Capela no longer untouchable ???

[Sothron]

5 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

The reason I said vastly is because OO is a rookie with limited training and all kinds of obstacles this year.  He basically just rolled out of a weird college season, walked onto an NBA court with no preseason and no practice time and put up numbers that are as good or better (shooting wise) than any season Clint has ever had.  And Clint is a 6-year veteran of the league.  So yeah, I'm projecting a little obviously.  IF we are 6 years in and OO hasn't gotten any better then you'll have a point.  But from where I'm standing, a rookie with no practical practice or teaching time doing what he did, even in limited minutes, in the playoffs is very very impressive.  And when I see Clint missing bunnies and looking awful on the FT line, I don't think it's wrong to say OO is vastly superior. 

Your definition of vastly superior and mine and I'll just put out there most everyone else's is not the same lol. I want OO to be a HOF player just like I want with all Hawks players. I'm not ready to ship Capela out the door in the blind hope that happens though.  Hopefully with a training camp/pre season and consistent minutes next season we'll see him grow. I have no doubt the future plan is to replace Capela with OO. But that's not now.

[RandomFan]

16 minutes ago, Sothron said:

A tiny sample size does not make him vastly better. I have a huge issue with the word vastly being used to compare players. Jokic is vastly superior offensively to Capela. That's a statement no one would argue with. OO with barely better numbers in a tiny sample size is not the same.

Agreed. Which is why statements like OO can't shoot the ball at all or can't shoot a free throw are statements that are clearly not true and should be met with incredulity. If you had wanted to say something like OO still has a long way to go on offense, that is something nobody would have argued with. 

[Sothron]

12 minutes ago, RandomFan said:

Agreed. Which is why statements like OO can't shoot the ball at all or can't shoot a free throw are statements that are clearly not true and should be met with incredulity. If you had wanted to say something like OO still has a long way to go on offense, that is something nobody would have argued with. 

Um, shooting 18% from outside 10 feet from the basket and shooting 60ish percent from the stripe does in fact mean OO can't shoot the ball at all or can't shoot a free throw. Hopefully that changes but that's the sample size we have to go with so far.

[REHawksFan]

1 minute ago, Sothron said:

Your definition of vastly superior and mine and I'll just put out there most everyone else's is not the same lol. I want OO to be a HOF player just like I want with all Hawks players. I'm not ready to ship Capela out the door in the blind hope that happens though.  Hopefully with a training camp/pre season and consistent minutes next season we'll see him grow. I have no doubt the future plan is to replace Capela with OO. But that's not now.

Fair enough.  And FWIW, I'm not making OO into a HOF player or anything.  I just honestly don't see anything Clint does particularly well on the offensive end of the floor.  So the bar is pretty low for OO to be considered better than Clint, imo. 

Clint ranks 69th out of 159 players in the NBA in FG% from less than 5 feet (min 150 att). He ranks 90th out of 93 players in the NBA in FG% between 5-9 feet (min 75 att).  He's 97th in the NBA out of 97 players in FT% (min 150 att).  So what does he do well offensively that makes it so impossible that OO is better? 

[REHawksFan]

4 minutes ago, Sothron said:

Um, shooting 18% from outside 10 feet from the basket and shooting 60ish percent from the stripe does in fact mean OO can't shoot the ball at all or can't shoot a free throw. Hopefully that changes but that's the sample size we have to go with so far.

You do realize he's not shooting 18% from outside 10 feet.  He's shooting 38.5% between 10-16 feet and shooting 10% outside of 16 feet (that's 1-10 on his career).  So let's not act like at 10 feet he can't shoot.  That's actually the deal with Clint who's barely over 25% for this career between 10-16 feet.  I'm not sure why @AHF brought in the 10+ feet stat without any context.  But OO has shot fairly well between 10-16 feet, just on limited attempts. 

[Final_quest]

Capela was at least in the top 5 for lob dunks in the NBA.  He also has a ton of put backs.  

He plays defense, rebounds, and connects on lobs.  Can Okongwu do all of those things better?  We have a couple years to find out.  

[AHF]

49 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

He shot 38.5% between 10 and 16 feet which is better than Clint's numbers for his career.  No, he isn't shooting beyond 16 feet where he's 1-10 but no one is asking him to.  The point is he's vastly better than Capela.  You saying "yeah well he can't shoot from outside" doesn't negate the fact that he's still better offensively than Clint.  The limited numbers we have thus far bare that out.  

Where are you getting your numbers?

7 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

You do realize he's not shooting 18% from outside 10 feet.  He's shooting 38.5% between 10-16 feet and shooting 10% outside of 16 feet (that's 1-10 on his career).  So let's not act like at 10 feet he can't shoot.  That's actually the deal with Clint who's barely over 25% for this career between 10-16 feet.  I'm not sure why @AHF brought in the 10+ feet stat without any context.  But OO has shot fairly well between 10-16 feet, just on limited attempts. 

Again, I need to see your source because 18.75% is what basketball reference has him at.

[AHF]

The other obvious thing to note here is that OO played a much higher % of his minutes in garbage time and against backups so there is some apples to oranges type numbers if you are going to directly compare them.  There is also an efficiency of scale since Cap averaged 18.1 points per 36 compared to 13.7 per 36 for OO which obviously suggests that OO took fewer shots per minute and likely a higher % of uncontested shots.  

I don't see anything suggesting anything more than OO was very efficient scoring near the basket on shot types that you would expect to be very high %.  I think comparing OO's offensive repertoire today versus what it should be like in a couple of years will be night and day.  Even if his fg% isn't as great (and that is often the case when big men who take predominantly high % shots start stretching themselves), I expect to see a much broader range of action he can run than he did this season.

[REHawksFan]

17 minutes ago, AHF said:

Where are you getting your numbers?

Again, I need to see your source because 18.75% is what basketball reference has him at.

I was getting mine from bbref on their shooting splits page.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/o/okongon01/shooting/2021

This shows 38.5% on 5-13 shots. Limited attempts obviously. 

But again, my stance is Clint doesn't do a whole lot really well offensively and OOs production is close range which I would think translates relatively well on higher volume. 

[AHF]

32 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

I was getting mine from bbref on their shooting splits page.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/o/okongon01/shooting/2021

This shows 38.5% on 5-13 shots. Limited attempts obviously. 

But again, my stance is Clint doesn't do a whole lot really well offensively and OOs production is close range which I would think translates relatively well on higher volume. 

Looks like it has conflicting numbers in different places.  18% (on the main page) or 26% (on the splits page) sucks either way for shots beyond 10 feet.  We all know he has no range today so not sure it is a distinction with a meaningful difference.

[REHawksFan]

34 minutes ago, AHF said:

Looks like it has conflicting numbers in different places.  18% (on the main page) or 26% (on the splits page) sucks either way for shots beyond 10 feet.  We all know he has no range today so not sure it is a distinction with a meaningful difference.

I guess if you are going to just lump anything over 10 feet together then sure.  I consider it a difference between a 25 footer and a 15 footer.  Especially for a Center.  Shooting 38.5% on limited attempts from 15 or so feet does not suck imo. But that's just me I guess.  

[AHF]

29 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

I guess if you are going to just lump anything over 10 feet together then sure.  I consider it a difference between a 25 footer and a 15 footer.  Especially for a Center.  Shooting 38.5% on limited attempts from 15 or so feet does not suck imo. But that's just me I guess.  

Just you if you think 38.5% on a very small volume of wide open short jumpers coupled with 10% on a small volume of wide open longer jumpers indicates meaningful progress on his jump shot.  His development in that area didn’t come this season and is something to look forward to in future years.  (And that all assumes that the shooting I gave above aren’t the correct ones.)

[Peoriabird]

I think bringing in Lopez would be a great Idea

[JeffS17]

A lot of back and forth here but you don't need stats to know that Capela has no offensive game and OO doesn't have much of a shot.  I personally think OO will be better than Capela and that he can develop a nice LMA type of offensive game but that will take time.  On defense, I think OO is arguably a better 1on1 defender right now but most of a centers job is help defense and rebounding which I think Capela is better (taller).  OO has better instincts which and plays a bit more fluid which makes me think he'll be better in the long run.

We don't have to decide on either/or right now though as Capela is on a good value contract and we don't have to pay Okongwu until a year after Capela expires.  If OO isn't ready to start by then, we have a lot bigger issues to deal with roster-wise.

[REHawksFan]

47 minutes ago, AHF said:

Just you if you think 38.5% on a very small volume of wide open short jumpers coupled with 10% on a small volume of wide open longer jumpers indicates meaningful progress on his jump shot.  His development in that area didn’t come this season and is something to look forward to in future years.  (And that all assumes that the shooting I gave above aren’t the correct ones.)

Ok.  I'll yield.  I close by just saying if 38.5% on few attempts sucks, I wonder what you think about 25% over an entire career?  Since the argument here is OO is better than Capela because Clint is just not very good offensively.  The bar is set pretty low for OO.  IMO

[Diesel]

4 hours ago, REHawksFan said:

Fair enough.  And FWIW, I'm not making OO into a HOF player or anything.  I just honestly don't see anything Clint does particularly well on the offensive end of the floor.  So the bar is pretty low for OO to be considered better than Clint, imo. 

Clint ranks 69th out of 159 players in the NBA in FG% from less than 5 feet (min 150 att). He ranks 90th out of 93 players in the NBA in FG% between 5-9 feet (min 75 att).  He's 97th in the NBA out of 97 players in FT% (min 150 att).  So what does he do well offensively that makes it so impossible that OO is better? 

Believe it or not... Rebounds are offense.   It gives you that thing you call possessions.   The fact that we have a player who led the league in rebounds who is getting mollywhopped by the fans is crazy.   However, if OO is that good, he will eventually beat out CC for the spot.   Period.   Let it be decided on the court... not on the court of opinion. 

[sturt]

This belongs as a post in about a half dozen threads tonight. I had to pick one.

 

[AHF]

14 hours ago, REHawksFan said:

Ok.  I'll yield.  I close by just saying if 38.5% on few attempts sucks, I wonder what you think about 25% over an entire career?  Since the argument here is OO is better than Capela because Clint is just not very good offensively.  The bar is set pretty low for OO.  IMO

I fully agree that Capela is very limited offensively.  He shoots a high % because he isn't asked to take anything but high % shots near the goal.  Right now, however, he plays a much bigger role in the offense than OO does when they are on the floor as seen in their per minute scoring production where Capela is ~40% higher (13.7 pp36).  When we see OO producing ~18 points per 36 on ~.620% TS% then he will have reached Capela's level.*  When he either (a) surpasses by a meaningful amount that 18 pp36 on equal or better efficiency to what Cap has done over the last 5 years or so or (b) he starts stretching the floor with his more versatile range, I think there will be a good case that he is better than Capela offensively.  Until then, they serve fairly similar roles on offense (scoring near the basket on high % shots) but Capela carries a heavier load in that role.

Defensively we will get to compare them better as OO starts matching up with opposing starters as opposed to playing primarily against backups.

I'm very excited about OO so I think we are aligned in both being believers in him.  I just don't see him as being as far down the road as you do as of today.  IMO, he has more development and work to do to demonstrate he is ready to step in for Capela.  And I definitely see it as a very nice pairing to have both of them for next season.

 

I use that 18 pp36 and ~.620% TS% because that is largely what Cap has done over several years:

 

[Gray Mule]

New coach - Remember, Lloyd said that he never ran any plays for Collins.  Also, he said that, due to Atlanta having so many youth that he never fully installed his defensive plans.

New coach said he didn't try to change a lot of stuff when he became #1.  

What does this mean for the 2021-22 Hawks?  For one thing, Nate will have all of this off season to plan and put his own touches on the offense and defense of the Hawk team.  Remember, he just came in, took the reins and drove what Lloyd Pierce had already set up.  

Nate will also get the opportunity to choose who he wants for assistant coaches.  All his coaches last season were hired by and for Lloyd P.  

Will this change everything?  Not at all.  But, small but important changes are coming.  Today's roster, for the most part, have, for the very first time, tasted the playoffs.  Now they will be hungry to return for a second helping.  Many newer Hawk fans had never had their team in the playoffs and us older ones have faded memories of what it's like.

As fans, we believe!  We believe in our GM and what he's done to assemble this team.  We believe in our new head coach and how he led us in the latter part of the season and in the playoffs.  Finally, we believe in the players that finished up so well recently, trusting that most all will be returning!!

Agree or disagree?  Please tell me why..

[Spud2nique]

4 minutes ago, Gray Mule said:

Agree

Like a great FT% Gramps I agree with you 93.7% including this time.