Dwight Powell: Jack of all trades, master of none
Colin Kaepernick got himself into two kinds of trouble last week. About one, I will say nothing except that I support him and his right to dissent, but the other, his getting sat for Blaine Gabbart, is important for several reasons, even though this is a basketball column.
(This is a basketball column, right? Okay, just making sure).
Remember when there used to be a perceived rivalry between Russell Wilson and Kaep as hot young things? The major difference between the two is that one of them was really good at the thing QBs are SUPPOSED to be good at – throwing a football – and the other was not. The numbers don’t look too bad, but although both were super successful for a while running the pistol offense, and being dual-threat QBs, one of them was way more dual than the other and it was in the direction of the role a QB really needs to be able to play.
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There is a phenomenon in evaluating athletes that I associate very strongly with Kaep, but is very relevant when it comes to the NBA. Some guys have such obvious innate talent, holistically, that it is hard to believe they won’t be successful. When they aren’t, it’s hard to believe it wasn’t something wrong with them, that they didn’t progress or develop. But the real issue is it can entirely be possible for someone to be technically an elite level player without being able to contribute at their position in a way that makes sense for anything the team needs to accomplish. People can’t believe the gods would make someone so fundamentally good at a sport, without making them specifically good at the absolutely essential skill or skills, but sometimes the gods are that cruel.
There are lots of guys who might be like this in the NBA. Take somebody like Al Jefferson, who is just about as skilled a low block player as there is, a great rebounder, and a decent shot blocker. His raw numbers, which fluctuated around 20-10-2 for a lot of his career, are amazing, numbers the next guy can only aspire to. But Big Al has yet to play more than three years with any team and somehow, in a year in which Bismack Biyombo was handed 70 million guaranteed or so, Al ended up with a three year, 30 million dollar contract.
In fact, he ended up with roughly the same contract as a guy who I think is the absolute epitome of this evaluation issue, Dallas’ Dwight Powell. Or rather, Powell, who last year averaged a sick 5.8 points and 4 boards, got an additional year on his deal, meaning he’s got a contract that’s around 7 million richer than Al’s.
When you watch somebody like Powell, it’s easy enough to see why the Mavericks were willing to invest. The guy is brimming with talent, and can do a little of everything. He can rebound a little, finish a little, D-up a little, and he’s one of those 100 percent effort guys. His per 36 numbers are perfectly good for a role player, and if he really does put up a 14.5 -10-1 line on 49 percent shooting when he starts getting those kinds of minutes, the Mavs will be well pleased with their investment, especially in this climate.
The problem is it just isn’t clear that Powell does anything that he needs to do to play his position (even in “positionless” small lineups) at an NBA level. He may do a little of everything, but does he do a lot of anything? He’s too skinny to bang in the post, and while he was adequate dunking in transition and with short put-back attempts (71.4 percent from 0-3 feet), his attempts to drive to the hole often ended laughably. Skinny as he is, you’d like to see him stretch the floor, but while he seems like he should have a decent set shot, he was just about the worst shooter imaginable last year. He shot a hot 25 percent from 3-10 feet, 33 percent from 10-the arc, and a putrid 12.5 percent from three. He can’t guard fives on defense, but he can only play the five on offense. He’s also, by the way, 25-years-old. Not old, but neither by any means NBA young.
Taken as a whole, there’s a lot about Colin Kaepernick that says NFL QB, and there’s a lot about Dwight Powell that says NBA player. But guys don’t get to be taken as a whole. Usage doesn’t allow it. They get taken for how they will perform in the situations they are likely to be put in. It’s sad to say but guys like Troy Daniels, in all respects but one a worse player than Powell, is likely to have a much longer career for no better reason than because the one skill he has makes sense in rotations and schemes. Steve Novak is 33 and even if no one picks him up this year, ten years in the league is a heck of an accomplishment for any one, let alone a guy who has shot upwards of 80 percent of his shots from behind the arc in each of the last five years.
Basically, when evaluating guys like Powell in the future we would do well to overlook the full package, however compelling, to think about fit. The Golden State Warriors did just that when they turned down Kevin Love for Klay Thompson, to, at the time, the consternation of most, and they look pretty smart about now. Somebody like Jahlil Okafor might fit this bill, and for the Mavericks as for other teams, Monta Ellis might already have. Nobody can score better than that guy but in the modern NBA you need other things out of the 2 spot, if you’re going to build a team.
It’s easy to believe that certain players will some day develop a jump shot or positional awareness on defense or whatever, and some guys actually do. But it’s by no means a given and teams would be well advised to get better deciding whether they want to spend money on, or draft, a guy based on the skillset he currently has.