TL;DR: (Skip to the end if you’re not a stats person). Edwards and Gobert have zero chemistry together. While Gobert does sometimes negatively impact the spacing, Edwards also has a ton of trouble seeing Gobert for open dunks one pass away, which is breaking the offense. Throughout this season, Edwards has been one of the worst 2-guards at finding his rim-running big for dunks, and it’s become a major problem on offense.
I was inspired to write this post after seeing a comment thread last night about why the Nuggets went away from PnR, and attacking the rim, and writing a comment on it. I figured I’d make this post to further the discussion.
Here’s a chart that displays all the rotation players, their minutes on the court with Edwards, and the number of their FGM that Edwards has assisted. For the sake of comparison, I also calculated the [edit: minutes of gametime per assist ratio].
|Player|Assists|Minutes|Minutes/assist|
:–|–:|–:|–:|–:|
|Alexander-Walker|8|138|17.25|
|Reid|41|807|19.68293|
|Garza|7|138|19.71429|
|Towns|30|719|23.96667|
|Knight|6|149|24.83333|
|Nowell|25|646|25.84|
|Russell|50|1379|27.58|
|Prince|19|597|31.42105|
|McDaniels|57|1910|33.50877|
|Rivers|18|646|35.88889|
|McLaughlin|9|331|36.77778|
|Anderson|33|1342|40.66667|
|Conley|11|528|48|
|Gobert|27|1626|60.22222|
As you can see, despite playing the 2nd most minutes together, Edwards has only assisted on 27 Gobert baskets the entire season. This is less than either KAT and Reid, even though each of them have shared the floor with Edwards for less than half the total minutes. That’s…pretty drastic to say the least. More concerningly, Gobert is dead last among all rotation players in Edwards’ assists per minute, meaning that they have basically zero chemistry whatsoever on the floor.
In fact, KAT (30) and McDaniels (37) have each assisted on more Gobert buckets than Edwards, even though the ball is in Edwards’ hands the most out of all three of these players. It’s especially striking because KAT was injured for 50 games, AND not even really a ballhandler in this offense and STILL has more assists to Gobert than Edwards.
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For comparison, here are some combos between other secondary ballhandlers/2-guards and their rim-running big men (I included LaVine/Vucevic because LaVine is also a ball dominant SG scorer archetype, very similar to Edwards offensively, but the rest of these combos are 2-guards/secondary ballhandlers and rimrunners).
|Passer|Recipient|Assist|Minutes|Minutes per assist|
:–|:–|–:|–:|–:|
|Edwards|Gobert|27|1626|60.22222|
|D. White|R. Williams|20|321|16.05|
|LaVine|Vucevic|119|2218|18.63866|
|Bane|Adams|23|439|19.08696|
|Booker|Ayton|58|1178|20.31034|
|Horton-Tucker|Kessler|35|745|21.28571|
|Siakam|Poeltl|28|647|23.10714|
|Mitchell|Mobley|71|1814|25.5493|
|Murray|Capela|46|1359|29.54348|
|Simons|Nurkic|36|1092|30.33333|
|Beal|Gafford|31|1001|32.29032|
|Bridges|Claxton|19|619|32.57895|
|Mitchell|Allen|48|1621|33.77083|
|Barrett|M. Robinson|27|1046|38.74074|
As we can see, again Edwards ranks dead last in A/M ratio among these guys. It’s especially concerning that a lot of these guys have way less usage than Edwards offensively as well, yet seem to generate more looks for their big men.
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Finally, here is a chart with Donovan Mitchell’s assists to Gobert season-by-season. Again, Edwards’ assists to Gobert is less than half of Mitchell last season, and substantially worse than even Mitchell’s rookie year.
|Season|Assists|Minutes|Minutes per assist|
:–|–:|–:|–:|–:|
|Edwards 22-23|27|1626|60.22222|
|Mitchell 21-22|39|1198|30.71795|
|Mitchell 20-21|41|1058|25.80488|
|Mitchell 19-20|49|1773|36.18367|
|Mitchell 18-19|58|2165|37.32759|
|Mitchell 17-18|40|1453|36.325|
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I wrote this comment last night that I’ll just paste here, but it’s clear that Edwards has a lot of trouble seeing the roll man in PnR situations, or the open big in the dunker spot, and it’s been a recurring problem this year.
1. As an example [look at this play against the Lakers where Edwards just does a layup between 3 defenders instead of a simple bounce pass to a wide open Gobert for a dunk.](https://streamable.com/ihuqc9) He made the layup and it was a great play, but he HAS to be making this pass consistently because it will break the offense. https://i.imgur.com/OqyYXoG.jpg
2. [Here’s another one against the Thunder where Gobert is wide open in the dunker spot](https://imgur.com/a/sOmQQRq) (Edwards gets blocked instead)
3. [Here’s another one which is a slightly more advanced read, but Gobert is open for a lob](https://streamable.com/taf0ld) (the help defender is a 6’2 PG so as soon as he commits to Edwards, if he throws a lob it should be an easy dunk) and instead Edwards gets blocked at the rim
4. [Again more of the same: Gobert literally wide open for a dunk one simple pass away, but Edwards forces up a layup that gets blocked.](https://streamable.com/55bp9a) I mean look at this, this is like a high school level read that Edwards just misses and it results in a fastbreak going the other way. https://imgur.com/a/Pa7iSw8
5. [Here’s another one](https://streamable.com/iksdxy): again, Gobert wide open in the dunker spot while Edwards attempts a layup through two help defenders. Freeze frame: https://imgur.com/a/iN5DEVL
6.
At this point this is also becoming self-fulfilling because at this point it’s probably on every scouting report that Edwards will not pass it to the dunker spot when he drives so it’s OK to help aggressively off Gobert when Edwards drives, because he just won’t see the easy dunk one pass away which results in him getting blocked even more.
I’m not writing this to dump on Edwards, as clearly there are more things wrong with the team. But if this team ever wants to be good offensively, Edwards and Gobert HAVE to figure something out, and quickly. I understand that this is Edwards’ first time playing alongside a rim-running big, and that he’s still young. Nevertheless this has gotta be the next step in his development, because if this continues the offense is just never going to work.
edit: edited for readability
by Piano9717
22 Comments
Excellent post.
Ant is just not good at finding the roll man, it’s been a problem all year and has really neutered his ability to be effective in the PnR.
Honestly, might be the #1 priority (for me) for what Ant needs to focus on this offseason. We just need our ballhandlers to be effective getting the ball to their roll man with Gobert on the team. It’s the only way they’re gonna maximize Gobert on offense.
Ant is young. It sucks that it’s a problem this season, but he’s proven to have an incredible ability of getting into the gym and fixing a couple major issues every offseason he’s been in the league. I think it’ll be fine long-term; he’s demonstrated the ability to want to make the right reads and get his teammates involved, albeit inconsistently. Idt any of us expected him to already be up to 4 and a half assists a game at 21.
We need to lock Ant in a room with Conley for a month this summer in hopes that even a fraction of Mike’s IQ rubs off. If we’re ever going to take that next step as a team, it’s up to Edwards to learn how to play smarter basketball.
I was hoping that Ant would be Mitchell-like during them Utah years together. There are a handful of times where Ant could have lobbed the ball to Rudy but hesitated. I’m not sure why because they have had enough games together. Maybe trust is an issue?
Not surprised to see Ant passing a lot to Naz, they have a great offensive chemistry together, Naz knows exactly when to roll/pop after setting a screen to Ant.
Also, I’d recommend going for assists per 36 minutes or assists per 100 possessions, more common metrics than assists/minutes.
Ant is an abysmal passer and also doesn’t trust gobert
Have you seen him throw a lob? That shit is a fucking rocket to the backboard
I tend to agree and it makes me sad so I just don’t think about it
Even if Ant isn’t going to assist Rudy a lot, you’d think he’d be more effective using screens and such
This is *by far* the most damning aspect of the Gobert trade currently. They just have 0 chemistry and thats a massive problem going forward. Ant has used Gobert screens somewhat effectively, but thats jut not going to cut it.
Can we talk about Gobert magically not being able to catch passes or getting the ball stripped after receiving a pass off the roll. I think that has lead to a lot of miss trust between the pick and roll on this team with Gobert. Not the whole story but definitely part of it. I was watching Gobert film from last year and he had such better hands. He even had a better touch around the rim. I think the touch is a lot of mental stuff from Rudy. Very unfortunate though
I think it’s more than just an on-court chemistry issue. It appears at times that Ant just straight up doesn’t like Rudy. He refuses to pass to him even in non-PNR opportunities.
This is where I don’t know where all the blame lies because we can’t see behind the scenes. For instance, is this a major issue with the coaching staff not identifying this and not telling Ant “hey you need to pass to Rudy more, this is a big problem” and them not providing the adequate coaching so Ant can learn and know what to do … or are they doing all of these thing and Ant is just not doing it?
No idea honestly, but to me that seems like it is more on Finch and the coaching staff, when it is *this* bad, that seems like a coaching miss if Ant can’t / won’t do it.
I believe he does not trust gobert… With good reason. He watched Rudy brick hands lose so much.
Ant looks at offense as 1 on 5. He has no feel for how to play as a member of a basketball team.
The coaching staff has a big challenge here. If they can help Ant “get” how to see his teammates and move in relation to his teammates he could be amazing. If they can’t then he’s going to be stuck at a much lower level of effectiveness.
FWIW Donovan Mitchell had this same problem.
I don’t think he understands passing angles. Later in the season you could see him looking at Rudy after pick and rolls like it’s something they talk about in practice and he’s mentally processing it, but he hesitates and doesn’t pull the trigger.
Ant does a much better job kicking to shooters or passing to Naz and KAT. He struggles with the role man and Rudy is a pretty awkward PnR partner. Finch also doesn’t get him enough PnR reps to really improve
Anthony Edwards has no x button on his controller
Great write-up.
I think some players will just never be great passers, even with years of practice and experience in the league. You’re just not gonna get him to suddenly Harden-ish with his roll man. Some players are blessed with touch and vision.
That said, I think there are two areas Ant can work on to improve and become at least adequate in this area.
The first and easiest would be his handles. I’ve noticed he still has sloppy and loose handles. If he can clean up this area, when driving to the rim, he can worry less about getting stripped or turning the ball over, and finding the roll man. At the very least, it’ll at tenths of seconds for decision making.
The 2nd is having him relearn how to properly use a screen. When healthy, Ant can pretty much blow by 80% of NBA players without a screen. I think that’s been the case most of his life, but now in the NBA where defenses are more complex, he has needs to learn how to properly run a P and R to maximize his talent as well as the team.
Over all, at least he has the right attitude to get better. I am concern though that Finch has been his coach for 3 years and simple stuff such as P and R isn’t being coached correctly (amongst other things…), but we’ll save the Finch complaints for a other day. I think if we give him the right environment, there’s no reason to think he won’t at least be as good as Mitchell with the P and R.
It is spectacular that KAT has more assists to Gobert lol.
This is embarrassing lmfao what a mess
Eye check checks out. He’s been struggling with that all year, more often he’ll get the ball to slomo and, funnily enough, slomo gets it straight to Rudy. He just punches it right in there
Hopeful to see his assist numbers and defense get even better after a year and offseason with Conley.
Naw’s playoff game says there’s reasonable hope for optimism but Edwards loves to run.
This is really great and I don’t disagree. Do you have the assist to minute ratios for other wolves to gobert? Why assists to minutes instead of share of assists by player to total gobert baskets? I feel like those figures and comparisons will help confirm that this is an ant problem and not a team/gobert problem. It’d be cool to see ants assists to Naz when he rolls (Kat rarely does), ornkyle in the dunkers spot as that’s the closest proxy to Rudy on the team offensively
Again this is really awesome, thank you for your research