Zach Lowe: “I hear a lot that Paolo is inefficient, he shoots a lot of mid-range shots, he’s not a #1 guy…I dont know what you’re seeing, but this guy is fucking awesome. I watched him in the playoffs against elite defenses with nothing around him, no shooting, no help, and he just shows up”

40 comments

1. 6’9 shooting inefficient shots but still scoring: this guy is fucking awesome

   6’4 shooting inefficient shots but still scoring: you will NEVER be a starter on a good team lmao DIE or take this insane lowball so we can pay some 3 and D guy 35 million instead

2. He will feast now that they got some spacing

3. >He just shows up and makes a fair share of really hard mid range shots

   I mean, that’s fine when your already mildly efficient because your game will translate against elite defenses no matter what since your already taking tough shots

   But Paolo isn’t efficient. He’s significantly below league average as a 6 foot 8 forward. Take some easier shots!

4. People act like the magic are super trash, but they have some descent pieces and are in a weak conference. PB is not a superstar, nor is there some rush to declare him one. Let him develop

5. What’s interesting about the Magic team is that advanced stats hate Paolo but they legit love Franz, despite the latter having a perpetually broken 3.

   Honestly will be interesting to watch this Magic team now that they have some threats from down town

6. Celtics forced him to take tough contested mid range 2s and he just kept making all of them lmao

7. lmao Zach Lowe’s like the goofiest redditor

   fuck your concrete stats, here’s my confirmation bias 

8. If he was 25 or 26 then yeah ORL would be cooked with how his game is but right now he’s not even 23 so plenty of time to develop!!

9. I love Lowe but I swear he thinks 99% of the league are awesome players.

   Either that or he just refuses to give criticism without then backing it up with 5 compliments to make sure the players have no issues with him.

   The Cam Thomas misunderstanding (on Cam’s side) is going to make it infinitely worse too.

10. Read this as Poole and almost had whiplash 

11. He’s 6’10”, 250lbs with the shot diet of an early 2000s guard/wing and he isn’t a particularly great shooter. People see what they want to see; in this case, people want to see LeBron when he’s really more like Melo.

12. But hates Cam Thomas, makes total sense.

13. Paolo is very very good and anyone insinuating he isn’t is crazy.

    However the efficiency is a concern. Some of it is definitely a byproduct of a shitty offensive environment due to a lack of spacing and a lack of a true point guard next to him. Some of it is due to age. But he is also still pretty damn inefficient given his offensive role and position

    Like, Zach Lowe cites his production against the Celtics in the playoffs this year 29.4/8.4/4.2 but you know what he was in the playoffs this year? Inefficient as hell. Dude had a true shooting of 51.7%. The league average in the playoffs was 56.6%. And this wasn’t just a small sample-size getting negatively influenced by shooting variance — Paolo shot 44.4% from 3, a full 12.4% better than his career average. If anything he got LUCKY with shot variance in the playoffs and still had abysmal efficiency numbers.

    Context plays a role, but Paolo has been inefficient every single step of the way (he has never reached league average TS in the regular season or playoffs). Calling him inefficient is a valid criticism. If you’re using that to say he’s not worth the max or something that’s simply silly, but if you are bringing it up to say he’s not going to be a true MVP contender, then I think that’s more than fair.

14. Y’all act like advanced stats hate him but he was ranked 67th in Actual EPM. Out of 520ish players, that’s pretty good.

    That doesn’t rank how good a player is or how good they will be, but it’s representative of how they played last year and how much impact they added to the team.

15. Yessir. Y’all about to see some shit this year.

16. Zach Lowe says something then the rest of this sub follows suit… You guys are incapable of thinking on your own. Any of you dipshits who needed Zach Lowe to tell you that Paolo is a great player need to stop watching basketball. You analytic nerds are the worst, I’m glad Lowe is calling you weirdos out

17. Wait who’s saying Paulo isn’t a #1 option? I genuinely haven’t heard anyone say that lol

18. What’s with the sudden hate on Paolo?

19. In PB’s defense, that offense is really bad.

20. From frequently browsing this place, I’ve noticed that when it comes to anything Orlando Magic, most people commenting don’t actually watch them play—except maybe when their team faces them. Many just say complete nonsense and then Google some stats to support their argument. A few common takes:

    1. Franz is better than Paolo.
    2. Paolo is a bad defender.
    3. Franz is an average defender.
    4. Paolo is inefficient.
    5. Paolo doesn’t play “winning” basketball…whatever that’s supposed to mean.

    I’m all for stats, but basketball is a simple sport, and stats don’t tell the whole story. I highly doubt there’s a stat that shows how much attention Paolo gets when he’s on the floor compared to Franz. You can’t see that unless you watch the games.

    I don’t care about his shot selection. I like basketball. I like variety. This “3-point or layup” obsession is boring. People act like Paolo gets the ball, dribbles around the mid-range, spins three or four times, and then shoots a one-foot sideways jumper. Bruh can hoop. I just wish he used his size to punish smaller players more often, but that will come with experience.

21. Hopefully with Lowe saying it the casuals will realize how good Paolo is.

22. Lowe had to up the glazing to counter the recent drama with Cam. 

23. This Paolo conversation feels like a repeat of DeRozan on the Raptors, whose teams in Toronto always played better with him off the floor. As soon as he left, it turned out those numbers were kind of fake and artifacts of the roster. I assume the same is true of Paolo. Orlando plays him in lineups devoid of spacing, and Franz is often playing opposing benches juicing up the off numbers.

24. He shot 44%3PT in that series. That’s what carried him, and in the reg he shot just 32%. I wouldn’t bank on that being such a consistent factor.

    He shot a piss poor 43%2PT in that series

    Paolo is very inefficient at just 55%TS when league average has ballooned towards 58%. That being said, the Magic’s spacing was out of the 80s, and he has room to grow overall

25. He’s a Kawhi-like player but even bigger. Actually him and Cooper Flagg are similar style

26. Paolo nice

27. I think the kids a star and that Orlando team is next up in the east

28. Zach Lowe’s sources? Zach Lowe

29. He’s too young to be certain who he is…he’s gotten better every year too. He isn’t there yet but if he continues growth he will be.

30. The problem with the discourse of predicted stars is that everyone speaks of them based on what they might be in a few years instead of what they are now.

31. Lowe is coming for everybody head.. or the headlines is making out to seem that way he plays both sides so it’s funny but he does slight players out of no where lol who is saying Paolo isn’t a number 1?

    Soon we’ll see the players vs Lowe and that’s not good.

32. Hes great, but he needs alot of help. The rest of that team has no business being in the playoffs lol.

33. Caleb Love ended his career. Hasn’t won a playoff series and people love him smh. Hornets gonna be better than Magic this year or I’ll smoke a blunt

34. Paolo is barely in top 100 in fantasy 9cat rankings so he ain’t all that as far as I’m concerned

35. Yessir

36. Seattle’s own. 😤

37. Comments section proving Zach’s point.

    Paolo struggles with efficiency because 8x a game we throw it to him in the low block with a few seconds left. Not saying he can’t get better but he’s got zero spacing or shooting around him.

38. Zach is talking about you guys

39. Damn this sub is getting a lot of mileage out of that one episode of The Zach Lowe Show

40. Brunson also takes a lot of them, and they’re both awesome.