Washington Wizards: 5 goals for Kelly Oubre Jr. in 2017-18
5. Increasing Pace
Nobody would disagree that Kelly Oubre Jr. is a young and athletically gifted athlete. But sometimes that raw athleticism can get lost out there on the court, and this can be shown by calculating a player’s pace numbers.
Pace is a metric that measures number of possessions of the ball by a team in a basketball game. So if a player’s pace is 100, than that team is averaging 100 possessions with the ball per game. For reference, the team with the highest pace during the 2016-17 NBA season was the Brooklyn Nets at 103.58, and the team with the lowest pace was the Utah Jazz at 93.62 (which isn’t very surprising if you watched any Jazz games last season).
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Having a high pace doesn’t mean you’re a better team; if anything, pace is solely used to indicate a team’s playing style. A team who wants to shoot early and push the pace will naturally have a higher pace than a team who plays in the half court and runs intricate offenses. This is why the Spurs, who pass a hefty amount, are usually near the bottom, while teams coached by Mike D’Antoni are usually at the top.
The Washington Wizards want to play at a high pace. Players who can push the ball up the court like John Wall don’t come around very often, and basing an offense around his ability to push the ball is smart. During 2016-17, the Wizards had five players above 100 in pace: John Wall, Markieff Morris, Otto Porter Jr., Bojan Bogdanovic and Bradley Beal.
Kelly Oubre Jr. had a pace of 99.53 and finished eighth on the team. While the differences between players aren’t massive, this should still be something Kelly Oubre Jr. can improve on. Oubre can be an explosive dunker and a outlet guy coming out of transition. Based on his build and play, he’d be a perfect candidate to play at an incredibly fast pace, but he hasn’t managed to get there yet.
If the Washington Wizards can get another guy to push the pace like John Wall does, the team will be able to execute its philosophy even more effectively, and be even more dangerous during the course of a basketball game.