Vassell is by far the best player on this team at making Wemby’s life easier. Look at the 17.9 +/- swing. What he does on the court is often hard to notice, but even when his shot isn’t falling, his presence alone has an impact on both ends of the floor.

Harper is also great in this regard, although the sample size is small. Still, it’s worth keeping an eye on their three-man lineup in the coming games.

12 comments

  1. I think it mostly boils down to having someone who can shoot on the outside. It makes defenses have to pick their poison between double teaming Victor at the elbow/paint and getting stuck in rotation hell(like we were in our last game against the wolves when we would double team Randle) or try and let Victor beat you.

  3. Worth noting last season (with ~4x the sample size) it was the exact opposite, where Devin looked like he made Wemby’s life harder:

    https://preview.redd.it/vhs5lqg23u4g1.png?width=513&format=png&auto=webp&s=66469c55c4f6b4cb5cece409ff96b3a7df559b1d

    Vassell is doing his thing, but two-man lineup data (and lineup data in general tbh) can be very finicky and needs a way larger sample than ~400 minutes before saying something as strong as “Vassell is by far the best player on this team at making Wemby’s life easier.”

  4. Those are significant upgrades, interesting. It is a small sample size though. When Vassell plays well, we have a much better chance of winning games. That is for sure.

  6. I think once Vic and Castle comeback the Vassell discourse will settle down.

    In their absence he’s had to go back to how he was playing during the tank years which has led to the wild inconsistency.

    When everyone was healthy Dev seemed bought in to his 3 and D role, with the occasional tough shot at the end of the clock and inbounds middy.

    He’s still a really important to this team. His perimeter D still isn’t quite what we had hoped when he drafted him, but he’s still objectively above average and has had really active hands this season.

    He’s still one of our team’s best shooters. He’s our microwave guy who’s shot making can translate even against playoff level Defense.

    Hes got a pivotal niche on this team that we’re unlikely to get better value from on the trade market.

  8. It’s not just that he shoots well, but he’s also the best mover off ball and he hits the most movement/relocation shots rather than mostly just hitting from the corners. He creates space.

  9. Devin is the best pnr ball handler with Wemby, he is generally very good at hitting Wemby on the roll. It’s something that we noticed even before CP3 got here.

  11. Not going to bother with trying to put this in image form, but Devin’s shooting splits between wins and losses are pretty striking; .465/.455 in wins versus .392/.244 in losses.

    How Devin plays is a pretty good barometer for the team’s success.

  12. I’m not getting too excited about anything while victors out.

    victor will come back and we’ll lean back towards iso ball for him and everyone else’s usage and stats will drop. time will tell but theres alot less shots to go around for devin, julian etc once wemby and castle are back

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