Hollinger’s All NBA Stocking Stuffer Team: Goga Bitadze, Keon Ellis and more – The Athletic

ORLANDO, Fla. — The old saw for any non-star in the NBA is that finding the right situation is half the battle.

But for some players, it’s equally a case of the situation finding them, when injuries or other moves change the player’s team in such a way that he suddenly fits right in. This year, it seems, an unusual number of NBA players have landed in that circumstance, becoming the proverbial $20 bill found in a jeans pocket when their clubs suffered injuries or ineffectiveness from other players and needed a capable replacement.

What’s notable is that these players — my All-Stocking Stuffer Team, if you will — weren’t summer 2023 free-agent signings or trade targets. These are guys who were just kind of there, either hanging around on deals left over from previous seasons or thrown in as salary ballast in trades for more prominent stars. They were not expected to be rotation pieces. A few of them could easily have been waived in the offseason, but weren’t.

Take Goga Bitadze, for instance. Picked up by the Orlando Magic as an afterthought third center after the Indiana Pacers waived him in February, nobody thought much of it when the Magic picked up his team option on a minimum contract in the offseason. Even after that point, he easily could have come a roster casualty if the Magic found an alternate use for their ample cap space.

The spindly legged, 6-foot-11 Georgian’s importance to the Magic wasn’t apparent until starting center Wendell Carter Jr. broke his finger in October. Magic coach Jamahl Mosley promoted Bitadze to the starting lineup, and the team thrived. Orlando went 13-7 in Bitadze’s 20 starts entering Wednesday’s loss to Miami — Carter’s first game back — including a nine-game winning streak in late November. Bitadze’s shot blocking, rebounding and improv play from the elbows played a central role as the Magic, who won just 34 games a year ago, have been one of 2023-24’s biggest surprises.

For a Magic team ranked third in points allowed per 100 possessions, Bitadze’s rim protection has stood out. His 7.3 percent block rate is fourth in the league! Get that weak floater outta here, Haywood Highsmith:

What’s made Bitadze’s defense more impressive is that he isn’t thriving exclusively from drop coverages. He has the feet to chase on the perimeter. Watch here, for instance, as a well-designed Cleveland play leaves Bitadze on an island against Darius Garland. The Cavaliers’ All-Star guard has the entire left side of the floor at his disposal and he thinks he’s going to cook. Guess again:

At the offensive end, Bitadze has made a major transition. He’s morphed from a theoretical stretch five into a very real board-crasher, ranking ninth in the league in offensive rebound rate and converting 32 dunks in 24 games.

Beyond rim running, Bitadze has also become a canny operator from the elbows, helping a spacing-starved Orlando offense find tiny creases to attack the paint. Bitadze is averaging 4.0 assists per 100 possessions and more than two dimes for every turnover, a nice supplemental skill for a fifth option. Note below how Bitadze rescues a dead play for Jalen Suggs by improvising a quick give-and-go that lets his teammate get a half-step to the rim:

Bitadze’s role is a big change from 10 months ago, when the Pacers waived him to create roster space to absorb Serge Ibaka’s contract in a salary dump from Milwaukee. A first-round pick for the Pacers in 2019, Bitadze struggled to gain traction in a crowded frontcourt and became expendable due to Indy’s surfeit of bigs. Complicating matters was his inability to turn a smooth-looking stroke from the perimeter into threatening results in games, as he converted just 25.6 percent of his 3s in 215 attempts as a Pacer. Scouts I talked to had him rated as a late lottery pick in 2019 largely based on his potential stretch game, but that never developed as hoped.

Bitadze, however, flipped the script when he landed in Orlando. He hardly ever shoots 3s any more — he’s only taken five all season. Instead, he’s feasting around the basket and blowing away his previous career high with 63.2 percent true shooting.

“It was a small conversation, but it was more him realizing how he could fit to be part of this group,” ” Mosley said. “… He realized, ‘It may not be my time to shoot the 3, let me go do a dribble handoff with Paolo [Banchero] or Franz [Wagner].’”

Carter is back, so Bitadze may return to a more limited role. Mosley chatted with him before Wednesday morning’s shootaround in preparation for that and noted how impressed he was with Bitadze’s team-first nature. When a player joins your program midseason, as Bitadze did in 2022-23, you don’t necessarily know what you’ll get behind the scenes.

“What hasn’t change since the moment he stepped run this building is his work ethic,” Mosley said. “His work ethic is incredible. He’s got such a tremendous care factor for his teammates and selflessness about him that you can’t see from afar, You can’t ask for a better teammate.”

“(Mosley) trusted me, and we’ve had this respect for each other since I got here,” said Bitadze, who also credited an offseason with the Georgian national team at the FIBA World Cup for helping him hit the ground running this season. “You get waived, you don’t expect people to look at you like that. But since day one, they showed me love. All I really had to do was put the work in.”

He’s been good enough that the conversation has flipped into a question of whether Orlando can keep him. Bitadze is a free agent this summer coming off a minimum contract at age 24, and Orlando will have early Bird rights on him.

As a result, Bitadze is my No. 1 stocking-stuffer for this holiday season. Here’s the rest of my All-Stocking Stuffer Team, commemorating players who were already there on the roster and whose teams discovered them in-season as an extra holiday gift. (Stats are through Wednesday’s games.)

As expected, a rookie is starting for the Blazers. Just not the one you thought.

Camara, a Belgian forward by way of Georgia and Dayton, was just the 52nd pick in the 2023 draft, but he has almost immediately made himself indispensable with his defense and hustle. When injuries to Portland’s other perimeter players unexpectedly opened minutes for Camara early in the season, he grabbed the opportunity with both hands by not caring one single fig about his opponents’ offensive reputations.

For instance, 90 seconds into his first encounter with Stephen Curry, Camara pressures him in the backcourt and forces a turnover along the sideline. (The ref points Golden State’s way in the clip, but he reversed the call soon after.)

Camara’s offensive game is still evolving, but he’s already made a considerable transition from where he was a few years ago. He came to Georgia as an undersized five running to the rim next to Anthony Edwards. After transferring to Dayton, the 6-8 southpaw began developing more comfort on the perimeter and shooting 3s.

Already, his career progression is a massive upset: He has 17 starts and 628 minutes under his belt, nearly as many minutes as every other 2023 second-rounder combined. More amazingly, Camara did this despite being discarded by the team that drafted him before ever playing a game for it. The Phoenix Suns picked him in June, but he became a late throw-in to Portland’s complex three-team trade for Deandre Ayton. That has worked out be one of the best parts of the deal for Portland.

GO DEEPER

Toumani Camara’s improbable rise: From 52nd pick to Trail Blazers starter

Undrafted in 2022, Ellis played only 71 minutes as a rookie with the Kings and was clinging to the edge of the roster on a two-way contract. Then a funny thing happened: Mike Brown got frustrated with his bench and started playing Ellis. A lot.

With De’Aaron Fox injured in early November, Ellis made two starts. The Kings won both, and he’s been a fixture in most of Sacramento’s games since. Overall, Ellis has made three starts and played 262 minutes, including a significant chunk of the Kings’ last nine games. He’s essentially snatched the rotation spot previously held by 2021 lottery pick Davion Mitchell.

In particular, Ellis has provided juice as a wing defender that has helped the Kings put forward a more competent effort on that end of the floor this season, Wednesday’s torching by the Celtics excepted. Ellis has frequently drawn the assignment of the opponent’s best guard.

Here, have some rim protection from your backup point guard:

Keon met him at the rim! 😤

Cyber Protection Block of the Game presented by @Acronis and @Executech pic.twitter.com/YSMfgQWzkt

— Sacramento Kings (@SacramentoKings) December 15, 2023

Ellis also has checked a few other important boxes. Notably, he’s remembered the “3” part of this 3-and-D role, hitting 37.5 percent from downtown on relatively high volume (10.2 attempts per 100 possessions). Additionally, after mostly playing off the ball collegiately at Alabama, his handle has developed to the point that the Kings can trust him with some backup point guard minutes.

The result is a player who seems likely to inherit a regular roster spot once his two-way days are exhausted; with the Kings only carrying 14 players and having plentiful room below the luxury tax line, it shouldn’t be a problem to convert his deal after the Feb. 8 trade deadline.

GO DEEPER

‘He stayed ready’: Keon Ellis shines with career night as Kings outlast Thunder

The 47th pick in the 2022 draft, Williams was languishing on a two-way, like Ellis, when injuries and ineffectiveness from Memphis’ other wing players — including three recent first-rounders who were bigger developmental priorities — pushed Williams into the Grizzlies’ rotation. Once there, he’s proven difficult to dislodge, starting and finishing Memphis’ comeback win in New Orleans on Tuesday even with Ja Morant back in the lineup.

Williams fits a 3-and-D archetype much more easily than several of the players he supplanted. He’s shooting 39.3 percent from 3 so far, and that’s entirely believable from a player who hit 40 percent of his triples in his final two seasons at VCU. Additionally, the 6-4 Williams plays much bigger than his height, sporting a 12.8 percent rebound rate more typical of a power forward and showing unusual ability to spring up for contested rebounds in crowds.

As a low-usage fifth option, however, Williams’ challenge will be at the defensive end. Here, he’s shown his value as well, frequently checking top scorers and limiting their output. He’s also shown some craft beyond his years, shifting his stance on the perimeter to either slither around screens or draw illegal ones. Watch here, for instance, as he changes his stance to dissuade Detroit Pistons big man Isaiah Stewart’s first attempt to screen for Cade Cunningham, then crowds Cunningham and “gets skinny” to help bait Stewart into an illegal screen on his second try:

(Side note: What are you running here, Detroit?)

Williams, like Ellis, is likely to land a roster contract once his two-way days run out and the trade deadline passes. Unlike Ellis, the pathways to this outcome are complicated by the Grizzlies having a full roster, which recently forced them to waive big man Kenneth Lofton Jr.. However, Williams’ play has been compelling enough that the Grizzlies should be motivated to clear a spot one way or another by February.

Behold, the renaissance of Duncan Robinson’s untradable contract! After a ghastly 2022-23 season saw him pushed to the end of the Miami bench, Robinson has roared back to help Miami stay afloat in the East despite extensive absences from Tyler Herro and Caleb Martin and the departure of Max Strus to Cleveland.

Obviously, rediscovering his 3-point stroke has helped. Robinson only made 32.8 percent of his 3s last season en route to a ghastly 7.8 PER, which is not exactly the production you’re hoping for from a player on an $18 million a year contract with three years left to run. This season, however, Robinson has regained the form we’ve come to expect, scorching the nets at 44.2 percent from 3.

However, a funny thing happened: He’s shooting 3s a fair amount less than he once did. In their place he’s taking (gasp) … 2-point shots! A lot of them! Just call him Downhill Duncan now. Having apparently discovered that 2-point baskets are legal basketball tender, Robinson has more than doubled his rate of 2s from a season ago. He’s attacking with increasing confidence when opponents overcommit to stopping his 3-point weapon.

It’s been a very effective adjustment to opponents selling out on his triple. At 6-7, Robinson has enough size to finish at the basket when opponents concede a lane to take away the 3; for his career, he shoots 60.2 percent on 2s, helped by the fact that he virtually never shoots a pull-up outside the paint.

As a result, Robinson is having arguably his best season a pro, with a career-best 14.1 PER on 65.0 percent true shooting. Suddenly, the final three years of this contract ($57 million though 2025-26, with the final year only half guaranteed) don’t look so bad.

Written off as a bust after playing 52 ineffective games as a 27-year-old rookie in 2022-23, Fontecchio is showing this season why the Jazz invested in bringing the Italian forward across the pond in 2022.

He’s done it in a surprising way too, with his defense becoming at least as important as his offense. When a frustrated Will Hardy decide to revamp his lineup in late November to emphasize the best defenders, Fontecchio drew the surprising promotion … and the immediate assignment of stopping New Orleans’ Brandon Ingram, which he did as the primary cover in consecutive Utah wins over the Pelicans.

He’s kept it going since then, playing at least 20 minutes in each of the Jazz’s last 13 games entering Thursday while starting all of them. While defense remains his newly found calling card, he hasn’t forgotten about the offensive end. Fontecchio has shot more consistently than a season ago, hitting 38.7 percent from 3 on high volume (10.7 attempts per 100 possessions); he also has been more judicious about his forays inside the arc and all but eliminated the long 2 from his shot profile, helping him up his 2-point percentage to 54.4 from last season’s troubling 43.0.

Fontecchio is already 28 and a free agent after the season, and he doesn’t really meet Utah’s rebuilding timeline. His play, then, brings up a question mark that was all but unthinkable a few months ago: Could he be valuable enough that the Jazz can flip him for a draft pick in February? Or, alternatively, has he become enough of a keeper that re-singing him with early Bird rights is the correct move?

Day’Ron Sharpe battles for rebounding position with Atlanta’s Onyeka Okongwu. (Dale Zanine / USA Today)

Sharpe has always been a monster rebounder, but his other weaknesses had left his career prospects in question. A late first-round pick out of North Carolina by the Nets in 2021, Sharpe spent most of his second season in and out of Brooklyn’s rotation, finishing only 16th on the team in minutes despite spending the entire season there.

In his third season, however, Brooklyn has to consider itself fortunate that Sharpe is still around. With the original plan of using Ben Simmons as a backup center foiled by his constant back woes, and with teenage first-round pick Noah Clowney looking woefully unready for NBA minutes in the middle, Sharpe has capably soaked up 16 minutes per game behind Nic Claxton for one of the East’s most surprising teams.

In Sharpe’s case, the eye test speaks more loudly than the numbers. He was a vulnerable defender a season ago, especially in space, but seems to be in better shape and moving more nimbly this season. He’ll never be Claxton on that end, but he’s making progress.

Sharpe also has cut his foul rate and raised his already-impressive rebound rate to a monstrous 23.3 percent, the most of any player with at least 400 minutes played.

Offensively, Sharpe knows who he is and doesn’t venture outside his role much. However, his passing ability offers some additional spice that you don’t usually see in a player of this ilk, particularly when he can work in short rolls. That skill offsets some of his other limitations as a floor spacer and rim runner.

Overall, Sharpe has provided security at a potentially vulnerable spot for Brooklyn, and done it on a cheap rookie contact that still has another year to run. With the prospect of a Simmons return seeming ever-dicier, Sharpe is likely to end up being a guy the Nets count on for the rest of the season … if not longer.

Hauser played 80 games for Boston a year ago, so it’s not like he’s some unknown quantity. However, his role mostly vanished in last season’s playoffs, with just 104 total minutes, and the offseason acquisitions of Kristaps Porziņģis and Oshae Brissett threatened to cut into his run further.

Or not. Hauser is thriving as a stretch option for the league’s best team in the first third of the season, shooting 43.3 percent from 3 while, more notably, holding his own defensively across multiple positions in the Celtics’ switch-heavy system. While he’s only started three games, he’s averaging 23 minutes a night and serving as a crucial positional bridge in the Celtics’ eight-man rotation, one that is so devastating because all eight players are capable 3-point shooters and can defend away from the basket. Of the bunch, Hauser might be the most potent shooter of all, hitting a scorching 42.4 percent of his career 3-point attempts across three pro seasons. At 6-8, he also has the size to get catch-and-shoot attempts away over closeouts.

The Virginia product went undrafted in 2021, and after hardly playing as a rookie, his re-signing with the Celtics in 2022 drew near-zero comment. It has proven to be one of the best contracts in the league. Amazingly, Hauser’s minimum deal in Boston still has another year to run after this one, with a team option for a mere $2.1 million that the tax-paying Celtics would have to be absolutely thrilled to pick up.

GO DEEPER

Joe Mazzulla can’t say why, but Sam Hauser’s defense has been a big surprise

After being cast aside by Milwaukee and Memphis, Merrill signed with Cleveland last March and didn’t play a single meaningful minute for the Cavs — just three short garbage-time stints and two meaningless games the final week of the season. It seemed like perhaps the last stop for the final player selected in the 2020 draft: He had a non-guaranteed deal for the coming year and would have been an easy cut for a Cleveland team that is right against the luxury tax line.

That is, until summer league started. Merrill was so good, making the All-Summer League first team for the Vegas-winning Cavs entry, that the Cavs kept him on the roster for the coming season rather than replace him with a minimum-contract veteran. Their faith in him has paid off recently, as other injuries decimated the Cleveland guard rotation and unearthed Merrill at the end of the bench. Merrill stepped in to make eight 3-pointers on Wednesday to lead the Cavaliers to a short-handed win over Utah, two nights after his five triples help the Cavs prevail in overtime against a tough Houston squad.

If you don’t see a theme yet, Merrill is just letting it rip from 3. Entering Thursday, he’s taken a phenomenal 39 in his last 89 minutes of game action, spanning five games; for the season, he takes 13.4 triples per 100 possessions … and 1.8 2-pointers. He’s made two 2s the entire season! No worries, however, because Merrill is a career 41.6 percent 3-point shooter at the NBA level, with enough sample from his career at Utah State (42.1 percent over four years and 760 attempts) and the G League (43.4 percent on 322 attempts) to make it quite clear that he is an elite marksman. On a Cleveland team short on shooting, he may have found a perfect match for his skills.

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(Top photos of Goga Bitadze and Keon Ellis: Eric Canha and Ed Szczepanski / USA Today)