Should the Pistons regret trading Boban Marjanovic?

The Detroit Pistons played Boban Marjanovic sparingly despite his great offensive numbers. Should the Pistons have regrets about trading him?

Boban Marjanovic continues to be a guy that puts up some impressive advanced statistics and has done it in more non-garbage time this year than ever before. Stan Van Gundy, however, resisted putting Marjanovic into the regular rotation instead of using him in select matchups. Would it be worth it for the Clippers to go with Marjanovic as the full-time backup?

The defense is probably just as big a problem as SVG makes it out to be.

Stan Van Gundy often talks about the fact that Marjanovic seriously struggles to defend outside of the paint, which is obviously true to anyone who has watched, but on the other hand he is huge and can block shots right?

The theory is that Marjanovic can sag back and just control the paint, there are plenty of good centers who do that to some degree or another so he should be able to as well.

The problem is that Marjanovic is an extra level of slow, and he doesn’t have the quick instincts to counteract that.

Take a look at this clip from the Jazz game.

On this particular play, it doesn’t end up being an issue because 24-year-old rookie Royce O’Neale is not what you would call a scorer.

That fact is probably the reason that the Pistons felt comfortable using Marjanovic against the Jazz, neither Rudy Gobert or Derrick Favors are big threats to score outside the paint and most of the Jazz ball handlers are not exactly keeping anyone up at night with their scoring ability (most notably Ricky Rubio).

But if we take aside the fact that it works out fine on this play, just look at how much space Marjanovic cedes to O’Neale from the start. When you give that much space to a good shooter bad things happen.

Even after giving that much cushion, Marjanovic continues to back pedal regardless, and that is so much space that any good scorer is going to have a great chance to exploit it.

Good shooters like Kyle Lowry or Damian Lillard are pulling up the moment they get around the pick, (hopefully not for threes) crafty interior guys like Reggie Jackson or DeMar DeRozan are happily tossing runners and floaters, and speed demons like John Wall or Russell Westbrook are using that space to get into top gear and blitz the rim.

As a side note, this is exactly the reason that Ish Smith kills the Pistons in the half-court. He is similar to Rubio (though a bit different) in that he is so bad at scoring in pretty much every way that he is a guy who would struggle to take advantage of so much space but that is another thing.

Marjanovic can’t really go out any further than that because if he does. then Dirk Nowitzki (current age version) could probably take him off the dribble so he has to stay back that far to have any chance.

Even though open jumpers and floaters are not ideal, they are better than a layup line.

The required course of action then is that perimeter defenders must stick to their guys and fight through (over or under depending on the player) every screen for all that they are worth. If the perimeter guys are able to not give opponents space to let fly then there is a chance, but it puts immense pressure on the on-ball defender and cagey ball handlers know how to use that pressure to get space.

In that play, Stanley Johnson is overplaying the screen because he has to in order to give Marjanovic a chance. This allows Alec Burks to be perfectly content to make just one crossover to get Johnson out of position, at which point he has enough space to launch. Remember that Stanley Johnson is a no defensive slouch here either, but it is a losing proposition.

If Johnson does not anticipate the screen then he is likely to end up too far behind the play but that leaves him open to plays like that

Is Marjanovic really that slow though? What if they let him go a little bit?

Yeah, he really is that slow.

If he has to take more than a step or two outside of right in front of the hoop he is unlikely to be able to recover to the hoop to stop anyone there. Look at this play:

Notice how Derrick Favors takes his roll an extra step to the other side of the hoop instead of directly down the lane while Alec Burks does not actually go to the hoop, but never even enters the paint (one of several nice adjustments the Jazz made in the second half after having trouble with Marjanovic in the first).

Marjanovic takes a step out of his zone, which is exactly what Burks is looking for at which point a simple pocket pass results in a can’t miss basket.

Once again notice that Marjanovic isn’t even close to recovering from that play despite actually making an attempt to do so.

Obviously on plays like that big men often won’t recover but they often don’t even bother. Marjanovic was bothering too, he just couldn’t go any faster.

Once again Marjanovic puts your defense in a losing situation.

Either Marjanovic stays in the paint to cover the rim and allow for free open jumpers or have him step out to leave the rim unattended.

The third option (which Tobias Harris fails miserably at on that last play by the way) is to make sure you have a help defender crash down to cover behind Marjanovic when he steps out, but more and more big men today are smart passers and that leaves the corner three wide open for the taking.

Guys have to cover for Drummond at the hoop with some regularity, why is it such a big deal that they have to do it for Marjanovic?

The Pistons have their wing players cover the rim for Drummond when Drummond is chasing ball handlers out beyond the three-point line, not a step outside of the paint.

Even if you put that above play with Drummond in the outside, Derrick Favors is getting the ball out at the three-point line and will have to put the ball on the floor and make a real play in order to get a good look (assuming the Pistons rotate well, which isn’t necessarily a given).

Most big guys in this league are able to catch the ball in front of the rim and toss a pass out to the corner, there are a lot fewer who can catch the ball outside and put it on the floor to draw the defense in for a kick out. In fact, there are only a handful of guys who can do that consistently.

Does Marjanovic do any good on defense?

Yes, he does!

Marjanovic remains an excellent rebounder. His overall rebounding numbers are down a bit from before in his career, but his defensive rebounding percentage of 27.4 percent would rank just outside the top dozen in the NBA this year and he boxes guys out like crazy. The Pistons rebound nearly 10 percent more of opponent misses when Marjanovic is on the floor vs. on the bench.

I mean, just look at this:

He just manhandles Derrick Favors, who by the way is a pretty big and strong guy and palms the ball out of the air without budging or jumping. A lot of people today seem to not value rebounding as much anymore (*glares at all-star voters*) but a defensive possession doesn’t end until you clean the glass and Marjanovic helps there in a big way.

Beyond that he is not useless, he is freaking huge so when he is at the hoop at the right moment opponents have serious trouble with him. On top of that, his long arms and huge hands make for a decent deterrent on passing lanes. The problem is basically that he is as fast as he is big, meaning that he is so huge that he can get his paws on a more passes and shots than most, but if he misses he is not going to catch back up.

Here is the good news though, despite all of his faults, there are plenty of backups who are not good enough to take full advantage of them. If he is giving up pull-up jumpers they are not to Stephen Curry or Kyle Lowry, but rather D.J. Augustin or J.J. Barea. Those backups can still kill you with jumpers on the right night, but there are also nights where they won’t, which is why they are backups.

What about his offense?

I mean, we really know what he does on offense. He leads the Pistons in per-36 scoring at 23.8 points per 36, his 59.1 percent true shooting percentage is excellent, and he is a good enough passer to not clog the gears of the offense when he isn’t the focal point. His offensive rebounding is down this year but that is probably just noise.

The biggest problem with his offensive game is that it clashes with regular backup point guard Ish Smith’s so much. Marjanovic is a slow and steady guy who can destroy any center in the NBA when given space to work, while Smith is a speed demon who always wants to run and gets visibly impatient with half-court offense at times and is also useless off the ball.

There could be a certain yin and yang aspect to it where Ish can do all his running but then lean heavily on Marjanovic when an early look doesn’t become available, but given his defensive limitations, Marjanovic has to be heavily involved in the offense to be worth having on the floor.

One thing that would definitely help his offense would be the other players on the floor throwing better passes to him. There are far too many entry passes that look like this:

It seems to me that there are simply too many times where an entry pass to Marjanovic results in a turnover which should basically never happen when you are passing to a guy who is so big with good hands.

It also is one of the more bizarre things that has been a problem, to be honest.

The last thing to mention is that his offense brings things to the offense that doesn’t really show up in the final scorecard, most notably the way he draws fouls. There are a lot of post-up attempts by Marjanovic that end like this:

Even though those do not translate to free throws, there is something to the fact that the Pistons very regularly get into the bonus early and often when Marjanovic even plays a short amount of time.

I tried to look into it for this year and there just isn’t enough data to really get anything of use out of it, but with a larger sample size, I would be interested in seeing if playing Marjanovic regularly could have some long term effects on the Pistons offense.

Even if it means a couple extra points per game because they are in the bonus early, it could help tip the Pistons offense back towards being somewhat capable.

Overall outlook?

At this point, I doubt Marjanovic was ever busting into the full-time rotation. Stan Van Gundy has never made any questions about what he thinks of guys who don’t play good defense, he doesn’t really play them.

On top of that, the Pistons bench mobs have been constructed around good defensive play all season long, and on the whole, it has worked pretty well. The Pistons best defensive ratings, by player, are Langston Galloway, Dwight Buycks, Eric Moreland, Luke Kennard, Anthony Tolliver, and Ish Smith.

Galloway, Buycks, Kennard, and Tolliver are the only guys who have been in the rotation at all that have a net positive. The bench with Moreland has largely worked as a defense-first unit that scrapes out points on offense, so why potentially risk that by introducing such a different element in Marjanovic ?

On the other hand though, just once, I wish Stan Van Gundy would have countered some team going small by putting Marjanovic on the floor. We saw a version of this against the Thunder, although Jerami Grant is not exactly a big threat from outside, and Marjanovic slaughtered the Thunder on offense and went positive on the night.

As is, Marjanovic was an overpaid luxury. The Pistons didn’t need him, and that money could probably be better spent elsewhere, but he at least had won enough trust from Stan Van Gundy to be used in some matchups and he has been effective when used, almost like a good pinch hitter or a left-handed specialist in the bullpen.