Firstly, this has nothing to do with the Giddey situation or all the accompanying slander.

While we are still experimenting with lineups and building out our team identity, based on a variety of data points I believe we should test Isaiah Joe in the starting spot with Josh Giddey coming off the bench as 6M (sharing few minutes with Shai).

If you don’t want to read all the data below, the quick summary is that Joe+X(+Y) duos/trios are massively overperforming not only for the team but for the entire NBA, while Giddey+X(+Y) generally are not performing well; but that there are certain bench players that he combines well with for us (generally against other bench units).

Thus, I’d like to see Joe tested in a starting role with a minutes increase; with Giddey seeing a light minute reduction and a role leading the bench unit (roughly swap their minutes; 27-28ish MPG for Joe and 20-2ish for Josh).

My reasoning and some data points:

• The SGA + Giddey pairing works poorly. SGA scores 59 points per 100 possessions with Giddey off, vs 31 with him on – a whopping 25 point differential. Josh scores 20 with Shai vs 23.5 without. The net rating of this duo is just 4.1, the third lowest of any duo on our team with 200+ minutes. Neither player props the other up; their play style when combined over indexes on playmaking and midrange at the expense of 3P shooting (since we only have 1 plus 3P shooter starting in Chet, if you assume Dort’s 42% due to a hot 8-game start will regress toward the mean: 53% first 8 vs 29% second 8 games and ~33%ish career average).

• Conversely, SGA + Joe has the highest net rating in the entire league (200+ minute played) at 21.9 – not only is the offensive rating a scorching 124.5 (highest in the top 10 by at least 2 points) but the defensive rating is the fourth best of the top 10. This tells me that either Joe is a perfectly fine defender, or that we are able to surround this duo with plus defenders (which we have a lot of) enough to far offset any defensive woes due to his smaller size (note: Joe’s wingspan is the same as Josh’s, at 6’7.5”)

• Additionally, Joe + Chet is the second best net rating duo on OKC when reducing the minutes count to 100 (136 minutes for this duo); this would still be the fifteenth best duo in the league even when reducing the minutes (the results get pretty wonky once you start reducing due to signal noise; #1 is Jrue Holiday + Payton Pritchard, for example)

• SGA + Chet + Joe is our second best trio when reducing the minutes (98 minutes) and a top 6 trio NBA-wide when setting the minutes to 90+; our #1 best trio is SGA + Joe + Jalen Williams (83 minutes); hey, he’s another starter!

• Isaiah Joe is basically the best 3P shooter in the league at the moment (second most makes per 36 to only Steph, with a far far higher % than anyone near the top), while I believe playing fine defense. His 48.5% from three may not be not sustainable, but it might be, also – guys like Joe Harris, Kyle Korver have hit 47, 48 and even higher for full seasons; but even at like a 42-44% the offensive gravity is huge) And frankly, Joe just hustles way harder on defense than Giddey. Outside of the eye test, Joe has a 105 Drtg while Josh has 111, which again points to him being a solid defender. And again, while Joe is about 5” shorter they have the same wingspan.

• Giddey +X (+Y) duos/trios don’t rank anywhere near the top for us; BUT the Giddey + Dub and Giddey + Chet duos do work decently (Jalen just +1 with Giddey on, but a +6.6 net rating, Chet +8 with Giddey on; +6.1 net rating which are the two best of any Giddey + X duo). Giddey also has solid net rating combinations with several of our bench players like Kenny and Wiggins.

Still, Giddey gets the majority of his minutes with Shai despite this combination not working well (277 with vs 156 without; 62% of Giddey’s minutes). Thankfully, Joe gets the majority of his minutes with Shai (237 with vs 91 without; 72%) but he doesn’t get enough with Chet despite that pairing working really well (136 with vs 192 without; just 41%, and that SGA+Joe+Chet trio only having 98 minutes played)

Thus, my proposal would be to start Joe and have Giddey run the bench, finding the extra minutes for Joe by running him in Chet lineups more frequently after the first quarter (for context Shai and Chet generally get around 2/3sish of their minutes with each other, so there’s plenty of room to increase Joe’s minutes with Shai a bit and Chet a lot)

TL;DR: Start Isaiah Joe, Josh runs the bench unit. Light minutes increase for Joe and decrease for Giddey to sustain.
Let me know what you think!

Data sources:

• Lineups: NBA (filter around on this)

• NBA.com for individual defensive ratings

• PBP for some player combination on/offs

• And then some bball ref here and there