The Myth of Post Scoring

[oudna]

Good post.

"Post scoring" has gone the way of the dodo in college basketball (even NBA to some degree).

To OU fans it seems like a local problem but not really.

 

[oudna]

I'm really tired of anybody who chooses to try can penetrate to the basket on us and score.

And still 20-4.

Crazy!

 

[SilliSooner]

Wow! You have a lot more confidence in Lattin than I do..... I just want him to block out and rebound better. Spangler needs help on the boards. As far as offense, he hasn't overwhelmed me with his jump shot.

It's a nice shot. High release point, decent arc, soft. In the three overtime game against Kansas, he looked smooth on this shot. On his game against Hawaii, where he scored 17, he looked like someone who deserved more touches.

I'm betting next year when he connects on three or four a game, we will wonder why we didn't utilize it more this year.

 

[chuckb]

Too many people assume there's only 1 way to be a successful basketball team. I notice no one said anything about our lack of low-post play when we rolled Villanova (another team dependent on its guards, btw) by about 25 pts. There is no one way to have a successful team. The best teams need to play defense, minimize turnovers, and score points. That's it. How they do it -- with a lot of 3 pt. shooters or with a huge low-post presence -- isn't all that important.

If we had more of a low-post presence, we would have to give up something that we have now. Nothing comes for free. If we worked hours and hours developing Spangler into that guy, he could do it but that would mean many many hours he's not spending -- and the coaches aren't spending -- working on something else. And there's a limit to how good Spangler would be in the post. He's not that big and that's not really what he's learned to do over 20 or so years of playing basketball. He just wouldn't be that good at it. And there's not a doubt in my mind that he could score some in the post if he had learned to be a low-post player, but the team would be worse for it. We may gain, say 6-8 pts per game in the post, but it would cost us 10-12 in lost screen and roll pts & offensive rebounds lost.

We would be worse off. Spangler absolutely would not be better as a low-post player than he is now as a facing-the-basket player. But we'd have more pts in the post. I guess some would be happy with that. I wouldn't.

You could just as easily say that Cousins needs to take advantage of his size and post up smaller guards more often. Hield, too. But that's not what he does best. We're better off letting our best players do what they do best and letting those positives outweigh the negatives from not having a low-post scorer.

 

[hoopsaustin]

post scoring is not the panacea for all of our team's woes... Defense and rebounding is that cure-all.

We absolutely have to have points from there and need to be a threat.. but if we play better D and quit giving up Off-rebounds.. then we would win on most nights, including cold shooting nights.

However, we dont block out... our defense is worsening.. we better get hot and stay hot in March...

 

[fksooner]

Okay Kansas has one post player that would be considered a legitimate low post scorer and that is Ellis. And most of the time he takes players off the bounce. What other ku post player would you want to run a play for. Lucas's job is to play defense and rebound, he gets most of his points off of put backs or lobs. Is that an important job hell yes, but OU has players like that, they just haven't been doing that lately. We just need to get them back to playing like they were early.

 

[usedtobe1]

It's a nice shot. High release point, decent arc, soft. In the three overtime game against Kansas, he looked smooth on this shot. On his game against Hawaii, where he scored 17, he looked like someone who deserved more touches.

I'm betting next year when he connects on three or four a game, we will wonder why we didn't utilize it more this year.

To each their own. I have no confidence in Lattin's outside shot at all. I just want him to block out and rebound. He has averaged less than 4 rebounds a game in his last last 8 games (30 total). A 6'9" kid who jumps as well as Lattin does needs to do better than that.

 

[Max Power]

3 of the 4 final four teams from last year have at least one big in the NBA this year. But yea its over rated

 

[Smash Williams]

People try to claim Golden State doesn't have an inside presence. But that couldn't be further from the truth. They have a lot of post up players, some of which have two way skills, such as Maurice Spaights, Festes Ezeli, Bogut, Harrison Barnes (who has a great post up turnaround jumper) and, of course, Draymond Green.

There's a massive difference between "inside presence" and "post scorer."

Speights is a pick-and-pop guy, not a low-post scorer. In 42 games this season, Speights is 7/22 (31.8%) with an average of 0.68 PPP on post-ups.

Ezeli and Bogut are both tough interior defenders, but neither is a significant low-post scoring threat. In 45 games, Bogut is 5/14 (35.7%) with 0.56 PPP on post-ups. In 40 games, Ezeli is 19/49 (38.8%) with 0.71 PPP on post-ups.

Barnes is 25/47 (53.2%) with 1.00 PPP, which is pretty good, but he has 58 post-up possessions in 36 games, which comes out to 1.6 post-up possessions per game. Barnes is enough of a post-up threat that he can take advantage of significantly smaller and weaker defenders, but you can't run an efficient offense through Barnes in the low post. When Kerr was hired, one of the first things he did was to visit every player on the team. Kerr met with Barnes in Miami, showed Barnes how poorly he scored out of isos and post-ups (Jackson put a lot of the second-team offensive burden on Barnes), and told Barnes that wasn't an optimal use of his skills.

Green--10/40 (25%), 0.57 PPP on post-ups--is similar to Barnes, in that he's a post-up threat with smaller and weaker defenders, but not so much otherwise.

Golden State's most dangerous post-up threat is a backup PG (Livingston).

Golden State's best line-up--Curry/Thompson/Iguodala/Barnes/Green--involves no traditional big. They're not running many post-ups with that line-up. They kill opposing defenses by spreading the floor and running high P&Rs with Curry and Green.

If you have a capable low-post scorer with good vision, that's valuable in today's game--but it's also a rare combination. That's one of my beefs with people who argue that Big Man X needs to develop a post game. Aside from underestimating how difficult that is, they also fail to take into account that a post game isn't that valuable if that big man isn't a good enough passer to punish teams for doubling. That's the value of a low-post scoring threat in today's game: drawing double-teams and moving the ball until you get a good look, be it an open 3 or hitting a cutter for a lay-up. But a great P&R duo operates similarly by forcing the defense to either commit an extra defender to stopping the initial action or concede a high-percentage look to one of the P&R guys.

OU doesn't have a great P&R combo, but developing one is more reasonable than expecting a big to develop both the scoring and passing ability to be a true low-post threat.

 

[campbest]

Close thread.

 

[BoulderSooner]

There's a massive difference between "inside presence" and "post scorer."

Speights is a pick-and-pop guy, not a low-post scorer. In 42 games this season, Speights is 7/22 (31.8%) with an average of 0.68 PPP on post-ups.

Ezeli and Bogut are both tough interior defenders, but neither is a significant low-post scoring threat. In 45 games, Bogut is 5/14 (35.7%) with 0.56 PPP on post-ups. In 40 games, Ezeli is 19/49 (38.8%) with 0.71 PPP on post-ups.

Barnes is 25/47 (53.2%) with 1.00 PPP, which is pretty good, but he has 58 post-up possessions in 36 games, which comes out to 1.6 post-up possessions per game. Barnes is enough of a post-up threat that he can take advantage of significantly smaller and weaker defenders, but you can't run an efficient offense through Barnes in the low post. When Kerr was hired, one of the first things he did was to visit every player on the team. Kerr met with Barnes in Miami, showed Barnes how poorly he scored out of isos and post-ups (Jackson put a lot of the second-team offensive burden on Barnes), and told Barnes that wasn't an optimal use of his skills.

Green--10/40 (25%), 0.57 PPP on post-ups--is similar to Barnes, in that he's a post-up threat with smaller and weaker defenders, but not so much otherwise.

Golden State's most dangerous post-up threat is a backup PG (Livingston).

Golden State's best line-up--Curry/Thompson/Iguodala/Barnes/Green--involves no traditional big. They're not running many post-ups with that line-up. They kill opposing defenses by spreading the floor and running high P&Rs with Curry and Green.

If you have a capable low-post scorer with good vision, that's valuable in today's game--but it's also a rare combination. That's one of my beefs with people who argue that Big Man X needs to develop a post game. Aside from underestimating how difficult that is, they also fail to take into account that a post game isn't that valuable if that big man isn't a good enough passer to punish teams for doubling. That's the value of a low-post scoring threat in today's game: drawing double-teams and moving the ball until you get a good look, be it an open 3 or hitting a cutter for a lay-up. But a great P&R duo operates similarly by forcing the defense to either commit an extra defender to stopping the initial action or concede a high-percentage look to one of the P&R guys.

OU doesn't have a great P&R combo, but developing one is more reasonable than expecting a big to develop both the scoring and passing ability to be a true low-post threat.

great post .. thank you ...

I will say that lattin/ Woodard has been effective at times as the high P/R threat surrounded by shooters ...

I expect that to be the base of our O next season as well .. (I expect dante to be used in high P/R as well) with shooters at the other 3 spots ..

I expect this to be great for James as he will be able to both shoot or drive if his defender closes out quickly ..