My Early Aztecs Starting Five—and Why EvanMiya Isn’t Sold

I had my starting five picked out. Then I plugged it into EvanMiya and got a C on offense. Apparently, the computer would like a word.

I’m still opening with Elzie Harrington, Latrell Davis, Luka Škorić, Tae Simmons and Bear Cherry. There’s enough scoring, size and interior help to make that group interesting. But after looking through the individual profiles and running the five together, I have a few questions—starting with who gets this offense a good shot when the first option goes nowhere. The lineup comes back with a B− overall grade, a projected efficiency margin of +10.77, and a defense that grades considerably better than the offense. That’s enough to keep me interested. It’s also enough to pump the brakes before we start handing out conference championship rings in September.

The biggest decision is putting Elzie at the one. If he can handle that job, it gives SDSU a way to start Latrell without asking Latrell to run everything. Elzie’s B playmaking grade, 17.5% projected assist rate and 36.4% three-point projection give that idea some backing. He also has a positive defensive BPR, which matters next to a guard whose best argument for minutes is his offense. What gives me pause is Elzie’s D+ turnover grade. I like the possibility of him running this group, but the job comes with more than bringing the ball across half court. He has to get them organized, recognize when a possession is going sideways and avoid making a bad situation worse with a giveaway.

Latrell is the scoring bet, and I’m comfortable calling it that. His B+ scoring-volume grade and 36% projection from three are reasons to give him the opportunity. I want to see whether he can become someone this group trusts to produce offense when it needs a basket. The defensive projection is less flattering: −0.56 defensive BPR, the lowest of these five starters. That puts pressure on the rest of the group, but it also puts pressure on Latrell to deliver what he’s out there to provide. If the scoring shows up, there’s an argument. If it doesn’t, Gladden is sitting right there.

The player whose numbers really grabbed me was Tae. His 2.33 overall BPR is the highest among these five, and EvanMiya gives him an A− court-impact grade. Add 59.7% projected shooting inside the arc and a 9.3% offensive-rebounding projection, and there’s a pretty clear job description: finish the chances the guards create and go get the misses. Those possessions count just as much as the pretty ones. I don’t need Tae taking difficult shots to justify starting him. I need him making the offense’s work pay off. His projected 66.7% at the line is the part I’d like to see him beat, because getting fouled around the basket becomes a lot less useful when points keep getting left there.

Luka is where I’m leaving some room to be surprised. His individual projection is positive on both ends—+0.97 offensive BPR and +0.82 defensive BPR—which makes him an appealing fit between this backcourt and the two interior players. But there isn’t enough court-impact data in his profile to act like every question has already been answered. His 33.9% three-point projection also carries a warning icon. I’m interested in what he can add, especially if he becomes someone opponents have to respect away from the basket. I’m not ready to pencil in that shooting as a sure thing just because it would make my preferred lineup work.

Then there’s Bear. Yes, Vincini has the higher overall BPR: 1.90 versus 0.97. If we’re picking strictly by that number, Vincini gets the spot. My choice is Bear because I want to see his interior defense behind this group. He has its highest defensive BPR at +1.29, along with B+ grades in defense and rebounding and a 5.9% projected block rate. That’s the argument for starting him. It isn’t a reason to bury Vincini, and it definitely isn’t proof that Bear will produce the better five-man unit. Vincini should get a real opportunity to make that decision uncomfortable.

The D+ assists grade is the number I keep coming back to. It doesn’t mean these guys refuse to pass. It does make me question whether I’m asking too much of Elzie as the main organizer. There’s a version of this lineup where the ball moves, Latrell gets scoring opportunities and the bigs finish. There’s also a version where the first action gets stopped and everybody looks around waiting for someone to fix it. A C offensive grade, right around the middle of the tool’s comparison group, says we shouldn’t assume the first version is the one we’re getting.

Some of the other results surprised me. The lineup projects at 34.9% from three, which puts it at the 71.1st percentile—a better result than I expected given the frontcourt. Meanwhile, the rebounding grades are fairly ordinary despite the individual grades for Tae and Bear. That’s a useful correction to my initial thinking. Putting two players with good rebounding profiles next to each other doesn’t automatically mean SDSU owns the glass. The 68.2% free-throw projection is another problem. Nobody wants to watch a decent offensive possession end with two missed free throws, especially when creating that possession was already hard enough.

And yes, I saw the line saying this group would rank 161st out of the 168 lineups SDSU used last season. That is an ugly sentence to find underneath your preferred starting five. I want to understand the comparison method and possession cutoffs before making too much of that exact ranking, but I’m not pretending it isn’t there. These five have zero observed possessions together in the screenshot. We’re looking at a forecast, and the forecast gives us plenty to check once they actually share the floor.

My first comparison would be Gladden for Latrell, keeping Elzie out there. Gladden’s A− playmaking grade makes that worth testing, particularly after seeing the lineup’s assists grade. Then I’d run Vincini for Bear as a separate change. Does the offense improve? What happens to the defense? That’s a better way to challenge the lineup than swapping three players at once and deciding the new combination looks nicer.

For now, I’m sticking with Elzie, Latrell, Luka, Tae and Bear as the group I want to see first. I like the potential roles, and Tae’s profile gives me a particularly good reason to see how it comes together. But I’m not married to a September lineup graphic. If Elzie needs another creator beside him, play Gladden. If Vincini makes the offense work better without giving too much back defensively, play Vincini. Give these five the first look. Making them the best five is still an open competition.