Thursday's Friday Funkadelic

[GymRat [enjin:6592663]]

@Mikkeman

Thanks for posting all those numbers! I think it's pretty eye opening what our team is currently good at by player, as well as areas of focus for individuals to improve upon, or remove from their games.

One thing I take from those numbers is that our team has a couple relatively well rounded scorers (Wiggins, Muhammed, Martin, Pek, KG?), and some others who are reaching that territory, but have clear strengths and clear weaknesses. Overall it points to who the offenses should be run through in half-court sets, and that the offense should be geared so it takes advantage of the strengths of off-ball players like Bennett, LaVine, Dieng (and Towns?). I see that as being slashing, back cuts, spot of shots, weak side screens, etc. And, last but not least, a heck of a lot of transition basketball. Flip needs to unleash Rubio in that respect. Tell him to rush up everytime he can, and just pull back if an opportunity isn't present, then run the offense through the mainstays to generate quality Spurs-like opportunities in flow.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Great stats Mikkeman.

In addition to what GymRat said, another takeaway is that post-ups are not a real efficient way to score the basketball. Shabazz was solid, but otherwise, and this is true across the league, it's really not something you want to be your bread and butter as an offense. I really like high pick-and-roll spread offenses AND Princeton-oriented sets (and its many variations, including Adelman's corner offense) because I believe these lead to the most cutters, spot-up 3s, and lay-ups.

Unfortunately, what we saw at the Vegas summer league was Payne and Towns posting up time and again. Why on earth teams would double-team KAT is beyond me, but it certainly let us see his passing abilities!

There are three plays I despise that Flip runs way too often and in my opinion end up with low PPPs:

1) The "pick and drift" where our PF ends up taking a long 2 after setting a half-hearted screen and getting the ball back. Just an awful piece of offense yet it was a staple under Flip. Think about all the long 2's taken by Thad Young, Anthony Bennett, and Adreian Payne.

2) The pin down screen on a wing for a long 2. This is another of Flip's favorites, typically for a guy like Budinger or Wiggins. It entails a big man setting a down screen on our wing's defender along the baseline and then our wing popping out to the top of the key for a long 2. Terrible play unless you have Steph Curry or Ray Allen, whereby ANY open jump shot is still a good shot.

3) Isolation post-ups. I think in certain matchups, this is still a useful play, but Flip went to it too often. Guys shooting contested 2-point jump hooks and turnarounds are typically the kinds of shots defenses are OK with. The really smart defensive teams avoid double teaming unless they absolutely have to....Better to give up a contested 8 footer than an open 3.

[Monster]

Great stats Mikkeman.

In addition to what GymRat said, another takeaway is that post-ups are not a real efficient way to score the basketball. Shabazz was solid, but otherwise, and this is true across the league, it's really not something you want to be your bread and butter as an offense. I really like high pick-and-roll spread offenses AND Princeton-oriented sets (and its many variations, including Adelman's corner offense) because I believe these lead to the most cutters, spot-up 3s, and lay-ups.

Unfortunately, what we saw at the Vegas summer league was Payne and Towns posting up time and again. Why on earth teams would double-team KAT is beyond me, but it certainly let us see his passing abilities!

There are three plays I despise that Flip runs way too often and in my opinion end up with low PPPs:

1) The "pick and drift" where our PF ends up taking a long 2 after setting a half-hearted screen and getting the ball back. Just an awful piece of offense yet it was a staple under Flip. Think about all the long 2's taken by Thad Young, Anthony Bennett, and Adreian Payne.

2) The pin down screen on a wing for a long 2. This is another of Flip's favorites, typically for a guy like Budinger or Wiggins. It entails a big man setting a down screen on our wing's defender along the baseline and then our wing popping out to the top of the key for a long 2. Terrible play unless you have Steph Curry or Ray Allen, whereby ANY open jump shot is still a good shot.

3) Isolation post-ups. I think in certain matchups, this is still a useful play, but Flip went to it too often. Guys shooting contested 2-point jump hooks and turnarounds are typically the kinds of shots defenses are OK with. The really smart defensive teams avoid double teaming unless they absolutely have to....Better to give up a contested 8 footer than an open 3.

Speaking of long 2's you would think Flip would love Ridnour also. I think when I was looking at some atats last week even last year he was still hitting a lot of those shots at a pretty good rate.

So...you are saying that even if Lorenzo Brown still has that post game on little guys it's not all that worthwhile? :)

[MikkeMan]

Here are still some numbers in team level. I wanted to compare Wolves offense to some of the better NBA offenses. I selected 4 different teams (Clippers, Golden State, Atlanta and Dallas) I selected them because they all were pretty efficient and relied different areas.

Wolves:
Transition: 13.5% of possessions with 1.10 points per possession (15th)
Isolation: 9.1% with 0.84 ppp (9th)
Ball handler(pick and roll): 11.4% with 0.76 ppp (28th)
Roll man: 6.6% with 0.92 ppp (18th)
Post-up: 12.6% with 0.85 ppp (2nd)
Spot-up: 14.6% with 0.85 ppp (30th)
Hand-off: 4.4% with 0.79 ppp (9th)
Cut: 7.9% with 1.18 ppp (11th)
Off screen: 7.3% with 0.82 ppp (2nd)
Putbacks: 6.4% with 1.10 ppp (9th)
Misc: 6.3% with 0.48 ppp (15th)

I put to parenthesis how Wolves rank in league in terms of frequency certain play type is used. It seems that Wolves used post-ups and off screen plays much more than average teams even though, they were not that good in those areas. The fact that Wolves most frequent post option (Pek) and most frequent off screen option (Martin) missed quite big part of their season makes these rankings even more strange.

They also used much less spot-up and pick&roll plays that won't seem so stupid idea since they were really bad in both areas. Spot up efficiency would though improve a lot if those shots would be more frequently three pointers instead of long twos. Houston had almost identical FG% in spot-up plays but scored almost 1.0 ppp since they short mainly three pointers. Pick and roll efficiency from roll man point of view suffers about that horrible yet so common play that Q already mentioned that resulted long two from Thad/Bennett or Payne. Hopefully if same play is still used next year the fact that it is more often designed for KG/Towns or Bjelica will make that little more efficient.

Clippers:
Transition: 13.6% with 1.19 ppp
Isolation: 7.6% with 0.94 ppp
Ball handler: 16.0% with 0.90 ppp
Roll man: 7.2% with 0.99 ppp
Post-up: 7.6% with 0.87 ppp
Spot-up: 18.9% with 1.05 ppp
Hand-off: 4.4% with 1.01 ppp
Cut: 6.1% with 1.32 ppp
Off screen: 6.3% with 1.05 ppp
Putbacks: 4.8% with 1.10 ppp
Misc: 7.1% with 0.55 ppp

I selected Clippers as one team to compare because they rely quite nicely their strengths in offense. They were most efficient team off screen plays but didn't use that so often. That would seem to surprising if you wouldn't know that it was mainly Reddick running screens. So it would not have been possible to increase easily the frequency of these plays without sacrificing its efficiency. They also relied a lot pick and roll, where Paul, Griffin tandem was pretty good.

Golden State:
Transition: 18.3% with 1.16 ppp
Isolation: 6.3% with 0.90 ppp
Ball handler: 11.7% with 0.85 ppp
Roll man: 6.5% with 0.98 ppp
Post-up: 5.9% with 0.79 ppp
Spot-up: 17.4% with 1.09 ppp
Hand-off: 3.6% with 0.96 ppp
Cut: 12.6% with 1.27 ppp
Off screen: 8.8% with 0.94 ppp
Putbacks: 5.5% with 1.04 ppp
Misc: 6.5% with 0.45 ppp

Golden State had most transition attempts and scored with good rate on those. Another area where they did really excel was cuts. They had 3rd most cut plays and they scored on those with elite efficiency. They used also most off screen plays. Efficiency of those was good but not elite level. It is not surprise that they were most efficient spot-up shooting team also it isn't surprise that they used quite little post-up plays..

Cleveland:
Transition: 13.9% with 1.18 ppp
Isolation: 11.4% with 0.92 ppp
Ball handler: 17.6% with 0.82 ppp
Roll man: 6.1% with 1.08 ppp
Post-up: 8.4% with 0.88 ppp
Spot-up: 18.6% with 1.06 ppp
Hand-off: 2.2% with 0.99 ppp
Cut: 7.3% with 1.18 ppp
Off screen: 2.9% with 0.86 ppp
Putbacks: 5.3% with 0.94 ppp
Misc: 6.4% with 0.53 ppp

Cleveland relied more isolation plays than any other team. That was expected since they had two superb isolation players LeBron and Kyrie in team. They were one of the most efficient spot-up shooting teams but least efficient teams in putbacks. Maybe because Love was mainly hanging in three point line in their offense instead of going to offensive rebound.

Atlanta:
Transition: 14.6% with 1.11 ppp
Isolation: 6.9% with 0.82 ppp
Ball handler: 14.9% with 0.81 ppp
Roll man: 8.6% with 0.99 ppp
Post-up: 5.0% with 0.80 ppp
Spot-up: 22.4% with 1.04 ppp
Hand-off: 3.4% with 0.96 ppp
Cut: 8.3% with 1.21 ppp
Off screen: 6.5% with 1.01 ppp
Putbacks: 3.7% with 1.08 ppp
Misc: 5.8% with 0.67 ppp

Since all other teams that I looked relied quite heavily on their players individual talent in offense (Clippers for Paul's pick&roll, Golden State for shooting of splash brothers and Cleveland on isolation plays of Lebron and Irving). So I selected Atlanta since they were pretty bad in all those areas that require high individual skill set. Their isolation and post-up numbers are worse than what Wolves have and even pick and roll ball handler offensive numbers were not much better. Atlanta relies most of all teams on spot-up shooting. It is almost that they do other plays mainly to get some of their players left open and then they find him with clever passing and since almost all their players can shoot, they score with good rate. They also rank last in putbacks, which partially explains why they have best transition defense in whole NBA. They sacrifice offensive rebounding to prevent other team for scoring easy transition baskets. One problem with Atlanta's offense is that it seemed that it was less efficient in playoffs when defensive intensity increases and there is less open spot-up shots available. Still I would like to see Wolves to play more like Atlanta in future. They showed that team can have elite offense without elite individual offensive talent. Korver is a elite in some areas though but maybe Kevin Martin could be our Korver, if he would be used more similar way.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Really interesting team stats, mikkeman...thanks for the research, as usual. A few thoughts:

1) I take it that you are making the point that Flip's offense is not very efficient, and the data seems to uphold this contention. Flip is a smart guy and not incapable of change...I hope he is listening.

2) PG is such an important part of offense, I sense that the data is polluted by Ricky being out most of the year. I'm interested in how these stats will look if h is healthy.

3) I think your conclusion that the Wolves are not effective in post-up is incorrect...their ppp in post ups stands up very well compared to the other teams you document.

This is good stuff...I hope you post updates throughout the season.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

LST, On point #3, my perspective isn't that we were bad at post-ups; it's that we use that type of play too often. Being 2nd in the league in frequency of using post-ups is not a good thing. We want more plays where the ball is delivered to cutters, "roll men", and spot-up 3 point shooters.

Instead, Flip focused a good portion of his offense around 2-pointers off of screens and post-ups. And the spot-ups we did take were mostly 2-pointers.

Flip is still stuck in the last century when it comes to NBA offense.

[Coolbreeze44]

It depends on how dominant your post players are. If you have Jahlil Okafor, you better have a higher percentage of post ups than the Golden State Warriors. Wiggins is an excellent post up player even at this young age. Posting him up also increases his free throw opportunities. It should be a big part of our offense for years to come.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

It depends on how dominant your post players are. If you have Jahlil Okafor, you better have a higher percentage of post ups than the Golden State Warriors. Wiggins is an excellent post up player even at this young age. Posting him up also increases his free throw opportunities. It should be a big part of our offense for years to come.

Agree on Okafor, but it's also a bit scary, because if he ends up going the Al Jefferson route, it turns out not to be a very efficient way to run an offense. Jefferson's FG% and FT rate is very pedestrian. Okafor will need to do better than that.

As for Wiggins, yes, he's a good post-up player relative to his age, but he still isn't very efficient at it. .84PPP isn't that great, yet 20%+ of his offense was derived from post-ups last season. I'd much rather see him get more offense off of cuts, dribble drives, and spot up 3-pointers. Post-up plays should be reserved for where there is clearly a size mismatch.

[Coolbreeze44]

It depends on how dominant your post players are. If you have Jahlil Okafor, you better have a higher percentage of post ups than the Golden State Warriors. Wiggins is an excellent post up player even at this young age. Posting him up also increases his free throw opportunities. It should be a big part of our offense for years to come.

Agree on Okafor, but it's also a bit scary, because if he ends up going the Al Jefferson route, it turns out not to be a very efficient way to run an offense. Jefferson's FG% and FT rate is very pedestrian. Okafor will need to do better than that.

As for Wiggins, yes, he's a good post-up player relative to his age, but he still isn't very efficient at it. .84PPP isn't that great, yet 20%+ of his offense was derived from post-ups last season. I'd much rather see him get more offense off of cuts, dribble drives, and spot up 3-pointers. Post-up plays should be reserved for where there is clearly a size mismatch.

Q, does that .84 include points gained at the stripe? I agree that he is also a matchup nightmare when he's facing the basket, but his 3 point efficiency has to improve quite a bit before I want him taking too many.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

It depends on how dominant your post players are. If you have Jahlil Okafor, you better have a higher percentage of post ups than the Golden State Warriors. Wiggins is an excellent post up player even at this young age. Posting him up also increases his free throw opportunities. It should be a big part of our offense for years to come.

Agree on Okafor, but it's also a bit scary, because if he ends up going the Al Jefferson route, it turns out not to be a very efficient way to run an offense. Jefferson's FG% and FT rate is very pedestrian. Okafor will need to do better than that.

As for Wiggins, yes, he's a good post-up player relative to his age, but he still isn't very efficient at it. .84PPP isn't that great, yet 20%+ of his offense was derived from post-ups last season. I'd much rather see him get more offense off of cuts, dribble drives, and spot up 3-pointers. Post-up plays should be reserved for where there is clearly a size mismatch.

Q, does that .84 include points gained at the stripe? I agree that he is also a matchup nightmare when he's facing the basket, but his 3 point efficiency has to improve quite a bit before I want him taking too many.

Yes, free throws are included in PPP calculations.

PPP is often a preferred method for measuring efficiency because it includes turnovers as well. So if Wiggins, for example, gets the ball in the post, then proceeds to travel or commit an offensive foul, it counts as one possession in which he got zero points. TS% looks purely at shooting + free throws, without regard to turnovers. Think about all those Dieng travels on his pump-fakes. That hurts him in the PPP metric, but not the FG%, eFG%, or TS% metrics.

As for Wiggins, the thing I keep harping on is the off-the-ball stuff: Cuts, put-backs, and transition. These by definition are efficient shot attempts, especially for him given his athleticism, but he doesn't get enough of these types of shots. It's what holds him back in terms of his overall efficiency (along with becoming a better 3-point shooter).