Who is the better center: Vuc or Drummond?

[dougthonus]

On a basic level here's how Vuc would become a more useful player:

1. Surround him with lengthy/athletic defenders.
2. Have a skilled passer that gets Vuc the ball on the move. He's much more successful scoring when he catches the ball at an angle and has the defender off-balance. Like you said, he's a below average post-scorer.
3. Stop using him as a volume three-point shooter. Don't completely eliminate it from his game, but instead let him shoot it when he's feeling it rather than forcing the issue.
4. Stop being married to rotation minutes during the 4th when he's not producing. Instead, ride the player having the better game.
5. Stagger his minutes so that he plays a good portion of the time with the bench instead of DeRozan and LaVine when healthy. Vuc is a bum slayer. That's not an insult, because it's actually a useful skill to have against second units. It would also eliminate the mid three's taking turns rather than just playing with a flow.

I think if these 5 things were happening, we'd feel a lot better about him on this roster.

#1 and #2 are non starters. Vuc isn't good enough to make roster changes for, and those roster changes would be much harder to manage than to swap out Vuc for a defensive, rim running center, and the resulting product is probably worse than swapping out Vuc for said center. Given Vuc can't shoot, and you can't get lengthy, athletic, defensive wings that can shoot (for under the max anyway), you'd create a lineup with 4 non-shooters on it if you did that. We probably can't really upgrade our passing at sub MLE anyway, but if you do, you probably just put Coby, whom is presently our best player, in a worse position.

Agree with #3-5, but if you do that, he's now a 8-10ppg 5M dollar type rotation/backup center, which is probably what his best use is.

[HomoSapien]

On a basic level here's how Vuc would become a more useful player:

1. Surround him with lengthy/athletic defenders.
2. Have a skilled passer that gets Vuc the ball on the move. He's much more successful scoring when he catches the ball at an angle and has the defender off-balance. Like you said, he's a below average post-scorer.
3. Stop using him as a volume three-point shooter. Don't completely eliminate it from his game, but instead let him shoot it when he's feeling it rather than forcing the issue.
4. Stop being married to rotation minutes during the 4th when he's not producing. Instead, ride the player having the better game.
5. Stagger his minutes so that he plays a good portion of the time with the bench instead of DeRozan and LaVine when healthy. Vuc is a bum slayer. That's not an insult, because it's actually a useful skill to have against second units. It would also eliminate the mid three's taking turns rather than just playing with a flow.

I think if these 5 things were happening, we'd feel a lot better about him on this roster.

#1 and #2 are non starters. Vuc isn't good enough to make roster changes for, and those roster changes would be much harder to manage than to swap out Vuc for a defensive, rim running center, and the resulting product is probably worse than swapping out Vuc for said center.

Agree with #3-5, but if you do that, he's now a 8-10ppg 5M dollar type rotation/backup center, which is probably what his best use is.

I guess 1 and 2 is what I would have done when we first traded for him (and perhaps what we initially tried to do with trying to trade for Theis and Ball at the same time). AKME sees him as a core piece. If you do, you might as well build a team in a way that covers his weaknesses. There were times in this span we could've likely traded for someone like Jerami Grant or Jarred Vanderbilt.

I don't think he has to be a 8-10 scorer if you do 3-5, but even if he is so what? We're probably stuck with Vuc for at least two more years. We might as well use him the way that's best for the team.

[dougthonus]

I guess 1 and 2 is what I would have done when we first traded for him (and perhaps what we initially tried to do with trying to trade for Theis and Ball at the same time). AKME sees him as a core piece. If you do, you might as well build a team in a way that covers his weaknesses. There were times in this span we could've likely traded for someone like Jerami Grant or Jarred Vanderbilt.

I think we do treat Vuc like a core piece and are a lot worse for it.

I don't think he has to be a 8-10 scorer if you do 3-5, but even if he is so what? We're probably stuck with Vuc for at least two more years. We might as well use him the way that's best for the team.

I agree with this. It's what I would do too. I don't care what Vuc's totals are. He's not good. Giving him more shots to pump up his totals doesn't help the team. This is his best use. It just acknowledges that he's not that good a player.

[sco]

On a basic level here's how Vuc would become a more useful player:

1. Surround him with lengthy/athletic defenders.
2. Have a skilled passer that gets Vuc the ball on the move. He's much more successful scoring when he catches the ball at an angle and has the defender off-balance. Like you said, he's a below average post-scorer.
3. Stop using him as a volume three-point shooter. Don't completely eliminate it from his game, but instead let him shoot it when he's feeling it rather than forcing the issue.
4. Stop being married to rotation minutes during the 4th when he's not producing. Instead, ride the player having the better game.
5. Stagger his minutes so that he plays a good portion of the time with the bench instead of DeRozan and LaVine when healthy. Vuc is a bum slayer. That's not an insult, because it's actually a useful skill to have against second units. It would also eliminate the mid three's taking turns rather than just playing with a flow.

I think if these 5 things were happening, we'd feel a lot better about him on this roster.

#1 and #2 are non starters. Vuc isn't good enough to make roster changes for, and those roster changes would be much harder to manage than to swap out Vuc for a defensive, rim running center, and the resulting product is probably worse than swapping out Vuc for said center. Given Vuc can't shoot, and you can't get lengthy, athletic, defensive wings that can shoot (for under the max anyway), you'd create a lineup with 4 non-shooters on it if you did that. We probably can't really upgrade our passing at sub MLE anyway, but if you do, you probably just put Coby, whom is presently our best player, in a worse position.

Agree with #3-5, but if you do that, he's now a 8-10ppg 5M dollar type rotation/backup center, which is probably what his best use is.

This is very true, but his deal isn't horrible for a backup.

I don't hate Vuc, I hate that Billy isn't using him right. Reminds me of Billy's misuse of Green and DJJ last season.

[HomoSapien]

On a basic level here's how Vuc would become a more useful player:

1. Surround him with lengthy/athletic defenders.
2. Have a skilled passer that gets Vuc the ball on the move. He's much more successful scoring when he catches the ball at an angle and has the defender off-balance. Like you said, he's a below average post-scorer.
3. Stop using him as a volume three-point shooter. Don't completely eliminate it from his game, but instead let him shoot it when he's feeling it rather than forcing the issue.
4. Stop being married to rotation minutes during the 4th when he's not producing. Instead, ride the player having the better game.
5. Stagger his minutes so that he plays a good portion of the time with the bench instead of DeRozan and LaVine when healthy. Vuc is a bum slayer. That's not an insult, because it's actually a useful skill to have against second units. It would also eliminate the mid three's taking turns rather than just playing with a flow.

I think if these 5 things were happening, we'd feel a lot better about him on this roster.

#1 and #2 are non starters. Vuc isn't good enough to make roster changes for, and those roster changes would be much harder to manage than to swap out Vuc for a defensive, rim running center, and the resulting product is probably worse than swapping out Vuc for said center. Given Vuc can't shoot, and you can't get lengthy, athletic, defensive wings that can shoot (for under the max anyway), you'd create a lineup with 4 non-shooters on it if you did that. We probably can't really upgrade our passing at sub MLE anyway, but if you do, you probably just put Coby, whom is presently our best player, in a worse position.

Agree with #3-5, but if you do that, he's now a 8-10ppg 5M dollar type rotation/backup center, which is probably what his best use is.

This is very true, but his deal isn't horrible for a backup.

I don't hate Vuc, I hate that Billy isn't using him right. Reminds me of Billy's misuse of Green and DJJ last season.

Speaking of Green, I wonder if he winds up back on this roster with all our injuries.

[FriedRise]

Last year, Vooch found a lot of success shooting from the corners. He was 21-45 (47%) for the season.

This year, it hasn't been used all that much, but the accuracy is still there: 6-14 (43%).

He doesn't really have the consistency for the above the break range, yet that's where he's usually shooting from. In fact, 92% of all of Vooch's 3pt attempts are above the break. I feel like a more creative coach could've exploited this part of his game more, and maybe effectively involved other players in pick and roll actions (like Pat, for example, or even Drummond if you're gonna play them together). It doesn't always have to be Vooch all the time.

I'm comparing him to a player like Al Horford - who's obviously slow and old now, but can still efficiently kill teams by shooting from the corners. He's shooting 30-69 (43%) from the corners so far this season in 39 games. He still takes a good bit from above the break, but only about 55% of his attempts come from there compared to Vooch's 92%.

See the difference?

You can't tell me there isn't a set in the playbook that could've used that part of Vooch's game more.

[MikeDC]

The craziest thing about Vuc is I'll be watching the game and seeing this man screwing up pivotal play after pivotal play, whether it's a blown bunny, bricked 3, missed rotation, or outright laziness on defense and the boards to the point where I'm thinking "This dude blows", but then I'll check the box score after the game and this dude will have like 21 points, 12 rebounds and 4 assists on like 8/13 shooting and I'm just like what...how???

He consistently puts up good box score numbers in spite of the eye test saying he's killing the team. Just a brief glance at his stats (17/11/4 on 47% shooting) and the average person would think we're nuts for trashing him. That to me is the definition of an empty stats player. He's the most empty stats player I can think of.

I don't disagree. The only defense I will make is that there is no such thing as empty stats. Averaging a double double every night with 17 ppg is exactly what it is.

I really disagree with this. Let's walk through the theory and practice of what happens in an NBA offense.

Usually, you've got some form of a 2 man game to start a possession. Maybe it moves around and becomes more, but the whole idea, right, is to create the opportunity to get a good, high percentage shot.

On those possessions where you don't do that, someone still ends up taking a shot most of the time. Vuc's stats are empty because he's the recipient of lots of these "bad" shot opportunities.

Like, the theory of a guy like Vuc is that he's a good enough shooter that you have to guard him and he opens up the paint for Zach/DeMar/Coby if you leave him alone.

If that were the case, he might actually score less, but his stats wouldn't be "empty". His shots would be in the flow of the offense. What's actually happening though, is every team looks at the choice between guarding Vuc or hedging on one of their much better offensive players, and they decide to leave Vuc wide open.

So, the offense gives him the ball, because he's open. But he sucks, he's really inefficient. So he puts up big total numbers, but uses a lot of possessions to do it.

In short, the defense is happy to let Vuc shoot it all day. That's a ticket to winning. That's what empty stats mean.

.......

Now... is Drummond better? It's hard to say. They have a completely different set of issues. It's like choosing whether you want to be hanged or electrocuted. Drummond turns it over a ton and he very obviously doesn't have the stamina to play more than about 18-24 minutes. I don't think you can actually play him more than that.

[dougthonus]

This is very true, but his deal isn't horrible for a backup.

Vuc is the 13th highest paid center in the league. His deal is absolutely putrid for a backup. There are 12 teams spending less on the center position with all players combined than Vuc's AAV, and we're on the hook for two more years. He's paid probably 4x what he's worth, and his reputation is such that we constantly put him in positions / give him shots that make the team worse.

The situation is very poor because not only are we wasting a ton of money, but we're also making ourselves worse by not facing the objective realities of the situation and what he can really do and instead letting him jack up a ton of shots with the worst efficiency on the roster.

I don't hate Vuc, I hate that Billy isn't using him right. Reminds me of Billy's misuse of Green and DJJ last season.

We often say love/hate about a player, but it's really about I think the player is worth or not worth his deal. It's really always about money/value/fit. Like Zach LaVine is hated by a lot of fans, if Zach LaVine were on a minimum contract, do you think he would be hated by anyone? Nah, he'd be a super stud then.

So as it stands for Vuc, he makes way more than he's worth and is a very poor fit in the modern NBA in terms of his skillset and requires a roster built around him to play more than a niche role effectively because of that poor fit. I don't "hate" Vuc, he seems hilarious and like a good dude, but he's not a good basketball player in the modern NBA standards anymore.

[kodo]

If Vuc's passing was so important to our offense, I would expect to see that in team offensive stats. Our offensive rating is 112 when Vuc plays. When Drummond plays, it's 118. Vuc actually has one of the lower offensive ratings on the team, which is weird given most of his minutes are with the starting unit with the best offensive players like Coby & Deebo.

There are plenty of elite teams with better offenses who don't have to have a passing center. Boston's offense wasn't ever terrible because they played Robert Williams. New York's offense isn't terrible because they play Hartenstein. You can run a great NBA offense by simply not requiring your shotblocker/rim-runner to be a PG.

[League Circles]

The craziest thing about Vuc is I'll be watching the game and seeing this man screwing up pivotal play after pivotal play, whether it's a blown bunny, bricked 3, missed rotation, or outright laziness on defense and the boards to the point where I'm thinking "This dude blows", but then I'll check the box score after the game and this dude will have like 21 points, 12 rebounds and 4 assists on like 8/13 shooting and I'm just like what...how???

He consistently puts up good box score numbers in spite of the eye test saying he's killing the team. Just a brief glance at his stats (17/11/4 on 47% shooting) and the average person would think we're nuts for trashing him. That to me is the definition of an empty stats player. He's the most empty stats player I can think of.

He consistently puts up high totals.

However:
Only 3 players in the history of the NBA have shot as many 3s as he does per game at a lower percentage. He's having an all-time worst type shooting year, and 93% of his threes have no one within 6 feet (most open category NBA.com tracks).

He is the least efficient center by TS% in the NBA that has played over 500 minutes (and this would be true with his career numbers not just present year numbers which are worse than career numbers)

His post offense is frequently against mismatches, and still ridiculously inefficient. It would be about 30 points per 100 possessions worse than the worst offense in the league.

He has 20 hockey assists on the season last I checked a few days ago, so his connective passing is vastly overly rated.

He's the least efficient offensive rotation player on the team, yet has a ton of touches which overall is a massive, massive drag on the offense.

His touches often take a lot of time if they are in the post, because he has to set up, you usually feed the ball slowly, then move it out, so if it doesn't get you a good look (which by definition it never does because a Vuc post look is awful) it also chews up a ton of time leaving you very little time to do anything else.

On defense:
He can only play drop coverage.

He cannot switch.
He cannot protect the rim.
He can't hedge and get back.
He can't guard multiple positions.

Vuc is really just terrible. He's SO much worse than people think he is and is a massive drag on the team.

So much utter truth. I get why people don't always see this, or are wishy-washy about him, because he is actually skilled at basketball in a sense. But everything you wrote is true and it's his terrible ineffectiveness and harm that might easily cost us 10 wins this year vs, say, a Drummond-Tony Bradley combo instead (dead serious). Vuc is definitely playable in this league still, but only in certain matchups and shouldn't be getting more than 20-24 mpg in this team, and then only cause Drummond I think would tire out or get in foul trouble with more than about 24-28 mpg. Sanogo might even be less harmful. Vuc has skills, they just tempt a coach into wildly overusing him because he looks like he SHOULD be able to be effective, but he can't. And that's all just on offense. On defense he absolutely sucks very badly. Worst Bulls defender at C in 20 years probably since Eddy Curry that I can recall.

[dougthonus]

So much utter truth. I get why people don't always see this, or are wishy-washy about him, because he is actually skilled at basketball in a sense. But everything you wrote is true and it's his terrible ineffectiveness and harm that might easily cost us 10 wins this year vs, say, a Drummond-Tony Bradley combo instead (dead serious). Vuc is definitely playable in this league still, but only in certain matchups and shouldn't be getting more than 20-24 mpg in this team, and then only cause Drummond I think would tire out or get in foul trouble with more than about 24-28 mpg. Sanogo might even be less harmful. Vuc has skills, they just tempt a coach into wildly overusing him because he looks like he SHOULD be able to be effective, but he can't. And that's all just on offense. On defense he absolutely sucks very badly. Worst Bulls defender at C in 20 years probably since Eddy Curry that I can recall.

Vuc is very highly skilled in the basketball sense. It's just that at an NBA level he's just below average at everything, but for a center, that's much higher than most. Like he'd probably beat at least 75% of the centers in the league in a skills contest, but he doesn't do anything well enough that you want him doing it all the time in an NBA game. It's just that centers most of those skills aren't useful unless you aren't just beating centers but you're beating guards/wings at them, and he's not.

You could make Vuc a ton more effective as I noted above by just using him the vast majority of the time as a pick and roll center. He sets really good picks, he's a very good defensive rebounder, he could be a good offensive rebounder if he wasn't hanging out on the perimeter all the time. If he played in the style of Andre Drummond, he'd probably be better than Drummond. Likely wouldn't quite have the same knack for offensive boards, but wouldn't turn the ball over, could still pass some, would probably start getting a lot of offensive boards, would up his efficiency a lot by removing the bad shots from his game.

[RSP83]

You could make Vuc a ton more effective as I noted above by just using him the vast majority of the time as a pick and roll center. He sets really good picks, he's a very good defensive rebounder, he could be a good offensive rebounder if he wasn't hanging out on the perimeter all the time. If he played in the style of Andre Drummond, he'd probably be better than Drummond. Likely wouldn't quite have the same knack for offensive boards, but wouldn't turn the ball over, could still pass some, would probably start getting a lot of offensive boards, would up his efficiency a lot by removing the bad shots from his game.

He's not even making the good shots as much as he should. Seems like Vuc missing tons of point blank shots whenever I see him.

[MikeDC]

You could make Vuc a ton more effective as I noted above by just using him the vast majority of the time as a pick and roll center. He sets really good picks, he's a very good defensive rebounder, he could be a good offensive rebounder if he wasn't hanging out on the perimeter all the time. If he played in the style of Andre Drummond, he'd probably be better than Drummond. Likely wouldn't quite have the same knack for offensive boards, but wouldn't turn the ball over, could still pass some, would probably start getting a lot of offensive boards, would up his efficiency a lot by removing the bad shots from his game.

He's not even making the good shots as much as he should. Seems like Vuc missing tons of point blank shots whenever I see him.

Yeah. I went and looked this up. I took the NBA shooting chart and filtered by centers who shoot at least 4.9 attempts from < 5 feet.
There are 25 guys like this in the league.

Vuc's 60.7% on these shots ranks him 22nd
Drummond's 58.9% on these shots ranks him 24th.

Even that kind of understates how bad they are IMO

[dougthonus]

He's not even making the good shots as much as he should. Seems like Vuc missing tons of point blank shots whenever I see him.

Yeah. I went and looked this up. I took the NBA shooting chart and filtered by centers who shoot at least 4.9 attempts from < 5 feet.
There are 25 guys like this in the league.

Vuc's 60.7% on these shots ranks him 22nd
Drummond's 58.9% on these shots ranks him 24th.

Even that kind of understates how bad they are IMO

Drummond's percentages are a bit wonky because he has so many tips that aren't real shots. His offensive board numbers are inflated and his shot numbers are worse because of it.

[AhUtopian]

Drummond is worth of some serious consideration of sixth man of the year .

He has unique skills turning the game around in period minutes .



Sent from my SM-S9160 using RealGM mobile app

[sco]

He's not even making the good shots as much as he should. Seems like Vuc missing tons of point blank shots whenever I see him.

Yeah. I went and looked this up. I took the NBA shooting chart and filtered by centers who shoot at least 4.9 attempts from < 5 feet.
There are 25 guys like this in the league.

Vuc's 60.7% on these shots ranks him 22nd
Drummond's 58.9% on these shots ranks him 24th.

Even that kind of understates how bad they are IMO

Drummond's percentages are a bit wonky because he has so many tips that aren't real shots. His offensive board numbers are inflated and his shot numbers are worse because of it.

That's a great point. It feels like he is intentionally stat padding, but he wasn't the first guy to do it.

Doug beat me up when I said Vuc's contract isn't that bad, and I went back and looked and it is more than I thought. The key point to be made is that in terms of team production per salary $, I am a big believer that investing in C's is usually not a good investment beyond MLE $. The opportunity cost of not getting a good wing seems to outweight spending the extra $10M on a more offensively capable C (who is rarely a good defender too - I think Embiid is somewhat unique).

[madvillian]

Vuc, but they both are limited players. I was wrong, AD is a useful backup but exposed as a starter. Vuc is exposed as a starter every night almost.

Vuc and Drummond both stat pad and get visibly disturbed when a team mate (a faster one usually) tries to grab the defensive rebound. I can't stand that.

This is a great thread, one of the best of the year, that's all I got.

[dougthonus]

The opportunity cost of not getting a good wing seems to outweight spending the extra $10M on a more offensively capable C (who is rarely a good defender too - I think Embiid is somewhat unique).

The problem is that Vuc isn't an offensive capable center.

In the end, offensive capability implies high level efficient offense that raises the ceiling of your team's offensive output. You should see a guy who creates double teams to move the defense, can score at high efficiency on his own when single covered and create really good looks for others when a double team comes (and occasionally score through that). That's what offensive capable really means.

There basically aren't many centers in the league that can do that. Vuc has a wide varieties of skills, but he's not increasing the offensive capability of the team, because they all create below average shots.

If he was an offensive capable center, that could do those other things that actually improve the offense, 20M would be fine.

[madvillian]

The opportunity cost of not getting a good wing seems to outweight spending the extra $10M on a more offensively capable C (who is rarely a good defender too - I think Embiid is somewhat unique).

The problem is that Vuc isn't an offensive capable center.

In the end, offensive capability implies high level efficient offense that raises the ceiling of your team's offensive output. You should see a guy who creates double teams to move the defense, can score at high efficiency on his own when single covered and create really good looks for others when a double team comes (and occasionally score through that). That's what offensive capable really means.

There basically aren't many centers in the league that can do that. Vuc has a wide varieties of skills, but he's not increasing the offensive capability of the team, because they all create below average shots.

If he was an offensive capable center, that could do those other things that actually improve the offense, 20M would be fine.

It's really hard to create gravity when you can't make a shot outside of 12 feet and you're not a threat to drive. This goes back to the arguments about Noah as a point center. For the most part, while Noah was racking up assists, it wasn't a particularly efficient PPP offense he was leading.

[Infinity2152]

This is wild. Vucevic was scoring 19 pts a game in his fourth year, 18 a game in his fifth, while shooting .1 3pters. Yes, .1, not 1. How many teams ask their center to shoot 4 and 5 3pters per game? Maybe 4? If he doesn't take those shots he's trash, if he shoots them at low percentage, he's trash. Anybody know what the average three point percentage is for NBA centers? Vucevic is above 50% FG, with a high TS% if he shoots 1 three a game.

He probably has the highest offensive IQ on the team, outside of Ball, who's not playing. LOL at Drummond starting, he makes 3-4 dumb plays in 25 minutes, how many per game if he's playing 32 consistently? And you think defenses are sagging off Vuc cause of his poor three point shooting, imagine the sag off Drummond.

If the question is better fit with Zach and Debo, I guess you could go with Drummond. He's not a better center overall for today's NBA, he's not a threat at all from distance, which would make spacing much harder for the other guys. If Drummond were terrific on defense or Vuc wasn't grabbing 10-12 rebounds too, he might have a case.