Sir'Dom Pointer
Hall-of-Famer
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2016
- Messages
- 21,628
- Reaction score
- 31,649
- Points
- 148
You ignored my point entirely and then finished by saying it didn't make sense to you. I'm not talking about Zizic and Nance, but you seem obsessed with a simple point: Zizic doesn't have to change very much, but Nance does. I disagree.
In my opinion, Nance is much further along and is much closer to a modern NBA big man than Zizic at this point.
They both need to extend their range, but Nance can guard 1-5.
Are you happy now? We'll discuss this on your terms.
Can Nance take advantage of a switch? Can he post up? Can Nance finish at an elite level among the trees? unless he gets a lob pass on occasion which is much tougher against starting Cs than against PFs or Backups. Nance can not be a high volume scorer without developing his range...he will just not have a ton of scoring opportunities. Defenders will continue to bump him on rolls and tall defenders will continue to block his lobbing radius. He needs to learn how to attack in the short roll. He already showed willingness and passing ability @ short roll, so his next step is to be able to attack efficiently as a scorer.
Now, another reason why I want him to develop range is because I see his potential as someone who is able to punish closeouts from behind the 3pt line either as a finisher or as a passer.
Defensively, he will get bullied against top tier Centers.
Nance can guard 1-5 in theory, but as far as limiting their shooting efficiency he has been sub par. Where was his switching ability in the finals? he got cooked. Nance gets his value on D from his ability to generate steals and rebound the ball. Sure he can switch as well, but he isn't going to shut down alone or limit them to their below average efficiency.
"Modern NBA big" is someone that can switch 1-5, protect the rim and shoot the 3 right? So Nance does not switch effectively 1-5 yet, he does not protect the rim all that well because he lacks size and he does not shoot 3's yet. So he may be further a long, but what does it matter if he doesn't do any of those 3 things very well?
Why are we chasing this modern NBA big man archetype? is that a rule that I missed? To be able to switch, you also need your PG defender to be able to rebound the ball and battle the post and limit post scoring efficiency. Cavs got cooked on post ups when switched, so unless you think Sexton is the Modern PG defender, A big being able to switch is only half of the puzzle.
So for me, I don't care if a big is able to switch or not if your whole team isn't equipped for it. What I care about is how much more efficient this player/this team is on offense compared to the other team's offense. For Zizic, a good coach should be able to find a scheme that fits him well because he got the tools to be good on D on certain schemes. And I still think he can become decent as a switch defender. He is got the length that Nance simply does not have to bother shooters.
This wasn't even our argument to begin with...all I argued was that there is a difference between centers and power forwards in the NBA today on teams. @CleveRocks had mentioned Davis; And sure, there are players that can play both positions and really don't have a position, but that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about front court pairings and the differences between them on the very same team.
You can view Davis as a C/PF, but who he was paired with had very clear position. Mirotic was a PF and Cousins was a Center. There is always one player who has to adjust that fits a position better because of the difference in functionality or limitation.