The Case for Derrick Favors’ Fit: Transition

Griff has said that the Pelicans targeted Favors early in the offseason and expect him to be a multi-year fit on this team. The fit on defense is pretty obvious, but on offense it is a little less clear. It has been mentioned that the Pels believe there is untapped potential with Favors in transition. But why are the Pelicans confident in Favors fit with a team that wants to get out and run? Consider this:

Since Favors has been with the Jazz, Utah has been at or near the bottom of the league in pace of play nearly every year. During that span, Utah has an average of 23th place in pace, with the highest finish of 13th (11-12 season). In contrast, the Pelicans were 1st and 2nd in pace the last two years.

Favors has never really been given the opportunity to run like he will here. He doesn’t really create for himself, but he’s a great finisher around the rim (a blistering 68.6% on FG in the paint), which should be great for easy transition buckets.

But Favors can help this team get into and finish transition in another way. Favors, though the raw numbers don’t show it, is still a very good rebounder. This is something that got lost a little playing so many minutes next to Gobert. Last year, Favors averaged 7.4 rebounds a game, good for 45th among all players (min 20 games), Gobert was 4th with 12.9. But the raw numbers don’t tell the whole story. Favors had a rebounding percentage of 35.8% on contested defensive rebounds last year. That ranked 7th among all players that started at least 40 games, better than players like Jokic, Adams, Drummond, Whiteside, and even Gobert. For more context, this was just behind AD (36.5%) who had the highest for the Pels last year. If he can man the boards on defense, this should allow Zion to leak out and run for easy transition buckets, a skill that he should be elite at from day 1.

So Favors, at least in theory, should really benefit from our system.