By "secondary" I just meant essentially non-primary, ie. plays primarily off-ball. It's really too hard to rank role players because some primary options can also play an off-ball role player role at times as well.

As to the comparison with Giannis/Middleton and Zion/BI. Giannis also averaged 8.2 FGA+FTs more than Middleton that season. Zion is only averaging ~1 more FGA+FTs than BI. Middleton was very important to that team in crunch time, but during the regular flow of the game he definitely took a back seat to Giannis.

ETA: if Zion and BI are going to work together, Giannis and Middleton are a good model to look at. Realistically they worked so well together because of the team defense though, rim protecting center, help defense from Giannis, and perimeter defense from Jrue.

This post was edited on 2/28/24 at 4:09 pm

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Posted by shel311

McKinney, Texas

Member since Aug 2004

111187 posts

Posted on 2/28/24 at 4:30 pm to Epic Cajun

Epic is on point here

If BI and more so the coaching staff/front office were willing to defer and let Zion be the clear #1 and high usage guy and BI clearly the #2 option and those deferments being to the high volume of midrange shots to more balance of inside/outside but in the clutch, BI steps up more and can shoot the middies when that's the only option late in games, that would be fine.

But there's no reason to think we'll ever actually do that.

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Posted by TeddyPadillac

Member since Dec 2010

25851 posts

Posted on 2/28/24 at 4:32 pm to Epic Cajun

quote:
By "secondary" I just meant essentially non-primary, ie. plays primarily off-ball. It's really too hard to rank role players because some primary options can also play an off-ball role player role at times as well.

i gotcha. well then Bridges is no where near 10th best secondary option.

And when you talk about those secondary options, it really depends on how they fit into the team.
BI is a better player than Herb, but Herb would make the Suns better than BI would.
Swapping Mikal for BI doesn't make us better. Swapping CJ for Mikal does, even though CJ is a much better offensive player than Mikal, but as the 3rd option Mikal doesn't have to create and can knock down 3's, and his defense is the difference maker.

quote:

As to the comparison with Giannis/Middleton and Zion/BI. Giannis also averaged 8.2 FGA+FTs more than Middleton that season. Zion is only averaging ~1 more FGA+FTs than BI. Middleton was very important to that team in crunch time, but during the regular flow of the game he definitely took a back seat to Giannis.

I get what you're saying, and yes Zion should be averaging more than he is, but the Pels have more scorers than the Bucks did. CJ is a 20ppg guy, and we've got guys like Trey and JV who can score 20+ on any given night.

and if you look at their clutch stats for the regular season:
PPG
Middleton 2.5
Giannis 2.5
Jrue 2.0

FGA
MIddleton 1.8
Giannis 1.7
Jrue 1.6

Usg%
Middleton 31.4%
Giannis 27.0%
Jrue 24.9%

Jrue took a back seat to those two guys in teh regular season, but you can still see when the game got close, it was Middlton and Jrue taking more shots than Giannis.

That phenomenon doesn't happen with Jokic with Murray, b/c Jokic has more to his game than finishing at the rim.
Jokic scored more in the clutch in the regular season even though they took the same amount of FGA, but come playoff time it was all Jokic, and MPJ was no where near what Murray did as the #2.
Jokic was 42% usage in the playoffs in the clutch compared to Murray 20.5%. MPJ wasn't even the top role player in the clutch for just about any stat. It was AG and KCP.

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