Why This Series?
When a great player becomes great, there is often the narrative of inevitability tied into the fabric. While there may be some truth to that – no training context would have made me an NBA All-Star – it is worth examining some of the more surprising star turns.
This series aims to not just identify certain significant leaps of statistical production, but also to identify the newly created patterns of complex actions grown out of more rudimentary ones. As a self-deemed draft analyst hoping to improve the employment matching process of prospects-to-teams as a third-party observer, looking for those kernels of magic that could be nurtured to become foundations of elite play is the most I can strive for.
Enter: Pascal Siakam
I chose Pascal Siakam to kick off this series because of his skyrocketing from an energy big at New Mexico State to now primary creator in his seventh season, all traced through his time with the Toronto Raptors.
Particularly, Siakam, the former 27th overall pick, has had an all-time great developmental track in scoring with the ball in his hands. I use isolation scoring as a convenient proxy for this, as it showcases our subjects against a variety of defenses coverages and help schemes, with the focal point around creating as easy of a shot as possible out of nothing.
The below infographic shows how stark the increases have been over the years, with his repertoire of moves used to score in isolation growing from a simple two moves as a rookie (his vaunted spin move, but also ‘accelerate then spin’), a mere four in his second season (adding straight line acceleration, a crossover and the ability to power through an opponent to the basket) before experimenting more and more.
His first big leap came as a complement to Kawhi Leonard during the Raptors’ title run, with 45 of his 162 iso points coming in the playoffs. The following year was his second big leap, taking over the helm as primary initiator for the Raptors and earning his first All-Star bid. After being held back by injury in 2019-20, in the 2020-21 season Siakam’s iso rate rose significantly, now at 5.4 possessions per game, 5th most in the entire league. Despite some more bad injury luck in 2021-22, Siakam has not only maintained his iso rate but improved his efficiency dramatically, now scoring 1.06 points per isolation possessions, tied with Kevin Durant and better than Joel Embiid and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. And that doesn’t even include how he’s averaging more assists per game than those three others as well.
How did a former off-ball PF with zero isolation points in college become one of the best iso scorers in the NBA? I break it down with tape from each season in the below video:
Enter: Arthur Kaluma
We will not get further into this piece without the essential note that this is no way a player or even necessarily style comparison. The whole point of outlier development is it is unexpected and extraordinary, and the unusual circumstances of Siakam not playing any organized basketball until age 18 makes any comparison further strained. Rather, Arthur Kaluma’s game and, especially, his driving, have some of those building blocks we look for as a scout, the same ones seen by Siakam in his earlier days.
To give a full picture of Kaluma as a player, he is a jab-friendly, rangy wing with sparks of skill but lacking refinement in many critical parts of his game, at this point. Kaluma’s lack of polish shows up more in Creighton’s structured system (often stationed on the wing or above the break with instructions to move the ball quickly, cut frequently), but still we see signs of a promising driver with the ball in his hands.
Sure, Art relies heavily on a pump fake which gets more bites than it deserves, but his creativity in getting an initial step, and adequacy with his handle into quick crosses then long strides means he can often find an edge even against tight coverage. It’s the execution after that is inconsistent.
In his two games with Uganda in FIBA World Cup Qualifiers in July 2022, Kaluma had more reign to create freely, often thriving in doing so to the tune of 23 points per game on 64% true shooting. These numbers far outpace his Creighton sophomore year output of 13 points per game at only 57% true shooting, despite playing against similar and at time tougher competition (such as Sacramento Kings big Chimezie Metu with Nigeria).
What Can Siakam Teach Kaluma?
The first takeaway I have in watching 2022-23 Pascal Siakam is how he has turned the practical into the artistic. The process is not always pretty how he slingshots his wiry frame from space to space or extends through a defender, often times garish and literal, but he has become one of the best at throwing off defenders with his arrhythmic, unpredictable movements. Once a meme for his predilection for his spin move and spin move only, now at the culmination of Pascal’s options, dozens in hand, there is a joy in trying to guess what buttons Pascal will try next. Siakam reminds one less of a 2K character and more a fighting game character whose options are always reliable and can be chained for combos, each made familiar through endless trial, error and muscle memory.
Second, but related, is the importance of locating your advantage wherever you have it. Basketball involves both quick and decisive movements in any four-dimensional direction at a unique or consistent point in a dynamic and never identical context. As long as you, as a player, have even one trait that advantages you over a given opponent: leverage that to the end of time and the rest of the game coalesces around it.
For Siakam, that is length, balance, flexibility, touch and stride length, a very fun combination he has juiced more and more over time. For Kaluma, his advantage also resides in his length (and, potentially, his touch around the rim) but also in his Siakam-like experimentation of footwork across situations, enabled by his fluidity of movement and ability to alternate strides and pace. From a technical standpoint, Kaluma is closer to Siakam in his second year with the Raptors than at New Mexico State, even if the landing isn’t always there. Kaluma loves his pump fakes and jabs, but also has used spins, stutter rips, euros, up and unders, in and outs, leaners, floaters, left hand acceleration, pro hops at oblique angles, reverse lay-ins off both one and two legs, cradle reverses, Shammgods!, between the legs into gathers, snatchbacks, elongated slower strides. Even with inconsistent production and efficiency, that kind of drive versatility is notable for a 6’7’’ 20-year-old.
Another essential mark in his favor is that Kaluma is a good interior defender and rebounder. One note before we go further is that Kaluma had a knee injury in February 2022 which caused him to miss two weeks. His production, and most notably block rate, went down to close the season. While he looked healthy with Uganda, he was forced to sit out the second round in late August due to a knee injury which lasted through Creighton’s training camp. Kaluma has not looked the same level of athlete in his second collegiate season, and I suspect this lingering injury is at least partially to blame.
While his numbers are still decent, his block rate has declined from a very good 2.1% from a wing to a more modest 1.3%, instead of grabbing 15.8% of defensive rebounds only secures 14.7%. For context, these place him 39th for block rate and 35th for defensive rebound rate among all 6’7’’ high major players compared to 22nd and 19th, respectively, as a freshman.
These degrees of difference matter, as being able to defend up to PFs is potentially crucial for his overall success. As seen in Pascal Siakam’s progression, being able to guard up early on in his career earned him the slower-footed matchups needed to develop his 1A move and branch out from there. Versatility, as it were, contributes in turn to getting one’s self in more advantageous situations.
Over the spectrum of his tape, Kaluma has shown a keen ability for tracking rebounds and timing in traffic. Most notably, when Creighton center Ryan Kalkbrenner went down with injury at the end of Kaluma’s freshman season, Arthur was more than capable filling in as smallball 5 for stretches. As the primary defender of Kansas center David McCormick, Kaluma held the 6’10’’, 265 pound big to his fewest points scored in the NCAA tournament at 7 points on 2-8 shooting while also outrebounding him by a 12-6 margin (and still scoring 24 points in his own right to nearly claim an upset on the eventual champion).
If Kaluma can regain some of his lost vertical pop and sturdiness in the post with a healthier knee, the number of routes for his utility as a young NBA player grow exponentially.
Outside of these traits, Kaluma has shown adequacies if not fluency in any given area. His passing can be exceptionally creative at times, particularly out of his on-ball reps: this ability to thrive in chaos at times is another green flag for Kaluma’s upside, something we see consistently with Siakam over the years. But the execution of basic tasks can leave much wanting, most frustrating with occasional lack of care for where to plant his feet: that has to be cleaned up if he wants to be the minimum level of NBA player. In a similar vein, his attention on perimeter defense can wane from time to time, more common for young players in general.
Now, the shot. While there is a school of thought that Kaluma has to have the shot fall to work as an NBA player that I disagree with, it continuing to progress would make his life much, much easier, as is the case for most draft-fringe wings. Arthur commented that the injury made him pay more attention to it, slowing him down, and we have seen some progress: 33% on over 8 threes per 100 possessions is not bad, especially compared to his 27% shooting on 7 threes per 100 as a freshman. His mid-range and free throw percentages have creeped up slightly from poor to decent, with the one exception being the item most impacted by a decline of athleticism: finishing at the rim, down to 55% from 69% as a freshman, a nonsensical decline, especially with an increase in share of rim makes assisted.
Nothing looks completely broken, though Kaluma’s long frame with a wingspan around 7 feet necessitates a slow coil of a release. Kaluma is naturally a bit flat-footed, which makes him more effective stepping into shots with momentum already heading forward (such as dribbling into an ATB pull-up or hopping into the catch rather than waiting flat footed) than off a corner three catch and shoot. His touch near the basket looks good, able to adjust mid-air to soften the angle (at least, frequently before the injury, less so after), though does get caught driving too shallow or deep, a tendency to meander around the hoop once in the lane.
You can tell whether a Kaluma shot is going in whether he angles his right foot down into the shot, toes landing first, or stays flat-footed. If he gets that small amount of moment forward, the entire foundation is that much more stable.
Again, the Siakam comparison is unfair, as it is incredibly rare to find someone who only made three threes in two years of college play who now can hit four in a game or score over 50 points in a game in a barrage from all locations. But both of the players have good coordination and a solid foundation to get into their shots as college players, as well as technically sound follow throughs. The issue comes more from the footwork for Kaluma, who also plays by feel more than technique.
At the end of the day, Pascal Siakam was able to put together new concepts and apply them to on-court performance at a historically significant rate. While no one can be quite like him, everyone can learn from his development.
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