Non-stars who must step up
AP Photo/Tony GutierrezNow that Shawn Marion and LeBron James are teammates, it\'s Marion who must step up.
When we rolled out
Real Plus-Minus last year at ESPN, I quickly realized that the stars of the system weren\'t the usual super-celebs we all know about, but the glue guys we\'ve always known are important, but never have quite been able to quantify. Of course year-in, year-out RPM leaderboards are dominated by the one-name guys. But sprinkled among all those media darlings were some less-known performers, like
Andre Iguodala,
Amir Johnson,
Anderson Varejao,
Nick Collison and
DeMarre Carroll.
Players like these make a major impact on the floor by contributing in ways other than scoring, which is typically the category that earns the huge contracts and endorsement deals. Contending teams need role players who effectively fill the gaps left by cornerstone players, and the better a player is at his specialty, the more it\'s going to help that team.
With that in mind, let\'s look at three role players from contending teams who won\'t be the subject of many preseason previews, but will have a major impact in their projected role.
Shawn Marion | SF| Cleveland Cavaliers
In a sense, the profile of the new Cavaliers seems so complete, to cite the areas in which they could be better is an exercise in constructing the perfect team. The Cavs project to have a historically good offense that tops the forecasts in shooting and offensive rebounding, while ranking in the top five in drawing fouls and protecting the basketball. You don\'t get much more complete than that. The concerns, if you want to call them that, are on the other end, which is where Marion comes in.
Cleveland figures to struggle in limiting opposing field goal percentage. One schematic method for offsetting that shortcoming is to play pressure defense and force turnovers. Right now, we don\'t really know what sort of defensive plan new coach Dave Blatt is going to roll out. However on paper, Cleveland doesn\'t appear to have a lot steals on its roster, and with Varejao in the middle, the Cavs don\'t figure to get a lot of blocks, either.
Meanwhile, the base offense will be distributing as many as 80 percent of its possessions among
LeBron James,
Kevin Love and
Kyrie Irving when they\'re on the floor, and somehow must work in
Dion Waiters as well. So whoever plays with those guys is going to need catch-and-shoot skills. By the way, the Cavs could also use a stalwart perimeter defender to keep James from burning too much energy on defense.
The only player on the roster with the skill set to address all of these needs at the same time is Marion. His ability to guard most positions on the floor capably will be invaluable to Blatt. He ranks third among all active players in steals and is 10th in blocks. No, he\'s not a rim protector, but every little bit helps. As a catch-and-shooter, Marion is far from elite, but he ranked in the 68th percentile in catch-and-shoot situations last season, per Synergy Sports Technologies, and even with that all-time funky form, he shot right around the league average from deep.
He takes a lot of his 3s from the corners and the past two seasons, he has hit 34 and 35 percent, respectively. That\'s not great, but given the rest of his skills, it\'s playable, and literally, all Cleveland needs Marion to do on offense is dunk the ball in transition and stand in the corner in half-court sets. The combined versatility of Marion and James will allow Blatt to throw out some awfully interesting big lineups.
