pretty wild stat from dunc’d on’s email newsletter
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I follow the NBA only as a fan of sports, but I’m sure I’ve ever heard of maybe two of these guys and I’m probably getting them confused with someone else. If you would have asked me on the street what sports Pablo Prigioni plays I would have guessed basketball about fifth down the list.
In all fairness, hoops may be his 5th sport now.
Jett Howard has been playing fitfully. He’s gotten 8 DNP-CD’s in the Magic’s past 15 games, and of the 7 he did play, only 2 were decided by less than 12 points. In those appearances, he played about 7.5 mpg, making 2/15 threes and 3/7 on 2’s. On the year, he’s a “shooter” maing 35.6% of his shots, and 29.8% of his threes with little additional contribution. Not great!
Caleb Houstan occupies a pretty similar space as Jett, but has played all games, and escalating minutes. He’s played about 15 and a half minutes per game, making 54% of 50 3 point shots (as noted above, he basically does not take twos). As usual, there isn’t much else here, but this is probably the best shooting performance we’ve seen from him. 3.5 threes per game in 15 minutes is solid volume! He did make 15 of his 26 3’s across 2 games.
Moussa Diabate has played 12 mpg, appearing in all contests. His best performance was a 16/15 (10 oreb!). Overall, he scored 5.3 ppg, and gotten 4 rebounds per game.
Franz Wagner’s month has some positive things and some pretty negative things. To start the Magic went .500, better than they’ve been doing. He’s scoring nearly 22 points per game, grabbing nearly 6 boards, and handing out nearly 5 assists - it’s basically his season line minus 1 basket. The shooting continues to be a concern - 52% from 2 is solid, not great, but 24% from three. He’s still taking them at volume ((over 5 per game), but his season mark is now just 29%, and this appears to be his second season that he’ll fail to hit 30% after making over 35% in his first two seasons. He’s obviously a good player, but this season his TS% has fallen below the league’s average (obviously his shot attempts and usage (31%) are way higher). The Magic are kind of broken, and I think we’re seeing he shouldn’t have a usage level this high…there just isn’t another option here.
Jordan Poole kind of keeps on going on this awful team. He had a brief injury, but still played in 14 games this month, but his minutes load has dipped likely because he’s helping them win too many games. He played 24 mpg, scored 18.6 points and handed out 3.5 assists. He shot 59% from 2 (as noted many times, this tends to be his bell-weather stat in being efficient, so really good here), and 42% from three. He’s now at 38% from 3 for the year, 50% from 2, and 88% from the line - 59% true shooting, nearly a career high. Obviously, this is an unserious team, but I think Jordan has re-established value to thie point someone would be interested in him.
Caris Levert has taken 2 more 2’s, and 1.5 more threes per game as a Hawk than as a Cav. He’s seen his three point accuracy fall - making (an unsustainable for him) 40% as a Cav, but only 32% as a Hawk…but he’s grown from 50% to 60% from two in that time. The Hawks have done relatively well - 9-6 in their last 15 in this stretch, and 13-12 since he joined. He’s largely played a bit less on ball - seeing both assists and turnovers drop. In this 15 game span, he’s at 26.5 mpg, 13 ppg, 3 boards, 3 assists.
Tim Hardaway has a huge game on 3/28, scoring 32 points on 18 shots to lift the Pistons over the Cavs in what has to be their most impressive win of the year. Since last update he played all but one game (14 of 15), played 24 mpg, scoring 11 ppg. However, half his points came in the two most recent games, with some struggles in the dozen preceding that. He shot 48% from 2 and 35% from 3 in this span, with few additional stats on the side. He’s basically like old Caleb Houstan!
Duncan Robinson has missed the past 4 games with a back injury, but prior to that played in the heat’s 12 games. He played 24.5 mpg, scored 11 ppg, and did little else. His shooting was pretty strong - making 41% from his threes (he’s at nearly 39% for the year).
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Do you have any insight on the splits since Paolo came back? I’ve watched a lot of games, and it just seems that when Paolo and Franz share the floor, they let much of the offense run through Paolo and Franz becomes kind of a spot-up shooter (starts in the corner, sometimes works up into a wing position and takes a lot of catch and shoots) - which is not his strong suit. When Paolo was out, it was Franz creating more, and this allowed him to facilitate and take better shots.
Anyway, maybe it’s because they’ve missed so much time together, but I think they just haven’t figured out how to make it work. Not sure if it’s on Mosely, the roster construction (poor shooting until the last two weeks), or if it is just a bad fit between the two best players and won’t really get better.
I know in terms of W/L, they have been way worse with both than with either one. That may not carry out to net rating, etc, but an interesting factoid
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So I just did the math it looks like:
17-19 Both Franz and Paolo on the floor (3-2 with Franz, Paolo, and Suggs)
13-7 Just Franz (but with Suggs)
1-5 Just Paolo (no Suggs)
6-8 Neither (Suggs and no one 5-6)
Not sure it tells us a crazy amount because of the Suggs wildcard - the defensive presence (and he can occasionally hit some 3’s)
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Franz going like 24% from 3 since he came back from injury is an issue.
I think the team is sort of messed up in terms of structure. They have a PG that doesn’t really make others better offensively because the idea was that with Paolo anf Franz and Carter they could have a bunch of guys who are solid passers for their position, but none of them are THAT great.
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was listening to TPTSNBN, and they were discussing Kyle Filipowski, comparing his offensive game to basically being a nascent Mo Wagner.
Then, Nate cuts in “but the main difference is that Mo Wagner is an a$$hole. He’ll irritate the other team to no end, he steps in and gets charges, he provokes stupid fouls from the other team, and that’s just enough for his offense to make him a positive player despite defensive limitations. Kyle’s just a softy out there.”
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Is he trying to be a much taller Christian Slater?
Wolverine on wolverine violence
https://x.com/nba/status/1913380891985875040?s=46&t=PiAu_gjKld2ZlZp0tW1s3g
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Over Duncan 
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I forgot that they overlapped each other. I think that Caris was a senior the year Duncan had to sit out.
Seems like Franz, Houstan, Hardaway, and Robinson are the alums we can reasonably expect to see on the floor in the playoffs. I obviously have my doubts about any making the second round 
Jett Howard slander!
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Think they actually played together Caris’ senior year before he got hurt.
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I said “on the floor”
Caleb is in the rotation
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Franz has developed a very concerning hitch on his shot. Haven’t watched too many Magic games recently so not sure if that’s been fixed.
What if I told you it’s worse
He’s taking the ball below his waist and his shooting elbow is splayed out a good 6-7 inches from directly under the ball
Yeah, like @mgl said…it has not gotten better but worse since he returned from the oblique injury. He seems to shoot it better off the bounce, where there is “less” hitch movement. Set shots look very bad right now.
Watch about 12-13 seconds in in this video:
Anyway, he needs a shooting coach and a full summer.
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