What's wrong with Paul Millsap?

[The Thriller]

I'm not sure what anyone is expecting from someone who has essentially been eliminated from the offense via Black Hole's chucking, Mo's chucking, and Foye's chucking. Marvin and Millsap are essentially ball boys in that starting lineup.

Not even Malone in his prime could average 20 pts with the amount of touches he would receive playing alongside 3 black holes.

One of the reasons why the second unit thrives is because no one chucks. The biggest "chucker" might be Burks or Kanter. But he typically gets to the FT line or passes far more than Foye, Black Hole, or Mo. And Kanter isn't near the ball stopper as Big Al.

 

[vegas]

First of all, Millsap isn't 100 percent right. I have a feeling there is a rift between himself and the management. I bet that even he wishes that a decision would be made regarding the log jam. We can't keep playing this sitting on the fence game fully committing to neither he or Favors.

Secondly, it's not like Millsap is playing like dump.

https://www.nba.com/playerfile/paul_millsap/career_stats.html

He wasn't going to average 1.8 steals per game again like last year. Last year was an outlier. His steals are right in line with his career stats.

Same with the rebounds, 7.9 isn't bad. Again, near his career avgs.

14.6 pts, 7.9 rbs, 47 percent shooting is right about what anyone should really expect about of Millsap. Contrary to popular belief, he isn't Tim Duncan or Karl Malone.

Per36, he's averaging the same number of rebounds this year as his career average.

Great responses. I didn't expect anybody to actually give a reasonable response, so rep to both of you. On a second look his rebounding this year is actually his 2nd best year. The steals is really a huge dropoff, but I can accept one outlier. I guess what we are all looking for is a manifestation in statistics about what we all see when we watch games--Millsap is not 100% right.

 

[billyshelby]

Millsap has a stretch like this every season, it's nothing new. I usually attribute it to teams scouting him and preparing for him after some time. The only thing new about it is he started out this way this season.

Perhaps Millsap was preparing to play sf this season, and wound up playing pf again. So now he can shoot 3 pointers and take people off the dribble, but no plays are called for that and he is still matching up against bigger pfs.

Or maybe he doesn't want to be in Utah anymore. I know Millsap has said a few times that he doesn't want to come off the bench (Boozer was blasted for saying something similar, but Sap gets a pass for some reason). Maybe the guy is just counting the days until he can sign with Brooklyn or some other team?

I'm ready to see Kanter and Favors start. And I don't think there's any way to justify Burks getting another DNP ever again.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if Corbin is the issue. I'm ad frustrated as anyone about the "give the ball to Jefferson 15 feet out on the left side, have him stand there for 10 seconds without even dribbling, then fire up a shout without otherwise moving" play. But, unlike everyone else, I'm not blaming Jefferson for running the plays that Corbin calls.

The "Jefferson dribbling, with his back to the basket, on the low left block" play is pretty good. And the "attack the basket, pass it around like a hot potato" play is pretty good too. I have no idea why we keep running that "stop the ball 15 feet out and fire up a jumper without ever dribbling or otherwise moving" play. I can only assume it's what the coach is calling for if he keeps playing Jefferson though.

So the rotations are borderline retarded, the plays called are insane, there is no system or identity, no commanding respect. What the heck is Ty bringing to the table right now? I think he's been a huge disappointment so far. He's still young so he may get better, but he's been pretty bad this season. And that may have more to do with Millsap's struggles this season than anything else.

Agree with everything. The only thing I would add is I genuinely believe Ty just doesn't know how to put wrinkles in a post offense. In the Booze/Deron era, Booze would frequently establish the post. He'd hold the ball, too, but we knew 1 of 2 things would happen. He'd drive or take one of this fades (which I hated.) But there was one enormous difference between the Sloan and Ty offenses:

1st: the wings would often pass into the post and quickly cut baseline for a possible give and go (Ronnie B the master at this.) 2nd: When Booze turned and faced, he usually had options such as AK cutting from the high post or Ronnie B cutting baseline. Booze was an excellent passer. 3rd: He could always pass back out to Deron and the offense could reset with the PnR.

Admittedly, we don't really have 3 as an option right now. But 1 and 2 will still work. Yet Ty can't seem to figure out how to get players to do this so we see what you're talking about -- Al (or ANY post player) basically going ISO while everyone watches the show.