What's Preventing Josh McRoberts from Making Bigger Impact with Miami Heat?
Things haven’t exactly gone as planned for Josh McRoberts and the Miami Heat.
When South Beach signed the 6’10” forward away from the Charlotte Hornets (nee Bobcats) this summer, the organization envisioned him as a piece that would encourage LeBron James to stick around.
The pitch was simple and compelling: LeBron creates space for shooters, and McBob, for a big, can shoot the daylights out of the basketball, hitting triples at a 36.1 percent clip in 2013-14. The hirsute power forward's deft passing also would have made him a tremendous fit in Miami’s then-devastatingly efficient pace-and-space offense.
ESPN Insider Tom Haberstroh (subscription required) offered a typical take in July:
"At 27 years old, McRoberts should help the Heat become younger and more rangy. He shot 36.1 percent from downtown on 4.4 attempts every 36 minutes last season…But open shots will come a lot easier if McRoberts is playing next to James in place of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.
After dealing with Kidd-Gilchrist and Al Jefferson anchoring the paint, McRoberts will have free rein to move the ball and make plays in space.
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McRoberts wasn’t necessarily the star signing Heat fans were hoping for—that would be Carmelo Anthony, forging the creation of a terrifying Big Four—but he was the prudent one. He was a sound fit who would thrive in, and, in turn, improve an already potent offense.
But the basketball gods, which is to say, LeBron and his representatives, had other plans. James is, as you might have heard, in Cleveland, and Josh McRoberts is struggling mightily to make an impact for the Heat.
The facts are plain. McRoberts’ numbers are down across the board after his breakout 2013-14 campaigns.
In 16 games, the center is averaging a scant 3.9 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.6 assists across 16.4 minutes a night. Relative to the league-average power forward, entering Tuesday, he was below-average in nearly every statistical category. He’s averaging nine fewer points per 48 minutes than your run-of-the-mill 4, 4.2 fewer rebounds, 40 percent fewer blocks and 1.8 additional turnovers.
The picture the advanced metrics paint is a grim one indeed. According to Boxscore Geeks, McRoberts was posting .005 wins produced per 48 minutes entering Miami's Dec. 9 win over the Phoenix Suns—five percent of the league average and the lowest figure of any Miami player, save the decomposing Chris Andersen, who’s played more than 100 minutes, per Boxscore Geeks.
Basketball-Reference.com’s win shares like McRoberts much better.
Which is to say, they think he’s produced at 24 percent of the league-average rate. His player efficiency rating, according to Basketball-Reference.com, is 8.7, which puts him at 344th in the NBA, squarely between luminaries Robbie Hummel and Chris Copeland and nine spots behind Austin Rivers—who is to professional basketball roughly what Luke Russell is to political reportage.
So, yes, it’s been bad.
What’s most disconcerting about McBob, however, is that his steepest fall has come in the strongest area of his game: distributing the ball.
Per 36 minutes thus far in 2014-15, our subject is averaging 3.6 assists against 2.9 turnovers. According to Basketball-Reference.com, he’s turned the ball over on 28.1 percent of his offensive plays, a figure that leads a Heat team that is giving the ball away more than all but seven other franchises, per ESPN.com. McRoberts, according to ESPN.com, is second among all power forwards in turnover rate.
What’s so astonishing about this propensity for turning the ball over is that it emerged immediately following what was—quietly—one of the best passing seasons for a big man in recent NBA history.
In 2013-14, McRoberts posted 4.3 assists a night against 1.1 turnovers. According to ESPN.com, his 32.7 assist ratio paced his position by 8.6 percentage points and placed him 14th in the league.
Another vantage from which to view this: His assist ratio was just 3.5 percentage points below Chris Paul’s and 3.8 above Kyle Lowry’s. And now he’s a walking possession ender.
Now, granted, there’s some explanation for these problems. The most compelling are the injuries he’s endured.
The 27-year-old missed all of the preseason after undergoing toe surgery; then he injured his back and missed additional time in the regular season with a foot injury. He’s clearly hamstrung by this, but given his age, these problems seem unlikely to persist.
A second reason for optimism is there are some bright spots in his game, chief among them is his shooting.
Some analysts were skeptical the forward could match the career-best 36.1 percent mark from three points he managed in 2013-14, but so far, in a very small sample (like, 17 such attempts) he was connecting at a 35.3 percent rate entering Tuesday.
This, coupled with his impressive 57.7 true shooting percentage suggests McRoberts could manage to return to the offensive efficiency that attracted Miami to him in the first place.
Of course, McRoberts has only managed 48 field-goal attempts this season, which mitigates the value of his sound shooting.
You don’t get to take a shot, it turns out, if you give the ball to the other team.
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