Clint Capela
Atlanta Hawks

Player Facts

Height: 6'10"
Weight: 240lbs.

Wingspan: 7'4.5"

Date of Birth: May 18, 1994
College Experience: N/A

Selections

All Star: 0
All-NBA: 0
All-Defensive: 0

Player Grades

Speed/Explosiveness: 7
Physical Strength: 8
Positional Size: 9
Positional Wingspan: 10
Paint Scoring: 9
Midrange Scoring: 2
Three-Point Scoring: 1
Dribbling: 4
Passing: 4
Perimeter Defense: 6
Interior Defense: 10
Rebounding: 10

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JUMP TO SECTION

> Intro

> Lethal Lob Threat

> Screening Skills

> Catch-and-Finish

> Short Roll Passing

> Running the Floor

> Prolific Put-Backing

> Rim Intimidator

> P-N-R Coverage

> Block Barrage

> Versatility + Def-Rebounding

> Scoring Holes

> Middling Post Defense

> Beacon Bacon

>Link to Player Contract & Salary Info

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*All statistical data courtesy of NBA Advanced Stats

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STRENGTHS

Intro

The Swiss center is not without limitations but possesses some truly elite skills. He's in the upper echelon of the league as a lob threat, rebounder, and shot-blocker. Capela also has great measurables and mobility at pivot.

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Lethal Lob Threat

With tremendous vertical pop and a sprawling 7'4.5" wingspan, Clint is built to be a high-end rim runner. Besides having an enormous catch radius, he has good hand-eye coordination in mid-air. What is more, Capela gets off the floor very fast for such a tall player.

He has all the ingredients that a dive-man needs. When fed in stride rather than with an alley-oop, Clint takes long, loping strides to the goal. The big man will even throw in some change-of-direction steps to evade plodding defenders.

The roll-man specific statistical lens has always painted Capela favorably. A 1.20 points per roll figure bested Jarrett Allen, Nikola Vucevic, and Anthony Davis (2020-2021). A grand total of 254 dive-man points found him in the top-six volume-wise. He finishes virtually everything from point-blank range.

Screening Skills

Both his screening and rampant rolling have provided supplemental value for his squad. It has opened things up for the number of perimeter attackers Atlanta has. He notched 4 screen assists per game for his teammates in 2020-2021.

He has quickly developed a great synergy with his most frequent screen-and-roll partners. In particular, Trae Young, Bogdan Bogdanovic, and Kevin Huerter have found success playing the two-man game with Capela. The vertical element he brings to a half-court offense is invaluable for pressure-release purposes.

Catch-and-Finish

He is a monster finisher on the interior on drop-off passes courtesy of his penetrating teammates. In fact, he totalled the seventh-most points on cuts in the league (2020-2021). He will either take one power dribble and go up or simply await a quick flip lob.

It takes a blend of individual ability and the proper shot diet in order to rank at the top of the field goal percentage leaderboards. Clint checks both boxes. 2017-2018 had him tops in the Association in both field goal percentage and effective FG%.

More recently, his 2020-2021 represented yet another elite interior scoring season. Only Zion Williamson, Rudy Gobert, and Giannis Antetokounmpo made more restricted area buckets than him. Potent paint-scoring centers Deandre Ayton, Enes Kanter Freedom, and Domantas Sabonis were runners-up to Clint in that order.

He also paced the league with 12.4 paint touches per game and 12.1 paint points per game. It is abundantly clear that Capela is a premier roll/cut-style big man. The five-man is also pretty comfortable finishing with his off-hand.

Short Roll Passing

On the short roll, he has improved noticeably since entering the league. While not a huge push shot guy, he often makes the correct next pass now. His roll gravity entices low defenders to cheat in off their shooters, and Capela can make them pay.

Running the Floor

That phenomenal rim-running prowess carries into the open court. Clint runs like a gazelle down the floor and can beat even the most athletic bigs down. His fluidity at the center position is rare but highly coveted. He can also excel in early offense as the dive-man setting drag screens.

Prolific Put-Backing

A final offensive strength to highlight would be his garbage bucket-getting. Here, his 9'5" standing reach, and springy legs allow for this to be the case. He amassed the most offensive rebounds in the NBA in 2020-2021.

Clint is an expert at batting the ball back out to his guards on a miss. This extends his offensive rebounding ability for balls he can't quite secure himself. When he does snag them, he forcefully goes right back up with the rock.

Piling up 263 putback points in 2020-2021, he was outstanding. Capela comfortably beat out fourth-place Nikola Jokic that season. His and-one frequency for these second-chance opportunities was 4.2%, tops among the top four garbage-bucket-getters.

Rim Intimidator

Clint Capela couples his paint scoring proficiencies with marvelous interior defense. He's one of the game's best paint protectors, more than just a guy who swats shots. The 6'10" big alters just as many if not more shots than he actually erases.

P-N-R Coverage

His pick-and-roll defense as a big man is great. He is spry yet still protects the tin like an archetypical seven-footer. Capela backpedals fluidly into the paint and can competently manage 2-on-1 scenarios.

He is excellent at bottling up drives by sliding right into the driver's path. Capela spreads his huge reach out which already makes life difficult for smaller attackers. Even his steals/deflections rates are solid for his position.

Block Barrage

His help-side defense is textbook as well. He makes crisp, prompt backside rotations and lets his physical tools do the heavy lifting after that. A more mature Capela now does a better job of understanding verticality than when he was younger.

Opponents shot worse than 10 percent below their normal clip inside of six feet with Clint there (2020-2021). He was top-five in block percentage, blocks per game, and total blocks that year. All this is to say that his rim defense is superb.

Versatility + Def-Rebounding

The athletic big man even has some moderate multi-positional chops on defense. After a switch takes place, he'll get in his stance and at least make it harder on someone to get by him. 2020-2021 had him spend just over 15% of his defensive time on guards, holding them to 42.7% from the field.

Sensational defensive rebounding rounds out his strengths analysis. The 2020-2021 total rebounds champ is a bonafide beast on the boards. Clint posts a higher defensive boards/game figure than some bigs' total rebounds figure.

On a more advanced statistical level, he led the league in contested D-REB's per game in 2020-2021. Opposing coaches often have to commit multiple bodies to box out Capela. This provides even more value for the Hawks, allowing others to sneak in.

WEAKNESSES

Scoring Holes

The lion's share of Capela's weak points lie within his scoring game. What he does well he tends to do very well, but this extremeness holds true for his struggles as well. This is to say, he is very inept in certain areas such as jump-shooting, free-throw shooting, ball-handling, and facing-up his man to score.

Clint provides vertical spacing as a lob threat but minimal floor-stretching. In Atlanta, he is surrounded by shooters luckily. Still, adding a jumper to his arsenal would be a big boon for the half-court offense.

The Swiss-born big man's shooting woes persist at the charity stripe. The "hack-a-Capela" strategy was one that multiple opponents employed back in his Houston days. Clint still resides firmly in the 50's at the line.

One will rarely ever see Capela put the ball on the floor to attack. This constricts his DHO game a bit, not a big threat to fake and keep. Based on that clunky handle, Clint looks to do all of his work within 0-8 feet of the net.

Lastly, the 6'10" pivot lacks a refined post game or even a couple of high-level moves. He is merely passable down there thanks to size and length. He is absolutely not, however, a go-to option also due to zero face-up dangerousness.

A testament to Clint's struggles in the post comes when looking at his post-Rockets stats. In Houston, their radical "threes, free-throws and layups" style prevented Capela from even getting post touches. But, in Atlanta, he was given the freedom to post a bit yet still landed in just the 17th percentile scoring here in 2020-2021.

Middling Post Defense

A single stand-out defensive downfall would be his post defense. He's put on weight since entering the league at just 222 lbs. Perhaps he should put another 10-15 pounds on or look to hone his defensive techniques in this area.

2018-2019 had him defend the fifth-most post-ups while finishing in only the 42nd percentile. The following campaign, he again defended many post sequences and was in the 44th percentile. 2020-2021 as a Hawk saw him finish up in the still-mediocre 54th percentile.

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Capela was traded from Houston to Atlanta in February of 2020, representing the Rockets' full transition to small-ball around James Harden and Russell Westbrook