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Oscar's avatar

Double big line ups are super interesting but I'm a little sceptical of the numbers for a few reasons:

1) Playing two bigs implies to me that you have at least one *quality*/"skilled" big. That in itself is not a given in the league so should imply positive net rating imo.

2) It probably also implies that you have enough shooting to get away with two bigs. This could be one of the bigs themselves and would fit into your skill argument but regardless think I'd expect positive.

3) Standard normalisation stuff with small(ish) samples: What is the relative strength of opponents in this subset for example? (Could even be a reverse effect to what I described in 1 & 2 and teams trot out double bigs when against reserves/bad line ups and opposite against good line ups, who knows.)

Totally agree that size + skill should mean better teams (up to a point) but not sure we can prove that's what's happened yet, might actually be easier to point at skill metrics and see some signal there.

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Owen Phillips's avatar

there is certainly a selection bias going on here

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Mabbott's avatar

Feels like my Pacers finally moved on from two bigs at the point that everyone else began eventually embraced doubling up and have barely had two (healthy) bigs on the roster for stages of this season!

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Sam's avatar

Does “skill ball” fully apply to these lineups?

Adam, Edey, Gobert, Allen (and probably a magic center but idk) are all pretty traditional centers without perimeter skills. I guess one of the two is skilled tho.

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Ehud Riven's avatar

Owen, maybe I'm misremembering, but weren't the 2020 Lakers quite heavy on using two bigs in their lineups during the postseason (as different as it was from standard postseasons), or maybe they weren't minute-heavy lineups, and simply different from what everyone else was doing at the time?

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Owen Phillips's avatar

yes! AD at the 4 was very powerful that season. When him and Dwight were on the court the Lakers were +7.3 per 100

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Wizards Points's avatar

As a double big truther from DC, I feel obligated to point out that some of the most reliable minutes Wes Unseld Jr. had as coach were the Gafford-Porzingis line ups. It would be interesting to see how shot locations shift under the pop+roll opportunities with two bigs.

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Mo's avatar

been waiting for the double big revolution since the ad x boogie pelicans days 🥲

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Sam's avatar
Apr 10Edited

Does “skill ball” fully apply to these lineups?

Adam, Edey, Gobert, Allen (and probably a magic center but idk) are all pretty traditional centers without perimeter skills.

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