What is a Kevin Keatts Four?

In old school basketball terminology, a four was a power forward. As the game has evolved and the single-big lineup has increased in popularity, the definition of a four has muddied a lot, and terminology like "power forward" has faded away. You'll see a lot of very different players get labeled as a four depending on what team you look at, or even just what year you look at in the case of NC State. With Mo Diarra gone and replaced with a rather different basketball player, Keatts has had his usage of his second wing spot questioned a lot, in addition to a bunch of other stuff he's done. But positions on a basketball team are most accurately understood by what that player is being asked to do and less so by an antiquated labeling system. So let's look at how State has approached this under Kevin Keatts

In the original versions of Kevin Keatts’ offense, when it was an extremely high-volume spread pick-and-roll team, this spot was occupied mostly by Torin Dorn and Jericole Hellems. It had a very defined role in the offensive structure, which was to space the floor in the corner. Keatts would use his four in roll-replace actions and shake actions to beat defenses that hedged ball screens, and he would use the four in 77 and ghost actions as a pick-and-pop threat. Fundamentally, it was a shooting wing who was tall and could rebound. The schematic role in the offense was basically indistinguishable from the three. Here are some guys who have fit the four role for Keatts.

Torin Dorn

Dorn was undersized at 6'5, but he tended to play bigger than that. He was a good rebounder, a good finisher at the rim, and was strong attacking closeouts off the bounce. Dorn was a softer closeout scout, as he wasn't a great shooter, but he did enough to keep you honest. He also could get away with not being a great shooter in Keatts' first season because of how much pick and pop State ran with Yurtseven. Dorn was a good four for Keatts, even as didn't fill the archetype perfectly, and he started for State's best offense of the last decade.

Jericole Hellems

Hellems took a while to find his stride as a player, but he was pretty close to the archetypal four by his senior year. He shot 39% from three at a high volume. Hellems wasn't great at anything else. He wasn't much of a threat to attack a closeout and he was a decent rebounder. Hellems was a high-school recruit that Keatts pulled to fill this role exactly, and by the end of his career, he was solid. Nobody will remember though, because the team lost almost every game.

Pat Andree

Andree was big for a four. He came to State as an elite shooter, a strong rebounder, and nothing else. He was not going to offer versatility, but his size and 42% shooting clip minimized the need to be able to punish a hard closeout. Defensively, he was a huge liability. Andree got off to a good start but ended up missing most of the season with an injury.

Jack Clark

Jack Clark had good size as a 6'8 wing and better athleticism than State had previously had in that role. He fit the physical mold well and he rebounded the ball at a worthwhile clip, but he was not a good shooter. Clark ended up under 30% for the season. Keatts tinkered with some pick and pop stuff with him, largely to no fruition.

Greg Gantt

Gantt was a good athlete with solid length who offered valuable switch ability on defense. He had no offensive skillset. I think pursued Gantt for a similar reason as Diarra. It was searching for a high-level switch defender.

Ernest Ross

Ross was a freak athlete at 6'9. He fit the physical mold well and was obviously a project piece out of high school. He never really developed any kind of scoring package and struggled to get minutes. Ross, Gantt, and Clark all played the four during the Jarkel Joiner season, and none were great role fits.

Dennis Parker Jr.

Parker is a good athlete who can be a good switch defender. He has flashed some ability to shoot and finish at the rim, but only in small sample sizes. He remains a high-potential player, but one that's far from a ceiling, particularly on the offensive side of the ball.

Mo Diarra

Diarra was an outrageous defender and rebounder. He was the best defensive player Keatts has ever had. At 6'10 with an ability to switch one through four comfortably, he was a rare find. Offensively, he was a good enough shooter to keep you honest but far from a strong shooter. He also had a budding ability to attack a closeout, but none of these offensive elements showed a high volume. Fortunately, he wasn't spacing the floor as often because NC State played through DJ Burns nearly half the time.

Dontrez Styles 

Styles profiled quite well out of Georgetown from his one year as a starter. He was a strong shooter, a solid rebounder, and capable of coming downhill to the rim, although the last part wasn't his greatest strength. It didn't really translate early on as his shooting percentage from three sunk to around 30%. He's been more of what you wanted down the stretch, scoring in double figures in six of the last nine games while shooting xx% from three and averaging over five boards per game.

The best basketball player and best defensive scheme fit to occupy the four for Keatts was obviously Mo Diarra, while the truest schematic fit on the offensive side of the floor is/was actually probably Dontrez Styles or Jericole Hellems. These are shooters that can rebound and switch on defenses, and that's what it is at the most basic level. This may come as a surprise to some people, but Diarra wasn’t a deviation from this. Structurally, he was asked to fill the same exact role as every other four has for NC State. 

During the DJ Burns seasons, mainly the second one, we saw a shift in offensive structure for NC State. Ball screen offense became less dominant. Keatts leaned more heavily on posting up Burns in the short corner and running DJ Horne through zoom actions. Here’s how the four, Diarra in this case, fits into these actions

Burns short corner post-ups 

The four positions in the dunker spot to be the first option if defense doubles. Below, you can see Diarra floating in the shallow corner, and he'll move under the rim if Louisville doubles Burns.

Zoom Action

The four sets the down screen in the zoom action and then usually lifts toward the corner to space the floor. This is a five-out set, and defenses will help off that down screener, so he needs to be able to shoot. The four will also flip and rescreen should the defender go under the screen, and State has a slip to the basket with the four a lot out of this look.

Pick and roll 

The four is in the corner as a floor spacer. He stands over there and puts pressure on the tagger, will lift to the point in shake actions, and in general is a catch-and-shoot or closeout-attack player.

Before Diarra was on the team, State was putting Greg Gantt, Ernest Ross, or Jack Clark in the dunker spot when it would play through Burns. It used Dennis Parker Jr. some last year when Diarra was hurt. State did play Brandon Huntley-Hatfield into some of these looks earlier in the year during this season. Dontrez Styles would fill this role then, but State has largely gotten away from that stuff for a lot of reasons. 

I think it’s important to understand that Diarra, while big as a person, wasn’t a “big” in a usage sense for NC State except for the short minutes where he would play the five. He basically did the same thing the four has always done for Keatts, just in a season where State’s distribution of actions was different than ever before. Keatts has always spaced the floor with his four, he's always put his four in the dunker spot when Burns had the ball, he's always ran slip-and-pop actions with his four, and he's always switched one through four on defense. Diarra did all of these things.

Diarra's impact was mostly felt on the defensive end. You'll recall that State suddenly become really good defensively in the postseason. That wasn't by accident. Diarra could guard anybody and would switch onto guards at every exchange. He wasn't a great offensive player for State. He scored on catch-and-shoot threes, passes out of the double from Burns, and on offensive rebounds. The man was a good enough shooter to keep you honest, but his ability to guard the ball and help and recover was elite. That and on the boards is where he impacted the game.

The rebound stats are well known from the ACC Tournament, But Diarra also had eight steals and 11 blocks in those five games. I suspect that Ismael Diouf was a guy who State saw as a possibility to be a larger four, but he is not good defensively. He can't offer what Diarra brought, and he doesn't offer near enough compensation for that on the offensive end. Dontrez Styles has been a decent four over the last couple of weeks. He struggled early to make shots, but his four triples and ten boards against Wake Forest are a good window into what State should want here from a production perspective. 

True two-big lineups have rarely appeared under Keatts, and they were hardly functional when they did. He played Funderburk and Bates together some, and he experimented with Huntley-Hatfield and Middlebrooks on the floor together a little bit earlier in the current season. That was a huge disaster. Fundamentally, two-big lineups like these ones have to play inside-out, otherwise you’re just clogging up the paint. It also limits your ability to switch defensively, which opens you up to other issues in your ball screen defense. 

Some of the non-shooting additions at the wing spots have been odd. Ross was a non-shooter but he had decent enough mechanics, so I wonder if that was a development task that didn’t materialize. Gantt and Clark were weird ones, as neither had any history of average or better shooting. Keatts has not valued shooting enough at this spot, at least in my opinion. Styles was a step in the right direction, and my hope is that he can nail this with a knockdown shooter this offseason.

As mentioned, floor spacing was less critical when Yurtseven was on the team because of the volume of pick and pop and it was less critical when Burns was on the team because the four played in the dunker spot more. On a team like this year's, it's critical. State's lack of shooting this year is well documented and a massive problem. Unless Keatts is going secure a high-level post scorer and turn back into a high-volume post up team again, it's going to be critical next year as well.

There are tradeoffs to be made, though. Size and athleticism are great, as is shooting. Finding both at the same time is a tall task, especially in an NIL era. That would be a high-level basketball player. It's easy to describe what you want, but it's harder to actually get it. It would be awesome if State could find a 40%-shooting Mo Diarra, but that's probably a unicorn. The closest you can get to a long, athletic wing who can switch on defense and make threes on offense is pretty much exactly what Keatts should want for the four spot.