Both shooting and spacing (which are correlated enough to be roughly equivalent in this discussion) are much more important than offensive rebounding.

Yep, well-put. None of Wade/Faried/Howard are fatal on their own, obviously: it's the combination of two big men who operate almost exclusively on the low post and can't shoot with one of the only SGs in the league who can be ignored outside the arc. Poor Teague.

edit: don't mean to rip on Krayz's drafting since also agree they were value

To be clear, I do think Krayz's picks were pretty much all value or thereabouts (ironically the guy taken too early imo was probably Dunleavy), but I'm not a fan of how they fit together and I think it's very much a whole < sum of parts team

I'll go ahead and start my writeup as well since there's 0% chance I get sniped here.

I'll take Anderson Varejao.




Final Team:

Goran Dragic(28)
Gordon Hayward(24)
Kawhi Leonard(23)
Josh Smith(29)
Anderson Varejao(32)

Dasboot I don't think that graph proves anything wrt offensive rebounding, even if you directly compared it to a graph that showed oreb% vs ortg. There are too many variables, most of which boil down to team construction, to take into account.

I'd like to see an oreb graph though, and also a "shots at the rim" graph. That would be cool.

With all that said, I fully agree with Bankles about the Wade team.

I'll take Gerald Green to fill in my last wing spot.



He's coming off a career year for the Suns last year and considering he's in the last year of his deal I assume he'll keep it going for at least one more. He'll be in a similar role of not having to create much for himself but still being on a team full of guys who can easily find him in the corner (where he hits 46% of 3s). Anyway, bullet points regarding why he works:

- Has the size and athleticism to defend the SG and SF spot, freeing up Iggy to defend the stronger oppsing wing
- 16.5 PER, .585 TS
- 40% 3FG on heavy volume
- Basically he's low TOs, high efficiency, and can rain 3s
- Contract year Try Hardness should be in full effect

PG: Ty Lawson
Wing: Gerald Green
Wing: Andre Iguodala
Big: Pau Gasol
Big: Joakim Noah

I'm not a fan of GG as a player because he was so aids in defense, but I think it makes really good sense here with Iggy and especially Ty. Gerald's propensity to shoot with impunity seems like it's create a lot space for ty to get into the paint and do what he does best.

Noze definitely has one of my favorite teams, and he did it without getting any great value picks, just a group of guys who seem to fit really well. I think it's also great that he has two of the best passing bigs + one of the best cutters in Iguodala, it makes up for his lack of shooting imo. That's gotta be the best passing team itd.

Going to take this guy:



A surprisingly well-rounded big man, he's going to serve as my defensive anchor, a position in which he did very well for Portland last year. His boxscore stats aren't eye-popping, but some of the more advanced stats seem to like him:

- Opponents shot 42.5% at the rim against ROLO last season (2nd best mark itl behind Hibbs), this is particularly impressive imo given iirc Portland focused really hard on closing out on 3pt shooters, so ROLO didn't get that much help
- Finished 6th itl for contested rebounds per game (4.3) and 1st in contested rebound % (51%)

He's not the quickest guy in the league but he's not a traditional plodder either - he tends to sag back a little when defending against pick&rolls, which he generally does pretty well - and although I'd love it if he were able to blitz a little bit more I'm not sure if he has that in his repertoire and we can mix up coverages with Griffin anyway, so I'm not too concerned.

On offense he sets big screens, has pretty good hands and finishes well at the rim (67%), doesn't turn it over (10%/1 per game), hits his FTs (82% last season) and actually has a decent mid-range shot (46% career from mid-range, albeit on not too many attempts) and while I'd love to say that'd be an important part of our offense, I can't really promise that. He also led the league last season in ORtg. He ticks most of the important boxes though, and I think what we may lose in terms of spacing we more than make up for with his other offensive qualities + his defense.

Some Stats: 11/8.5/1/1.7 (blocks) per game, 17.7 PER, +1.5 RAPM, 9.5 WS

And that's the team

Mike Conley
Bradley Beal
DeMarre Carroll
Blake Griffin
Robin Lopez

Argh bankles.

Robin Lopez is a great value for pick #96

Rolo is value

For HGH to teabag

love the ROLO value

I love the ROLO value as well, people who drafted centers early are probably doing it wrong.

[x] drafted center with first pick

Channing Frye

In addition to being something like the BPA and providing generic spacing/shooting that offsets playing a traditional/lumbering big at 5, Frye is the perfect pick-and-roll partner for Westbrook. His unique ability to shoot quick, high-release 3s above the break at volume, and to make ~38% of them, makes him maybe the most lethal pnr/p big in the league: the Dragic-Frye combo averaged a league-leading (as of the end of February) 1.3 PPP on the pick and roll on more than double the volume of anyone else in the top 10.

His offensive impact is visible both on the team level (+3.9 oRPM, Suns offense 8.3 points better with him on the court) and on the effect he had on Dragic, who put up 56.9 TS% on 23.9 USG% with Frye off the court and 61.4 TS% on 25.8% USG with him on. The Westbrook/Frye pick and roll with Green and Johnson floating on the wings should be close to unguardable.

Frye's main weakness is that he's not a physically strong player nor a great defender for his position. But, with Hibbert behind him cleaning up, this shouldn't be a fatal flaw.

Russell Westbrook
Danny Green
Joe Johnson
Channing Frye
Roy Hibbert

I'm all ready to finish my squad.

i think my squad has legit title equity here. like how it came together, I think we slouch defensively though.

a lot of fun teams i

I see this squad having major issues scoring the ball. What kind of offense will they run? They have one player who can score at the basket, and he's not a pick N roll guard by nature. The reason why the PnR works so well with Goran, and to a slightly lesser extent Bledsoe is three.

1) Goran/Bled are ELITE finishers at the basket, at 70% and 67% respectively on shots <3ft. Russell can get there at will, but he's a good bit worse at 59%.
2) Goran/Bled are very good/good three point shooters, whereas Russ has shot 32% the past 3 seasons.
3) Goran/Blen PnR was extremely effective with Frye as a center, but also with (undrafted elite 70% finisher) playing the 5. Roy Hibbert doesn't have that athleticism or finishing skill.

Add these up, and a RWB/Frye or RWB/Hibbert PnR becomes quite a bit easier to defend than the Goran/Frye one you elude to. RWB is an amazing player, but PnR isn't his forte, especially with Hibbs clogging the paint. I could see it working if your 5 was a good clean-up man, but Hibbs is neither a finisher nor an offensive rebounder.

It looks like they will be one of the best defensive squads from a defensive EFG% given up, but I see them getting absolutely worked on the defensive glass given their best rebounder might be their point guard.

I would have liked to see more finishers around Russ to enhance his transition mania (guys like Tyson Chandler), and ability to get some semblance of a shot off at the rim.

Any team with Russ is going to have good offense because they have Russ.

lol d00d. That team is above average offensively.

Nice retorts.

i have no trouble seeing how that team will score. it's clearly a really good squad*

*everything hinges on the molehill tho. that team also has the capacity to completely suck. OR, it could be the best team in this.

I like the strategy of banking on Russ alphaness to suppress the severe WIL from Hibbs and Johnson.

Not sure the experiment would work though.