Anthony Davis is inventing the stretch five position as he goes
Slowly, and then all at once. The Pelicans have set Anthony Davis up to invent and define the capabilities and role of the “stretch five” as he goes this season.
Wasn’t this offseason supposed to be the start of Anthony Davis reign over the center position? In late September, coach Alvin Gentry said when referring to the team’s starting frontcourt, “we’re going to start whoever at that particular time is going to be best for us”. That could mean the traditional Omer Asik or Alexis Ajinca in low-minute starting roles, it could mean Terrence Jones and Anthony Davis switching assignments on both sides, it could mean Solomon Hill moving up a position right away.
Regardless of what position Anthony Davis plays, his game is more likely to adapt to the lineups around him and the opponent across from him. This season, that probably means an even larger dose of the three-point shot, which he averaged the same amount of per game on a low success rate (only 25%). Playing Davis at center is effective in part because of the mismatch his athleticism and handle presents for opposing teams, but mostly because he’s a capable shooter from the mid-range outward:
The presence of his shot makes it impossible for bigger players like Nene above to defend him in space. Yet if he mixes in a respectable efficiency on long bombs and a dose of dribble drives, he starts to look and play the part of the “Modern Stretch Five” we’ve all been scouring the globe for. Is that player already in New Orleans?
Davis has the opportunity to grow into and define the role the league seemingly chose for him years ago. That “stretch five” archetype largely doesn’t exist in any one player yet, even as style trends toward so-called positionlessness and an emphasis on versatility.
Sure, the Cavs have two guys in Kevin Love and Channing Frye who provide great spacing and the size to play the five, but lack the foot speed to be dominant on either end of the floor. And the Warriors have an era-defining player in Draymond Green, but his play at the five is a tactic on the toolbelt, not his actual place on a court full-time. Maybe you’re a believer in Joel Embiid or Thon Maker’s jump shot; so be it. But Anthony Davis has the size and skill to make the transition into something we’ve not yet seen.
The first three players that come to mind when thinking about what sort of player Davis might one day be after he’s made peace with his fully-actualized self are Kevin Garnett, Amar’e Stoudmire and DeMarcus Cousins– players whose relationship with the center position was a driving narrative of their career. What can we learn about Davis’ move from these three?
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Kevin Garnett
You thought you could watch Stockton and Malone run the pick-and-roll for decades? Well consider this my official ballot for Rondo-Garnett 2016:
It’s no secret that the Pelicans favor a playmaker-type next to Davis; Holiday, his backup Tim Frazier, and the injured Tyreke Evans all provide that to some extent. Even flings like Jeremy Lin or Rajon Rondo are understandable given this urge to unleash Davis in the pick-and-roll. But the creativity that Garnett brought to the stretch five in his later years was beautiful.
From 2011-2014, Garnett played more than 70% of his minutes at center, according to estimates from Basketball-Reference. That same uptick in minutes down low correlated to an increase in jumpers. During that three-year stretch, he never fell below 40% in terms of how many of his total shot attempts were jumpers. No player made better decisions than KG; on offense, this meant an uncanny ability to choose between shooting, driving, and keeping the ball moving.
His savvy and shooting is a large part of why a non-shooter like Rondo was able to thrive next to him– if you’re not always finding the most efficient shots for yourself in the paint, the next best option is to put the offense in position for someone else to find them. The first step to making that happen is creating space in the half-court.
Amar’e Stoudemire
Stoudemire never attempted more than 31 threes in a season, per Basketball-Reference. The highest percentage of total shot attempts that came as jumpers was only 26.6% in 2011-12, his second year with New York. Faced with the need to coexist with Carmelo Anthony on offense, Stoudemire often tried to manufacture space for Melo to post-up and go to work by shooting more often.
The Knicks’ didn’t always work, but Stoudemire is a perfect example of someone who was able to punish a defense unsure of his next move:
Davis scares defenses in much the same way, and his silkier jump shot should play right into his hand in this way. He has the instincts to dive in and out as dictated by his defender, and the skill to put the ball in the hoop no matter the distance or situation. More than anything, AD has an athletic advantage on par with that which Stoudemire was able to employ for many years.
It’s only fitting that the first man to re-define what it meant to be a center in the NBA would be a core forefather of the one aiming to do it again this year. In Stoudemire’s first year as a nominal center in the NBA (‘04-’05), he increased his shot attempts by 54% and his efficiency by almost 10%. Remember Davis’s incredible 30.7 PER season from two years ago? That season, STAT’s was 26.6.
DeMarcus Cousins
Last season, DeMarcus Cousins was asked to do things a little differently than he had in the past under the strategic rule of coach George Karl. For one, he played more often next to another traditional big man, trading the Derrick Williams and Jason Thompson’s of 2014-15 in for Willie Cauley-Stein and Kosta Koufos– per nbawowy.com, 40% of DMC’s minutes came next to one of those guys. In short, he was the power forward for quite a bit of his minutes on the court, making the opposite shift of the rest of these players.
Yet he also increased his three-point frequency by about 15%, and made a passable 33% of them, per Basketball-Reference. His stretchiness and passing (17% assist rate to AD’s 11% last season) is what allowed his Kings to flow last season. Their offense was middle of the pack in per 100 possession terms, but they got all the way up to the number one spot in possessions per game, averaging exactly 100 of them each contest. That was in part because of Cousins’ quick decision-making and even quicker trigger.
It’s hard to draw conclusions from a situation that ended in chaos and only 33 wins, but Cousins in this role represents the prototype for what Davis hopes to become. The balance between bulldog and ballerina that Cousins employs come out in the best ways: a tremendous free throw rate, crisp high-low work with other bigs, and a dominant transition game.
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Cousins is the gold standard in the league right now as a player who is both actually a big man and actually stretchy, but Davis has a chance to put the debate to bed if he can successfully play next to smaller players and maintain three-point efficiency while keeping what makes him special. From the elbow out, there is no more dominant center in the league right now than Anthony Davis at his best.