If you HAD to use the TPE right now..

[Roy H.]

Fournier is probably being overrated in this thread — his defense for every year of his career except for 2019 was below average — but he’s a solid player.  90% - 95% of Hayward?  No, I don’t think so.  He doesn’t rebound, meaning he’s not a good fit at forward, let alone spot minutes at PF.  He’s not a guy you want running your offense.  As mentioned, he’s a bad defender.

But, he can score and shoot.  I agree with NKY Fan, actually: a lesser Bogdonavic isn’t a bad comparison.

[RPGenerate]

Fournier is probably being overrated in this thread — his defense for every year of his career except for 2019 was below average — but he’s a solid player.  90% - 95% of Hayward?  No, I don’t think so.  He doesn’t rebound, meaning he’s not a good fit at forward, let alone spot minutes at PF.  He’s not a guy you want running your offense.  As mentioned, he’s a bad defender.

But, he can score and shoot.  I agree with NKY Fan, actually: a lesser Bogdonavic isn’t a bad comparison.

I 100% agree, and I like Fournier. He's no Hayward though. Players like Hayward don't exactly grow on trees, hence why three different teams were gonna throw a huge payday his way this offseason.

[Silas]

My first thought about Fournier was to back up Brown at SG.  Maybe a few minutes at SF but I don't see him playing PF.  The Cs need his offense to make up for Haywards departure.  His D may be serviceable under Stevens.

[keevsnick]

I think this board is massively overrating Fournier. Shooting is an important skill, but a ton of really great shooters  essentially get played right of the floor in the playoffs if they aren't good defenders. Fournier is fine, but mostly he's an on ball creator who isnt quite good enough in that roll to justify being in it, and isnt good enough defensively to justify playing a strictly 3&D role. He stands essentially no chance of being one of the five guys out there during crunch time.

I'd much rather have Gordon, I get it the shooting numbers arent great but before last year he'd been 33.5-35% the previous two years an I think he's good enough he has to be guarded. He's perfect defensively for this team and he could in theory be a part of your future closing five (at the 4 if Smart is at PG with kemba out, or as a small ball five). he as some athleticism, an is a goo passer for a PF.

[LilRip]

Not sure why the hype on Fournier. Justise Winslow though would be an intriguing get. This team needs role players rather than do-it-all guys. Winslow is a strong defender and hasn’t he also upped his shooting?

Another idea: what about Jabari Parker? He makes about 6Mn. He can’t defend a chair and he can’t really shoot but he can score, right? It’d be nice to have some scoring punch off the bench.

[Roy H.]

Not sure why the hype on Fournier. Justise Winslow though would be an intriguing get. This team needs role players rather than do-it-all guys. Winslow is a strong defender and hasn’t he also upped his shooting?

Another idea: what about Jabari Parker? He makes about 6Mn. He can’t defend a chair and he can’t really shoot but he can score, right? It’d be nice to have some scoring punch off the bench.

Parker is an empty stats guy to me.  Four teams in two seasons says a lot.

Winslow intrigues me a bit, but I would like to see him contributing this year before considering anything.  He could play an Evan Turner role in BS’ system.

[mmmmm]

I think this board is massively overrating Fournier. Shooting is an important skill, but a ton of really great shooters  essentially get played right of the floor in the playoffs if they aren't good defenders. Fournier is fine, but mostly he's an on ball creator who isnt quite good enough in that roll to justify being in it, and isnt good enough defensively to justify playing a strictly 3&D role. He stands essentially no chance of being one of the five guys out there during crunch time.

I'd much rather have Gordon, I get it the shooting numbers arent great but before last year he'd been 33.5-35% the previous two years an I think he's good enough he has to be guarded. He's perfect defensively for this team and he could in theory be a part of your future closing five (at the 4 if Smart is at PG with kemba out, or as a small ball five). he as some athleticism, an is a goo passer for a PF.

I'm definitely not trying to overrate Fournier and I don't think my comments do overrate him at all.   He's not a great defender but he is an adequate one and would likely be just fine within the context of our system.  And he IS a very skilled offensive player and particularly as a shooter.

I disagree with you, significantly on the importance of shooting in the role we are trying to fill here.   The key advantage of the 3-wing lineup is the ability to exploit mismatches and you want all three wings to have gravity on the perimeter, forcing all three to be defended closely, thus awarding at least one of them with a size or speed mismatch.

When one of the three wings does NOT have gravity on the perimeter -- such as when last year we would do lineups with Smart as one of the 3 wings -- that allows one of their defenders to sag.  And there is a significant drop in ORtg as a result.   Far more than is due just to the marginally lower 3PT shooting between say, Smart vs any of JB, JT or GH.

When Aaron Gordon is on the perimeter, defenders routinely sag off him because they know that he shoots poorly even on wide-open threes and they will be able to bother his shot with even a nominal closeout effort.  Seriously, with no defender within 6 feet, his 3PT% was a miserable 33.3%.  That may sound, "ok", but that's actually terrible for a wide-open three.   In prior years, he got that up to as high as 38%, but even that just isn't where it needs to be.

For comparison, both Fournier and Ross, his two teammates, hit that wide-open shot at over a 46% clip.   And they have history of always hitting that shot at a high rate.  They simply can't be left open on the arc.

On the Celtics last year, all of Hayward, Tatum, Kemba & Brown hit the wide-open three at over a 40% clip.    If you replaced any one of them with Smart -- who hit that at only a 35.8% rate -- and historically has never hit that shot at a high rate -- the ORtg plummeted.   

The normal 5 starters (KW+JB+JT+GH+DT) had an ORtg of 118.3 points/100 possessions (286 minutes, both regular season and playoffs).  And because someone will ask, they had a fantastic DRtg as well of 106.9.   Here is what those changed to if you insert Smart:

Code: [Select]

in place of(sample size)  ORtg    DRtg
Kemba  (201 min):         110.3   109.4
Jaylen (176 min):         112.6    95.5 (caution: skewed by massive blowouts of CHO & MEM)
Jayson (100 min):         108.9   117.7
Gordon (401 min):         104.8   102.2
In every case, the ORtg tanked by 5 - 9 points, which is a gigantic drop.  If you remove just the CHO & MEM blowouts then it is 8-9 points.  And this despite that Smart is a competent ball handler and good passer and good FT shooter and at this point in his career a better 3PT shooter than Aaron Gordon.  He's not a terrible offensive player by any means.   

But he has no 'gravity' to pull a defender close to him outside the arc (unless he has the ball, and even then, never a double team).

This was perhaps most explicitely illustrated in Game 6 when MIA basically left Smart wide open constantly.  This led to him infamously taking 23 FGA, including 13 3PA.   And I don't blame him for taking those shots -- all of his 13 threes were open or wide-open.  But true to history - and as MIA was willing to risk -- he hit only 4 of them.

Teams are not stupid and they scout our players and will play to the scouting reports until our players make them pay for doing so on an on-going basis.

Thus, I think it is very important that whomever we get with the TPE to fill this role be someone who does have gravity - that does require defensive attention when outside the arc.

Gordon does provide size, defense and rebounding - but I don't think those benefits outweigh the issues I can see with his fit on offense. 

[keevsnick]

I think this board is massively overrating Fournier. Shooting is an important skill, but a ton of really great shooters  essentially get played right of the floor in the playoffs if they aren't good defenders. Fournier is fine, but mostly he's an on ball creator who isnt quite good enough in that roll to justify being in it, and isnt good enough defensively to justify playing a strictly 3&D role. He stands essentially no chance of being one of the five guys out there during crunch time.

I'd much rather have Gordon, I get it the shooting numbers arent great but before last year he'd been 33.5-35% the previous two years an I think he's good enough he has to be guarded. He's perfect defensively for this team and he could in theory be a part of your future closing five (at the 4 if Smart is at PG with kemba out, or as a small ball five). he as some athleticism, an is a goo passer for a PF.

I'm definitely not trying to overrate Fournier and I don't think my comments do overrate him at all.   He's not a great defender but he is an adequate one and would likely be just fine within the context of our system.  And he IS a very skilled offensive player and particularly as a shooter.

I disagree with you, significantly on the importance of shooting in the role we are trying to fill here.   The key advantage of the 3-wing lineup is the ability to exploit mismatches and you want all three wings to have gravity on the perimeter, forcing all three to be defended closely, thus awarding at least one of them with a size or speed mismatch.

When one of the three wings does NOT have gravity on the perimeter -- such as when last year we would do lineups with Smart as one of the 3 wings -- that allows one of their defenders to sag.  And there is a significant drop in ORtg as a result.   Far more than is due just to the marginally lower 3PT shooting between say, Smart vs any of JB, JT or GH.

When Aaron Gordon is on the perimeter, defenders routinely sag off him because they know that he shoots poorly even on wide-open threes and they will be able to bother his shot with even a nominal closeout effort.  Seriously, with no defender within 6 feet, his 3PT% was a miserable 33.3%.  That may sound, "ok", but that's actually terrible for a wide-open three.   In prior years, he got that up to as high as 38%, but even that just isn't where it needs to be.

For comparison, both Fournier and Ross, his two teammates, hit that wide-open shot at over a 46% clip.   And they have history of always hitting that shot at a high rate.  They simply can't be left open on the arc.

On the Celtics last year, all of Hayward, Tatum, Kemba & Brown hit the wide-open three at over a 40% clip.    If you replaced any one of them with Smart -- who hit that at only a 35.8% rate -- and historically has never hit that shot at a high rate -- the ORtg plummeted.   

The normal 5 starters (KW+JB+JT+GH+DT) had an ORtg of 118.3 points/100 possessions (286 minutes, both regular season and playoffs).  And because someone will ask, they had a fantastic DRtg as well of 106.9.   Here is what those changed to if you insert Smart:

Code: [Select]

in place of(sample size)  ORtg    DRtg
Kemba  (201 min):         110.3   109.4
Jaylen (176 min):         112.6    95.5 (caution: skewed by massive blowouts of CHO & MEM)
Jayson (100 min):         108.9   117.7
Gordon (401 min):         104.8   102.2
In every case, the ORtg tanked by 5 - 9 points, which is a gigantic drop.  If you remove just the CHO & MEM blowouts then it is 8-9 points.  And this despite that Smart is a competent ball handler and good passer and good FT shooter and at this point in his career a better 3PT shooter than Aaron Gordon.  He's not a terrible offensive player by any means.   

But he has no 'gravity' to pull a defender close to him outside the arc (unless he has the ball, and even then, never a double team).

This was perhaps most explicitely illustrated in Game 6 when MIA basically left Smart wide open constantly.  This led to him infamously taking 23 FGA, including 13 3PA.   And I don't blame him for taking those shots -- all of his 13 threes were open or wide-open.  But true to history - and as MIA was willing to risk -- he hit only 4 of them.

Teams are not stupid and they scout our players and will play to the scouting reports until our players make them pay for doing so on an on-going basis.

Thus, I think it is very important that whomever we get with the TPE to fill this role be someone who does have gravity - that does require defensive attention when outside the arc.

Gordon does provide size, defense and rebounding - but I don't think those benefits outweigh the issues I can see with his fit on offense.

All any of the above tells you is that when you replace an elite offensive player with a mediocre one your offense gets worse. The comparison isn't whether going from kemba/jaylen/tatum to marcus makes you worse. Of course it does, he's not as good as those guys. And it's not about whether going from Hayward to Gordon/Fournier makes you worse. Of course it does. It's whether Fournier or Gordon fits better into the vacancy created by Hayward's absence. I think replacing Smarts minutes with Fournier minutes in your above lineup projections makes the c's overall worse in those minutes. I think in a direct Gordon vs Fournier comparison Gordon brings more to the table, or more simply put I think your net rating will be better with Gordon in the Hayward spot than Fournier.

Three point shooting isn't all there is, if it was the team would have been better playing there best five (swapping Smart for Theis) than their starting unit and they clearly weren't. Another factor is role, the offense gets worse when Smart comes in because he's not as good as the guys he's replacing and he has a tendency to take an outside role in the offense. Neither Fournier nor Gordon are as good as they guy they are they are replacing but of the two Gordon is the guy with a skill set that better complements the guys he will be replacing without needing to suck up usage the way Fournier will.

But honestly I don't know that there's anyway to know for sure. And like I've said if you toll me Kemba's out long term maybe I would rather have Fournier for a little extra offensive punch. But if its close give me the younger guy with an extra contract year any day.

[mmmmm]

I think this board is massively overrating Fournier. Shooting is an important skill, but a ton of really great shooters  essentially get played right of the floor in the playoffs if they aren't good defenders. Fournier is fine, but mostly he's an on ball creator who isnt quite good enough in that roll to justify being in it, and isnt good enough defensively to justify playing a strictly 3&D role. He stands essentially no chance of being one of the five guys out there during crunch time.

I'd much rather have Gordon, I get it the shooting numbers arent great but before last year he'd been 33.5-35% the previous two years an I think he's good enough he has to be guarded. He's perfect defensively for this team and he could in theory be a part of your future closing five (at the 4 if Smart is at PG with kemba out, or as a small ball five). he as some athleticism, an is a goo passer for a PF.

I'm definitely not trying to overrate Fournier and I don't think my comments do overrate him at all.   He's not a great defender but he is an adequate one and would likely be just fine within the context of our system.  And he IS a very skilled offensive player and particularly as a shooter.

I disagree with you, significantly on the importance of shooting in the role we are trying to fill here.   The key advantage of the 3-wing lineup is the ability to exploit mismatches and you want all three wings to have gravity on the perimeter, forcing all three to be defended closely, thus awarding at least one of them with a size or speed mismatch.

When one of the three wings does NOT have gravity on the perimeter -- such as when last year we would do lineups with Smart as one of the 3 wings -- that allows one of their defenders to sag.  And there is a significant drop in ORtg as a result.   Far more than is due just to the marginally lower 3PT shooting between say, Smart vs any of JB, JT or GH.

When Aaron Gordon is on the perimeter, defenders routinely sag off him because they know that he shoots poorly even on wide-open threes and they will be able to bother his shot with even a nominal closeout effort.  Seriously, with no defender within 6 feet, his 3PT% was a miserable 33.3%.  That may sound, "ok", but that's actually terrible for a wide-open three.   In prior years, he got that up to as high as 38%, but even that just isn't where it needs to be.

For comparison, both Fournier and Ross, his two teammates, hit that wide-open shot at over a 46% clip.   And they have history of always hitting that shot at a high rate.  They simply can't be left open on the arc.

On the Celtics last year, all of Hayward, Tatum, Kemba & Brown hit the wide-open three at over a 40% clip.    If you replaced any one of them with Smart -- who hit that at only a 35.8% rate -- and historically has never hit that shot at a high rate -- the ORtg plummeted.   

The normal 5 starters (KW+JB+JT+GH+DT) had an ORtg of 118.3 points/100 possessions (286 minutes, both regular season and playoffs).  And because someone will ask, they had a fantastic DRtg as well of 106.9.   Here is what those changed to if you insert Smart:

Code: [Select]

in place of(sample size)  ORtg    DRtg
Kemba  (201 min):         110.3   109.4
Jaylen (176 min):         112.6    95.5 (caution: skewed by massive blowouts of CHO & MEM)
Jayson (100 min):         108.9   117.7
Gordon (401 min):         104.8   102.2
In every case, the ORtg tanked by 5 - 9 points, which is a gigantic drop.  If you remove just the CHO & MEM blowouts then it is 8-9 points.  And this despite that Smart is a competent ball handler and good passer and good FT shooter and at this point in his career a better 3PT shooter than Aaron Gordon.  He's not a terrible offensive player by any means.   

But he has no 'gravity' to pull a defender close to him outside the arc (unless he has the ball, and even then, never a double team).

This was perhaps most explicitely illustrated in Game 6 when MIA basically left Smart wide open constantly.  This led to him infamously taking 23 FGA, including 13 3PA.   And I don't blame him for taking those shots -- all of his 13 threes were open or wide-open.  But true to history - and as MIA was willing to risk -- he hit only 4 of them.

Teams are not stupid and they scout our players and will play to the scouting reports until our players make them pay for doing so on an on-going basis.

Thus, I think it is very important that whomever we get with the TPE to fill this role be someone who does have gravity - that does require defensive attention when outside the arc.

Gordon does provide size, defense and rebounding - but I don't think those benefits outweigh the issues I can see with his fit on offense.

All any of the above tells you is that when you replace an elite offensive player with a mediocre one your offense gets worse. The comparison isn't whether going from kemba/jaylen/tatum to marcus makes you worse. Of course it does, he's not as good as those guys. And it's not about whether going from Hayward to Gordon/Fournier makes you worse. Of course it does. It's whether Fournier or Gordon fits better into the vacancy created by Hayward's absence. I think replacing Smarts minutes with Fournier minutes in your above lineup projections makes the c's overall worse in those minutes. I think in a direct Gordon vs Fournier comparison Gordon brings more to the table, or more simply put I think your net rating will be better with Gordon in the Hayward spot than Fournier.

Three point shooting isn't all there is, if it was the team would have been better playing there best five (swapping Smart for Theis) than their starting unit and they clearly weren't. Another factor is role, the offense gets worse when Smart comes in because he's not as good as the guys he's replacing and he has a tendency to take an outside role in the offense. Neither Fournier nor Gordon are as good as they guy they are they are replacing but of the two Gordon is the guy with a skill set that better complements the guys he will be replacing without needing to suck up usage the way Fournier will.

But honestly I don't know that there's anyway to know for sure. And like I've said if you toll me Kemba's out long term maybe I would rather have Fournier for a little extra offensive punch. But if its close give me the younger guy with an extra contract year any day.

Fournier is only two years older, his contract is only one year shorter than Gordon's and his next contract could very well be less expensive.

Personally, I think when you have a team this competitive, I'm going to favor the player I believe gives me the best chance to win a title this year over youth & long term contract.

[RJ87]

I think this board is massively overrating Fournier. Shooting is an important skill, but a ton of really great shooters  essentially get played right of the floor in the playoffs if they aren't good defenders. Fournier is fine, but mostly he's an on ball creator who isnt quite good enough in that roll to justify being in it, and isnt good enough defensively to justify playing a strictly 3&D role. He stands essentially no chance of being one of the five guys out there during crunch time.

I'd much rather have Gordon, I get it the shooting numbers arent great but before last year he'd been 33.5-35% the previous two years an I think he's good enough he has to be guarded. He's perfect defensively for this team and he could in theory be a part of your future closing five (at the 4 if Smart is at PG with kemba out, or as a small ball five). he as some athleticism, an is a goo passer for a PF.

I'm definitely not trying to overrate Fournier and I don't think my comments do overrate him at all.   He's not a great defender but he is an adequate one and would likely be just fine within the context of our system.  And he IS a very skilled offensive player and particularly as a shooter.

I disagree with you, significantly on the importance of shooting in the role we are trying to fill here.   The key advantage of the 3-wing lineup is the ability to exploit mismatches and you want all three wings to have gravity on the perimeter, forcing all three to be defended closely, thus awarding at least one of them with a size or speed mismatch.

When one of the three wings does NOT have gravity on the perimeter -- such as when last year we would do lineups with Smart as one of the 3 wings -- that allows one of their defenders to sag.  And there is a significant drop in ORtg as a result.   Far more than is due just to the marginally lower 3PT shooting between say, Smart vs any of JB, JT or GH.

When Aaron Gordon is on the perimeter, defenders routinely sag off him because they know that he shoots poorly even on wide-open threes and they will be able to bother his shot with even a nominal closeout effort.  Seriously, with no defender within 6 feet, his 3PT% was a miserable 33.3%.  That may sound, "ok", but that's actually terrible for a wide-open three.   In prior years, he got that up to as high as 38%, but even that just isn't where it needs to be.

For comparison, both Fournier and Ross, his two teammates, hit that wide-open shot at over a 46% clip.   And they have history of always hitting that shot at a high rate.  They simply can't be left open on the arc.

On the Celtics last year, all of Hayward, Tatum, Kemba & Brown hit the wide-open three at over a 40% clip.    If you replaced any one of them with Smart -- who hit that at only a 35.8% rate -- and historically has never hit that shot at a high rate -- the ORtg plummeted.   

The normal 5 starters (KW+JB+JT+GH+DT) had an ORtg of 118.3 points/100 possessions (286 minutes, both regular season and playoffs).  And because someone will ask, they had a fantastic DRtg as well of 106.9.   Here is what those changed to if you insert Smart:

Code: [Select]

in place of(sample size)  ORtg    DRtg
Kemba  (201 min):         110.3   109.4
Jaylen (176 min):         112.6    95.5 (caution: skewed by massive blowouts of CHO & MEM)
Jayson (100 min):         108.9   117.7
Gordon (401 min):         104.8   102.2
In every case, the ORtg tanked by 5 - 9 points, which is a gigantic drop.  If you remove just the CHO & MEM blowouts then it is 8-9 points.  And this despite that Smart is a competent ball handler and good passer and good FT shooter and at this point in his career a better 3PT shooter than Aaron Gordon.  He's not a terrible offensive player by any means.   

But he has no 'gravity' to pull a defender close to him outside the arc (unless he has the ball, and even then, never a double team).

This was perhaps most explicitely illustrated in Game 6 when MIA basically left Smart wide open constantly.  This led to him infamously taking 23 FGA, including 13 3PA.   And I don't blame him for taking those shots -- all of his 13 threes were open or wide-open.  But true to history - and as MIA was willing to risk -- he hit only 4 of them.

Teams are not stupid and they scout our players and will play to the scouting reports until our players make them pay for doing so on an on-going basis.

Thus, I think it is very important that whomever we get with the TPE to fill this role be someone who does have gravity - that does require defensive attention when outside the arc.

Gordon does provide size, defense and rebounding - but I don't think those benefits outweigh the issues I can see with his fit on offense.

All any of the above tells you is that when you replace an elite offensive player with a mediocre one your offense gets worse. The comparison isn't whether going from kemba/jaylen/tatum to marcus makes you worse. Of course it does, he's not as good as those guys. And it's not about whether going from Hayward to Gordon/Fournier makes you worse. Of course it does. It's whether Fournier or Gordon fits better into the vacancy created by Hayward's absence. I think replacing Smarts minutes with Fournier minutes in your above lineup projections makes the c's overall worse in those minutes. I think in a direct Gordon vs Fournier comparison Gordon brings more to the table, or more simply put I think your net rating will be better with Gordon in the Hayward spot than Fournier.

Three point shooting isn't all there is, if it was the team would have been better playing there best five (swapping Smart for Theis) than their starting unit and they clearly weren't. Another factor is role, the offense gets worse when Smart comes in because he's not as good as the guys he's replacing and he has a tendency to take an outside role in the offense. Neither Fournier nor Gordon are as good as they guy they are they are replacing but of the two Gordon is the guy with a skill set that better complements the guys he will be replacing without needing to suck up usage the way Fournier will.

But honestly I don't know that there's anyway to know for sure. And like I've said if you toll me Kemba's out long term maybe I would rather have Fournier for a little extra offensive punch. But if its close give me the younger guy with an extra contract year any day.

TP.

Evan can shoot and score, but what else? He's a mediocre defender, he's not a playmaker. He's a guy you can't play unless he's scoring and I don't know if that's a guy we need with Jayson, Jaylen, and Kemba (presuming he's healthy).

Gordon is not a scorer, but he's not completely inept in that area. He's a guy who attacks the paint and will force his way to the rim (something we could use more of for sure), he's actually a solid passer, and will bring rebounding and defense to the table. Yes, is shooting is bad, but he's shown a willingness to work on it - and our staff has a good track record with correcting shooting mechanics.

If it's an option, I'd prefer the more versatile player.

[keevsnick]

I think this board is massively overrating Fournier. Shooting is an important skill, but a ton of really great shooters  essentially get played right of the floor in the playoffs if they aren't good defenders. Fournier is fine, but mostly he's an on ball creator who isnt quite good enough in that roll to justify being in it, and isnt good enough defensively to justify playing a strictly 3&D role. He stands essentially no chance of being one of the five guys out there during crunch time.

I'd much rather have Gordon, I get it the shooting numbers arent great but before last year he'd been 33.5-35% the previous two years an I think he's good enough he has to be guarded. He's perfect defensively for this team and he could in theory be a part of your future closing five (at the 4 if Smart is at PG with kemba out, or as a small ball five). he as some athleticism, an is a goo passer for a PF.

I'm definitely not trying to overrate Fournier and I don't think my comments do overrate him at all.   He's not a great defender but he is an adequate one and would likely be just fine within the context of our system.  And he IS a very skilled offensive player and particularly as a shooter.

I disagree with you, significantly on the importance of shooting in the role we are trying to fill here.   The key advantage of the 3-wing lineup is the ability to exploit mismatches and you want all three wings to have gravity on the perimeter, forcing all three to be defended closely, thus awarding at least one of them with a size or speed mismatch.

When one of the three wings does NOT have gravity on the perimeter -- such as when last year we would do lineups with Smart as one of the 3 wings -- that allows one of their defenders to sag.  And there is a significant drop in ORtg as a result.   Far more than is due just to the marginally lower 3PT shooting between say, Smart vs any of JB, JT or GH.

When Aaron Gordon is on the perimeter, defenders routinely sag off him because they know that he shoots poorly even on wide-open threes and they will be able to bother his shot with even a nominal closeout effort.  Seriously, with no defender within 6 feet, his 3PT% was a miserable 33.3%.  That may sound, "ok", but that's actually terrible for a wide-open three.   In prior years, he got that up to as high as 38%, but even that just isn't where it needs to be.

For comparison, both Fournier and Ross, his two teammates, hit that wide-open shot at over a 46% clip.   And they have history of always hitting that shot at a high rate.  They simply can't be left open on the arc.

On the Celtics last year, all of Hayward, Tatum, Kemba & Brown hit the wide-open three at over a 40% clip.    If you replaced any one of them with Smart -- who hit that at only a 35.8% rate -- and historically has never hit that shot at a high rate -- the ORtg plummeted.   

The normal 5 starters (KW+JB+JT+GH+DT) had an ORtg of 118.3 points/100 possessions (286 minutes, both regular season and playoffs).  And because someone will ask, they had a fantastic DRtg as well of 106.9.   Here is what those changed to if you insert Smart:

Code: [Select]

in place of(sample size)  ORtg    DRtg
Kemba  (201 min):         110.3   109.4
Jaylen (176 min):         112.6    95.5 (caution: skewed by massive blowouts of CHO & MEM)
Jayson (100 min):         108.9   117.7
Gordon (401 min):         104.8   102.2
In every case, the ORtg tanked by 5 - 9 points, which is a gigantic drop.  If you remove just the CHO & MEM blowouts then it is 8-9 points.  And this despite that Smart is a competent ball handler and good passer and good FT shooter and at this point in his career a better 3PT shooter than Aaron Gordon.  He's not a terrible offensive player by any means.   

But he has no 'gravity' to pull a defender close to him outside the arc (unless he has the ball, and even then, never a double team).

This was perhaps most explicitely illustrated in Game 6 when MIA basically left Smart wide open constantly.  This led to him infamously taking 23 FGA, including 13 3PA.   And I don't blame him for taking those shots -- all of his 13 threes were open or wide-open.  But true to history - and as MIA was willing to risk -- he hit only 4 of them.

Teams are not stupid and they scout our players and will play to the scouting reports until our players make them pay for doing so on an on-going basis.

Thus, I think it is very important that whomever we get with the TPE to fill this role be someone who does have gravity - that does require defensive attention when outside the arc.

Gordon does provide size, defense and rebounding - but I don't think those benefits outweigh the issues I can see with his fit on offense.

All any of the above tells you is that when you replace an elite offensive player with a mediocre one your offense gets worse. The comparison isn't whether going from kemba/jaylen/tatum to marcus makes you worse. Of course it does, he's not as good as those guys. And it's not about whether going from Hayward to Gordon/Fournier makes you worse. Of course it does. It's whether Fournier or Gordon fits better into the vacancy created by Hayward's absence. I think replacing Smarts minutes with Fournier minutes in your above lineup projections makes the c's overall worse in those minutes. I think in a direct Gordon vs Fournier comparison Gordon brings more to the table, or more simply put I think your net rating will be better with Gordon in the Hayward spot than Fournier.

Three point shooting isn't all there is, if it was the team would have been better playing there best five (swapping Smart for Theis) than their starting unit and they clearly weren't. Another factor is role, the offense gets worse when Smart comes in because he's not as good as the guys he's replacing and he has a tendency to take an outside role in the offense. Neither Fournier nor Gordon are as good as they guy they are they are replacing but of the two Gordon is the guy with a skill set that better complements the guys he will be replacing without needing to suck up usage the way Fournier will.

But honestly I don't know that there's anyway to know for sure. And like I've said if you toll me Kemba's out long term maybe I would rather have Fournier for a little extra offensive punch. But if its close give me the younger guy with an extra contract year any day.

Fournier is only two years older, his contract is only one year shorter than Gordon's and his next contract could very well be less expensive.

Personally, I think when you have a team this competitive, I'm going to favor the player I believe gives me the best chance to win a title this year over youth & long term contract.

Fournier is actually three years older (well 35 months) and is going to be a free agent in a summer where  a ton of teams will have cap space (because of the Giannis/ max guy chase) and a bunch of those teams will likely miss out and spend it on averagish starters like Fournier.

As for the bolded, i think that's Aaron Gordon. The fact he's younger and signed longer is just a bonus.

But to be clear its not like I don't think Fournier would be a fine addition, he would help for sure. Just of the two I prefer Gordon.

[mmmmm]

I think this board is massively overrating Fournier. Shooting is an important skill, but a ton of really great shooters  essentially get played right of the floor in the playoffs if they aren't good defenders. Fournier is fine, but mostly he's an on ball creator who isnt quite good enough in that roll to justify being in it, and isnt good enough defensively to justify playing a strictly 3&D role. He stands essentially no chance of being one of the five guys out there during crunch time.

I'd much rather have Gordon, I get it the shooting numbers arent great but before last year he'd been 33.5-35% the previous two years an I think he's good enough he has to be guarded. He's perfect defensively for this team and he could in theory be a part of your future closing five (at the 4 if Smart is at PG with kemba out, or as a small ball five). he as some athleticism, an is a goo passer for a PF.

I'm definitely not trying to overrate Fournier and I don't think my comments do overrate him at all.   He's not a great defender but he is an adequate one and would likely be just fine within the context of our system.  And he IS a very skilled offensive player and particularly as a shooter.

I disagree with you, significantly on the importance of shooting in the role we are trying to fill here.   The key advantage of the 3-wing lineup is the ability to exploit mismatches and you want all three wings to have gravity on the perimeter, forcing all three to be defended closely, thus awarding at least one of them with a size or speed mismatch.

When one of the three wings does NOT have gravity on the perimeter -- such as when last year we would do lineups with Smart as one of the 3 wings -- that allows one of their defenders to sag.  And there is a significant drop in ORtg as a result.   Far more than is due just to the marginally lower 3PT shooting between say, Smart vs any of JB, JT or GH.

When Aaron Gordon is on the perimeter, defenders routinely sag off him because they know that he shoots poorly even on wide-open threes and they will be able to bother his shot with even a nominal closeout effort.  Seriously, with no defender within 6 feet, his 3PT% was a miserable 33.3%.  That may sound, "ok", but that's actually terrible for a wide-open three.   In prior years, he got that up to as high as 38%, but even that just isn't where it needs to be.

For comparison, both Fournier and Ross, his two teammates, hit that wide-open shot at over a 46% clip.   And they have history of always hitting that shot at a high rate.  They simply can't be left open on the arc.

On the Celtics last year, all of Hayward, Tatum, Kemba & Brown hit the wide-open three at over a 40% clip.    If you replaced any one of them with Smart -- who hit that at only a 35.8% rate -- and historically has never hit that shot at a high rate -- the ORtg plummeted.   

The normal 5 starters (KW+JB+JT+GH+DT) had an ORtg of 118.3 points/100 possessions (286 minutes, both regular season and playoffs).  And because someone will ask, they had a fantastic DRtg as well of 106.9.   Here is what those changed to if you insert Smart:

Code: [Select]

in place of(sample size)  ORtg    DRtg
Kemba  (201 min):         110.3   109.4
Jaylen (176 min):         112.6    95.5 (caution: skewed by massive blowouts of CHO & MEM)
Jayson (100 min):         108.9   117.7
Gordon (401 min):         104.8   102.2
In every case, the ORtg tanked by 5 - 9 points, which is a gigantic drop.  If you remove just the CHO & MEM blowouts then it is 8-9 points.  And this despite that Smart is a competent ball handler and good passer and good FT shooter and at this point in his career a better 3PT shooter than Aaron Gordon.  He's not a terrible offensive player by any means.   

But he has no 'gravity' to pull a defender close to him outside the arc (unless he has the ball, and even then, never a double team).

This was perhaps most explicitely illustrated in Game 6 when MIA basically left Smart wide open constantly.  This led to him infamously taking 23 FGA, including 13 3PA.   And I don't blame him for taking those shots -- all of his 13 threes were open or wide-open.  But true to history - and as MIA was willing to risk -- he hit only 4 of them.

Teams are not stupid and they scout our players and will play to the scouting reports until our players make them pay for doing so on an on-going basis.

Thus, I think it is very important that whomever we get with the TPE to fill this role be someone who does have gravity - that does require defensive attention when outside the arc.

Gordon does provide size, defense and rebounding - but I don't think those benefits outweigh the issues I can see with his fit on offense.

All any of the above tells you is that when you replace an elite offensive player with a mediocre one your offense gets worse. The comparison isn't whether going from kemba/jaylen/tatum to marcus makes you worse. Of course it does, he's not as good as those guys. And it's not about whether going from Hayward to Gordon/Fournier makes you worse. Of course it does. It's whether Fournier or Gordon fits better into the vacancy created by Hayward's absence. I think replacing Smarts minutes with Fournier minutes in your above lineup projections makes the c's overall worse in those minutes. I think in a direct Gordon vs Fournier comparison Gordon brings more to the table, or more simply put I think your net rating will be better with Gordon in the Hayward spot than Fournier.

Three point shooting isn't all there is, if it was the team would have been better playing there best five (swapping Smart for Theis) than their starting unit and they clearly weren't. Another factor is role, the offense gets worse when Smart comes in because he's not as good as the guys he's replacing and he has a tendency to take an outside role in the offense. Neither Fournier nor Gordon are as good as they guy they are they are replacing but of the two Gordon is the guy with a skill set that better complements the guys he will be replacing without needing to suck up usage the way Fournier will.

But honestly I don't know that there's anyway to know for sure. And like I've said if you toll me Kemba's out long term maybe I would rather have Fournier for a little extra offensive punch. But if its close give me the younger guy with an extra contract year any day.

Fournier is only two years older, his contract is only one year shorter than Gordon's and his next contract could very well be less expensive.

Personally, I think when you have a team this competitive, I'm going to favor the player I believe gives me the best chance to win a title this year over youth & long term contract.

Fournier is actually three years older (well 35 months) and is going to be a free agent in a summer where  a ton of teams will have cap space (because of the Giannis/ max guy chase) and a bunch of those teams will likely miss out and spend it on averagish starters like Fournier.

As for the bolded, i think that's Aaron Gordon. The fact he's younger and signed longer is just a bonus.

But to be clear its not like I don't think Fournier would be a fine addition, he would help for sure. Just of the two I prefer Gordon.

I think we are closer to agreement than disagreement, then because as I said in my original post, I think that adding any of several of these discussed candidate 'veteran wings' would add a lot of value and I think it's more important for Danny to make a move to get _some_ one (so he can help this year) than it is to wait and wait to get the _perfect_ one.    If Gordon was the guy added, I would be ecstatic.

I will say I don't have a lot of interest in any of the guards or small wings that have been mentioned such as Derrick Rose or Eric Gordon.   I think we need a wing who is at least 6' 5" or taller.

[keevsnick]

I think this board is massively overrating Fournier. Shooting is an important skill, but a ton of really great shooters  essentially get played right of the floor in the playoffs if they aren't good defenders. Fournier is fine, but mostly he's an on ball creator who isnt quite good enough in that roll to justify being in it, and isnt good enough defensively to justify playing a strictly 3&D role. He stands essentially no chance of being one of the five guys out there during crunch time.

I'd much rather have Gordon, I get it the shooting numbers arent great but before last year he'd been 33.5-35% the previous two years an I think he's good enough he has to be guarded. He's perfect defensively for this team and he could in theory be a part of your future closing five (at the 4 if Smart is at PG with kemba out, or as a small ball five). he as some athleticism, an is a goo passer for a PF.

I'm definitely not trying to overrate Fournier and I don't think my comments do overrate him at all.   He's not a great defender but he is an adequate one and would likely be just fine within the context of our system.  And he IS a very skilled offensive player and particularly as a shooter.

I disagree with you, significantly on the importance of shooting in the role we are trying to fill here.   The key advantage of the 3-wing lineup is the ability to exploit mismatches and you want all three wings to have gravity on the perimeter, forcing all three to be defended closely, thus awarding at least one of them with a size or speed mismatch.

When one of the three wings does NOT have gravity on the perimeter -- such as when last year we would do lineups with Smart as one of the 3 wings -- that allows one of their defenders to sag.  And there is a significant drop in ORtg as a result.   Far more than is due just to the marginally lower 3PT shooting between say, Smart vs any of JB, JT or GH.

When Aaron Gordon is on the perimeter, defenders routinely sag off him because they know that he shoots poorly even on wide-open threes and they will be able to bother his shot with even a nominal closeout effort.  Seriously, with no defender within 6 feet, his 3PT% was a miserable 33.3%.  That may sound, "ok", but that's actually terrible for a wide-open three.   In prior years, he got that up to as high as 38%, but even that just isn't where it needs to be.

For comparison, both Fournier and Ross, his two teammates, hit that wide-open shot at over a 46% clip.   And they have history of always hitting that shot at a high rate.  They simply can't be left open on the arc.

On the Celtics last year, all of Hayward, Tatum, Kemba & Brown hit the wide-open three at over a 40% clip.    If you replaced any one of them with Smart -- who hit that at only a 35.8% rate -- and historically has never hit that shot at a high rate -- the ORtg plummeted.   

The normal 5 starters (KW+JB+JT+GH+DT) had an ORtg of 118.3 points/100 possessions (286 minutes, both regular season and playoffs).  And because someone will ask, they had a fantastic DRtg as well of 106.9.   Here is what those changed to if you insert Smart:

Code: [Select]

in place of(sample size)  ORtg    DRtg
Kemba  (201 min):         110.3   109.4
Jaylen (176 min):         112.6    95.5 (caution: skewed by massive blowouts of CHO & MEM)
Jayson (100 min):         108.9   117.7
Gordon (401 min):         104.8   102.2
In every case, the ORtg tanked by 5 - 9 points, which is a gigantic drop.  If you remove just the CHO & MEM blowouts then it is 8-9 points.  And this despite that Smart is a competent ball handler and good passer and good FT shooter and at this point in his career a better 3PT shooter than Aaron Gordon.  He's not a terrible offensive player by any means.   

But he has no 'gravity' to pull a defender close to him outside the arc (unless he has the ball, and even then, never a double team).

This was perhaps most explicitely illustrated in Game 6 when MIA basically left Smart wide open constantly.  This led to him infamously taking 23 FGA, including 13 3PA.   And I don't blame him for taking those shots -- all of his 13 threes were open or wide-open.  But true to history - and as MIA was willing to risk -- he hit only 4 of them.

Teams are not stupid and they scout our players and will play to the scouting reports until our players make them pay for doing so on an on-going basis.

Thus, I think it is very important that whomever we get with the TPE to fill this role be someone who does have gravity - that does require defensive attention when outside the arc.

Gordon does provide size, defense and rebounding - but I don't think those benefits outweigh the issues I can see with his fit on offense.

All any of the above tells you is that when you replace an elite offensive player with a mediocre one your offense gets worse. The comparison isn't whether going from kemba/jaylen/tatum to marcus makes you worse. Of course it does, he's not as good as those guys. And it's not about whether going from Hayward to Gordon/Fournier makes you worse. Of course it does. It's whether Fournier or Gordon fits better into the vacancy created by Hayward's absence. I think replacing Smarts minutes with Fournier minutes in your above lineup projections makes the c's overall worse in those minutes. I think in a direct Gordon vs Fournier comparison Gordon brings more to the table, or more simply put I think your net rating will be better with Gordon in the Hayward spot than Fournier.

Three point shooting isn't all there is, if it was the team would have been better playing there best five (swapping Smart for Theis) than their starting unit and they clearly weren't. Another factor is role, the offense gets worse when Smart comes in because he's not as good as the guys he's replacing and he has a tendency to take an outside role in the offense. Neither Fournier nor Gordon are as good as they guy they are they are replacing but of the two Gordon is the guy with a skill set that better complements the guys he will be replacing without needing to suck up usage the way Fournier will.

But honestly I don't know that there's anyway to know for sure. And like I've said if you toll me Kemba's out long term maybe I would rather have Fournier for a little extra offensive punch. But if its close give me the younger guy with an extra contract year any day.

Fournier is only two years older, his contract is only one year shorter than Gordon's and his next contract could very well be less expensive.

Personally, I think when you have a team this competitive, I'm going to favor the player I believe gives me the best chance to win a title this year over youth & long term contract.

Fournier is actually three years older (well 35 months) and is going to be a free agent in a summer where  a ton of teams will have cap space (because of the Giannis/ max guy chase) and a bunch of those teams will likely miss out and spend it on averagish starters like Fournier.

As for the bolded, i think that's Aaron Gordon. The fact he's younger and signed longer is just a bonus.

But to be clear its not like I don't think Fournier would be a fine addition, he would help for sure. Just of the two I prefer Gordon.

I think we are closer to agreement than disagreement, then because as I said in my original post, I think that adding any of several of these discussed candidate 'veteran wings' would add a lot of value and I think it's more important for Danny to make a move to get _some_ one (so he can help this year) than it is to wait and wait to get the _perfect_ one.    If Gordon was the guy added, I would be ecstatic.

I will say I don't have a lot of interest in any of the guards or small wings that have been mentioned such as Derrick Rose or Eric Gordon.   I think we need a wing who is at least 6' 5" or taller.

On that we agree, unless it becomes clear this year that kemba is just toast long term I think its clear that a 6'5 to 6'9 wing is where we want to use the TPE.