Scoot and Sharpe would have been the worst shooting backcourt in the NBA last season

just some numbers

* last season, in isolation plays, Ant was in the 40th percentile (Grant was in the 22nd percentile). Isolation was 16% of Ant's offense. By comparison, Brogdon was in the 74th percentile. (Terry Rozier 96th percentile; Kawhi Leonard 93rd; Marcus Morris 89th; James Harden 88th; SGA 87th; DeRozan 86th; Dejounte Murray 84th; Doncic 83rd; Kyrie 82nd)

* last season, PnR ball-handler was 40% of Ant's offense; he was in the 68th percentile. (Quickley 97th; SGA 97th; Rozier 96th; Paul George 94th; Doncic 93rd; TJ McConnell 93rd; Booker 92nd; DeRozan 92nd; Haliburton 91st; Brunson 91st; Jamal Murray & Bradley Beal 88th; Maxey 88th; Kawhi 87th)

* in 2022-23, in isolation, Ant was in the 48th percentile. Dame was in the 91st percentile. Keon Johnson was in the 83rd percentile. Durant was 99th percentile

* in 2022-23, in PnR ball-handler, Ant was in the 82nd percentile. Dame was in the 93rd percentile

there are probably several reasons why Ant's shot creation numbers fell from 2022-23 to last season. Main one is likely Dame. Ant was drafting off of the wake created by defensive attention teams paid to Dame; much like CJ did for several years. This last season, with no Dame around teams could pay more straight up defense against Ant with occasional hedges....and his numbers fell because he doesn't have the shot-creation talent to overcome solid defensive resistance.

Another factor many won't credit could be that running the PnR with Nurkic and Eubanks was more effective than running the PnR with Ayton and Reath. Last season, Ayton was in the 41st percentile in PnR roll-man plays. The season before, Nurkic was in the 53rd percentile; Eubanks was 71st percentile. But again, the Dame factor was probably significant here

Some of his fans seem convinced Simons is really good at creating offense, or at least at creating his own offense, and credit him as such. But he's not good. Being below the 50th percentile in isolation is a revealing gauge. He's quite a bit better at PnR, but most ball-handlers are, especially if they are paired with decent pick-setters like Nurkic and Eubanks. Ayton, not so much, but there could be some structure and familiarity issues

 

Bro, he played 13 games with Sharpe.

ISO hall had to do with the lack of talent around him, he was forced to shoulder more than he should. How do you not see that?

yes Ant has the ball in his hands a lot because he was our best player, on a very poor offensive team.

Never think if we have more offensive talent around him, his effectiveness will go up and he doesn’t have to play hero ball or bail of out at the end of the shot clock?

this is a prime example of someone throwing it all on Ant as a scapegoat without looking at the whole picture or who he was out on the floor with him.

 

That’s just your opinion btw. About Ant not being a piece on a reset team, he surely can be, and you said so yourself, that he can help another team that he goes to.

yes, if Scoot and Shapre improve, they there is more reason to trade him. But we aren’t there yet, my thoughts. Ofcourse everyone has their own thought.

You speak about it like it’s facts when it’s merely just your opinion, but the difference is you voice this over and over in different thread to people who aren’t even talking to you, like you’re trying to convince people they are wrong and your right.

 

Everything I'm saying in here without a link to a source is my opinion. I would hope that you consider any information on the internet without a sited source to be just that. An opinion.

If you aren't sending a direct message to somebody in a private conversation you aren't speaking to only one person. You are speaking to the whole PUBLIC forum. You are inviting other people to join the conversation. If that bothers you, that's on you.

If you have such delicate feelings about people disagreeing with you, I would recommend that you refrain from joining engaging in a public discussion.

 

Ya that’s fair, but I’m more on the side of it’s too early for that.

Let Scoot and Sharpe show us improvements first.

imagine taking Ant and Grant off our current team, if you thought we were bad offensively last year, this year will be way worse.

And it’s even worse for Scoot and Sharpe, they still needing to develop but having more loads on their shoulders than they need to, and the other teams defense focusing on them two, will affect their effectiveness, similar to what we saw from Ant last season imo.

I promise all of you, if we get rid of Ant and Grant without much talent coming back, Sharpe and Scoot ISO usage will go up too. It’s only commons sense. And we will be back to the same thing guys on trying to bash on Ant with, but with Sharpe and Scoot instead when it comes to ISO. They will have the ball in theirs hands the most, and with little offensive around them, they will start to force things more and more as we saw with Ant last year.

 

lol, and same thing goes, you don't need to push a narrative on here 24/7. We get it, you have your thoughts. That's fine. I merely don't post as much as you and others, by a far margin.

But to see the same thing over and over, and lots of your counters points imo, aren't even facts just baseless claims that I have debunked a few times, seems to me mean you are the one that doesn't like if others push back on the thoughts you post here all the time. You want everyone to be on the same page as you.

 

Brogdon had the same talent around him last season as Ant did; Brogdon was in the 74th percentile in isolation, Ant was in the 40th. The season before. with each playing with the same players, Dame was in the 91st percentile; Ant was in the 48th. By the way, last season, while Ant was in the 40th percentile in isolation, Sharpe was in the 49th percentile

 

Sharpe doesn't have the handles, but if Scoot and him are our best offensive players next year next to Ayton if we dump Grant and Ant, then there will be times they will be FORCED to create a shot.

Happened with Ant, and will happen with them too imo. Good point about Deni, we didn't have someone who was more a point forward last year. So yes that should help. If Sharpe and Scoot show some nice leaps next year, then yes Ill be in the boat of trading Ant.

But my point to others, is we ain't there yet. That's just my 2 cents.

 

Yeah but your opinions are silly and covered in dog hair!

 

I certainly don't *need* to. But I am free to join the discussion when it comes up. Which has been more often lately. For obvious reasons.

That's cool.

They are my opinions. Yes. We've covered that.

I don't care if you're on the same page. But I'm happy to debate it. That's what internet forums are for. I appreciate the debate.

 

Excellent! I hope they learn from it.

Excellent! Having that responsibility is going to really helping their development, IMO. Or if nothing else it will help us make a decision on them sooner.

That could be. But I doubt it. I think they'll play more of a team game (with each other, if nothing else, rather than freezing each other out). And they'll play better defense.

I'd like to find out sooner, rather than later.

 

I would also add that Scoot appears to be more inclined to get Ayton involved in the offense as well. I would love to see Ayton get 20/12 nightly.

 

Not if we have players moving off the ball. If you have the three players you mentioned as well as other players who can catch on the move and pass, and a decent offensive coach we will be able to get open looks.

If you have to run the ball through "ball stoppers" like Grant and Ant, you will not get good looks. You'll get the looks we saw this last season. You will end up playing ISO basketball.

 

Does he? Does the stats show that? I know the real answer. Or the ones that liked that post?

I’m not trying to be hard on you, but this is another example of you guys just throwing out stuff without anything to back up these statements.

I’ll make it easy for you. Ayton stats playing with Ant and Scoot are the basically the same..

Ant playing with Ayton - 16.7 PPG and 11.1 Reb

Playing with Scoot - 17PPG and 11.0 Reb

you guys should really back check what you say before you post lol. Also, Ant and Ayton pick and roll was more effective than a Scoot/Ayton pick and roll.

You know why that is? Because teams simply rolled with Ayton and left Scoot and his poor 3% open all the time.

Once again goes back to one of my main points, Scoot and Sharpe, mainly Scoot in this scenario, would benefit us greatly as a team if he can become a dependable 3 point shooter

 

Grant and Simons played that way more because of the talent around them, I don’t know why your ignoring that over and over

 

That's fine, But with them playing that way our talent isn't going to develop.

They stop the ball too much. When they played with Ayton, Sharpe and Scoot they stopped the ball too much.

I have watched Ant refuse to feed Sharpe ever since Sharpe was drafted. I don't know if he's just not smart enough to view the court or if he's actually concerned that Sharpe is going to pass him as the number one option on offense.

Whatever it is, I've seen enough. You keep saying that I'm ignoring things. I'm not. I'm taking them into consideration. I've seen the way Simons and Grant play with Scoot, Sharpe and Ayton. And I'm not impressed.

We need more rebounding from Grant, and more defense from Simons, and a lot more movement off the ball, and quicker decision making once they receive the ball, from both.

Both of these players are too old to develop these characteristics. They pretty much are what they are. Unless we have a Popovich or Phil Jackson to convince them to change. And I'm sorry to say that we don't.

And we're not going to have a chance to get a coach like that until we get our talent in order.

In order to get our talent to play like it needs to Simons and Grant need to drastically change the way they play or they need to be dealt.

 

yeah sharpe seems to cut way less when ant has the ball than he used to, it's a bummer.