If the New Orleans Pelicans are indeed hoping for Anthony Davis to be a more full-time center, free agent signee Solomon Hill will need to step up his rebounding in a big way.
According to Nylon Calculus’ Positional Playing Time Estimates, Solomon Hill spent 62.6% of his minutes at the small forward position last season. During the 2014-15 season, that number was even higher, at 71.3%. His second most common position was shooting guard both of these years. Of course, last season saw Hill fluctuating in and out of the rotation, so the prior year is the best one to look at as far as regular season production in a consistent role. The New Orleans Pelicans gave Hill $48 million this offseason; that’s average starter money, and it likely means Hill will be plugged into a large role right away. Therefore, it’s important to look at prior numbers to see how that might work out for the Pelicans.
As Hill said himself in the video linked above, doing the necessary grunt work on the court is the easiest way for most players to provide value to their team. That has been the basic thesis of everything the Pelicans have done this offseason; there were talented scorers and playmakers in place already, so the newest additions will be tasked with filling in the gaps. For Solomon Hill, those gaps are directly aligned with his positional outlook.
Going back to his regular season numbers from the past two years, Hill has been extremely underwhelming. He’s been tabbed as a do-it-all glue guy, but hadn’t done anything excellently at any point over his first three years – that is, until the 2016 playoffs. In a dynamite return to the rotation, Hill posted per-36 minute numbers of 9.8 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 1.5 assists. Finally comfortable, he was able to make the most of his 198 total minutes, to the tune of a +35 net rating per 100 possessions. Hill’s play was a large part of the Pacers’ surprise push of the Toronto Raptors in the first round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs.
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Nylon Calculus doesn’t track the postseason for Positional Playing Time Statistics, but nba wowy allows us to look at what types of lineups the Pacers used most frequently in the playoffs. Of all units featuring Hill, he was the nominal power forward in each of the four most common. Often the first sub in for rookie Myles Turner, Hill was used at the four next to Ian Mahinmi to counteract the Toronto Raptors’ ability to go smaller and use Patrick Patterson or DeMarre Carroll as bigs.
Obviously, playing more total minutes and more minutes down low meant that Hill was relied upon more heavily to defend bigger players, defend at the rim, and corral missed shots as a rebounder. Over the life of his career, Solo has rebounded 8.3% of the total boards available while he’s been on the court. In last year’s playoffs, that percentage increased to 10.3%, per nba wowy. Per nba.com’s Rebounding Dashboard, only 25% of those boards were contested. Further, a full 50% of them came on shots taken from greater than 19 feet away. These are all small samples (only 28 total rebounds over 7 games), but 198 minutes played mostly around the hoop should have lent itself much more nicely to more total rebounds, especially considering that the Pacers’ backcourt was made up of guys like Monta Ellis and Ty Lawson who definitely weren’t affecting the game with their rebounding or size.
Soaring Down South
These numbers are altogether uninspiring, considering how much the Pelicans are going to rely on him as a shapeshifter on both sides of the court. Hill will need to work hard this offseason in all facets of his rebounding game to better fit with the rest of the roster. Omer Asik and Alexis Ajinca figure to play less minutes with Hill and Terrence Jones coming into town, and they were the team’s biggest bodies and most obvious sources of rebounds last year. Anthony Davis’ relative struggles rebounding the ball are well-documented, and he has long relied on the physical play of guys around him to snatch rebounds away from the other team. He isn’t going to create them for himself, and that’s a big part of the equation for his ability to stick at the center position long term.
With Hill manning the four next to Davis, he has the opportunity to earn some real love from New Orleanians with his rebounding. It’s not glamorous, nor yet comfortable for Hill, but it will be necessary for the team’s moves to work out in the short term. Jones is not an ideal rebounding partner for Davis either, though the pair did combine for 22.8 rebounds per 40 minutes in their lone season together at the University of Kentucky. Dante Cunningham has lost his way in this bloated rotation, and his role remains to be seen. Minus Tyreke Evans, the backcourt figures to provide little help as far as rebounding goes. This all leads us back to one dude: Solomon Hill, whom the Pelicans are counting on to plug a hole he seems ill-fit to plug.
Underneath the surface, there are reasons for optimism: That knack for grabbing rebounds off of longer shots will bode well on a team who added lots of shooting this offseason. Additionally, the Pelicans have built themselves into a team where roles are clearly understood, and they still have training camp and the pre-season to further iron all of these things out. Hill earned his reputation as a jack of all trades rightfully- in four years at Arizona and three in Indiana, he was asked to do a little of everything, and here he is seven years into his career with a hefty long-term deal to show for it. When the stakes were raised last May and Hill’s skills became valuable in a more fast-paced, modern series, he answered the call by producing for the Pacers.
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His ability to do so again may be the difference between this offseason’s grand plan succeeding or failing.