Kate Fagan's latest piece highlights the importance of Spencer Hawes' passing ability to the Sixers offense, citing the stagnant offense from last night in his absence. While I agree the added dimension Spencer adds to the offense is important, I don't think it's as black and white as "see what happens to the offense without Spencer".
Yes, the Sixers missed Hawes against the Knicks last night, but I think tired legs on a tripleback contributed to the stagnant offense more than anything. Replacing Spencer with the ageless Tony Battie and rookie Nik Vucevic (on the road) didn't help.
According to Basketball Value, the Sixers offense has actually been more efficient this season with Hawes on the bench. (Offensive rating with Hawes = 102, Offensive rating without Hawes = 112) These aren't intended to falsify the idea that Spencer is important to the offense, just something to think about. The separate ratings should not be viewed in a vacuum either, because it isn't as simple as saying "Team A is better when Player X is off the court, therefore Player X must suck." Variables such as Spencer playing the majority of his minutes with Jodie Meeks and Elton Brand (two of the Sixers least effective players this season) rather than Thaddeus Young (the highest adjusted +/-) and the rest of the night shift play into the numbers.
The offense was also more efficient with Spencer on the bench last season, and he was still the same passer he is today.
While Spencer is important to the offense and the team as a whole, and playing out of his mind this season, let's not go overboard.
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0 recs | 9 comments
Spencer's passing
Agree that he’s always been a good passer. However, with him being a more effective scorer than before and forcing tougher on the ball defense, more passing lanes seem to open up for him than did last year.
clintdelicious22 - January 12, 2012
Obviously
Everyone would rather have Hawes in the line-up and he’s definitely important. The larger point here seems to be that, in this shortened season where players are more likely to get injured and will miss more games for minor injuries because the games are more bunched, the Sixers are going to need to be able to adapt extremely quickly if a guy goes down for even a couple games. “We lost because we didn’t have player X” just isn’t a viable excuse this year especially with a team that is this deep.
Drew1750 - January 12, 2012
Every other team in the league is dealing with the same issue.
BrandonB - January 12, 2012
Nice work. Interesting to think of theories as to why the offense is better thus far without him.
Michael Levin - January 12, 2012
Back to back to back games While the Knicks sat on their hineys and waited for us. The Knicks caught us on a bad night after 2 games in a row I know Doug says no excuses but it was fairly obvious ESP with thads shot at the end. We will beat the over hyped overrated Knicks. Anyone else out there that can’t stand overrated carmello Anthony I can’t stand him at all he is a cancer I think he may be one of the most overrated players in the league at least top 5. I love our team I love how we play how we hustle and how we have the best bench in the NBA we are so deep I’m looking forward to the rest of this season. I want the Knicks when we are fresh so we can spank their hineys. Let’s go sixers I am a believer in this team one loss will not change how excited I am for this team
Ibleedorangeandblack - January 12, 2012
Amen.
twcarl - January 12, 2012
the tired legs was a huge factor, but taking away Hawes also takes away one of their offensive sets that has been quite effective this season. One of Hawes’ strengths is his passing, and Collins has gone to that often this season.
jefu - January 12, 2012
I think Lou scoring 2 & Meeks scoring 3 had more to do with us losing then Spence being out. Not trying to take anything away from Spence cause he’s been great this year but if Lou or Meeks don’t have bad games we might win that game
KJ Brophy - January 12, 2012
I take this with a grain of salt as there is a ton of noise involved with using +/- metrics. When he is on the floor he more than likely is playing against the other team’s best big man. When he is on the bench, the other team’s best big man more than likely is on the bench as well.
Well, probably because he was dreadful last year (as he has been every year of his career until now).
BrandonB - January 12, 2012
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