I sincerely think you don't understand what spacing is. Jalen Green brings down the team 3 pt percentage. He's streaky. He needs to improve on consistency. He spaces the floor still. Why? Team still fear his streakiness. Team don't fear a player who does pump fakes at the three point line while not being guarded. Spacing is about how teams defend, not three point percentages.
Spacing is relative. Neither Alpi or Jalen really provide much spacing off ball. Jalen provides much more than Alpi though off ball that’s for sure. They won’t leave him wide open but they’ll certainly sag off him decently leaving themselves time to recover. Not just him though. It’s part of the reason why Alpi was so consistently doubled - the other part ofc being he’s so good scoring and creating space on the interior he’d still command doubles even if our dudes shot a little better. But for sure Jalen provides more off ball spacing. At the same time, Jalen is ofc worse in doing things with that off ball spacing. I’d rather the ball be in Alpis hand on the perimeter with his defender 5 feet off him than in Jalen’s. Moreover, relative to role, it’s much more important for Jalen to improve his 3 point shooting than Alpi. Alpi becoming a high 30s three point shooter or even 40% will be great, make him a clear #1 and help the team win more. Him doing that with Jalen’s 3 pt % not changing still limits the overall success of the team. Jalen becoming a high 30s or even 40% three point shooter with Alpi in no way getting better gives the team a much higher ceiling, even championship potential… because Jalen becomes a top 10 nba player when he’s a 40% three point shooter. In terms of what’s more likely, if forced to put my life savings on it, it’d be Alpi’s improvement. And whether he can do it or not he absolutely needs to give it his best shot. As others have noted im very curious as to if his seemingly “body transformation” summer is not just to be more physical and healthy inside but also to help with stamina and being accompanied by strong on court shooting reps. We shall see. Amen getting that shot would be the most impactful but I can’t imagine a soul on the planet would bet on that lol.
Spacing is just about where your defender stands. Citing numbers and stats doesn't really mean anything in the context of spacing. Jalen Greens defenders stand near Jalen Green when he doesn't have the ball, despite his poor shooting. I don't know what else to say besides that. As for your last question, my opinion doesn't matter. He will hurt spacing when teams stop guarding him. I don't know how much worse he would have to be for teams to stop guarding him, I just know that right now they do.
according to nba.com advanced stats, a full 6.3 of Jalens 7.4 three point shots per game are either open (4-6 ft) or wide open (6+ feet) by closest defender. As I noted above… off ball 3 pt spacing is relative. Jalen provides more than Alpi… but not much.
Spacing is NOT just about where your defender stands and Jalen Green's defenders most definitely do not stand near Jalen Green. If you don't believe me you can just re-watch thousands of FVV-Alpi pick and rolls we've seen this season.
This is a poor stat to use for judging spacing. Steph Curry has 9.4 out of his 11.8 3s as open or wide open. Does this mean he's not providing spacing? This is why I asked you what you think spacing means? If you don't think its about where your defender stands, then we have different definitions. So I'll ask again, what do you think spacing means?
thank you noted. So they’re awful with that “stat” then. What stat would you suggest? Something from Synergy probably but I don’t pay for that.
Truthfully I don't think there is one. I think you just have to watch it and make your own determinations. Maybe they'll come up with one some day, but for now I think the eye test is all we've got. Also apart from that, you can get a lot of open 3s and still be a good floor spacer. Just to give an example, think of the 5 out rockets with Tucker in the corner. Tucker was a good floor spacer, he created space for Harden and left the lane open. At the start of the play Harden has the ball and Tucker is in the corner with his defender nearby, creating space. If Harden beats his man off the dribble at the top of the key and drives into the paint, Tuckers man would rotate into the paint to cover Harden. Harden then passes the ball out to Tucker for a wide open corner 3. That doesn't make him less of a floor spacer, it was actually his space that helped create the 3 to begin with. So it's just more complicated than looking at defender distance or anything like that.
Ya it's hard to trust those NBA "open shot attempts" metrics and how consistent they are. With that ratio of shots being open vs not for Green, that means NBA.com is tracking some these type of three point shots as "open" or "wide open" in this video (second half attempts mostly) Green's catch and shoot numbers were poor this season and that's probably a better metric to analyze what you are referring to than these NBA.com metrics for how contested a shot is.
i get what you’re trying to say but on face value I don’t think the example is good. Tucker indeed was a great corner 3pt shooter but it seemingly didn’t provide spacing really. It’s just Harden was so incredibly efficient regardless of number of defenders in the paint that they had to crowd the paint anyway. thst doesn’t mean Tucker doesn’t provide spacing just it was a poor example. If it was Jalen instead of Tucker i suspect they don’t leave him in the corner and then he is indeed providing spacing. point being… following up on your comment… I guess there’s no good way to analyze except contextually. long story short for me I’d agree Jalen provides a higher level of off ball spacing then his 3pt% demands, but still not a ton, and needs to get way better at shooting 3s … certainly more important than Alpi getting better at it.
I honestly think his 3-point shooting wouldn't make top 5 in terms of priority on his development. His strength, conditioning, lateral quickness, mid-range shooting and free throw shooting are far more important than his 3 point shooting given his role on the team imo. He's not a play finisher, he's a playmaker on the low block and elbow, the more threat he has in those areas, the better he will be.
Do you think Alpi's spacing issues or Green's spacing issues are hampering team offense more? Other NBA teams are versatile enough with their starting line up to enploy a five out offense occasionally even if their big isn't a sniper from three but just doesn't hesitate like Sengun from range. Sengun prevents an entire play style. And I'm not saying that play style should be the dominant style of play. It's more about versatility. Green doesn't entirely prevent the stetting unit from playing a type of offense like a five out.Ssngun fundamentally isn't an atrocious shooter like Amen. He's capable but he's hesitant. He just needs to mainly remove the hesitancy.
I think everybody here knows who and what hampers team offense more, but I don't think you'd like the answer.
No doubt Alpi is a more consistent better player at this point. But it isn't as obvious of an answer of who helps the offense more: Alpi: https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/player/4879/onoff#tab-team_efficiency Jalen: https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/player/4879/onoff#tab-team_efficiency On/off impact on team offensive efficiency for Green is at the 72nd percentile with + 2.4 And Sengun impact on team offensive efficiency is in the 57th percentile with +0.4. So the offense suffers more according to cleaning the glass metrics when Jalen rests vs Sengun. And Green has the second highest impact on team offensive efficiency only behind FVV.
No, it is definitely a good example and very illustrative of the point I'm making. If you think it's a bad example it suggests you don't understand my point. The space Tucker provided opened the paint. Before Harden made his move, Tucker's defender was standing near Tucker, guarding him at the 3 point line. As a result, the paint is wide open. If, for example, Sengun was in the corner, then the other team could camp their center in the paint and leave Sengun open. Thus, Sengun does not provide space. And yes, they would treat Jalen the same way they treated Tucker, because Jalen also provides space. That's what I've been arguing this entire time.
it’s not even questionable to me who is hurting our offense more Alpi or Jalen. Frankly I don’t think the Alpi multi pumps even hurt the offense. It’d be like asking if Gianni’s inability to shoot hurts the offense. Alpi usually still generates good half court offense in those plays. the reason we want him to fire from 3 - with a good percentage ideally - is cause it would just be even better. There’s a reason bball reference has Alpi at a 118 Ortg (only meaningful player above him as FVV… Jeff Green also above and did get decent minutes but we likely expect his minutes to go way down this year) and Jalen at 107, literally the worst on the team. All other offensive advanced stats confirm the same. This isn’t necessarily “spacing” specific… eg you might argue “yeah but that’s the case cause Jalen can’t shoot not because he doesn’t provide great spacing”… which (a) whatever makes the whole conversation kinda irrelevant and (b) nonetheless proves the point that Alpi’s hesitancy and lack of 3 pt spacing isn’t really that problematic at all - as I said they still get good offense when he does that, cause he’s that good. again I want nothing more than for him to be able to hit from outside. Jokic has an insane 131 Ortg. Embiid was like 124. Luka 120. Anthony Edwards 112. It’s just a number, and context and eye test is required … but I’d hope you get my drift.
Good explanation but you are missing a crucial point. Jalen is not Harden, and Sengun is not Tucker. So, the off-ball spacing that Sengun creates or doesn't create on this team isn't as important as some think it is. Because he's the primary playmaker on this team and has the ball in his hands anyway. Unless any of the young guys miraculously take a huge leap and become the 1st option, it's not a problem. And certainly it has nothing to do with this team's ceiling.
Just so you understand Cleaning the Glass is a more reliable on/off metric stat because bball ref does not remove any "noise" like garbage time. If you look at most NBA analysts who do things like podcasts they don't ever use bball ref on/off numbers. They use stuff like cleaning the glass and synergy but those are paid services. And according to cleaning the glass the offensive efficiency on/off impact favors Jalen.
So Sengun needs to be part of a heliocentric offense where the ball is in his hands almost all the time a la Harden to disguise his lack of spacing off ball? I spent many years on this forum being against a heliocentric offense but I here we are again. Giannis is a all time great but the Bucks offense could be so much better if Giannis was a floor spacer.
Youre right! It's not that important, and it's not a problem. I agree with you there. Shaq was not a floor spacer. Hakeem did not space the floor. And if you want to get more modern with it, Giannis does not space the floor whatsoever, and won back to back MVPs and a championship in the modern era. And the bucks had one of the best offenses in the league. The rockets best team BY FAR of the last 30 years played with Capela, who did not space the floor. My point is, it's fine if Sengun does not space the floor, its just a fact. And it's fine. But we don't need to pretend that he does.
