Where Do Al Horford and Paul Millsap Rank Among the NBA's Best Inside Tandems?
The 16-7 Atlanta Hawks have enjoyed a successful start to the 2014-15 NBA season, and the solid interior duo of Paul Millsap and Al Horford has been a major reason for the team's prosperity.
The two former All-Stars are producing for Atlanta in a variety of ways with their unique skill sets. Millsap, a 29-year-old power forward, has the dribbling and shooting ability of a wing combined with the strength of a post player, while the 28-year-old center Horford is a master of the mid-range shot and the pick-and-roll.
But where does the inside tandem rank among the NBA's best power forward-center combinations? We'll look at this question from a statistical perspective and then from a more subjective point of view.
How Does Millsap's and Horford's Statistical Production Stack Up?
Statistics aren't the be-all and end-all method for judging a player's worth, but they're a great place to start.
So to weed out the league's weaker inside duos, we'll use stats. I'll be using an original metric for this specific task.
I compiled the following eight statistics for all 30 teams' starting power forward-center duos: points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks per game, in addition to true shooting percentage, player efficiency rating and win shares per 48 minutes.
Since squads sometimes trot out different lineups depending on the contest, ESPN's depth charts had the final word on which players were considered starters for their teams.
After combining the duos' numbers for every team, I sorted the data by category to rank each pair in those particular categories. For example, Millsap and Horford led all inside tandems in combined steals per game (2.74), so they earned a "1" next to their names in that category. However, they were only 18th in combined rebounds (14.3), so they got just an "18" there. Therefore, the lower the ranking, the better.
I averaged out the numbers from every category, and the following interior duos had the 10 lowest average rankings, in order:
1. Anthony Davis and Omer Asik (New Orleans Pelicans)
2. Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan (Los Angeles Clippers)
3. Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol (Memphis Grizzlies)
4. Dirk Nowitzki and Tyson Chandler (Dallas Mavericks)
5. Millsap and Horford
6. Pau Gasol and Joakim Noah (Chicago Bulls)
7. Draymond Green and Andrew Bogut (Golden State Warriors)
8. Donatas Motiejunas and Dwight Howard (Houston Rockets)
9. Tim Duncan and Boris Diaw (San Antonio Spurs)
10. Lamarcus Aldridge and Robin Lopez (Portland Trail Blazers).
Linked here is a visual, more specific look at the stats for each of the aforementioned tandems. Remember, the smaller the bar, the better the duo did both in the specific categories and overall.
Millsap and Horford are the NBA's No. 5 power forward-center duo, according to the metric used above, but it would be unfair to make a final judgment on them without taking other factors into account.
What Other Factors Should Be Considered?
We need to look at two factors that didn't show up in the stats but must be considered before giving the Hawks duo their rank: balance and defense.
Balance
Having a truly solid interior duo implies that both members are pulling their weight.
Millsap and Horford are perfect examples of this balance. Millsap’s volume statistics (16.5 points per game, 7.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists) are slightly superior to Horford’s (13.7, 6.4 and 2.5, respectively), while Horford leads in most efficiency stats. His true shooting percentage (.562 to .551), PER (19.5 to 19.0) and win shares per 48 minutes (.160 to .146) all top Millsap’s.
Horford should be able to pull even more weight in the near future as he continues to get more comfortable being back on the court after a season-ending pectoral injury last year. However, he's still had his moments, as these highlights show:
Meanwhile, the duo that got the No. 1 ranking by statistical measures, Davis and Asik of the Pelicans, have very little balance. I’m guessing no NBA coaches go into a game against New Orleans saying, “We really have to limit the impact of the Pelicans’ two star big men tonight.”
Davis is the focal point of opponents’ game plans, a superstar with a legitimate chance at winning MVP this year, according to NBA.com’s Sekou Smith. Asik, on the other hand, is a role player. His post defense is nice, but his offense is limited to layups and dunks from underneath the hoop.
Other members of the top 10 duos have players with similar roles to Asik, such as DeAndre Jordan, Tyson Chandler and Andrew Bogut. But all three of those players fulfill their roles better and with more efficiency than Asik does.
For their lack of balance, the Pelicans’ duo falls several slots down the list, and below Millsap and Horford.
Defense
The first person who comes up with a statistic that accurately captures defensive impact deserves a medal. Unfortunately, none of the existing measures (steals, blocks, defensive rating, opponent production per 48 minutes, to name a few) give the total picture of what a player can provide on defense.
So for the less glamorous end of the court, we have to rely on the eye test.
When you watch the Hawks, you won’t be overly impressed by Millsap's or Horford’s defense. They aren’t bad on that end, but they aren’t necessarily good, either.
The 6’8” Millsap is shorter than most opposing power forwards, which affects his ability to defend near the rim, while the 6’10”, 245-pound Horford can be bullied inside by bigger centers. Neither is a particularly explosive athlete, so that doesn’t help, either. Case in point: Al Jefferson went for a season-high 34 points on Nov. 7 against Atlanta, as seen below:
Unfortunately, many of the duos around the Hawks in the statistical rankings feature an elite defender. The Clippers have DeAndre Jordan, the Grizzlies have Marc Gasol and the Mavericks have Tyson Chandler. Even the Bulls, ranked one slot behind Atlanta statistically, have Joakim Noah, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year.
The lack of an upper-echelon defender keeps the Hawks pair from entering the top tier of big-man duos.
Conclusion
The Hawks have the fifth-best inside tandem in the NBA. Millsap and Horford possess too much balance and star power on offense to let their counterparts on the Pelicans, Warriors, Rockets, Spurs and Blazers to get ahead of them.
Unfortunately, the Grizzlies', Clippers', Mavericks' and Bulls' duos all have too much inside muscle and too much defense to let Millsap and Horford pass them.
But the No. 5 spot is nothing to be ashamed of. The Hawks still have an extremely talented pair of post players in Millsap and Horford, and both will be key as the Hawks try to stay near the top of the Eastern Conference through the remainder of the season.
Note: All statistics are from Basketball-Reference.com and updated through Dec. 14, unless otherwise indicated.
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