I don’t get it. Certain advanced stats paint Jonas Valanciunas to be an absolute beast. He averages 18/13 per 36 minutes, meaning he could give you an easy 15/10 on great percentages if he was played the minutes that a starting center usually receives. His win-shares are consistently in the “sick” range. But the big Lithuanian has had negative on-off splits every season he’s been in the league – that’s six straight seasons were the Raptors perform better with Valanciunas off the court.
So maybe there’s a reason why JV only gets twenty minutes a game, and it’s because Dwane Casey actually isn’t being a moron for once in his life and can see when a player is actually tanking his team’s chances for victory, even when that player will occasionally have a good individual performance that leads directly to a win.
Here comes the part where I pander to Lithuanians: DeMar DeRozan has also had negative on-off splits in eight of the nine years he’s been in the league. So what’s really going on is that JV has to start alongside DeRozan, and DeRozan himself is the one tanking the Raptors, and JV does well individually but is being dragged down by having to play in a lot of DeRozan-heavy lineups. It sort of sounds like a conspiracy theory but it also sorta sounds like it could be true.
Now that I’ve covered all my bases, no matter what your opinion is of Valanciunas, you will agree with me after reading this description.