Actually Jake LaRavis is a lot like Hugo Gonzales.
LaRavia around 6-7 physically powerful forward. A possession creator and defender like Hugo. A good passer as well. LaRavia has had 1 good year shooting the ball and 3 mediocre years.
They have a lot in common. Skill-wise and in terms of physical talent.
LaRavia's rebounding numbers weren't as good as I remembered when I looked up his stats.
Hugo has a good advantage there. Hugo was at 3.3rpg in 14.6mpg (roughly 3 in 15min) which is 8.2reb per 36min. LaRavia's rebounding numbers were closer to average for SF at 6reb per 36 for his 4yr career are are pretty steady around that 6reb per 36 range.
So that is a large advantage for Hugo. We will have to wait and see how Hugo can maintain those rebounding rates as he plays more minutes ... but it looks like it will be an advantage for Hugo. Just how big of an advantage isn't clear yet until he gets more playing time.
LaRavia was a good possession creator but it is mostly out of creating turnovers whereas Hugo is a strong possession creator both from creating turnovers + grabbing rebounds. So Hugo creates more net possessions than LaRavia.
LaRavia has better passing numbers but I think that will come in time with Hugo. I think Hugo is a good passer. He just can't shoot so he nervous on the ball. And as a rookie, is rushing things at times. He makes nice reads at other times. So I expect that will even out in time and they will be comparable here too.
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Another interesting point of comparison was their scoring. Both guys had floor level low scoring rates as rookies. LaRavia at 9.1pts per 36min and Hugo at 9.6pts per 36min. That is among the lowest rates you will find in the league. However, LaRavia took a much larger proportion of 3s whereas Hugo got to the basket for more easy layups / dunks. High percentage offense. Also a signal of athletic superiority. This gave Hugo a higher FG%. The gap was less when you go to TS% but Hugo at 56% had the advantage over LaRavia for LaRavia's first 2 years (53%, 54%). LaRavia was at 57% last season in a bad shooting year. His 3rd year was 59% when he had his 1 good 3pt shooting season.
LaRavia is up to 12.9pts per 36min in the 3years since his rookie season which is regular low scoring volume. 9pts per 36 is insanely low - for both guys as rookies. As Hugo's shot improves, he should see a similar bump (at a minimum).
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Another interesting thing about their rebounding rates was that they were almost equal in offensive rebounds. The difference was in defensive rebounding. Normally young players do better in offensive rebounding (when they are more athletic) and worse in defensive rebounding (bad fundamentals, forget to box out, concede too many boards to opponents). Hugo being younger (19 vs 21 in rookie years, 19 vs 24 in this past season) I expected his advantage to be there.
Which leads to another interesting detail. Hugo despite having these large number of defensive rebounds did not seem to improve team defensive rebounding. The team actually rebounded better when he was off the floor. Both in on/off numbers and in adjusted plus minus rebounding numbers.
Now that might be because of whole variety of reasons for on/off rebounding numbers depending on who is on the floor with him. Playing with Garza vs Queta. Garza does not rebound well defensively which could both boost Hugo's individual rebounding numbers (Chris Bosh in Toronto alongside Bargnani) and hurt overall team defensive rebounding rates. It looks like Hugo played roughly the same amount of minutes with both Garza (375min) and Queta (330min).
Hugo's adjusted plus / minus rebounding numbers are more along the lines you would expect. Young players do well in offensive rebounding (athleticism, energy) and struggle in defensively rebounding (boxing out, fundamentals). Which is what Hugo's numbers say.
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Anyway, I found those 2 to be an interesting comparison. LaRavia more on the lower end of expectations for Hugo long term.
It did look like LaRavia was establishing himself as one of the better backup PF/SFs in the league 12 months ago but the regression in his 3pt shooting has brought him back down to earth.
