I saw this posted about Duncan on a Heat site this morning. He was quoted with all the things you would hope him to say about starting or coming off the bench, but these are pretty wild splits…
The numbers are pretty eye-opening: in Robinson’s 24 starts, Miami is 18-6 and +149 in his 782 minutes on the court. He has averaged 16.3 PPG, 3.2 RPG and 4.0 APG on .487/.456/.841 shooting in those 24 appearances (32.6 MPG).
Conversely, in the 32 games with Robinson coming off the bench, the Heat are 15-17 and -53 in his 799 minutes (they’re 2-3 in games he’s missed). As a reserve, he has averaged 11.0 PPG, 2.0 RPG and 3.2 APG on .424/.362/.946 shooting in 25.0 MPG
My feeling is that starting vs not starting is often the difference between playing with Jimmy and Bam or without and so most players would perform better with them
And the team success certainly is part Duncan but also most of his starts were in place of Herro who…I think brings some of his own problems to that starting unit and maybe should be the bench ringleader
Bill Simmons did his annual worst contracts draft. Entire thing is always worth the full listen, and I’m not even a Bill Simmons guy. Just an interesting topic.
Coming in with the second overall pick behind Ben Simmons was Jordan Poole. Starts at around 14 minute mark and goes for about 10 minutes. They destroy him and the numbers are absolutely brutal. Some of the ones they dropped:
Most turnovers without a single assist in clutch time since 1996
Leads all players in the NBA in fouls beyond 3 pt line
Leads league in travels amongst all guards
Worst shooting percentage among all players with at least 150 pull up three’s (27.3%)
173rd out of 179 in net rating for all players over 25 mpg
1 of 2 players in the last 2 years averaging 7 threes a game on under 33% 3pt percentage
Kind of occurred to me that his NBA career has sort of mirrored his career at Michigan over a larger sample. First year, he’s in a lower usage role and shows so a pretty high ceiling with a fun, pretty efficient scoring kind of game. You can see the potential for a lead guard, hub of the offense role. Then he gets the larger role and the flashes are still there, but the substance of it falls off a cliff as he makes way too many non-winning, non-serious plays.
I’d say the NBA version is probably much more negative given that he’s paid now on a large secure contract, and the incentive to play better ball isn’t as imperative.
Duncan lit up the Pistons this afternoon and had a turnover that led to another low point for our Detroiters. With the game tied and the shot-clock off, Cade launched a 3 with 10 seconds to go. He missed, Miami rushed the ball up the court and Bam Adebayo made a 30-footer at the buzzer, only his 5th made 3 of the season.
D.R. had 30 points, on 10-15 FG, 7-12 3-PT, plus a handful of assists and rebounds.
Maybe 2nd to last update? It’s been awhile (over a month? I got busy)
Kobe Bufkin was in the rotation…and then hurt his toe and mostly hasn’t played since the last update. In the three games, he clocked 53 minutes, 22 points, 11 assists, 7 rebounds, and three turnovers, shooting 39% from the floor and 37.5% on 8 three point attempts (rough two point shooting). The 11 assists in 53 minutes is pretty tasty, especially considering only 3 turnovers…bit of a bummer he’s out.
Jett Howard played 2 minutes in 1 game in the past month, he didn’t do anything.
Moussa Diabate got 6 minutes in 1 game, accruing 4 points and 2 boards.
Caleb Houstan has been pretty consistently playing…15 of the 16 games since the past update, and averaged about 9.5 minutes a game (his minutes, however are all over - sometimes under a minute, sometimes over 20). He still doesn’t do much other than shoot threes (he attempted 1 2-pointer in these 15 games, 17 boards, 3 assists). He’s made nearly 39% of his threes (36 attempts) in this span. I’m not sure if this is that valuable for a non-movement catch and shoot guy who does literally nothing else, but there it is?
Isaiah Livers has still not played since being traded. My assumption is we next see him not in the NBA.
Franz Wagner’s line in his past 16 games: 15.7 ppg, 4.4 rebounds, 3.1 assists, about 1.5 “stocks” per game, shooting 48.5% from the floor, but 12.9% on over 50 3’s. That three point shooting has always been his swing skill, but obviously swung really poorly recently, and hes only at 28% for the year on 300+ attempts. So within there is some really efficient work inside the arc and at the line, but it’s going to be tough to realize the potential we all hope for him without improvement from 3 (he’s at 33% of over 900 career attempts). If you’re wondering how he fell from 21 ppg at the arc to hanging onto 19 on the season now…that three point shooting is the culprit.
Jordan Poole’s line in the 18 games since the last update: 19.7 ppg, 5.4 assists (3.1 turnovers) on 44.2% from the floor and 35% from 3. He’s had some big games, topping 30 points four times, and generally shot better (and turned it over less) than he had previously this year…the team has even been a comparably better 5-13 during this stretch (still not good, but you know). This is sort of the Poole I was expecting at the start of the season - chucking up tons of shots at mediocreish efficiency on a god-awful team. At last he got here eventually?
Mo Wagner is largely unchanged - relatively small minutes load (16.2 mpg), strong scoring (9.5 ppg), on high efficency (64.8% from the floor). Across 72 games, he’s maintined a TS% over 62% this year, which is quite strong. He remains, as always, a really good bench scorer for a big, in a league with precious few of those. His partnership with Jonathan Isaac (+14.6 points per 100 possessions in over 500 minutes) remains extremely fruitful - they are essentially the yin to the other’s yang.
WE HAVE AN ADDITION TO THE LIST, WE HAVE AN ADDITION TO THE LIST. DJ WILSON has played 15.5 minutes across 2 games since signing a 10-day with the Sixers. 14 of those came in 1 game, where he scored 10 points on 6 shots, and blocked 2 shots. Pretty good?
Caris Levert played in 16 of the Cavs’ 19 games in this span, averaging 12 points, a WHOPPING 7.8 assists (to 2.4 turnovers), 4.9 rebounds, and 1.5 steals, but shot only 35.7% from the floor, and 27.8% from three…so a little giveth/taketh scenario. He’s started 7 of these 16 for Donovan Mitchell, and his (really good?) playmaking has definitely helped, but obviously the lack of efficiency scoring the ball is a problem…this is has sort of been the story of his career where he’s capable of lots of things, but never has seemed to get them all working at the same time (he shot 37% from 3 last year on a career high volume!).
XAVIER SIMPSON ALSO PLAYED A GAME. On a 10-day deal with Memphis, X handed out 4 dimes in 9 minutes, and missed his only shot.
Duncan Robinson missed 5 games in this stretch with a back injury, but did play in 12, scoring 14 points per game to go along with 2.8 assists and 3.4 rebounds. He shot 49% from the floor and and 39.2% from three, maintaining his 40%+ mark from deep from the year. The rest is pretty much a contintuation from what we’ve seen from earlier in the year - taking on some play-making as a pick and roll ball-handler, less of reliance on threes (half his makes in these 12 games were from 2), and an overall diversification of his game. He’s 29 despite this only being his 6th season, so it’s impressive that he’s still adding to his game at this point, and good to see such a dramatic bounceback from last season.
When we last checked in on Tim Hardaway Jr. he was ensnared in a pretty prolonged slump, and that really hasn’t abated. He’s only scoring 9 points per game - partially because his minutes have reduced to 20 minutes a game (he’s at 27 on the season as a whole for reference, was nearly 30 prior to this), but also because he’s also not making shots - 36.3% from the floor, 35.9% from 3. The three point shooting isn’t bad really…but that two point shooting is quite poor. His season stats are still hovering pretty close to career standards, but being carried really by a red-hot start.
Livers was ruled out for the rest of season with an injury about a month ago. But, you may be right about his future. He’s listed as a restricted FA this summer but I’m guessing he’ll be on somebody’s Summer League team, trying to get a training camp invite.
I mean, he played 16 minutes in the game prior to the trade and didn’t leave with an injury, did he suffer this injury in the airport on his way to DC?
