Gary’s been playing pretty poorly, so I was surprised to see this stat.
Among 3-man lineups with at least 75 min played, the best net ratings:
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+27.4, Anunoby-Trent-Barnes (78 min)
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+18.1, Siakam-Trent-Barnes (121 min)
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+17.7, Siakam-Anunoby-Trent (96 min)
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+11.0, Schroder-Anunoby-Trent (83 min)
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+8.9, Poeltl-Siakam-Trent (154 min)
For reference, the Siakam-Barnes-Anunoby trio is 9th with a +7.5 in 231 min played together (which is very solid for how many minutes they’ve played against the toughest competition).
He hasn’t been bad this sub is just fucking dumb. He’s made some bad plays in the clutch and he had a rough start to the season, that’s it. He played lights out last game other than that one play.
Not surprising. Passes the eye test. We have zero spacing without him on the floor.
Adding spacing to our best players makes it easier to score. We need to flip our bench bigs into something that can space the floor. Really another scoring guard. Doesn’t matter how many we need to send out to do it.
Who could possibly have seen Barnes + shooters would work?
If you’re committed to Scottie, you need Trent to help space the floor
PS Look at what Norm did at age 24 before getting annoyed that Trent hasn’t become some superstar
Norm came out as a senior. Gary has been in the league for awhile. I agree with you that guys can change and growth is not linear but everyone is different too. Just bc norm panned out, doesn’t mean Gary will. Look at Boucher, he’s improved some aspects of his game but his shot is still ugly af.
I think part of that is just that a lot of these lineups overlap which creates the illusion of GTJ being in a lot of good lineups. For example, that unit where Barnes sits and Gary plays with the other starters accounts for 51 minutes, more than any other GTJ lineup, and includes all of 3/4/5. GTJ’s next most common lineup is when he’s subbing for OG with the other starters, accounting for 34 minutes. That encompasses 1, 2, and 5 here. Him in place of Poeltl with the other starters accounts for 15 minutes, and includes 1, 2, 3, and 4 here. Him instead of Schroeder accounts for only 5 minutes, but is a +37, and includes 1, 2, 3, and 5 above. The other starters+GTJ combination, where he plays in place of Siakam, accounts for only 1 minute.
Anyway, my point here is that a lot of GTJ’s minutes come when he’s playing with all starters. And he’s great in that role! Just on a net rating basis, there’s very little drop-off, but part of that is matchups… a lot of his minutes are in a ‘first substitution’ lineup, and based on this it definitely seems like our first-sub units are outperforming our opponent’s on a regular basis.
The ongoing challenge with GTJ is that when he’s asked to play a larger role within a lineup… where he doesn’t have better players around him creating gravity, playmaking, defensive presence, etc. Put him with even just three starters and another bench-player, and the net rating starts to decline steeply.
Another way of looking at it with net ratings that supports this narrative… he has a positive net rating with any other starter, and a negative net rating with every bench player except for Boucher and Porter. (The Porter + GTJ units have a sparkling +23 in 32 minutes… only two two-man units have a better net rating in more minutes (Siakam+Boucher at +46, and Porter+Anunoby at +26).
Probably would have to look at his individual on/off numbers and EPM to get a clearer idea.
Just watching games, even though he’s missing shots, his passing has improved. He’s also literally, I mean literally, the only NBA level shooter the team has, so he generates more gravity at the perimeter, which allows all the forwards room in the post.
He’s -2.9 epm, next to Payton Pritchard and Dean Wade and has a horrendous ts% and efg%.