Luke the Kornector: the art of spacing without shooting

We’ve arrived at a certain point in basketball evolution where observers start to think a player who cannot shoot from three has a negative impact on a team’s offensive performance. We are still in the middle of the spaced-out era and the ability to generate spacing for your teammates has become the key to keeping your job in the NBA.

While the modern white-collar worker must learn how to use AI, the contemporary basketball player has to learn how to shoot… unless he finds another way to amplify the spacing. “Amplify” suggest some spacing already exists, meaning the player we will look at today doesn’t have to create the space himself but must ensure he keeps it alive. These players are called connectors, and Luke Kornet is one of them.

Luke the Kornector

Let’s break down a play step-by-step to understand why Luke Kornet connects but doesn’t create and why this remains very important and doable without being a shooting threat. The play below is a high pick-and-roll. “High” because the screen comes at the logo, and “pick-and-roll” because, well, Luke sets a pick and rolls to the basket. At first glance, before the pick occurs, no gap or space is created, and we have a five-on-five situation.

Because of Jayson Tatum’s scoring gravity, the Sixers keep two players on him in these actions to force him to give up the ball. Thanks to that, a gap is now created, and the Celtics have an advantage — they have space. Behind the two defenders on Tatum, there is a four-on-three situation that a connector like Kornet can exploit.

Now, because the defense always reacts to such a situation, the space is constantly shifting. Defenders act like magnets. So, even if Luke Kornet isn’t much of a scoring threat, Yabusele moves up to him, leading to help from the corners to close access to the rim.

Nonetheless, as fast as defenders move, the ball moves even faster thanks to a connector like Kornet. The Celtics center excels at finding the open man, even in tight spaces. Here, he plays quickly to get Derrick White to the dunker spot. But note that if D-White had been covered, Kornet would have found Payton Pritchard in the corner.

Indeed, 64% of Luke Kornet’s assists result in three-pointers, showing that he can also find open men beyond the arc.

Step by step with screenshots, the action may look slow and easy to read, so here’s the video:

Luke Kornet has always been a player with a passing tendency. However, this season, his passing has been elite among NBA big men. His playmaking ratio (assist rate divided by usage rate) has been above the 90th percentile all season.

More than an individual improvement, this demonstrates a clear intention from the coaching staff to involve Kornet more in offensive creation, leveraging his passing ability and court vision as a connector. To better understand how the 7’1” center is used in the offense this season, let’s examine some of the plays the coaching staff runs with him.

Celtics playbook with Luke

Here’s the most basic playcall involving Luke Kornet: the pick-and-roll. The goal of this approach is to give Jayson Tatum an easy passing option when defenses pressure him with aggressive coverage. Below is another example of Kornet’s short-roll passing against Denver’s defensive coverage:

Another offensive movement featuring Luke Kornet is the Grenade action. This action shifts the ball from one side of the court to the other to break the defensive shell. Below is an example from the Nuggets game. When Kornet received the ball, he was alone and immediately went into a dribble handoff with Sam Hauser, who ran from the corner to the ball. That’s the Grenade action.

Despite not being a shooter, Luke Kornet amplifies perimeter chaos with the ball in his hands. Because his screen creates so much space for Hauser, Denver must help on the handoff, keeping the Celtics’ advantage alive. Hauser finds Kornet on the roll, and Kornet delivers another nice assist to Horford at the rim.

As you see, Kornet can be used far from the paint with the ball in his hands. Another offensive design that exploits his passing and court vision is in Horns sets. In these sets, Kornet gets the ball at the top of the key and acts as a quarterback, waiting for an open route before making the pass.

What makes him special is his ability to adapt on the go. In the following example, when nothing materializes from Horns, Kornet dribbles toward Jaylen Brown to initiate a new action: an empty-side handoff. This creates space because of the Clippers’ aggressive defensive coverage, and on the short roll Kornet finds White open beyond the arc.

Because Kornet can handle the ball and read plays, the Celtics also integrate him into Zoom actions. A Zoom action is a basic movement where an off-ball player runs from one side to the ball and goes through two screens; an initial off-ball screen followed by a screen hidden within a handoff. Since Kornet is such a good screener, this second screen generates gaps, allowing him to find an open man.

His willingness to share the ball is also valuable from the post-up position. When he posts up, Celtics players know they can move and potentially be found by Kornet if they get open. As a result, when he is in the post, the Celtics start running off-ball actions, creating chaos and easy shots.

One last action worth highlighting is the Gator action, a play frequently used by the Florida Gators with Al Horford and Joakim Noah during their NCAA dominance. This play demonstrates that Kornet can be used offensively alongside another big. Instead of passing directly to the roll man, the ball-handler sends it to another big at the top of the key, who then finds the roll man from a different angle.

The devil is in the details, and Luke Kornet knows it. Kornet manipulate the defense with his eyes, like elite playmakers do:

These examples show that, despite being a non-shooter, Luke Kornet can be impactful on the perimeter and keep the offense flowing. When he is on the court, the Celtics’ rim frequency and accuracy do not decline, a strong indicator that he doesn’t hinder their spacing. Even better, when Kornet plays, the Celtics grab an offensive rebound on one out of every three missed shots, which lead to rim attempts, too.

His ability to generate extra opportunities through offensive rebounding, passing from the perimeter, and creating gaps with screens produces significant rim pressure for the Celtics, confirming the initial belief that Luke Kornet provides spacing without shooting.