After a trying first two NBA seasons, Nik Stauskas has made some improvements thus far in 2016-17, showing more flashes of the offensive skill that allowed him to be drafted 8th overall out of Michigan.
The most obvious area that Stauskas has improved is his three-point shooting, up from 32 to 37 percent on a whole bunch of attempts. Still, the artist also known as Sauce Castillo thinks he can do a better job of staying involved offensively.
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“I feel like I’m invisible sometimes out there,” he said. “Like there are periods of the game where they don’t feel me on both ends of the floor and that’s on me. I always got to be active.”
A major way that Brett Brown tries to keep Stauskas active is via dribble handoffs in halfcourt offense, and one of the coach’s favorite sets involves a down screen for Stauskas followed by that dribble handoff, otherwise known as “Elbow Chicago.”
Let’s check out an example. In what starts out as a Horns set, the point guard (T.J. McConnell) will enter the ball to one of the bigs (Ersan Ilyasova) and cut to the strong-side corner.
In the weak-side corner, Stauskas receives a down screen from the other big (Joel Embiid), who then rolls.
Then Ilyasova heads over for the dribble handoff and pops to the perimeter. From there, it’s up to Stauskas to read the floor. On this play, the lane parts like the Red Sea (not Karl-Anthony Towns’ finest moment) and Sauce gets a dunk:
There are a lot of ways that Stauskas can choose to attack here. He can pop the three off the dribble if he has space:
“When I’m at the 2 and I’m coming off screens, I’m a little bit more aggressive, looking for my shot, looking to get to the rim,” Stauskas said.
Sometimes the Sixers will throw the ball to Stauskas’ side and the dribble handoff will take place before the screen. In this instance, he finds Embiid on the pick-and-pop:
Here, he hits “The Process” on the pick-and-roll:
If the Sixers are going to get even better down the stretch, they’ll likely have to improve an offense that is dead last. One of the team’s best offensive weapons, Stauskas has the ability to improve even more than he has already this season when Brown gives him the ball.
Bonus counter
Remember “Iverson STS” from last week, the play that is designed to spring Embiid or Jahlil Okafor free for a post-up? The Sixers ran a fun little wrinkle out of timeouts the past couple of weeks.
If you’ll recall, one of the wings has to set the cross-screen on the play. This poor soul is often Stauskas, who at 6’6” and 205 pounds is asked to lay the wood on an opposing center.
Or, you know, just try not to get killed.
“It’s tough, they’re so big and strong,” Stauskas said. “So you just try to hit them at the right angle and make them chase over and give Joel just a second to get that post-up. But it’s tough because most of the time I set that screen, they end up kind of bulldozing through me.”
Again, we started with that play because the Sixers run it quite a bit. Other teams often know it’s coming, so Brown drew up a fun counter. Stauskas sets up for the cross-screen, but the big guy never comes over. Instead, Stauskas continues and runs through the elevator doors. Voila:
The Sixers may still have the worst offense in the league, but make no mistake, Brown does have the ability to draw some pretty cool misdirection stuff.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann