Nice help, Dave.
Kelley L Cox-US PRESSWIRE

The Golden State Warriors are going small again, and it makes as little sense as it ever has.

Part of the coach Mark Jackson’s penchant for playing David Lee and Carl Landry, both slightly undersized power forwards, together is being explained as a necessity. With Golden State actively trying to win every single game they play—preseason or otherwise—Landry and Lee give the Warriors two legitimate, proven NBA frontcourt players. When Festus Ezeli, the Dubs’ only capable center, is on the bench, Landry and Lee are a better option than any combination that involves Andris Biedrins or Jeremy Tyler. Or so it would seem.

But Jackson’s habit, and his stated regard for the combo are problematic.

First of all, we’ve all seen the Warriors play small since the beginning of recorded history. Or 1992. Whatever.

The point is, we know how this turns out. Maybe Lee and Landry look superficially good together. Maybe they have nice box scores. But it’s ridiculously obvious that they give up way more on the defensive end than they get offensively. Neither one is even an average post defender and neither assists his teammates by sliding over to help on defense.

Sure, both can score. But putting the two of them out there is practically an endorsement of 20-plus years of failed strategy in Golden State. Playing small absolutely doesn’t work unless the unit is so devastating on offense that it forces the opposition to shrink its own lineup. Big beats small in the NBA. That might change someday, as Zach Lowe points out for Grantland, but that day isn’t coming anytime soon. And even when/if it does arrive, it’ll involve superstars like LeBron James with the talent to play out of position.

Is everyone sitting down? David Lee and Carl Landry aren’t LeBron James.

So, even if it means sacrificing something on offense and looking cosmetically less appealing as a whole, the Warriors have to ditch this small-ball nonsense. The franchise showed it understood the importance of being big (for lack of a more refined term) by bringing in Andrew Bogut and drafting large wings in Klay Thompson (2011) and Harrison Barnes (2012). So this has to stop.

More specifically, the Lee-Landry pairing doesn’t even necessarily make sense on offense. The two tend to operate in the same areas and it’s hard to get maximum value out of both if they’re on the floor at the same time. When Landry’s in the game, he needs to isolate on the post and go to work on his man. The best pairing for his game involves a bulky center who can crash the boards when Landry takes his shot and help cover up his defensive weaknesses on the other end. Lee needs that same bruising mate up front (Australian pun intended).

Here are a couple of alternatives, ugly as they might seem: Let Ezeli foul out and give Andris (if healthy) the backup center minutes. I don’t care how it happens, but Lee and Landry shouldn’t ever see the court at the same time.

So let’s stop the madness, please.

Carl Landry’s Assignment: Rebound the Basketball

Carl Landry’s decision to sign with the Warriors was received as positively as any Golden State signing in recent memory—and with good reason. Landry represents the post-scoring threat the Warriors haven’t had in years. Sure, Landry’s something of a specialist in that respect, but his specialty is exceedingly rare. Particularly on his new team.

A soft, run-and-gun outfit for years, the Warriors now have someone they can dump the ball into and expect a bucket or a foul. That’s valuable. But Landry’s got a few shortcomings, too. (Of course he does. He wouldn’t have taken a two-year, $8 million deal if he didn’t).

Chief among Landry’s limitations is his rebounding ability. Among power forwards, Landry ranked 51st in overall rebound rate last season. He pulled down just 12.8 percent of missed shots when he was on the floor. That figure isn’t the end of the world, though. There are a number of very effective power forwards ranked behind Landry—Luis Scola, Nick Collison, Kenyon Martin and former Warrior Ekpe Udoh, to name a few.

But there are also 50 power forwards ahead of him.

Unfortunately for Landry, rebounding isn’t really the most teachable skill. There’s some coaching that could help, but beyond learning proper positioning, rebounding really comes down the the player himself. Intangibles like anticipation and desire are the two most vital ingredients in a good rebounder, so the reality is that most players either rebound or they don’t. A big transformation is rare.

But Landry hasn’t always been so bad on the boards. As a rookie, he grabbed 16.5 percent of all rebounds when he was on the floor. That number dipped to 13.6 percent in his second year, which was still better than his rate last season. Alarmingly, though, Landry has actually been even worse than he was last season; in 2009-10 and 2010-11, his rate fell to the 10 percent range—an almost unfathomably bad figure.

I guess the takeaway here is that Landry’s rebounding was bad last year, but has been both better and worse in the past. His minutes and usage rates haven’t changed much, and whatever fluctuations he’s had in those rates haven’t coincided with corresponding peaks or valleys in his rebounding. To me, that makes Landry’s rebounding an effort issue.

In the end, that’s a good and bad thing. It’s hard, and maybe impossible, to coach effort. But Mark Jackson, for all his faults, is billed as a motivator. Hopefully, he’ll be able to get Landry to commit to improving the weakest area of his game. Anything Jackson can get out of Landry on the boards will be a boon to the Warriors, who were the league’s worst rebounders last season. And, Landry’s got a little personal motivation to improve, too: he can opt out of his new deal after this season. If he maintains his excellent scoring rates and adds a respectable rebounding figure, he could be in for a much larger pay day than the one he got from the Warriors.

However it happens, Landry’s got to improve his work on the glass. If he can do that, he’ll help the Warriors and himself.