Willie Cauley-Stein is Seizing His 1st Real Opportunity in Sacramento

by Nate Wolf in Player Breakdowns

Tyson Chandler and DeAndre Jordan. They’re the go-to examples of a distinctive NBA archetype: the athletic center who patrols the paint on defense and rolls to the rim on offense. They’re also the players to whom scouts and analysts compared Willie Cauley-Stein ahead of the 2015 NBA draft.

Cauley-Stein, a lithe, bouncy 7-footer who dominated defensively in his three seasons at Kentucky, was supposed to be the next link in the Chandler-Jordan lineage. And his ability to fill that role is exactly why the Sacramento Kings selected him No. 6 in 2015. But Trill hasn’t followed through.

His career field-goal percentage of 53.6 lags well behind the dunk-driven efficiency of the league’s top rim-runners. He’s also recorded just 0.8 blocks per game in the Association, compared to 2.2 in college, and he remains a welterweight on the defensive glass. Oh, and the 7-16 Kings are still a dumpster fire.

But something curious happened in mid-November when the Kings played the Portland Trail Blazers. Sacramento head coach Dave Joerger yanked Cauley-Stein from the starting lineup, and the Kansan pogo stick dropped 22 points off the bench in an 86-82 win. Joerger has persisted with that change, and his lanky big man has thrived.

The Kentucky product is averaging 18.8 points per 36 minutes on 53.9 percent shooting off the bench, up from 12.4 on 46.7 percent when he starts. But here’s the most important statistic: Opponents have outscored the Kings by 20.9 points per 100 possessions with the big man on the court in games he’s started. Since his move to the bench, that number has plunged to just 3.6. That’s the difference between the worst team in the league and the 11-12 Miami Heat.

The 24-year-old is finally playing in a role that suits him, and the numbers show it.

DeMarcus Cousins was Cauley-Stein’s frontcourt partner for much of the past two seasons, although “partner” probably isn’t the correct term. Everything ran through Boogie while the mercurial big man was in Sacramento—his 35.4 percent usage rate led the league in 2015-16—and his post and elbow touches served as the lifeblood of the Kings’ offense.

Sacramento’s coaches utilized the youngster sparingly in the pick-and-roll, often relegating him to a dunking role or placing him in unfamiliar mid-range areas. Cauley-Stein finished just 14.2 percent of his possessions as a roll man during his rookie year. That number jumped to 20.1 percent— DeAndre Jordan territory—last season, but Trill played just 18.9 minutes a game, seeing a spike in minutes and productivity only after Sacramento shipped Cousins to New Orleans.

Zach Randolph has absorbed many of Boogie’s responsibilities this season, clogging the lane for Sacramento’s other big men. When Cauley-Stein wasn’t standing around earlier in the year, he was rolling into a crowd of bodies. Here, Al Horford is puppy-guarding the rim, leaving no space for a potential lob:

The Kings have an abysmal 99.9 offensive rating when Cauley-Stein and Randolph play together, with the youngster scoring just 0.92 points per possession, per nbawowy.

But Cauley-Stein has found more space to operate alongside Sacramento’s stretchy, pass-happy bench mob. With Randolph on the pine, the Kings look like an actual NBA team, and Trill pours in 1.21 points per possession. Remove Randolph and veteran plodder Kosta Koufos, and that number spikes to 1.31. 

Backup guard Frank Mason III has somehow been Sacramento’s most dependable playmaker. The rookie is short on physical tools—pun very much intended—but he’s nearly four years older than starter De’Aaron Fox and can orchestrate a pick-and-roll just fine. Bench shooting threats like Bogdan Bogdanovic, Buddy Hield and Vince Carter, meanwhile, prevent help defenders from barricading the restricted area and disrupting lobs to Cauley-Stein.

The 7-footer can do more than just catch Mason alley-oops, though. Because of his ill-defined role the past two seasons, Cauley-Stein has pushed the boundaries of his offensive game, developing skills many lob specialists lack.

He’s averaging 3.2 assists per 36 minutes—a surprisingly high number for such a raw player—but he’s far from mechanical when seeking cutters or pinging the ball to the corner. Cauley-Stein will also catch the rock on the move, assess the situation, look off a help defender and explode to the rim.

Many teams will switch picks against limited big men to prevent that kind of play, with the knowledge that such behemoths usually struggle to post up a traffic cone. Trill has a nascent post game, however,  which he can use to seal pipsqueaks on the block and overpower them with quick moves to the cup.

Cauley-Stein is not Kevin McHale. He finished in the league’s 9th percentile in post-up efficiency each of his first two seasons. That number is creeping upward, though. He’s up to the 39th percentile this time around—still not strong enough to jostle with other centers, but enough to make switching a risky strategy.

Lineups with Cauley-Stein as the lone big man haven’t fared as well on defense as they have on offense, with opponents scoring 116.2 points per 100 possessions when Trill plays without Randolph or Koufos.

He isn’t the main culprit, though; most players would have trouble covering for the Kings’ inexperienced bench defenders. Cauley-Stein actually leads Sacramento in NBA Math’s defensive points saved. He has the quickness of a wing and, with an astounding 9’3” standing reach, the extension of an adolescent giraffe.

Combine those physical tools with exceptional shot-blocking instincts, and you have a potential stud, equally capable of switching screens as he is stonewalling dudes at the cup. If he can improve on the glass—the Kings get killed in the rebounding department without Koufos or Randolph—he’ll be a legitimate plus defender.

That’s kind of the issue, though. Trill has all the tools to be a lob-catching, screen-switching, shot-swatting force. But at some point, potential evaporates. Players need to perform in real life.

Take Houston Rockets center Clint Capela, for instance. Cauley-Stein is more physically imposing than Capela. He’s two inches taller, substantially quicker and doesn’t share the Houston big man’s conditioning issues. Yet playing and learning in a fitting role on a winning team can make a dramatic difference in player development.

Capela popped as soon as Mike D’Antoni arrived in East Texas with his ludicrous spread-pick-and-roll system. A similar shift has taken place these last few weeks in Sacramento.

Cauley-Stein has shown he can thrive when put in his natural role next to floor-spacers and a savvy point guard. His tools are, as scouts told us two years ago, tailor-made for the modern NBA.

Now the Kings can either harness those tools or stay stuck in the past.

Follow Nate on Twitter @NateWolfNBA.

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Unless otherwise indicated, all stats are from NBA Math, Basketball Reference or NBA.com and are accurate heading into games on Dec. 4.

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