There’s more to basketball than just shooting. You’re also asking for more mins for a guy who hasn’t scored in thr m
agree that Caleb has more versatile skill set offensively. But when you’re shooting less than 30% from 3 and less than 60% from the line I’m not sure that helps.
Some posters claim Caleb is in a shooting slump. I think he’s probably just not a great shooter. His career free throw percentage seems to suggest that. And as many know, free throw percentage and three point percentage are usually correlated.
You say that Evans doesn’t give us anything above average but shooting.
In your opinion, what does Caleb do that’s above average?
Some fans are in love with Isaiah Evans shooting. I get it. It's electric. But he hasn't made a 3 in the last three games - albeit in fairly limited minutes.
And Caleb Foster is playing very poorly - zero confidence and he looks lost out there compared to the guy who was 10-1 as our starting PG last year and who shot 40% from 3 on the season
But let's compare their non-scoring numbers this season. There are stats for this. Here are their numbers on a per 40 min basis.
Isaiah: 2.7reb, 1.7ast, 1.7to, 0.0stl, 1.9 DBPM
Caleb: 4.2reb, 3.5ast, 2.1to, 1.9stl, 5.0 DBPM
It's fair to challenge the DBPM metric as a measure for defense but our top 3 guys are Maliq, Cooper, Sion, so I would argue it's at least directionally accurate at this point in the season.
And just for kicks, here are Foster's per 40 numbers last year.
Caleb (2024): 3.8reb, 3.4ast, 1.7to, 0.9stl
So aside from the 3pt shooting, even as badly as Foster has played, he's contributed more on offense and defense.
If Isaiah could make 50%+ of his 3s then absolutely play him 20-25 min per game. But we are seeing him come back down to earth with defenses now keying on him. (0-5 from 3 while Foster is 1-5 from 3 in the past three games).
So Jon is continuing to play Foster in an attempt to get his confidence back because he can impact the game in a lot more ways when he is playing well. At some point he could pull the plug - he was running Coop/Kon/Mason together some for a second game - but he hasn't given up on Caleb playing better yet.