It's really hard not to get overexcited about the 3-year guard out of Guadeloupe these days. And I'm a Roddy guy, so I'm doing what I'm supposed to do in completely overhyping everything what we see. But it's not only that. The thing with Roddy is: If you're replacing a mediocre shooter with good one, you'll get better. If you're replacing a mediocre rebounder with a good one, you'll get better. If you're adding a guy that can take the ball to the basket and create his own shot on a jump-shooting team? You'll end up way better. Who knows whether Roddy will eventually become an All-Star, even a starter, in this league? But it doesn't matter right now, because it's all about adding something to the core that the team lacks. You might remember Jose Barea last year and how he changed the dynamic of the game as soon as he got on the floor, because he could get to the cup as well. To illustrate, here's the typical late game execution with Dirk:
OK, so Dirk gets the ball in his sweet spots. The first scene is a transition possession, where Dirk sprints the floor and therefore gets a solid position in the post. Terry delivers the ball, but Dirk is missing. In the second scene, Dirk comes off a Terry screen and gets the ball at the elbow, catches and shoots. That's also normally a high-percentage shot for the Mavs, but Dirk misses that one as well. At this point the Mavs are screwed. If Dirk can't hit those good looks (out of the two-man game with Terry), they're literally out of weapons. You can try to play through Marion (the Mavs haven't done that in such situations in the past), Carter and Odom are on the bench and Kidd (who would be out there when healthy) and the Center are also non-options.
See a video and analysis of Roddy's late game execution against San Antonio after the jump.
Roddy utilizes screens from Dirk Nowitzki every single time. In the first scene he drives to the basket with ease and banks it in. The most remarkable part of this whole drive is that Marion would have been there for the offensive rebound (and probably putback), because Roddy draws that much attention.
In the second scene he drives and kicks it out to Terry. Actually that is something he has been good at right from the start, even through his struggles last year. He splits the double team, the defense collapses in and Terry is wide open.
The other two scoring scenes are pretty much the same. Roddy beats Neal off the dribble for the floater and does a good job in transition catching an unsettled Spurs defense for the easy layup.
The defensive achievements also shouldn't go unnoticed. Sometimes it's the little things that make a difference. In transition Roddy is last in line to stop James Anderson and does a good job forcing him to the outside. The Mavs can get back and the Spurs will eventually end up empty on that possession.
On the last shot Roddy manages to stay in front of Gary Neal and gets the block at the rim (although it's hard to see if Dirk got him from behind instead), but the initial speed of Rodrigue Beaubois made that play happen and led to the game-tying shot of Jason Terry.
At least his fastbreak defense is partially captured by the numbers. The Mavs give up 122.55 Points per 100 Fastbreak Possessions. With Roddy this value decreases to 105.81. Also Roddy is no longer eating up possessions like crazy but embracing the point-guard role. In his two consecutive starts at the point, the team posted a high in overall Assist-Rate and AST/TOV-ratio when Roddy was on the floor.
He leads the team in PER among all regular rotation players and posts the best WS48/WP48 numbers among all guards on the team. He closed the gap between Kidd and him in Assists per 100 Possessions and actually leads the guard position in fewest Turnovers per 100 Possessions.
I'd say right now, it's hard no to get excited.