The price of shooting at all positions has gone up. And one player type has become less and less desired, to the point it may already be a market inefficiency: the power forward who can’t shoot 3s and can’t protect the rim or provide real fill-in minutes at center. There are good reasons behind the price drop. Protecting the rim is a necessity for any team with championship ambitions. If one big man can’t manage, the other has to carry the load, and real rim protectors tend to be large humans who hang near the rim on offense. That means any big man who can’t protect the rim defensively had better be able to get the hell out of the way on offense, working as a long-distance threat around the pick-and-rolls that dominate the NBA. Per Lowe, http://grantland.com/features/the-nbas-bigs-problem/ I'm surprised the Rockets weren't mentioned in this article considering the Rockets have two guys that are not three point threats as starting big men. Howard brings rim protection. Jones can block some shots, but is not in the realm of rim protector in my opinion. Motiejunas isn't a three point threat, either. After having Patterson, Morris, and Delfino, it looked like the Rockets were going to go the path of the stretch four. It does look from this article that it may have gotten a lot harder to obtain that stretch four.
It's probably because they're toddlers still by nba standards. No one really wants to type cast the limitations of someone with 1 years experience (except bbaholic of course ) Dmo of course comes under the "back to the basket game can do much the same thing" clause, it's just that skill is as rare as dodo eggs these days. Honestly in Dmo, he doesn't need to develop a 3 for spacing so much as he needs to develop one because his constant off ball movement basically demands he be able to fully expose his man.
I feel like DMo has a better chance to develop his ability to protect the rim, rather than his ability to shoot threes. It is for this reason that I still prefer him over Terrence Jones. It's nice against crappy teams to have your PF dribble behind his back down the lane on a fast break for a highlight reel dunk. It's another thing entirely when that PF gets matched up against LaMarcus Freaking Aldridge.
Good read, this article suggests a stretch 4 is not essential if you have one of the rare 5s with good post-up skills (i.e. Dwight): That stuff is not easy. The Raptors scored at a top-10 rate when Johnson shared the floor with Jonas Valanciunas, per NBA.com. Valanciunas’s effective post-up game helped, and finding a big with even decent back-to-the-basket skills is another way to bend the defense without killer shooting at either big-man spot. The Grizz squeeze out enough offense when Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol share the floor; neither can shoot the 3, but both have enough passing, handoff, and post-up skills to make the offense work — even in a season when Memphis had zero wing shooting around them. Randolph is the high end of the Tristan Thompson archetype, and he also has the almost unfair advantage of playing alongside Gasol — perhaps the most well-rounded big man in basketball.
Big men generally are near their peak after year three. Jones has two of his three main development years done. He's got a lot work to do to become a stretch four this year or depend on him being a late bloomer. Jones is still young, but not young enough to prevent that reasonable expectations for what he will be at peak to be made. I don't expect him to be a good three point shooter. Average three point shooter is more likely if he works on it.
