How Does Ven-Allen Lubin Fit into this Year's Roster?
The 5th-year senior is back with some much-needed frontcourt experience
Welcome back, Ven-Allen Lubin.
Justin Gainey’s late grab of State’s suddenly eligible center from a year ago is a big win for the Pack’s frontcourt. A lot of sensible decisions were made trying to build this room, and there are plenty of sparks of optimism, but it still contended with near-zero power conference experience. Lubin is immediately a stabilizer and a floor raiser, particularly on offense.
The 5th-year senior had his best season last year as State’s only legitimate two-way post player. He improved as a screener, caught the ball better on the roll, and was already a high-end paint finisher. The result was an efficient pick-and-roll big who shot over 73% at the rim. Obviously, he was also a strong offensive rebounder, and those became the two main ways he would score: pick and roll and putbacks.
Lubin’s return creates something of a crowd in the frontcourt, but with the lack of ACC reps, it’s a crowd he likely leads. You’re obviously going to accept that. Edmead/Lubin pick and rolls figure to be a pretty exciting action for NC State, especially with the high-end shooting surrounding it. If Lubin can take another step and add more depth to his game as a roller, that’s icing, but he’s such a good finisher that a lot of times you’re okay with him going to the rim when a secondary pass is in play.
Admittedly, there is some clunkiness to the fit here. Most players that are suddenly eligible this late in the game will feature kind of incongruency with the rest of the roster, because unless you’re Will Wade, your roster is done. You built your hand and then someone handed you gave you an extra card.
Lubin’s role fit last year was great for him, and it helped create the strong season he had. I think he’s at his best as a pick-and-roll center and DHO initiator in a spread system. Like I said earlier, he’s a great finisher off the catch and has improved in a lot of ways as a screener. He can also handle the ball some, which enables him to attack out of DHOs. That’s a key enabler for limiting how teams can defend dribble handoffs. A zoom action for Edmead could be a dynamite play this year. Lubin’s ability to keep in these situations will make it harder for bigs to pressure the ball at the exchange, and Edmead sprinting through two screens only makes it harder to stay attached to him through the handoff. Here’s a video about what happens if Edmead can come off a screen into space.
Lubin makes a lot of sense in this same role this year, particularly on offense. He’s definitely undersized, but he tends to play bigger than he is on the boards and with the ball. The drawback here is really the downsized rim protection backing up a group of perimeter players that haven’t ever been great on-ball defenders. The other question would be minute share, as Lubin would displace many of Kyle Evans’ minutes.
A lot of people think Evans and Lubin should play together, which I’m sure will happen some too. That combo figures to elevate State as a rebounding team in obvious ways, and Lubin has flashed some rotational shot blocking that could up the ante for opposing guards in the paint. It would likely force him back into more switching situations. Teams would target that if they can create it, but I don’t think Lubin would be any more of a liability in those situations than Yalaho and Jurkovic.
The drawback here would be on offense, where having two non-shooting bigs on the floor would crunch the spacing some. The importance of shooting 1-4 can vary a little based on what kind of offense you run and how you initiate. If this is going to be Edmead/Adams/McNeil/etc. in a lot of ball screen actions, it’s important, because none of these guards carry paint finishing and traffic finishing as an elite trait. A packed paint for this group figures to be less navigable than it was for, say, Dereon Seabron or Quadir Copeland.
A two-big lineup would also change how Lubin (or Evans) fits into actions. Lubin’s elite efficiency metrics came from that center role last year. If you play him at “the 4,” you’ve changed a lot of the inputs that led to those numbers. These are not interchangeable roles in most modern offenses, including what we’ve seen from Anthony Goins. Lubin was good at what he did last year, which was play center in an offense that spaced the floor with 4 shooters and ran a lot of pick and roll. If you play him with Evans, how Lubin gets his shots will change, and that will naturally affect his efficiency as an offensive player.
Can the shot-volume wins from a better rebounding effort make up for whatever impact the two-big lineup has on the potency of the offensive actions? Will State change the expected offensive skeleton? Or will it simply rotate Evans and Lubin for the majority of the minutes, creating a strong center 1-2 punch that will keep the legs fresh? I think those are the fun questions we now get to answer with Lubin back in the fold.
To be crystal clear, this is an interesting discussion, and I’m here for interesting sports discussions. It’s not a complaint. There is some navigating to do now on how you best integrate Lubin into the roster, but it’s a good problem to have. None of this has gone over the head of the professional, highly-paid coaching staff that is compensated well to make these decisions. From the first day, there have been clear lines through all of this roster. That’s the thing I’ve appreciated the most about the offseason here. There is no chance they blew that up for no reason right at the end. Maybe some feelings get hurt, but State gets better with this.