Who should be running pick and roll when Harden sits?

Whoever has the ball when a pick and roll fits within the flow and rhythm of the offense.

The reason why guys like EG, Lou, and to a lesser extent Bev are on the team is to keep things dynamic and unpredictable. Why would you want limit yourself by restricting that action to Lou?

 

Don't answer it's a setup. Ricky Rubio thread in the skies

 

Why does he have you on the ignore list?

 

Lol how do you know? The last straw was when bima thug aka David wiener had a sickass breakdown and bbhollic loved it so I made a comment about how bbhollic loves wiener and everyone lost their minds

 

Lou is the best play maker on the team behind Harden.

 

I think its Sweet Lou no brainer. He has the best passing skills out of the three, duh.

 

Ignore list: Pen15clubber
Noel-Yule C-UC?

 

You can ignore the pen15 for only so long before Yule C it in your dreams and eventually in your toosh

-a great man

 

Like, but s bit over my head. It seems like Lou is starting to pick up Hardenesque plays like the Capela alley oop.

 

Yes, mostly off of 5-out motion action or Pistol from the wing. Think GSW. You don't think of Curry running a lot of Harden-esque High PnR. They are running motion around picks. Part of the pick is to get Klay or Curry a shot, but when over played they can attack, with the screener as a roller.

So, the Lou lobs to Capela ... and those of Gordon and Bev, too (which aren't as successful) ... aren't coming from the high PnR out front like harden. They are often coming from motion action in read and react playmaking from catch, shoot | drive | pass. That's not what I call a designated facilitator.

21 Series (now popularly known as Pistol) is Lou or Gordon (the 2) starting in the corner and the 1 (hence "21") bringing the ball up straight to the corner for a hand-off or pass, and the 2 takes over from there. Nash ran this a lot. I don't even call that PG facilitating ... because there is no read real read by the 1, but rather the 2. MDA was planning to have Harden run this to Gordon, but decided in pre-season that the Harden high PnR is so lethal, he'd run that much more than he did with Nash.

Another 21-series play we see is Bev just out front as Lou or Gordon work through a double screen to curl from corner to middle and Bev just feeds them or if over played will do the counter play to the other SG. Both of these 21 Series plays (and there are more) have roller options once the 2 gets the ball. Hence, you see lobs off of these plays.

In a nutshell, Lou is lethal shooting the corner 3, so you don't want to entirely give that up by making him Harden. MDA doesn't seem to want a designated facilitator from the bench offense, but rather motion and ball movement. And the lobs to rollers are from other action, which don't require Lou, Gordon, Bev to read the whole court...nor beat their man on a switch....like Harden does.

 

Another way to look at the need to run a different look from the bench without any notion of a primary facilitator running Harden's offense is because the Defense is prepared for those PnRs. After 1 full quarter defending Harden doing that, if we run the same stuff out front, the defense can sigh some relief saying "OK, we got this. Lou is not as good at running this offense. We can easily make our defensive preparation work on him. Lock-in guys."

Putting Lou out front with the ball is likely what the defense wants, since they are so prepared for it. Instead, MDA changes up things to keep the defense on their heels trying to figure out something they didn't see in the 1st quarter -- which is motion and ball movement, sharing the ball among three guards, rotating them from Corner 3 position to wing and center attacks off of motion action....all while Capela/Nene can roll from angles off the wing vs center.

When you drastically change system between starters and bench, you can often rattle off several easy plays before the defense even adjusts.

 

Your right that I couldn't say without certainty because it was just an eyeball observation I made and never looked at the numbers until I made that post which reiterates what I thought. Although last year he was similar in this same regard but I agree not enough data because it happens with such minimal frequency.

But honestly I want split backup ball handling duties. Both are capable and both provide different looks to the offense.

 

Really great stuff in here by bholic and HP. I voted Lou and it was an easy choice. If you go advanced stats, he is superior in drawing fouls, TS%, assists to turnovers, etc. So I'm in favor of running whatever makes Lou Will most comfortable. He came here with a PER of 23.9 and averaging 18.6 points per game in 24 minutes. His PER and RPM for a SG were top 3 or 4 in the NBA and still are. Despite his "struggles" here, he is still putting up solid numbers across the board. Oddly, his bad games have been almost as bad as his good ones have been great. Overall, he has been a DYNAMIC offensive force this year and has been doing it with high efficiency. Him having the ball in his hands when Harden sits is a good thing I think, considering what he is capable of doing with it. EG and Bev have shown they can thrive in that secondary playmaking role whereas I feel like Lou needs to have the ball more in order to get into the rhythm of the game and then his spot up shooting seems to take off.

I also like what HP is saying about Mike D running a more diversified attack when Harden sits. One more reminiscent of the PHX/Nash days. That is a good thing as well. It will make us tougher to scout and harder to guard. There have been plenty of games where the offense seemed to takeoff when Harden sat and this may be part of the reason why. The defenses have to play against a completely different style of offense when Harden sits. I'm just saying Lou seems to need to handle the ball in order to get himself going, but when he gets going he is a torch and can score in a variety of ways. He has also shown the ability to find the open man. So like I said, whatever gets him going I'm in favor of. Doesn't necessarily have to be pnr.

 

It really was predictable that your goal for this thread was to lead discussion for need of a playmaker -- and actually criticizing everyone in your poll. Pretty transparent, actually. I played along in hopes this would not become a narrative-driven bball discussion, but figured you'd come to this.

We have a weakness due to "severely lacking" playmakers on the bench? Not really. MDA wants to run our GSW 5-out motion, which requires no single playmaker/facilitator. Why use a single look by running the same plays when Harden sits. It's too predictable.

You seem stuck in a world of one style of basketball requiring a ball-dominant PG on the floor at all times. I much prefer MDA running GSW-style action with the bench to make the defense adjust to two styles of play. You can't run that will a ball-dominant PG. Everyone passes, screens, cuts, and shoots.

Me thinks you are saying we need another ball-dominant PG with your continued goal of actually moving Harden off ball.

 

I don't think we need another facilitator but what I do believe would be world's of help is a passing big.

Having a passing big would help out extraordinarily with extra looks and extra wrinkles into the offense. I think W have plenty of plateaus capable of running sets and opening looks but don't have that added wrinkle to make a "facilitating"your pad from the front court.

This is why draymond is so damn good. He provides a lot of extra looks from passes out of the front court that really opened up there offense.

 

Beverely pisses me off when he has a wide open 3 in the corner, dribbles into traffic, jumps up in the air, to throw the ball away... Shoot the 3 Pat that is the offense. Stop trying to be creative and jumping in the air like a little kid. So no to Pat running a pick and roll, his passes are horrible and can't throw a lob to save his life.