The Most Marcin Gortat Marcin Gortat Piece Ever Written

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Marcin Gortat’s ascendance into the upper echelon of NBA big men came via a slow burn. As the backup to the best big man in all of basketball, Dwight Howard, Gortat didn’t see much playing time during his stint with the Orlando Magic, but his per-36 minute numbers were extremely impressive in the early part of his career (he averaged a double-double per-36). They belied a player who should be seeing much more playing time, but in Orlando, that was just never going to be in the cards.

It’s wasn’t as if the Magic didn’t know exactly what they had on their hands in Gortat – it’s not often that you see a team match a full mid-level exception offer sheet for their back-up center, as the Magic did when Gortat signed with the Dallas Mavericks in 2009 – but if Dwight Howard is your starting center, you’re just not going to play his backup very often. After Orlando matched the offer sheet on Gortat, he proceeded to post the worst per-36 numbers, PER, rebound rate, turnover percentage and true shooting percentage of his career in the 2009-10 season. He indicated prior to the season that he was upset that the Magic might match Dallas’ offer even though they didn’t intend to give him heavy minutes.

In the 2010-11 season, he got off to an even slower start. His per-36 minutes numbers were down again, as was his PER, true shooting, rebounding and ability to take care of the basketball. He was frustrated with his role, and it was truly starting to affect his play on the court. Then, as the story goes, everything changed. Gortat was shipped to Phoenix in a trade that also included Vince Carter and Hedo Turkoglu, among others, and he delivered on the promise he showed so often early in his career.

After having an excellent stretch run last season with an increase in playing time, he has gotten additional upticks in his scoring output (17.7 per-36) and shooting percentages (60.9 TS%). He’s also posting a career high PER (22.5, well above his 17.2 career average) and has played some at-times-dominant defense so far this season. Now here’s the part where you probably say, “Well, of course his numbers are better. He’s playing with STEVE NASH!!” But take a look at these graphics.

Graphics via NBA.com Stats Cube

Gortat is helping Nash just as much as Nash is helping him. Gortat takes 3.3 less shots and scores 5.0 fewer points per-36 without Nash on the court. Nash’s assists per-36 minutes drop by 3.5 when the Polish big man leaves the floor, and his scoring drops by 3.3 points per-36 as well. This is likely at least in part due to the excellent chemistry the two have developed in the pick-and-roll, the centerpiece of Suns head coach Alvin Gentry’s offense. When these two run pick-and-roll actions together, they’re nothing short of dominant.

Gortat is currently sitting 5^th in the NBA in points per possession (PPP) as a P&R roll man according to mySynergySports, and while much of this has to do with Nash’s wizardry getting him the ball in the right place to score, the big man is also acquitting himself nicely by correctly using the space that Nash creates after using the screen. Nash is a dynamite pick-and-roll player, perhaps the best in the league at delivering the ball to the big man on the roll or the pop. He’s also a huge threat to score because of his excellent jump shot and ability to finish over and around people at the rim from seemingly impossible angles. As a P&R ball-handler, he is 7^th in the league in PPP through Saturday’s games. That scoring ability creates copious amounts of space for Gortat to roll, slip or pop out off picks, and vice versa for Nash with Gortat’s ability to score off the roll. The two have gotten extraordinarily good at reading where this space will be in their short time together.

Let’s watch some clips of Nash-Gortat pick-and-rolls so you can see what I mean.

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The idea of this action is to get Nash matched up on Carlos Boozer and Gortat on C.J. Watson on a switch, which is exactly what happens. The Suns want to force Boozer into a decision of whether to guard Nash or go back to Gortat, who is diving through the middle of the lane. At first, Boozer chooses to stay with Nash, but when Nash then threatens Boozer on the drive at the same time that Gortat flashes through the middle of the lane, Boozer gets indecisive, backs off, and Nash takes advantage of the open space for a jumper.

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Here, both Avery Bradley and Gortat’s man Jermaine O’Neal chase Nash into the lane after he comes off the screen, so Gortat smartly reads the defense and pops out for a wide-open 15-footer. It helped that O’Neal decided not to even challenge the shot, but Gortat read the defense correctly all the same.

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The Suns run the same play on the same two defenders later on in the game, only this time Nash uses the pick to go toward the sideline, drawing both defenders into the corner. Kevin Garnett decides not to switch onto the man rolling directly to the hoop (Gortat) right away because of the three-point threat of Channing Frye – who was looping around behind the action for a dump-off – so Gortat rolls all the way to the basket for an easy lay-up.

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Against Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and the Spurs, Nash and Gortat go to yet another variation of their pick-and-roll attack. Parker tries to fight over Gortat’s screen so that Duncan doesn’t get matched up on Nash on a switch, while at the same time Duncan backs off Gortat to cut off Nash’s driving lane in case Parker can’t fight through that pick. Gortat recognizes this and slips the screen right to the foul line, where he gets a wide-open jumper.

Of course, Gortat is not solely a pick-and-roll threat. He’s been a beast in the post this year as well. He’s at 34^th in the league in PPP in on post-ups so far this season, a number that places him in the top 7.5% of all players. Post-ups are far and away his second most used play, and together with pick-and-rolls they account for 60.4% of his possessions. Combined on these two plays, he is averaging 1.11 PPP, which would easily place him in the top 25 in the NBA.

Gortat is also off to an auspicious start on the defensive end of the court. His individual defensive numbers are almost otherworldly so far this season, though they do come with some caveats.

Good luck scoring on him in the post, as he’s holding players to 0.7 PPP and 40.7% shooting there. Gortat is far too strong to get muscled by any opposing center not named Dwight Howard, and when they wind up trying to shoot over or around him, he has extremely long arms with which to challenge their shots. He’s similarly effective on isolations, allowing just 0.59 PPP and 30.8% shooting. Again, his incredible strength (I can’t overstate how strong this guy really is) and long arms are effective guarding against both bull-through moves and guys who try to shoot the ball over or around him. Those two types of plays account for 56.8% of the possessions used against him on defense this season, and his ability to guard them is a large part of his being 32^nd in the NBA with 0.67 PPP against.

However, as I stated earlier, he’s not infallible on that end. Gortat can be taken advantage of if you can get him on the move, which is why he’s been at his worst defensively when defending pick-and-rolls. Any time you can get him matched up on a guard off a switch, that’s obviously a mismatch. He also tends to drift away from his man to try to cut off driving lanes, causing him to give up a bunch of wide-open jumpers. A lot of players on the Suns are bad individual defenders, and Gortat often over-rotates away from his man to compensate for that. He’s so used to doing it that he even over compensates for the Suns’ decent-to-good defenders like Grant Hill.

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Here, Paul Pierce gets the ball in the post and tries to take Hill to the middle of the lane. Hakim Warrick already doubles him, but Gortat is ball-watching and drifts to the middle in case Pierce tries to get to the hoop. Brandon Bass rolls to the corner and because Gortat has drifted, Bass gets a wide-open 15-footer.

He’s doing more good than harm on the defensive end, which is why the Suns’ are 3.3 points per 100 possessions better on defense when he’s on the court, but he can be taken advantage of in certain actions.

On the offensive end, some of his performance does give off a scent of unsustainability as well. His field goal percentages on shot attempts from 3-to-9 and 16-to-23 feet from the basket have seen large increases from his career norms, and even from his performance during the 55 games he played with Phoenix last season. It’s not inconceivable that he’s been working on his shooting ever since he came into the league – and he does have a new and improved shooting form this year – and that’s the reason for the improvement, but a 20-percentage-point jump from one year to the next on long twos still screams, “unsustainable.

Even if he did regress to his normal percentage on those shots, he’d narrowly miss career highs in FG% and TS%, and he’d likely still be on track for a career-high in points per game and per-36 minutes. Coupled with his improved and for the most part extremely impressive defense, you’re talking about a guy who needs to be considered a top ten center right now, with an outside case to jump into the top five.