Larry Nance Jr. Discussion: Don't Fake The Funk On A Nance Dunk

Yeah, I didn't know he had Crohn's disease until a few weeks ago. Good for him that he has done so well with it. I like Larry a lot. I just hate him starting. I also agree with Laker film room, his defense has been underwhelming to me recently. And if he's not getting that done there's not much he's contributing. I'd rather have Larry than not, but he's last on my list of 4's between Kuz, Randle and him. That said he's not really a problem other than Luke's love for him over the other two. Lopez has been just terrible for a while now and that's killing us.

 

Some of yall continually doing my man Nance like this...maybe my bball IQ is low, cause I'm not getting all the noise on this.

Nance is playing PF 90% of the time this year and only sliding to the center position 10% of the total minutes he's played so far (355 total minutes, clocking in at 23.7 minutes per contest). He's played in 15 games this season and LA's gone 5-10....while we're 5-6 without him, beating powerhouses like Brooklyn, Memphis, Phoenix, Chicago and Denver (Jokic and Millsap played a combined 24 minutes in that game). He's a starter, but is he really playing starter type minutes? Come'n now....y'all bball IQ's better than mines...explain that one to me.

Oh, I get it...its cause he's snaking minutes away from Jules, relegating JR to a bench role. Jules is playing 84% at center and 16% at PF. He's played a total of 587 minutes and averages 22.6 mins per contest. Meanwhile Lopez plays 100% of his time at center and has amassed 595 total minutes on the season, averaging 22.9 mins per game. So why isn't Jules playing more?

Well he could...but maybe it has something to do with dude playing defense and offense aggressively leading to averaging just under 4 personal fouls per contest. Looking at the last game alone as a microcosm, he was playing with 5 fouls and most of his 1-on-1 defense wasn't even against the unicorn. In his sophomore season, Jules played 2286 total minutes and earned 27 offensive fouls. In his junior year, he's played 2132 total minutes and earned 34 offensive fouls. So far this season, he's gotten 19 offensive fouls called on him in 587 total minutes played. So is it Nance, BLo or himself that is limiting his game time minutes?

All mental lapses aside, maybe dude falls in a lull in extended minutes and maybe the bear in him needs to be poked from time to time (ie Luke yanking him from the game). Hey the gimmick seems to work in our favor on most nights, since he's one of the few guys that plays well when he's upset. But I don't know how sustainable it is and frankly if Luke (a notable player's coach) is riding him like that, maybe...just maybe, Jules might have to start looking in the mirror to find the problem.

Okay, so if not Jules, then its Kuz cause Kuz is the truth. If Nance is repressing anybody due to minutes, it has to be Kuz cause Nance is playing PF with 90% of his total 355 minutes, while Kuz is playing 94% of his 760 total minutes playing PF too. Yep, Nance (and his 23.7 mins per game) is definitely getting in the way of Kuz by averaging about 7 minutes less than Kuz (avg. 30.4 minutes per game) per contest. Ugh...Luke, why you play Nance so much?!?

Okay...here's my last shot at figuring this thing out cause it ain't him getting in Jules way and he's not really getting in Kuz's way. Maybe he's getting in the way of our future plans. Nance's 1.4M salary, going on 2.2M next season, is really a detrimental roadblock to our 2018 free agency plan. Dude's wearing "pay me" sweatshirts and is such a lousy teammate and uncoachable POS that he's just way too toxic for the culture we're trying to build here. Ship his a** out!

With that, hopefully my bball IQ is restored.

(And yes I'm a little salty cause I couldn't lock down good tickets for The Last Jedi tonight.)

 

@Alleyhoops I'm sure you saw how a man like LaBron man-handled Kuz on the offensive end tonight. Add to that how we weren't exactly world-beaters when Kuz was starting in place of an injured Nance. Our defensive rating is better with Nance on the floor even though we strugggggle to score and I think it directly reflects on how much BLo is struggling out there. I'm not sure if he's injured or just is physically incapable to score on the block, but we deliberately tried to set him up early tonight instead of having him take that 3ball and he still couldn't hit alot of shots he ideally makes. So with Nance in the starting lineup, I see what Luke is trying to do cause if we shut BLo down, then thats nearly 40% of our salary cap that we have shut down (ie BLo @ 23M, Deng @ 17M) and you don't want to have any of your youth wore so thin that it becomes a medical concern.

With Kuz coming off the bench and playing against 2nd stringers, I think he can cannibalize off them dudes and gain even more confidence in his rookie campaign. I understand he's an older rookie, but I would much rather see Jules come in as a starter and have him set-up shop on the post with Nance creating that space to operate (ie like he's trying to do with BLo now). But against starters and with extended minutes, Jules probably gets himself in foul trouble or drifts further away from that spark plug effect he's been having this year off the bench.

Also in monitoring minutes, we have effectively increased the trade values of Jules, JC, Nance and have saved BLo from injury to even have his name available in trade talks. I believe once the trade deadline passes, our rotations should and will change. Till then, I don't think Luke's going to change up anything and in a crazy way, with the way this roster is constructed, I do see why Luke is having the starting 5 the way it is. After the deadline though, all bets are off cause we need to pick up as many wins as possible....we can't send Philly a #1 pick or the C bags #2-5...and if we're in danger of doing that come late February, I'd be the first one to criticize Luke and his rotations!

Btw, still got that "Bling it Back" t-shirt bro!

 

Larry played perfectly tonight. Love him as a bench player. He ratchets up the energy and he's so much more focused. Please keep him out of the starting lineup when Lopez comes back. Terrific game!

 

I know you're a big Larry guy, so here's some fun:

Per36 Player A:
13.9 points, 11 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 2.4 steals, 0.7 blocks 58.1 FG% 65 FT%

Per36 Player B:
19.7 points, 9.9 rebounds, 3 assists, 0.7 steals, 1.3 blocks 55.2 FG% 65.5 FT%

Spoiler

A- Larry Nance
B- Julius Randle

I believe that the FO believes there's only room for one of these guys and that they fill a similar, if not exactly the same, role.