Robin Lopez’s underrated offensive presence
Since joining the Portland Trail Blazers prior to the 2013-14 NBA season, Robin Lopez has established a reputation as one of the leagues staunchest interior defenders. Usually the praise is confined to just that end of the court, with little to no mention of Lopez’s offensive abilities.
In some sense, the fixation is understandable. Over the 2013-14 season, the Blazers’ starting center held his matchups to just 46.2 percent shooting within six feet of the rim. That number alone put Lopez in exclusive company, but his defense at the rim was even more impressive. Only Roy Hibbert (41.1%) held opponents to a lower field goal percentage than Lopez (42.8%) last season.
However, with nearly 60 percent of the 2014-15 season gone, Lopez’s defensive numbers have not lived up to the lofty expectations created over his first year with the team. In 27 games played, Lopez has given up 47.7 percent shooting at the rim. It’s not as though the league average field goal percentage at the rim increased markedly over previous years. Lopez simply hasn’t been as key to the Blazers’ defense in 2014-15.
After Lopez fractured his hand against the San Antonio Spurs on December 15th, the chief worry among fans became the sustainability of the team’s newly-elite defense. Before his injury, the Trail Blazers claimed the 3rd best defense in the league.
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Today, with Lopez having missed nearly half of the team’s games, the Blazers remain a top-5 defense, allowing opponents to score just 99.6 points per 100 possessions. Unexpectedly, the team missed Lopez most on the offensive end of the floor. The team’s offensive rebounding rate, overall field goal percentage and second chance points all declined over the 23 games Lopez missed due to injury.
On the surface, Lopez’s offensive numbers do look relatively pedestrian. He only averages 9.7 points per game, and shoots a decent 50.7 percent from the floor. But looking deeper, that percentage seems to tell only part of the story.
An extraordinarily high percentage of Lopez’s field goal attempts come in the form of tip-shots—just over 15 percent actually. That percentage stands out as the highest among the league’s most prolific interior scorers. In fact, the only player even remotely close to Lopez at the moment is Andre Drummond of the Detroit Pistons.
He does this a lot.
Lopez attempts so many of these extremely low percentage shots that it significantly impacts his overall field goal percentage, creating the appearance of an inefficient offensive player when the reality is quite different.
On the season Lopez carries an offensive rating of 107.1, which puts him 5th in the league among starting centers.
Most of that number can be attributed to Lopez’s play in the pick and roll. At 7’0”, 255 pounds he uses his body as good as any screen setter in the game today. He sets solid screens and seals defenders as he rolls to the rim. Just shy of 70 percent of his made field goals are assisted and the majority of those come out of the pick and roll game.
It should not come as a surprise that the Blazers’ second offensive set in Lopez’s return against the Jazz was a Batum-Lopez pick and roll. Lopez is far and away Nicolas Batum’s favorite target in the pick and roll game. Their combination is also one of the Blazers’ most efficient, as Lopez converts a team high 61.7 percent of his attempts when receiving a pass from Batum.
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Opposing teams are well aware of what Lopez is capable of in the two-man game, and unlike Chris Kaman or Meyers Leonard, Lopez relentlessly rolls to the rim, forcing help from the weak side and opening up the cross-court pass to the three-point shooters. The team really takes advantage of Lopez’s ability to cave in the defense in these sets. With Lopez on the court, a staggering 83 percent of the team’s three-point field goals are assisted. When Lopez sits, that number falls to 77.7 percent—the largest on/off difference for any Blazer’s player.
While Lopez does not demand the ball on offense, he is still an essential piece in the Trail Blazer’s offensive scheme. Even when he is not scoring, Lopez forces defenses to collapse, leaving more room for the Blazer’s many outside shooters.
With Damian Lillard and, to an extent, Wesley Matthews slumping from the outside of late, it should be interesting to see if the Blazers’ guards can regain some consistency behind the arc as Lopez’s presence in the paint creates more open shots on the perimeter.