Minnesota Sports Forum

I'm sorry that I'm not tech-savvy enough to attach a link, but you can find this in the sortable stats section of nba.com. There is a tab there for player shooting percentage by location (i.e. distance from the basket). Nobody in the league has a bigger dropoff outside of five feet then Pek: Here are his numbers:

0-5 feet: 68%
5-9 feet 19%

For comparative purposes, here are the percentages for other inside players:

Howard: 63% and 32%
Cousins: 62% and 32%
Davis: 65% and 29%

Even a limited offensive player like DeAndre Jordan makes 22% of his shots outside of five feet.

Why do I think this stat is significant? There has been a lot of talk on this board about getting Pek more involved, but I think the nature of the comments is a criticism of our guards or our coaching staff. I actually think this is on Pek. He is effective if he can work into position close to the basket, but I don't think his conditioning is sufficient to allow him to battle for position every possession , or even on half of our possessions. And if he sets up ten feet from the basket, our guards have to know that the result is not going to be good. He is either going to "ball stop" and eventually return the ball to the guard late in the clock, or try an ill-advised offensive move (with a 19% success rate). When Pek fights for position close to the basket, or executes a pick and roll, I think Ricky, JJ and even Love are getting him the ball. But the payoff just isn't there if Pek is set up too far out.

Pek's should limit his offense to two things: battling for position close to the basket to either convert a pass or a rebound, or setting a pick and rolling to the basket. Anything else isn't going to work.

Yes, this came up in an earlier thread about Brewer's usage rate. It's tough to make Brewer the clear cut 4th option when Pek is so limited offensively. He has neither a face-up nor a reliable turnaround jumper. He sometimes makes that right-handed jump hook.....that must be the 20%!

Meanwhile, Brewer is so active and able to find open space, it's hard for him NOT to shoot the ball.

All of that being said, I think we still need to keep getting Pek touches, even if it's simply to just kick it back out again. We could also do a bit more PnR with him and Rubio. That often gets him moving toward the basket.

If they ran a PnR set right away, it might make it easier for him to get setup down low as well. At least he wouldn't have to fight through the defender that way. Pek doesn't seem to be sealing his man off the way he did last year. The result is a lot of his shots going up as he is fading away down on the baseline.

Of course, the glass is half full way of looking at those numbers is that he's more efficient when inside 5 feet than Davis, Cousins, and Howard.

Pek can't shoot outside the basket. Everybody knows that. But he's a high percentage scorer when you get him the ball down low, and he's got great hands to catch and finish and he's so big he can muscle other guys out of the way almost like Shaq used to (Shaq wasn't exactly Reggie Miller outside of 5 feet either).

Q and SJM are right. We need to get Pek rolling to the basket off pick and rolls better. Maybe it's the seal, maybe it's the timing, maybe it's that they're not running it as much as they used to. But if we were to do that better and more, and he's basically unstoppable. He's been successful with that with Rubio and even JJ, so we really ought to go to that more, I think.

Good point, Drew...we cringed early in the season when Pek missed a couple bunnies, but he actually finishes better than his comparable players.

I like Pek. I just want him to be used correctly, which means he doesn't touch the ball unless he has sealed his defender off close to the basket, rebounding, or rolling after a pick. Early in the first quarter last night there were two instances where he received the ball near the free throw line, and neither ended up well. the first time he held the ball for about 6-7 seconds, then tried a move that resulted in an ugly shot that looked like it had less than a 19% chance of going in. The second time he held the ball until a guard poked it away from him. I was thinking to myself: here we go again. But the rest of the game, Pek was used flawlessly, almost never touching the ball in a bad Pek spot. He missed a couple shots, but I still think he put himself in a position to succeed.

I remember the plays you are talking about Long, and it is just part of the Adelman corner offense. It just depends on which side of the floor they swing the ball to. I think they have to use Pek somewhat in that set, otherwise the offense becomes more predictable from a defensive standpoint. The problem is that Pek isn't a good passer and tends to get too passive, turning his back to the defender. Unfortunately, I don't' think that will change, and is something we will have to live with from him.

well guys, we have one big for pick and roll with PEK and one big for pick and pop/fade with Love, from my understanding however if attacking PG cannot shoot well the PnR,PnP play is not that effective as idea behind these plays is to create mismatch, however in Rubio's case they can let him shoot and if there is some good rim protector down low they just don't need to care too much about our PnR at all as Ricky his highly inefficient with his layups also, we would have to design some more advanced PnR rotations of multiple players as for example Barcelona played with Ricky as a PG, however i am still not sure it would worked that great

sjm34 wrote:I remember the plays you are talking about Long, and it is just part of the Adelman corner offense. It just depends on which side of the floor they swing the ball to. I think they have to use Pek somewhat in that set, otherwise the offense becomes more predictable from a defensive standpoint. The problem is that Pek isn't a good passer and tends to get too passive, turning his back to the defender. Unfortunately, I don't' think that will change, and is something we will have to live with from him.

Yeah, I think you're right,sjm. My view of how Pek should be used is too simplistic. He does need to occasionally be the guy set up at the free throw line in RA's offense. It's those times when he needs to understand he is a cog in the offense, and not the primary scoring option, and get rid of the ball quickly. I agree that passing is not his strong suit, but the coaching staff should work on developing this part of his game and reducing his bad choices.

sjm34 wrote:I remember the plays you are talking about Long, and it is just part of the Adelman corner offense. It just depends on which side of the floor they swing the ball to. I think they have to use Pek somewhat in that set, otherwise the offense becomes more predictable from a defensive standpoint. The problem is that Pek isn't a good passer and tends to get too passive, turning his back to the defender. Unfortunately, I don't' think that will change, and is something we will have to live with from him.

Yeah, I think you're right,sjm. My view of how Pek should be used is too simplistic. He does need to occasionally be the guy set up at the free throw line in RA's offense. It's those times when he needs to understand he is a cog in the offense, and not the primary scoring option, and get rid of the ball quickly. I agree that passing is not his strong suit, but the coaching staff should work on developing this part of his game and reducing his bad choices.