Jordan Clarkson Discussion: Sky's the limit!

Very impressed by his control and tempo that he plays with now. You can really tell and see the significant improvement he has made thus far from playing his first game. Some of the passes out of the pick and roll that he had to Boozer looked really smooth and in rhythm.

 

This is basically what I've been envisioning since we've had to start tanking. In a perfect world the Lakers end up with the #1 pick, get Okafor, get a decent player later in the 20s, then go get a PG to help drive the team. Next season could end up looking like this:

Goran Dragic/Jordan Clarkson
Kobe Bryant/Wayne Ellington/2nd Round Pick
Wesley Johnson/Nick Young
Julius Randle/Ryan Kelly
Jahlil Okafor/Tarik Black/Robert Sacre

That's a hell of a young team right there. I only include Wesley so we can keep some talent coming strong off the bench in Clarkson and Young and Tarik. I wouldn't be opposed to bringing back Boozer either in a bench role honestly. There's a good possibility we end up with a team at least similar to this and that's a great place for a rebuild to be in.

 

Clarkson is making Lin expendable if not already... He envisioned himself at the point even there was skepticism about it. Clarkson reminds me of Doug Christie eons ago when he was with the Lakers but with more "dog" in him.

 

Jordan Clarkson, by my numbers...

Look at Efficiency as an eyeball metric for overall usefulness on offense. 80+ is a quality starter.

October: 5.22 Scoring, 2.92 Passing, 1.41 Hustle, 53 Efficiency
November: 5.77 SCOFF, 1.87 PAFF, 3.21 HUFF, 59 EFF
December: 4.97 SCOFF, 2.50 PAFF, 3.80 HUFF, 67 EFF
January: 5.47 SCOFF, 2.71 PAFF, 2.36 HUFF, 59 EFF
February: 6.01 SCOFF, 3.50 PAFF, 2.36 HUFF, 76 EFF

Long story short, JC's playing like a borderline starter right now (and his numbers are better than lots of PGs/wings who have started for us - e.g., Price, Johnson, and Young.

 

Without looking at the numbers, I'm impressed by his low turnover count as a rookie. It's not just that he refuses to make mistakes, but he does an incredible job of picking his spots. He shoots efficiently, he passes efficiently, and he defends decently too.

This kid has keeper written all over him. When I said we'd lose games depending on a rookie and Wayne Ellington... maybe I was wrong. Maybe he's that good of a rookie.

At this point he's making a definite argument for an All-Rookie Team.

 

He is playing like a starter. Not borderline, imo. He's the best guard on this team at his point (well, that doesn't wear number 24). I don't look at those early season numbers. he is improving every game. He's not the same player now he was early in the season. He would start for a few teams in the NBA. If there has been ANYTHING good to take from this season, he is it....and I mean, IT. There is like nothing else...at all...anywhere.

Are there any defensive efficiency numbers on him? Hard to tell who's playing solid D on a team where no one plays D.

 

^ I try to stress that that figure I post is what I consider "offensive efficiency" - and whenever I talk about it it's only one side of the equation (and imperfect, I know). I noted it was overall usefulness on offense. His defense makes him even better, because I think he's better than most if not all of our wings (when Nick is dialed in, he's good).

These numbers are estimated - because I can't find counterpart steals and offensive rebounds, so I use a formula that treats his steal rate compared to counterpart TOs compared to his TOs. It's imperfect, I know. I do the same thing for offensive boards: his o-reb:t-reb rate vs. opponent t-reb rate to generate o-rebs.

Anyway, his counterpart breaks down like this:
PG 5.73 Scoring, 3.78 Passing, 2.64 Hustle, 81 Efficiency
SG 5.87 Scoring, 2.84 Passing, 2.35 Hustle, 66 Efficiency

These numbers are limited obviously - they're using data from 82games.com and it's in small minutes (16% of the total minutes and 5% of the total minutes, respectively).

 

Clarkson in his last nine games: 14.3 points, 4.4 assists, 3.7 rebounds. That's a solid all-around game. He has added 1.0 steals over that stretch, along with 1.0 triples.

 

Our analytics must be doing something right, eh?

 

Yeah of course I'm just being a jackrabbit.

I know the Lakers use analytics and I know they draft well. I just think it's something that should be noted considering how much people note the opposite.

 

And when Tarik was playing he was 10th on the rookie list. Three of the top dozen rooks? With only one first round pick? Yoinks.