?

[rocwell]

Oh wait, is he a stiff again?

New phone, who dis?

[Chr1s1anL]

I've been saying for a couple years that JV's inability to guard the perimeter would challenge him. JV is still worth keeping though. In the playoffs it's a halfcourt game most of the time. JV benefits from that. It's when you get him in space, its a bucket.

Still JV has to pick it up at protecting the rim. He is better than what he is showing right now. I think he is the only big on the team allowing over 50 percent at the rim.

Sent from my LG-H831 using Tapatalk

[GOLDBLUM]

So funny. A few weeks ago everyone, myself included, were calling for Patterson, Cojo, Ross and Carroll to be shipped off to the burying grounds. "Give us pennies on the dollar - just take them away!" Since then, short of the Cavs game, they've been lights out. Patterson with, what was it somebody said? 'the best true shooting percentage in the league during that time' or something like that? Sorry, not a stats guy.

I had a disturbing and unpleasant parallel watching JV last game, thought he was a dead-ringer for Greg Ostertag, hair and everything. (Not sure if that's an outdated reference for some.) JV looks so slow and lumbering right now. He's struggling. But come on, we all saw what JV was capable of in the post-season last year. And sure, yes, those were favourable match-ups, but this guy didn't just forget how to play basketball. Seeing these tweets from Lewenberg like 'his future may not be here.' Even his first game of the year this year he looked incredible right? He's injured himself since then, he's also no doubt been frustrated at his usage. He's playing badly. Really badly. And yes, he'll always have trouble guarding the perimeter, which of course gets particularly exposed against the undersized Cavs. But I'm gonna hold out hope that JV is still gonna grow to be the player we hope for him to become. Doesn't look much like it right now but dude's got heart. He'll never be KAT or AD, nope, but he's ours and he can ball.
Come on back JV - Let's go!

[Majesiu]

Still JV has to pick it up at protecting the rim. He is better than what he is showing right now. I think he is the only big on the team allowing over 50 percent at the rim.

He contests a lot at the rim (7th most in the league), but he is also bad at it (6th worst in the league).

[DanH]

Defensive FG% at the rim is mostly noise. He's certainly not stellar at it, he's no shot blocker, but the ranking of DFG% at the rim is basically random year to year except for the very elites, because it is mostly luck - players hitting tough shots or missing easy ones happens all the time and the sampling is not large enough defensively for it to wash out. Nevermind system impacts.

In any case, he defends 8.4 shots at the rim per game. He forces opponents to shoot 53.5% at the rim when he contests there. That's roughly 9 points on 8.4 shots per game. The truly elite tend to float closer to 40% (Gobert and Whiteside are at 42% and 43% this year), and the worst in the league are close to 60% so even if JV's number was in the more average range (48%, to be optimistic - that's where Nogueira sits), that would mean 8.1 points per game on those 8.4 shots. Less than 1 PPG difference. If that moved them 1 point per 100 possessions better defensively, they would move from 15th in the league to... 15th in the league.

I absolutely think JV has areas to improve defensively, and protecting the rim is indeed one of those areas. But his DFG% at the rim is not proof of that - the stat is too volatile and full of noise to really mean anything outside of the most extreme outliers, and is such a small impact number in the grand scheme of things that it's not describing any real change to the team's defence. In the grand scheme he needs to improve, and probably will with age, but there are other areas - specifically his ability to predict rotations in advance and get there a half step earlier, especially in PnR coverage - that are far more pressing than his rim protection.

[special1]

He contests a lot at the rim (7th most in the league), but he is also bad at it (6th worst in the league).

Jakob Poetl is 7th best on the list! Maybe the fix to our lacklustre defense is already on the roster. Go figure!

[Scraptor]

Defensive FG% at the rim is mostly noise. He's certainly not stellar at it, he's no shot blocker, but the ranking of DFG% at the rim is basically random year to year except for the very elites, because it is mostly luck - players hitting tough shots or missing easy ones happens all the time and the sampling is not large enough defensively for it to wash out. Nevermind system impacts.

In any case, he defends 8.4 shots at the rim per game. He forces opponents to shoot 53.5% at the rim when he contests there. That's roughly 9 points on 8.4 shots per game. The truly elite tend to float closer to 40% (Gobert and Whiteside are at 42% and 43% this year), and the worst in the league are close to 60% so even if JV's number was in the more average range (48%, to be optimistic - that's where Nogueira sits), that would mean 8.1 points per game on those 8.4 shots. Less than 1 PPG difference. If that moved them 1 point per 100 possessions better defensively, they would move from 15th in the league to... 15th in the league.

I absolutely think JV has areas to improve defensively, and protecting the rim is indeed one of those areas. But his DFG% at the rim is not proof of that - the stat is too volatile and full of noise to really mean anything outside of the most extreme outliers, and is such a small impact number in the grand scheme of things that it's not describing any real change to the team's defence. In the grand scheme he needs to improve, and probably will with age, but there are other areas - specifically his ability to predict rotations in advance and get there a half step earlier, especially in PnR coverage - that are far more pressing than his rim protection.

I would argue that the DFG% is a symptom of his (in)ability to predict rotations and get there a half step earlier. I also think that rim protection goes beyond what can be quantified in these stats; it can warp the opposition's entire offense and discourage them from driving as much, instead settling for lower % jumpers.

The bigger question is whether what is limiting his PnR defense is athletic mobility or BBIQ. Marc Gasol is not super mobile but always knows where to be. That said, he has played with excellent perimeter defenders who maybe give him the extra half second needed to make up for his lesser mobility.

It's a weird symbiotic issue. But from this article it sounds to me like the staff is admitting that they're not going to wait around much longer.

"Our offence isn't really the problem against [Cleveland]," Nurse rightly pointed out. "So we think, well, can we play other guys and still have the same efficiency [on offence] and hopefully improve - even if it's by [a little bit] - at the defensive end because we can do some more switching or whatever?"

And the last line here suggests JV's frustration isn't just our imagination.

"We're trying to figure out while the game's going on what's going to give us the best chance to win," said assistant coach Nick Nurse. "And sometimes it means it's not him, sometimes it means it's not DeMarre Carroll, sometimes it means it's not Cory Joseph, it's not Terrence Ross. Whoever it is, everybody goes through it - almost everybody - but he wants to be out there and he takes that personally sometimes."

http://www.tsn.ca/raptors-still-figu...-fits-1.626407

[lewro]

Jakob Poetl is 7th best on the list! Maybe the fix to our lacklustre defense is already on the roster. Go figure!

Yeah, I got a lot hope that yak can be a great blend of skills to fit our needs long term at that position.