I’m still trying to figure out why Donovan is so paramount in your “Holistic” methodology when evaluating Niang. 2 players who play different positions, are asked to do different things within Utah’s Offense, and couldn’t have more different overall roles with the team. You also keep insisting that those who disagree with you keep pointing to 1 playoff series when that just isn’t true. But even with that being the case, I’ll humor you. Let’s take a quick look at both Donovan and Niang’s ENTIRE body of work. Both are 4 year veterans in the NBA. Donovan is a career 36% 3-point shooter and is averaging close to 24ppg. In his playoff career, his numbers actually jump up to 39% 3-point shooting and 29ppg. In his regular season career, Niang shoots a very good 40% from 3-point land while averaging 5ppg. In his playoff career, his 3-point shooting drops nearly 6 percentage points and his PPG stays almost exactly the same.
So in the simplest of terms, Donovan takes his game to higher levels come playoff time while Niang regresses. I’m pretty sure that Niang will always be a solid 3-point shooter during the regular season. This is for very obvious reasons. During an 82 game regular season, teams don’t really have the time to make wholesale changes to their Defensively philosophy for a February game vs the Utah Jazz and exactly ZERO NBA teams are going to throw wrinkles in their defense designed to stop Georges Niang.
And while Niang can knock down spot up 3’s at an impressive rate, I find it troublesome that he cannot get his shot off quickly, create shots for himself, shoot off the dribble, or even develop 1 offense go to move that frees him up from the defense and allows for him to get a shot off. I think it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that these deficiencies are magnified 10 fold come playoff time when teams have an entire series to game plan accordingly. Thus, we’re always going to see the same pattern from Niang. Solid 3 point shooting in limited minutes during the regular season, and defenses exploiting his weaknesses come playoff time, resulting in Niang not being able to do the 1 thing he does well.
As to your question as to why Quin plays Niang if he’s so bad, you can just reference the points I’ve already made above. Simply put: Niang is an effective shooter in games 1 thru 82 and our head coach is proving himself to be a creature of habit. Unfortunately, we’re starting to see a pattern with Quin in which he’s not willing to go through some regular season growing pains in order to have his team more ready to compete come playoff time. If you’d like to argue that point, you’re going to have a hard time swaying me considering we’re coming off a season in which we had the best record in the league during the regular season and then couldn’t even get to a game 7 in the 2nd round versus a lower seeded team. I wonder, why is that?
Niang’s 3-point shooting prowess during the regular season is certainly going to get him another NBA contract. Not only that, whichever team signs him is going to look pretty smart during the regular season, only to see the EXACT same problems resurface once it’s playoff time. Then that team is going to realize that they have a player who they can’t put on the court during the post season and who still has 2 more years on his contract. That team then has to burn an asset or two just so they can move his contract and replace him with a player that is actually useful in the playoffs. I’m not a religious man, but I’m praying that the Utah Jazz are not that team.
