Ushering in a new era of Portland Trail Blazers basketball seems to be the theme of the 2015 NBA offseason. The Rip City roster no longer resembles the crew that had back-to-back 50-win seasons over the past two years, but one thing it can hang its hat on is that youth and potential have become the beacons of hope in an otherwise confusing time.
In a 15-part series, Oregon Sports News’ Bryant Knox and Jared Wright will be breaking down each player on the Trail Blazers roster. The series will conclude with an OSN Roundtable in October covering the state of the franchise entering the 2015-16 campaign.
Today, we take a look at the prize of the 2015 Draft for the Blazers. Despite playing just two seasons so far in the NBA, he’s already 25 years old. It’s debatable whether he has the kind of long-term potential that fellow big men Noah Vonleh and Meyers Leonard have, but what’s certain is that GM Neil Olshey wouldn’t have gotten better return for trading the 21st pick of the Draft.
(Stats courtesy of NBA.com and basketball-reference.com.)
Where He’s Been
Mason Plumlee has been one of the very few bright spots for the Brooklyn Nets ever since their Russian owner, super billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, built the billion-dollar (no, I am not exaggerating) Barclays Center, and moved the most expensive and underwhelming roster in the NBA into it.
Ever since the move to Brooklyn, the Nets have been the definition of mediocre. Hapless GM Billy King, who only has a job because Prokhorov and his Russian proxies can’t be bothered with trying to replace him, dealt away tons of future draft picks to acquire aging stars that fit very poorly together, then chewed through two coaches when the mad science experiments didn’t pan out.
The result is the worst NBA scenario a franchise can find itself in: not good enough to go far in the playoffs, yet too good to finish in the lottery. The Nets were even worse off in 2015 because they didn’t even have a mid-first round draft pick; the Atlanta Hawks switched picks with Brooklyn in the 2015 Draft, from 29th to 15th, as part of the Joe Johnson trade.
Brooklyn won’t have a complete claim on their own first-round draft pick until 2019. They just released point guard Deron Williams, who was signed to be the star player, but became an oft-injured has-been instead. Johnson is aging, the roster lacks decent young talent, and their best player is a seven-footer in Brook Lopez who’s had multiple foot injuries throughout his career. Ask the Houston Rockets about Yao Ming, or any older Blazers fans about Bill Walton, and their answers will tell you all you need to know about big guys and chronic foot problems.
Considering all this, Plumlee has to be thrilled to be going to a team in Portland that stands a chance of going somewhere before 2020. The Blazers are almost guaranteed to be a worse team than the Nets this season. They are also guaranteed to have a brighter future, and Plumlee will get every chance to prove he’s a part of that future.
How He Got Here
I mentioned a trade with the Nets? It seems strange that Brooklyn would give up a rare success story at the 22nd pick (Plumlee was taken with that pick in 2013) for a late-round rookie in Rondae Hollis-Jefferson with no offensive game, but the Nets badly needed the combination of youth and athleticism that Hollis-Jefferson could provide on the wing.
Another factor that led to the Plumlee trade was the Nets’ intention of resigning Brook Lopez. The Draft takes place before any free agents can “officially” be discussed or have an offer presented to them, but trading Lopez’s main competition for minutes at center probably didn’t hurt Brooklyn’s chances of retaining the oft-injured star, especially when the return was a player who wasn’t a big man.
From Portland’s point of view, the trade was a hedge bet. RHJ is not a proven commodity, and the chances of a player taken from 20 on down of even being a viable rotation player are slim. Mason Plumlee is the exception to that rule, especially considering that big men taken in the late first round are often rawer than sushi, while lacking the athleticism that would entice a lottery team to take them.
If LaMarcus Aldridge had ended up resigning, Plumlee would be a replacement for either Robin Lopez or Chris Kaman. Being on his rookie deal, Plumlee is a much cheaper player than Lopez is now (RoLo signed with the New York Knicks for $50 million-plus over four years), and if the Blazers decided to cut Kaman loose and end his mostly non-guaranteed deal, Plumlee would step right into that backup role.
Since Aldridge decided to live out the rest of his prime in Tim Duncan’s shadow, Plumlee is now in contention for a starting spot on a rebuilding team. For a guy that’s only averaged 20 minutes per game in his career, and was trapped on a going-nowhere Nets team, this is a pretty good place to be.
What He Brings To The Table
Plumlee brings some positives to the table. His 2014-15 averages of 8.7 PPG, 6.2 RPG, 0.9 APG, and an 18.4 career PER (that’s above-average, but PER is weighted towards big men, so we’ll call that a barely above-average rating) wouldn’t suggest “impact player,” but Plumlee does a few things very well.
His official FG% from last season was 57%, but he takes the vast majority of his shots within 10 feet of the basket, and his percentage on those shots were 60%, an elite percentage.
Out of 280 made field goals Plumlee amassed last season, 227 were dunks or layups, and 191 field goals were assisted; basically, he needs somebody to set the table for him, but once that table is set, he devours all edibles set before him like a squad of offensive linemen. He also eats FAST.
64% of Plumlee’s shots in 2014-15 were taken without him dribbling. A similar stat is Plumlee’s tendency for swift shots; 73% of his shots came within two seconds of him touching the ball.
These stats show that Plumlee’s main value is as the roll guy in a pick-and-roll situation, a role he should excel at in Portland, as long as Damian Lillard doesn’t jack 15 threes a game and generally do too much.
Plumlee is also a solid rebounder. His rebounding averages per 100 possessions (meaning his average production for every 100 possessions he was on the court) for his career are 4.7 rebounds on the offensive end, and 14.1 total. His overall rebounding rate is 17%; he grabs 17% of the available rebounds for his team while on the court.
Alright, now for the bad news.
While Plumlee has uses on the offensive end, the reason he only got 20 minutes per game while in Brooklyn was his piss-poor defense. I haven’t seen much film of Plumlee, so I have little visual evidence, but the stats I dug up on him tell an extremely unflattering story.
His defensive rating in 2014-15 was a blah 107.2, and because of his situational offensive value, his net rating last season was depressed into a -5.6, which is horrible. Three out of every five field goals attempted while Plumlee was in the vicinity of the shot was a successful field goal, suggesting either a lack of effort or a lack of ability to be an effective deterrent.
The latter is more likely, due to the defensive Diff% I pulled from NBA.com. It says that Plumlee’s opponents shot a little worse than they normally did when he was guarding them at the rim; the number is -2.1%.
However, when Plumlee was pulled away from the basket, or told to switch on a screen play, the results were disastrous. Opponents shot 3.6% better when Plumlee was guarding them overall, and on three-pointers, the number rose to a putrid 8.5%. Plumlee gave up HUGE amounts of open threes.
The numbers say that Plumlee was getting schooled by stretch big men capable of shooting from three-point range, and that he also couldn’t stay in front of most players smaller than himself. In today’s NBA, failing to stop either type of player consistently is a problem. If a player, especially a big man, can’t help credibly defend both stretch bigs or ball handlers, it severely undermines a defense’s ability to…well, defend.
What To Expect
The hard truth about Plumlee is that he’s barely been more valuable than a replacement player during his two years in the NBA, and at 25, his potential for improvement is somewhat limited. There are some aspects of his game that experience will sharpen, especially on the defensive end, but Plumlee isn’t expected to top out above third big man/spot starter.
How well he’ll play with the other big men on the roster is going to be an interesting thing to keep an eye on throughout the season. The fits with the other primary big men on the roster–Kaman, Meyers Leonard, and Ed Davis–look to be awkward on the surface, for different reasons.
Kaman is a salty vet that loves the post-up game, and neither Air Sasquatch nor Plumlee play much defense. The nature of their offensive games would also squeeze the spacing; good luck finding a lane to drive to the hoop if you’re Lillard, and these guys are on the floor together.
Leonard is an ideal fit on the offensive end with Plumlee. The fusion of Leonard’s stretch abilities (he shot 40% from three last season) and Plumlee’s elite efficiency around the rim would be a key pillar of the Portland offensive attack. However, on defense…oh man, I’m getting sick just thinking about it.
The joint defensive cluelessness of both Leonard and Plumlee, combined with Lillard’s suckitude at defending the point of attack, would be the kind of confidence-crushing situation that could stall out these promising careers. Portland could score 110 points per game with both Leonard and Plumlee playing big minutes. Unfortunately, the Blazers would also give up 125 points per game.
Davis is the only one who could possibly cover up for Plumlee’s deficiencies on defense, as pointed out last week. In limited minutes on a historically awful defensive team last season, Davis had a decent defensive campaign. Given that both these guys make their offensive impact around the basket, Davis’ superior defensive abilities would seem to give him a leg up on Plumlee pre-training camp.
I’m doubting Stotts plays Davis and Plumlee together for more than eight minutes a game, unless either big man unexpectedly develops a consistent midrange jumper.
What Plumlee can bring to the Blazers this season is rebounding, pick-and-roll crashing to the rim, the ability to run out on the break, and the kind of athleticism that should result in a few big dunks this season.
Stotts values spacing in his offense, and with Aldridge no longer around to park his butt on the block and demand the ball, we should see more pick-and-roll plays, and more free-flowing offense. Plumlee is the best pick-and-roll player among the big men, but he needs to stay on the court for that to mean anything. The key to Plumlee getting more than the 20 minutes per game he wrung out of the stingy Lionel Hollins in 2014-15 will be improvement on defense.
Plumlee is not the kind of guy who will make a large impact on your team; the Nets were 0.9 points better with him off the floor than when he was on the court. That’s not a margin worth measuring, but I point that out to show that Plumlee won’t move the needle much, and if there are any fans that expect him to, they will be disappointed.
If you keep in mind that he was a four-year college player taken with the 22nd pick in the weak 2013 Draft, that the 22nd pick isn’t expected to become more than what Plumlee is right now, that Team USA chose him to play on the 2014 World Cup gold medal team (though that’s more a product of Plumlee’s relationship with Coach K than his talent level), and that Portland GM Neil Olshey gave up almost nothing of significance to acquire a rotation big man, you’ll be happier with Plumlee’s play.
Like the other big men Portland has gathered in the wake of Aldridge’s departure, Mason Plumlee is fairly young, has warts in his game that need to be smoothed out, and has things that he does very well. He’s useful as he is right now. Whether he’ll end up being more is a question only time, and his dedication towards improving, will answer.
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