Nylon Calculus: Skal Labissiere could be a special offensive player

The Sacramento Kings had an impressive offseason. They added talent in the NBA Draft — De’Aaron Fox, Harry Giles and Justin Jackson — and doubled-down with talented veterans like George Hill, Zach Randolph and Vince Carter on low-risk deals. These new faces will be slotted in around a modestly talented young core who coalesced after the DeMarcus Cousins trade last winter. Of that young core, Skal Labissiere might be the most impressive piece and has the potential to be a special offensive player.

Labissiere, a 6-foot-11 rookie, played a grand total of 52 NBA minutes last season before the All-Star break. Once Cousins was moved to New Orleans, an opportunity opened up and he made the most of it. After the All-Star break, Labissiere played 559 minutes across 25 games, averaging 17.3 points, 9.7 rebounds, and 1.7 assists per 36 minutes, shooting 54.1 percent from the field and making three of his eight 3-point attempts.

It’s a relatively small sample and across a period of the season that tends to foster some abnormal performances but Labissiere demonstrated that he has some significant offensive skills to contribute. He displayed a soft touch around the basket, making 62.6 percent of his shots in the restricted area, but also a feathery jump shot — he made 52.2 percent of his mid-range jumpers in addition to that handful of 3-point attempts. His mid-range splits were especially encouraging — 52.1 percent on catch-and-shoot attempts, and 55.3 percent on pull-ups, showing the potential for a nice face-up game.

Labissiere’s ability to score inside and out could wind up placing him in a very unique group of offensive bigs. In a structured halfcourt offense, big men generally score in one of three ways — in the post, spotting up or as the screener in the pick-and-roll. Often the most impactful bigs are those with the versatility to score efficiently in all three settings. Labissiere was one of just 23 bigs last season who used at least 10 percent of their offensive possessions in each setting, and scored at least 0.80 points per possession in each scenario.

While Labissiere was second-to-last among this group in points per possession out of the pick-and-roll, he was seventh in the post and third on spot-ups. His overall weighted efficiency across all three possessions types pushed him towards the top of this grouping.

Obviously, we’re talking about a very small number of possessions and assuming Labissiere can replicate this efficiency to some degree as he gets more opportunities and plays more minutes against fully intact rosters and opposing staters. Still he’s put an extremely impressive sample down. If Labissiere can continue stretching his range out to the 3-point line and develop some pick-and-roll chemistry with the team’s new point guards, Fox and Hill, it could easily offset any regression to the mean in his other shooting percentages.

Having a big who can score efficiently in a variety of scenarios allows teams more flexibility in how they build lineups and more openings for them to exploit specific defensive mismatches. For a team that is still figuring out how its pieces fit together, Labissiere’s versatility could be particularly useful.

Next: Nylon Calculus -- Navigating the NBA’s changing landscape

Skal Labissiere still has a long way to go before cementing himself as an elite offensive player but he’s shown thus far that he could be an incredibly important piece for Sacramento’s future.