This piece is not meant to give a firm rubric for how to evaluate players, but to catalogue tried and true methods of contributing on a basketball floor that happen to be present for all our best players. No two superstars are the same; in fact, superstars by their nature should be polarized as solving the problems of how to beat each other. If, then, they are all doing the same thing, over and over again? We should take note.

Trait #1: High Degree of Accuracy on Steals/Blocks

Ingredients: Spatial awareness, hand strength, timing, wingspan, positioning, balance

The game of basketball is about winning battles, but it’s also about how convincingly we do so. Swish Theory’s Roshan wrote about the same in his fantastic piece on margins.

Every superstar player I watched the prospect tape of has one, glaring trait in common: they all have superb hand-eye coordination, and exhibited on strips and blocks. One can pick up on these high degree of difficulty plays a few ways. How fast does the player move his arm or hands to make the play? How difficult was it to do so without fouling? Was this a repeated occurrence?

My favorite, though far from exclusive, way to assess these is “dead arm” steals/blocks. Hakeem Olajuwon is the prime example. Hakeem was not immune to jumpiness on the block, likely majorly to do with him being relatively new to basketball. Regardless, Olajuwon made spectacular plays constantly from his first minutes. These “dead arm” blocks would occur when he left his feet at a sub-optimal time, but was still able to angle his arm to knock the ball loose. An example is at the 12 second mark above: Olajuwon leaves early but is still able to fall in the perfect position to block the shot.

This is the clearest cut and least controversial category: visually, it should stand out dramatically, though not always the case, either.

Why is this so important?

Hand accuracy is essential to playing basketball for obvious reasons, but maybe some less than obvious ones as well. Steals are extremely valuable in completely stopping a possession and starting a favorable offensive set (advantageous transition) but also speak to the incisiveness a player is able to bring to the table.

To step into a play and completely strip your opponent of the ball is a dominant activity, completely going against what your opponent wants you to do. To accomplish that you have to take a timely risk, and the only way it can pay off is if you have the hands and coordination to pounce. This all happens in a flash: either you come out with the ball or you don’t.

These players are not just poking the ball free. They are doing so from awkward angles, or if in good position, convincingly so. The Dwyane Wade clips are my prime example (starting at 1:57 above). We see a strong vertical in clip 1, a “dead arm” block in clip 2, otherworldly timing in clip 3 and hounding on-ball defense in clip 4. In each of these scenarios he risks a negative outcome – fouling – but is so accurate with his hands and is able to move faster than others to get into the optimal spot. All of this is how Wade accumulated 3.5 stocks to 2.4 fouls at Marquette and 2.3 stocks to 2.2 fouls per game as a pro despite being only 6’4”.

These traits speak to how we play basketball, generally. Are we moving fast, are we accurate, are we on point, timing-wise? Even plodding Nikola Jokic is able to perfectly place his hands to the tune of nearly two stocks per game as a prospect. When someone mugs an offensive player to the point of you getting out of your seat, you know we are getting somewhere.

Trait #2: Pass Through Your Defender

Ingredients: Processing, planning, pass accuracy, vertical, manipulation, creativity, footwork

Switching to the offensive side of the ball, this trait speaks to the creativity and spatial reasoning of a player, while also capturing physical tools like pass accuracy. Going through the players chronologically, our earliest superstars all had one obvious trait in common: they loved to jump pass. Jordan, Olajuwon, Barkley, Robinson, O’Neal and Garnett could all be found leaping to then make a read even within small segments of game film.

A proclivity for jump passes may be counterintuitive: isn’t that the first thing youth coaches tell their players not to do? Well, it is also indicative of star upside. Again like hand accuracy on swipes, jump passes put the prospect in a dangerous situation, at risk of traveling, but stars have the complex tools to make the most of it. Jump passes were less common as the century turned, but could still be found in the prospect tape of almost every superstar.

I broadened the trait from just jump passes, however, to also include any ability to pass through your opponent. Meaning, your defender is in perfect position – no advantage has been created – yet you still find a way to sneak the ball through. Let’s call them advantage-creating passes. This may be well-timed lobs above the opponent’s head a la Stephen Curry, over-the-head outlet passes from Tim Duncan or dump-offs after a sequence of pivots from Dwyane Wade. Jokic, for all the complexities of his game, barely clears the ground anyways, so has little benefit for the exaggerated jump passes of Kevin Garnett, for example. But he still, mostly through timing and pass accuracy, is able to pass directly through traffic on command.

Why is this so important?

Assists are great for obvious reasons: they get you points and your teammates involved. But jump passes/advantage-creating passes are special because they require coordination moving dramatically in one direction while hitting a moving target going a different one. You have to adjust on the fly, either manipulating your defender into allowing the pass or finding an unexpected target at the last second. We should have our antennae ready to pick up on the obvious ‘pass through’ players like Jokic. The important point is that the ball goes from point A to point B despite an opponent standing directly in between. Even simply from a geometric standpoint, there is clearly something special happening, especially if the pass works repeatedly.

Trait #3: One-Two Punch

Ingredients: Balance, shooting technique, touch, coordination, vertical, core strength

Now we’re getting to maybe what is considered a more traditional superstar trait. Perhaps the most important of any we will discuss here, this is the building block for a high-level NBA scorer. A one-two punch is when you can make one quick move into a scoring action. Watching through the clips above one can see that change of pace is essential: how quickly can you organize into a bucket?

The most common one-two punch is the post up turnaround jumper, utilizing horizontal space (where you turn to) while also relying on a vertical to shoot over an opponent. But methods vary dramatically, especially as I reached more contemporary tape. Dwyane Wade loves to use hang dribble crossover into his pull-ups, again using that horizontal space into vertical. LeBron posts into turnarounds but also bullies his way closer to the cup. Steph manufactures horizontal space by running dutifully off-ball, with the ability to quickly move into a shot at the key moment. Jokic is again an outlier, a deadly outside shooter who has to do little to get his high-arching shot off. An important reminder: there are always stylistic exceptions.

Perhaps the two cleanest examples are Jordan and Shaq. Jordan was as fluid as anyone getting into his pull-up out of the post or face-up crossovers. Shaq was a devastating scorer already at LSU, bolstered by his unstoppable post into baseline bank shot lay in. These are staples that not only helped both translate immediately but were essential to them reaching the Hall of Fame status. It does not matter if it’s repetitive if it is consistently effective; in fact, repetitive might be preferable.

Why is this so important?

The game, as always, is about buckets. In a video from my childhood I can’t track down, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar talked about how a player only needs four moves: a right, a left, a fake right into left, a fake left into right. It can be tempting to seek out as much scoring versatility as possible, as indeed that will help stabilize a player’s performance too. But everyone needs a fastball, a building block that only makes it easier to branch off to more complex actions.

The first problem any player has to solve is to put the ball in the basket. Through a one-two punch, a player does not have to depend on their teammates to do so. All of the actions shown above require a high level of coordination, balance, touch, technique. If a player can corral all of those to punch in the gaps succinctly and smoothly, they are likely great athletes. The function is pure: to get buckets. But there’s an essential element of self-generated offense as well.

Trait #4: Go Up and Get It

Ingredients: Timing, vertical (max, repeat, instantaneous), hand size and strength, core stability, spatial awareness

Now we get to go back to our old-school fundamentals: let’s admire the classic rebound. Here is a trait exhibited by each and every superstar we watched, with the evidence fairly clear. “Go up and get it” sounds like it means: these players are excellent at snagging the ball at its peak.

Olajuwon is again a prime example, unparalleled in the apex he reached while perfectly timing his boards. You also have players like Charles Barkley, who make up for lack of height by doing a lot of work clearing out space on the ground, but nevertheless are able to leap at the perfect moment. Even Stephen Curry (5.6 board per 40), Dwyane Wade (8.4) and Chris Paul (4.6) punched above their height as guard rebounders, all capable of plucking the ball out of the grasp of taller players.

The most significant deviation, and perhaps surprisingly, was Tim Duncan. Duncan, simply, did not need to high-point rebounds given his superior positioning. Surely he is capable of snagging rebounds at their peak, one of the elite rebounders in NBA history, but it did not pop on the tape like with others. Instead, Duncan could be found carving out large swathes of territory with his picture-perfect boxout technique. Once again, these are more guidelines than hard and fast rules. Duncan did not need to high-point every single rebound due to other outlier traits; appreciate the function over the method.

Why is this so important?

Running up and grabbing a ball, as reductive as it sounds, is a lot of basketball. Simply put, it is difficult to find a star player who is not at least pretty good at rebounding. It is a building block of the game for a reason. But the tape specifically showed high-pointing the ball as the common visual cue. That places an emphasis on timing and vertical. Much like the previous traits, there is a very brief critical period at which the ball can be grabbed by you rather than someone else.

We also see a reiteration of many athletic ingredients from the prior traits: coordination, balance, timing, vertical, hands.

Trait #5: Unstructured Midrange Touch

Ingredients: Fine motor skills, balance, coordination, hand size, vertical

Perhaps the most impressive on tape were David Robinson and James Harden. Robinson was able to swing around in an instant to knock down midrange after midrange jumper no matter the angle or coverage. Harden, meanwhile, was able to use his incredible core strength to pull off plenty difficult attempts from all over the midrange. He was particularly adept at runners, shooting a 77th percentile efficiency on one per game. On tape the degree of difficulty showed.

Why is this so important?

There is once again an intrinsic basketball value – points are scored – while speaking to so much more. Touch is how you coordinate your hand to push the ball towards the basket; highlighting field goal attempts where a shot is less structured (i.e. different from a free throw which relies more on technique) gives us a cleaner glimpse into how successful one is doing so on the fly. Technique is important too, but easier to learn than touch.

In fact, success with touch near the basket seems to correlate with outside shooting improvement, too. David Robinson improved his free throw percentage from 58% as a freshman to 64% as a senior and then, further, up to 74% over his NBA career. Harden, meanwhile, went from 76% in college to 86% in the pros. Much like accuracy on strips/blocks, high level basketball is about having great hands. Skill is only conveyed through how we manipulate the ball, so we need all the help we can get physically.

We are seeking building blocks, and with unstructured short/mid touch, we have found one.

Trait #6: Drive with Force

Ingredients: Strength, balance, handle, coordination, flexibility

Forgive how this video is shorter; this was the category I added the last. But it likely is not the least important. Drive with force means to attack the basket in, well, a forceful manner. This can be Olajuwon and Robinson relentlessly squaring up to the offensive glass, or, more conventionally, James Harden dribbling hard to the basket from the perimeter. But it could also be Stephen Curry driving into his opponent’s shoulder without the ball before popping out for a three. Or Jokic lumbering towards the tin.

LeBron is the obvious example, often compared to a freight train when downhill. But this trait was most essential to note in a young Giannis Antetokounmpo. Extremely slender as malnourished at the time, Giannis nevertheless attacked the basket with the same ferocity we see today. While his role was to jack threes rather than drive to set up offense, Giannis made his chances through activity in transition or broken plays. In the absence of positive midrange touch indicators, Giannis’ driving was essential to preserve his route to superstardom.

Why is this so important?

Force is an important element in basketball, as these are strong players moving fast through space. Driving with force means inviting physicality as the initiator. While people often talk about gravity in basketball as referring to spacing at the three point line, there is a much denser pull towards the rim. An open layup is the best shot in basketball, and a free throw is the second best. Driving with force works towards achieving either one or the other.

Putting It All Together

Tallying up the ingredients shows us some underlying characteristics we can prioritize: balance, vertical, coordination, hands, core strength. While these provide a good baseline for physicality on the basketball court, I would remember that they are only useful tied together with concrete action, such as the six traits I highlighted above. Every one of the six actions involves a critical window which requires an immediate, durable application of these underlying characteristics. The more traits a player exhibits, and the more convincingly they do so, the better.

The goal with this piece, more or less, was to tie together player archetypes, competition contexts and age curves to note standard action items. With the six traits above, I have picked what has stood out to me the most as omnipresent in the prospect tape of past stars.

The post Spotting the Stars appeared first on Swish Theory.

“Wow! Jock Landale is a truly dominant center! Not one of the Denver frontcourt players can box him out, Denver must lack an interior presence to negate his offensive rebounding.” 

And our extraterrestrial friend wouldn’t be wrong, either.

In the first two and a half minutes of the 4th quarter, the Suns took six shots while the Nuggets only took two, with Phoenix bench big Landale drawing three fouls (two while attacking the glass and one while sealing Christian Braun) in that stretch. The Nuggets’ Jeff Green-Aaron Gordon backline is structureless, flimsy against any sort of quasi-meaningful size. A strategy that, on a night where the typically dynamic Denver offense was unusually sluggish, may have lost Denver home court advantage against the star-powered Suns.

Enter, then, one Nikola Jokic. Jokic checked in with 9:25 to go in a game tied 73-73, the only points scored thus far in the frame was a Kentavious Caldwell-Pope three pointer. His first play upon checking in? A demeaning one-handed rebound, casually repelling Landale with his free arm, into a Jokic-Jamal Murray two-man game resulting in another KCP three point bomb. 

The Nuggets would go on to win 97-87, but within a 30 second frame, Jokic immediately stabilized both ends of the court for the Nuggets. In a critically important Game 2 with Murray, Michael Porter Jr., and Aaron Gordon combining to shoot 9/31, Jokic needed to be the best version of himself: the NBA’s foremost supercomputer processing solutions to his team’s needs on both ends of the floor.

Yes, both ends of the floor. For as much as Jokic has been the league’s most reliable offensive hub in 2023, the fourth quarter against the Suns demonstrated that his feel for the game is not limited to offense. When the Suns attacked Denver’s no-middle defense with Josh Okogie as the short-roller/decision maker, Aaron Gordon jumped on an Okogie fake and left Deandre Ayton wide open for the jam.

I’m unsure exactly what Jokic said to Gordon, but I would like to believe it was something along the lines of, “It’s Josh f****** Okogie man.” It clearly had an impact on Gordon’s strategy on the rotation to the short roller. Later in the quarter, still applying no-middle but this time blitzing the ball screen, Gordon shaded toward Okogie instead of committing, forcing the worst offensive option for the Suns to make an important decision late in the game. The result was a bad shot and a won possession for the Nuggets:

Jokic’s recognition of personnel and concepts is key to the Nuggets defensive strategy against the Suns. The moments where Devin Booker and Kevin Durant go nuclear are unstoppable, but exploiting weaknesses around the edges is how the Nuggets can contain Phoenix’s explosive offense. Despite his athletic limitations, he solves so many problems just by recognizing the offensive potency of each opposing player. 

Against Cameron Payne (who is decidedly not Chris Paul), Jokic relied on heavy drop concepts and his underrated strength to man the paint. Against Booker, he hedged until the defender had a chance to recover, forcing Book to at least consider making a decision and delaying his process while the weakside defenders got organized. And against Durant, Jokic hard blitzed the PnR to get the ball out of his hands and into Okogie’s. All the while retreating to the paint to establish early positioning for rebounds. Positioning, the thing that the Nuggets couldn’t stop Jock Landale from establishing without Jokic.

And offensively, Jokic has no equal. He had 39 points on 17/30 shooting in 41 minutes. When the Nuggets needed his completely singular skillset the most, he delivered. The earlier clip–where Jokic processes Booker’s rotation before he does and gets KCP a wide open corner look–is a small sample of how Jokic’s offensive mastery ushered the Nuggets to victory.

Poor, poor Deandre Ayton. Despite some pretty sound defense, or what would be sound defense against most centers, Jokic routinely found space to attack and took complete advantage of how Ayton was utilized in Phoenix’s scheme. In the PnR, Jokic took up just enough space to get the best shot possible without a meaningful contest from Ayton:

In one-on-one defensive contexts, Ayton stood no chance. Despite possessing a myriad of athletic advantages, Jokic simply overpowered the former number-one overall pick. 

In the first clip, while obviously a tough shot, Jokic waits until Murray spaces to the three-point line to attack that gap in between the free throw line and the right block. The second shot is humiliation on national television. The aggressive hips and early seal in semi-transition puts the Suns’ defense irreparably behind the eight-ball. Barbecue chicken. He’s hunting an iso matchup against the only reliable two-way big the Suns roster. 

The third clip is just Jokic being a cheat code. After some initial off ball action, Denver runs Horns Out (where the player at one elbow sets a screen for the player at the opposite elbow, a play that Phoenix runs a lot for Durant) for Jokic, who immediately attacks Ayton’s chest and draws a foul. There is exactly one other center in the NBA who you can reliably run this set for and he’s the MVP of the Association. Back to our E.T. correspondent after watching the rest of the 4th quarter:

Jokic is become PnR death, destroyer of worlds defenses.

Profound words, but there are still some counters the Suns could employ to contain Jokic’s impact. While it sounds nonsensical, establishing a smaller defender on Jokic may actually short circuit the Nuggets’ offense. Placing Ayton, Bismack Biyombo, or even Durant as the weak side helper and matching up Torrey Craig as the primary could deter his decision-making and ultimately afford the defense more time for recovery. 

The Sixers implemented this strategy during the regular season (as analyzed by the great team at Thinking Basketball) to great effect, and while Craig is no P.J. Tucker and Ayton is certainly no Joel Embiid, the concept of forcing Jokic to see the biggest body possible on the help has its merits. Though I’m sure Jokic will crack that code too. Game 3 on May 5th.

The post Nikola Jokic: Destroyer of Worlds appeared first on Swish Theory.

“We want him taking more shots,” the seven-year head coach said, donning a devilish grin, “just trying to take the ball out of [Kevin Durant] and [Devin Booker]’s hands.”

The Suns corrected this in Game 2, winning 123-109 with a healthy dose of KD and Book. The Suns’ dynamic duo combined for 34 points on 20 shots in the second half, a noteworthy increase from the 20 points on 12 shots in the second half of Game 1. Suns’ head coach Monty Williams diagnosed the problem as a lack of touches for their best players and corrected it to even up the series. 

And so, the precedent for the series is set. With Lue having the edge on the clipboard and demonstrating he has the players to execute his strategy, Williams’ ability to make effective and timely adjustments that maximize the shotmaking ability of his best players will determine the outcome of the series.

In Game 1, the strategy was clear: stay home on Durant and Booker when they’re off the ball, bring early nail help on drives, and defend the PnR with a soft drop. Push Monty Williams to use KD and Book as spacers off the ball and incentivize his two star scorers to pass out of the PnR. 

And they happily obliged. Though their typically efficient selves, the duo combined for just 34 shot attempts (19 for Booker and a mere 15 for Durant). And Durant didn’t touch the ball for the first five possessions of “clutch time” (the last five minutes of a game separated by five points or less).

In Game 2, the onus was on Monty Williams to design a counter. Like the cowbell in Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear the Reaper, the answer was, simply but undeniably, more. More KD, more Book: a concerted effort to allocate more shots for the Suns’ best players. 

At the 7:13 mark of the first quarter, the Suns ran Horns Out for Durant with Ayton as the screener. Kawhi Leonard (who Lue occasionally set as Ayton’s primary defender) switched on to Durant, who read the switch and tried to feed Ayton on the roll. Result: turnover, points in transition for the Clippers, timeout Suns.

Shortly after the timeout, the Suns went back to Horns Out for Durant. And though the defense sniffed it out rather early, it didn’t matter. Williams runs that play for the distinct purpose of leaning into what makes Durant so special, shotmaking at an elite level.

Same goes for Booker, who is as shifty and dynamic a scorer as the NBA has to offer, albeit still mediocre as a passer. Lue setting up the Clipper’s defense to place Booker in the playmaker role worked, for a time. The strategy forced Booker to make decisions typically reserved for Paul, and while Book’s improved drastically as a decision maker, the intensity of the Clippers still bothered him.

Until he went unconscious. Booker took 14 of his 22 shots in the second half and broke the Clippers defensive strategy of icing ball screens by attacking any available space with his shot. He finished with a game high 38 points, 25 of which came after the break.

Through two games, this series has been a classic “Jimmy’s-and-Joe’s vs. X’s and O’s”, with both head coaches embodying these ideas. Lue’s defensive principles ushered the Clippers to a Game 1 win, while Williams simplifying the decision making process for his two best scorers busted Lue’s principles in Game 2.

Now, it’s Ty Lue’s turn to counter what will likely be a barrage from Booker and Durant in Game 3. A contest in which they will be without superstar Kawhi Leonard. While Eric Gordon provides important shooting, trading his minutes for Terance Mann and Norman Powell adds physicality to the Clippers’ point of attack defense without losing too much shooting. The added aggression up top (especially without Leonard’s pressure) complements how the Clipper’s’ bigs have been playing the PnR, with soft drops incentivizing navigation into the midrange. Although the Sun’s’ duo is famously excellent in that department, it also means less space for passing angles, easier contests from multiple defenders, and (lest we forget) two is still a smaller number than three. 

Over the past decade, teams that win Game 3 of a series tied 1-1 going into the game win that series 75.9 percent of the time. Anything less than the best possible performance from either side will be a major roadblock to their ultimate goal. Williams’ Game 2 coaching set a new precedent in the series, and it will be up to Lue to determine a strategy that could save the Clippers’ season.

The post Coaching Battle: Ty Lue vs. Monty Williams appeared first on Swish Theory.