FanPost

Is JaVale McGee the Second-Best Center on the Lakers?

Depending on who you ask, JaVale McGee might be the second or third best basketball player in his family. Few doubt his mother Pamela McGee, 1984 Olympic Champion, was the best. His sister, Imani McGee-Stafford, has played three years in the WNBA for CHI and ATL, but I leave this sibling comparison to you. However, the more interesting question is, with the arrival of Tyson Chandler, is JaVale McGee currently also the second-best center on the 2018-19 Lakers? As we will see, so far, the answer is almost certainly yes and possibly by a wide margin behind Tyson Chandler.

Despite McGee having played on two Championship teams to Chandler’s one, Chandler has had the more distinguished and longer NBA career. As is implied by his longer career, Chandler is older, 36 to 31 years of age. Indeed, most considered Chandler well over the hill when LAL acquired him ten games into the season. [Chandler has also had strikingly fewer appearances on Shaq-n-a-Fool.]

Most recently, in 2017-18, ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus that attempts to account for variables such as who else is on court ranked McGee 35 and Chandler 34 among NBA centers, and so far in 2018-19 (~24 games) McGee is ranked 38 and Chandler 28. Both were rated much better on defense than offense.

However, the interest here is on how well they are currently playing for LAL. Chandler has played 14 games for LAL. During these 14 games, they have played almost the same number of minutes, 312 for McGee and 296 for Chandler. Over these minutes, McGee’s net rating was -3.5 per 100 possessions (100.3 offense minus 103.8 defense), and Chandler’s was +12.8 (106.2-93.4).

One should look not only at these numbers that relate to when each was on the court but compare them to what happened when each was off the court. When McGee was off the court, LAL’s net rating was +10.3 – a swing of 13.8 points per 100 possessions in the wrong direction as LAL’s net rating was better when McGee was off the court. In contrast, when Chandler was off the court LAL’s net rating was -3.2, a 16.0-point per 100 possessions improvement when Chandler was on versus off the court.

Since McGee has been starting, but Chandler has been coming off the bench, they have been playing with different teammates. If one controls for their most impactful teammate, LeBron James, one finds somewhat similar comparisons. During the 239 minutes when James and McGee were on the court together, LAL’s net rating was -1.5 (99.0-100.6). During the 224 minutes Chandler was on the court with James, it was +15.6 (105.7-90.0. (McGee and Chandler spent less than 1 minute on the court together.)

To ensure McGee had even better rather than weaker teammates with him, I looked at lineups with McGee, James, and Kuzma, but even here the net rating was only +1.0 over 218 minutes, well below LAL’s overall average net rating of +4.3 over the 14 games. James, Kuzma, and Chandler had +16.2 in 152 minutes well above LAL’s overall average of +4.3. By the way, in 387 minutes overall, James and Kuzma had a net rating of +7.3.

One stat appears to buck this trend. The common starting lineup (James, Ingram, Kuzma, and Ball) with McGee (176 minutes) versus Chandler (50 minutes) showed a 3.9 to 3.1 advantage for McGee. However, looking only at the 8 games against Western Conference teams shows numbers dramatically in favor of the lineup with Chandler, but the minutes for the lineups with Chandler are small enough to make all of these number questionable. (By the way, the McGee version of the lineup did particularly well against the Central Division – IND and CLE.)

McGee shot 65.0% with FT% of 75.0% (9 of 12), and Chandler 54.5% with FT% of 66.7 (14 for 21). Looking at traditional, more individually oriented, per game statistics; McGee scored 2.1 points per game and Chandler 2.6, rebounds McGee 5.5 and Chandler 7.1, assists 0.6 and 0.6, turnovers 1.4 and 1.0, and fouls McGee 2.1 and Chandler 2.6 per game. Their plus-minuses per game were in line with the team-oriented net rating numbers mentioned above, McGee’s was -1.9 and Chandler’s +5.8 per game.

Altogether, over the 14 games that Chandler has played for LAL, Chandler’s shooting percentages were lower than McGee’s, but in most other ways and particularly in overall effect on team performance, Chandler’s performance as reflected in statistics shows he has performed substantially better than McGee.