KPJ: Can someone explain to me why he has become Clutchfans favorite whipping boy?

He is good at scoring at will. He is pretty good at scoring. He has talent at scoring.

 

I don’t think he is a KPJ only fan. People are stubborn. Sometimes they take a side and dig-in in the face of evidence contrary to their initial stance. I use stats to try to take the personal bias out of the debate. I’m just offering the information about how things generally trend in the league. Most guys who become high volume, efficient scorers are guys that have shown improvement early on in their careers and quickly elevated their efficiency to above the league average.

It’s not proof that he can’t improve, it’s just a bad sign for the likelihood he will ever reach the level of the guy we are hoping to find. Someone who scores a lot of points and does it more efficiently than most the rest of the league. A good chunk of the league could be given free reigns to shoot it 20 times a game and give you 20, but that doesn’t lead to a lot of wins.

 

Ok, good on ya.

It is still Silas fault though.

DD

 

I agree with you 100% on the importance of efficiency, particularly on iso focused players. For instance, Westbrook's career in OKC (excluding his rookie and sophomore seasons to focus more on his prime) had a 53 TS%. His volume shooting at that efficiency was a drag on their offense even at the height of OKC's success. The drag only got worse once KD left and Westbrook became the primary option. All of his assists and rebounds couldn't make up for his inefficiency.

The legendary scorers of the past weren't very efficient. Iverson's TS% in Philly was 51.2%. McGrady during his unstoppable years in Orlando was 53.7%. Kobe always hovered around 54-55% for his career. But offenses have evolved greatly since then with teams hyper focused on analytics. Good luck competing with a 53% iso scorer when teams like GS, Boston, Denver, Dallas, Miami and Milwaukee are boasting primary options at 59+%.

So where does that leave KPJ? Can he improve? I think he has the tools to do so. I've compared him to Wiggins and D'Angelo Russell. Wiggins TS% in Minny was 52%. Since moving to GS his TS% is now 55.5% (56+% the past two seasons). Russell's first four years in LA and Brooklyn had 52% and since then has been 55%. The main key is shot selection. Unlike Westbrook, all of these players have capable three point shots, but they took too many midrange shots. In his highest scoring season with Minny, Wiggins took 397 shots from midrange and 289 shots from three at 38.3% and 35.6% respectively. The percentages are close, but the eFG% is drastically different at 38.3% vs 53.5% respectively. Last season, Wiggins took 139 shots from midrange and 504 shots from deep at an identical 38.1%. The increased efficiency has come mainly from taking better shots.

If KPJ simply eschewed the midrange game, which I know some people love for some reason, he'd be far more efficient. He's a good shooter, gets to the FT line at a decent rate, and is a decent finisher. That alone should make him fairly efficient, but he takes some terrible shots. I'd like to see him study Chauncey Billups. Billups was never an elite finisher or natural PG. His FG% was terrible, but by focusing on threes and getting to the line was able to have a blistering 58 TS% for his career. Again, it was shot selection that turned his career around. Billups' TS% for his first four seasons? 52.8%.

 

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/jrue-holiday-career-true-shooting-percentage

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/zach-levine-career-true-shooting-percentage

Zach Levine has raised his TS% over 8 points.

Why do you keep sayind KPJ is early into year 4 when he has not even played 2 entire seasons worth of games?

I would love to continue to debate with you, but not if you are going to cherry-pick stuff and ignore other things.

 

Clutch. Pretty simple

 

I do think a situation where he isn’t essentially the teams leader in FG+FT attempts would greatly help him bump his efficiency to an acceptable, league average level. I think it’s exactly what Wiggins has experienced. But it seems the role we are trying him out for is that of a top option, high volume scoring combo guard. But those guys you don’t just want league average efficiency, you want elite.

 

We need a better primary playmaker to reduce his role and we don't have that at the moment.

 

The whole point of my post was to show you why it wasn’t a surprise that Lavine has improved his efficiency greatly over his career and at the same time why it would be a surprise for KPJ to do the same. Lavine showed efficiency improvement immediately in his 2nd season. KPJs most efficient season to date, which was well below league average, was his 1st season. This season is his 4th.

I keep saying he is early into year 4 because he was drafted 4 years ago and this is the 4th different NBA season he has played games in.

Pretending that this isn’t KPJs 4th year in the league is “cherry picking/ignoring stuff” to fit your lowered expectation narrative.

Nothing I have said in our back and forth has been cherry picked on my end. I went out of my way to compare the guys you listed in their first 3 years and how they compared to league average at the time.

 

I think most likely reducing his role will be best for the team and him. I haven’t intended for posts to come off in a way that suggests we currently have a better option. We clearly don’t. I just think based on what he has shown in his career that it’s unlikely he will be a guy you want as your 1st or 2nd scoring option in the long run.

 

Also KPJ should never be a primary scorer on a good team and people seem to judging him completely on that.

Good call with Chauncey Billups and once again that is another example of a guy who raised his efficiency, I don't know why some are claiming It's not likely, especially with a guy who has not played 2 seasons worth of games yet.

I don't have an issue looking at efficiency numbers but some people tend to use them to discredit players they don't like. Like all you heard about Banchero was his efficiency numbers, but then people ignored how bad Smith was at the rim.

At the end of the day we should at the very least wait until the end of the year to really dig in on this discussion.

 

Levine had a ts% of 49 his 4th year and just 54.8 his 2nd year so that shows you players can improve.

He has improved 6 points since his 5th year as well so why can't KPJ since he has yet to play 2 complete seasons?

Ok so what about Jrue Holiday or the other guys I posted, I noticed you ignored them?

Are you really trying to say his "4thseason" is more important than games actually played?

 

Well not a 22 year old KPJ at least....but I actually think if he was the primary scoring guard and didn't have to try to get others involved his scoring and efficiency would go way up.

If KPJ and Green switched roles, KPJ is the better scorer.

DD

 

Zach Lavine played 24 games in his 4th year after recovering from an ACL tear and months long rehab process…

 

Ok and?

The fact remains that his % was 51 his 1st year and 55 his 2nd year, and he greatly improved on those numbers, which people are trying to say is hard to do.

Now you want to talk Jrue Holiday?

 

the fact that u didn’t know that just blew up your whole point and shows your ignorance…what a self-own

They’re saying it’s hard to do when u haven’t shown that u can do it heading into your 4th season. Are u dumb on purpose?

Someone’s TS% improved from year 1 to year 2? Yeah, no sh*t, a lot of players do that…

then Zach Lavine went from above average in year 3 to elite later on…we’re still waiting on KPJ to be just average

 

Nuanced takes like this is why I have been lurking this board for almost a decade

 

Dude no one is saying players can’t improve. I’m saying the likelihood of becoming an elite efficiency guy goes way down when you haven’t show early improvement and are well below league average ALL of your first few years.

Jrue Holiday had his first above average efficiency season at age 27 and it was the only one he had until ages 31 and 32.

He had to change teams multiple times and find himself playing 3rd fiddle at age 31 next to one of the most elite high volume efficiency guys in NBA history to finally have 2 really good seasons in terms of efficiency.

You are only strengthening the point I thought I was clearly making. It is rare for someone to improve their efficiency to a high level when they haven’t shown early signs of being that guy and the one guy who kinda fits your argument took over a decade and a severely reduced role to finally do so.

There is no world where we are going to wait that long for KPJ to finally become that guy.

 

Levine is a really really bad example, it contradicts your point He improved 3% year 1 to year 2 and 3% year 2 to year 3. KPJ has not improved at all in that department. Nobody is saying that it's impossible, but so far you've basically found one example, Jrue. The odds are certainly against it happening