Conversation of the Day. (Time to be Frank)... Everybody won't be happy...

[Diesel]

Okungwu. 

I was glad to see us try the CC/OO 5/4 combo.   But now, it's time to be real.  Time to be Frank.   OO is undersized.  He makes us forget that because of his defensive intensity.   The problem is... he seems to be regressing.

 

Notice his stats...  Points down.  FG% Down.  Rebs Down.  Steals  Down.  Moreover, he's very foul prone.   AND...He hasn't stepped up his rebounding.   When he replaces CC, our rebounding gets bad.   There's time to work through it, but he has to work through it. 

I know that there are a lot of people calling for us to move on from CC but how can we do that when we can hardly give CC less minutes and give OO more minutes for fear that our defense will collapse.   The hard truth is that OO is making it very hard for us to pencil him in as the 5 of the future around here. 

For those of you who would go after Clint in response because he misses an occasional Bunny...  Know that Clint leads this team in PER... and it's not even close.   Yes, over Trae.   Where is OO on that list??  Down it.

We have signed OO to a nice contract... a good value signing.   At the time, I thought a great bargain...  Now, I'm thinking... nawl, it was about the right evaluation. 

The problem is..  He's not playing Big enough to be a 5... and he would be a subpar 4.  So what do we do?

 

 

[macdaddy]

Well this is very well written and you definitely had me thinking.  And then you said Clint misses an "occasional" bunny and it made me question your vision.

Just kidding.  I honestly feel like OO could be our starting center.  I think he'll actually thrive in that position.  The only thing that concerns me is Trae's lob chances will go way down but we could start running JJ in that role when he's back.  

[AHF]

Can't argue that OO is modestly down year over year (to date) and has not taken the step forward that many of us have hoped for.  The best case for trying OO with the starters is the lineup performance where our best lineups generally have OO and our worst generally have CC.  That was also the case last year.  In terms of metrics, CC is outperforming OO in basically all of them YTD.  

I'm not entirely happy with what we've seen from either of them so far this season.

[JayBirdHawk]

3 hours ago, Diesel said:

Time to be Frank

....but I don't wanna be Frank, can I be Franchesca instead 

 

3 hours ago, Diesel said:

For those of you who would go after Clint in response because he misses an occasional Bunny.

..... Clint misses so many bunnies he's created a 'fluffle'  (yes that's a word for a group of bunnies, 10-50).

 

Having said that, I've said previously I'm concerned that OO hasn't taken the next step that I expected. He needs to play with more force and aggression. I thought he came into the season a little bit heavy.

[AHF]

13 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Having said that, I've said previously I'm concerned that he hasn't taken the next step that I expected. He needs to play with more force and aggression. I thought he came into the season a little bit heavy.

Is this talking about OO or CC?

OO I expect to take a next step this year.  CC I expect more of the same of what he has been the last few years.

[Diesel]

1 hour ago, macdaddy said:

Well this is very well written and you definitely had me thinking.  And then you said Clint misses an "occasional" bunny and it made me question your vision.

Just kidding.  I honestly feel like OO could be our starting center.  I think he'll actually thrive in that position.  The only thing that concerns me is Trae's lob chances will go way down but we could start running JJ in that role when he's back.  

I have given OO a chance to learn to perfect the lob with Trae.  It's crazy... he has gotten better... He used to come down with it.  Now, most of the time he finishes well.   However, in Comparison...  The Trae to Clint Lob is freakin AMAZING.  It's like telepathy.  Last night for instance. Trae started a drive and shotgunned a pass and out of nowhere, Clint grabbed it in air and finished strong.  OO doesn't do those out of nowhere finishes.  He's not in sync as well.  He's not even in Sync as good as JJ.   But I'm not complaining about it because as I said, he has gotten better. 

My main problem with OO as the 5.. is his rebounding must improve.

Great defense is nothing if we give up lots of second chance points. 

 

[Diesel]

I stand corrected...

Clint is no longer our top PER Player... Trae has passed him.

 

Where is OO you ask?  #61.

Who is this guy ahead of Steph Curry and Jayson Tatum in WS/48?

 

[AHF]

32 minutes ago, Diesel said:

My main problem with OO as the 5.. is his rebounding must improve.

Great defense is nothing if we give up lots of second chance points. 

 

Just to put perspective on his rebounding, I sorted the per minute rebounding of centers this season.

CC is the third best in the league, right above Nikola Jokic and below Day-Ron Sharpe.  He is elite.

OO is the 22nd best in the league, right above NIkola Vucevic and right below Bam Adebayo.  OO isn't elite but that is not bad company to be keeping if everything else is good.  

[macdaddy]

21 minutes ago, AHF said:

Just to put perspective on his rebounding, I sorted the per minute rebounding of centers this season.

CC is the third best in the league, right above Nikola Jokic and below Day-Ron Sharpe.  He is elite.

OO is the 22nd best in the league, right above NIkola Vucevic and right below Bam Adebayo.  OO isn't elite but that is not bad company to be keeping if everything else is good.  

i see CC get 4 rebounds in a matter of seconds regularly.

[JayBirdHawk]

1 hour ago, AHF said:

Is this talking about OO or CC?

OO I expect to take a next step this year.  CC I expect more of the same of what he has been the last few years.

OO.

[AHF]

52 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

i see CC get 4 rebounds in a matter of seconds regularly.

If this is a reference to his offensive rebounding, then I'll concede that is a factor and give you:

CC is 17th in defensive rebounding per minute just below Vucevic and Zubac and just above Myles Turner and Jake Poeltl.  

OO is 27th is defensive rebounding per minute just below Dereck Lively and Daniel Gafford and just above Mitchell Robinson and Kristaps Porzingis.

Focusing on defensive rebounding knocks CC down quite a bit and OO down some as well.  

 

(Note that the ranks are not ranks among starters but include people like Andre Drummond, Jalen Smith, etc. who are low minute bench players with very high rebound rates.)

[macdaddy]

20 minutes ago, AHF said:

If this is a reference to his offensive rebounding, then I'll concede that is a factor and give you:

CC is 17th in defensive rebounding per minute just below Vucevic and Zubac and just above Myles Turner and Jake Poeltl.  

OO is 27th is defensive rebounding per minute just below Dereck Lively and Daniel Gafford and just above Mitchell Robinson and Kristaps Porzingis.

Focusing on defensive rebounding knocks CC down quite a bit and OO down some as well.  

 

(Note that the ranks are not ranks among starters but include people like Andre Drummond, Jalen Smith, etc. who are low minute bench players with very high rebound rates.)

Yeah it was kind of a joke.  I'd also make the case that defensive rebounding is the most overrated and misleading stat there is.  Probably half of defensive rebounds are uncontested and in a lot of cases (*cough Luka *cough) there are players designated to get those easy ones. 

 

[Diesel]

1 hour ago, AHF said:

Just to put perspective on his rebounding, I sorted the per minute rebounding of centers this season.

CC is the third best in the league, right above Nikola Jokic and below Day-Ron Sharpe.  He is elite.

OO is the 22nd best in the league, right above NIkola Vucevic and right below Bam Adebayo.  OO isn't elite but that is not bad company to be keeping if everything else is good.  

Wow,   I thought Bam was better than that. 

 

[AHF]

31 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Wow,   I thought Bam was better than that. 

 

Bam's defensive rebounding is top 10.  HIs offensive rebounding is lacking.  That may be as much scheme as performance, though.

[Gray Mule]

No one can coach size.  No matter how much a player may wish to be taller, he can't.  Big OO cannot be taller.  He can learn to rebound better.  Learning to play PF instead of center may require some extra effort.

Big OO is much better as a free throw shooter.  Clint has improved.  Big OO can hit a three.  Clint hasn't tried so he probably can't.

Wouldn't it be great to have an all-star center?  However, the question is, "Who has this great center that they would trade to us for these two?  Hah!  Everyone knows that this ain't happening.  

Edited December 2, 2023 by Gray Mule