Minnesota Timberwolves: Pick-and-Roll Thread

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

For every game, Synergy Sports catalogs each scoring opportunity as one of 11 types of plays: scoring as the pick-and-roll ball handler or roll man, isolation, transition, handoffs, off-ball screens, spot-ups, post-ups, cuts, putbacks, and anything in between gets lumped into a "miscellaneous" category.

I'm only focusing on pick-and-roll statistics because I continue to believe that this area has been the biggest failure from the Timberwolves and Chris Finch in how they're trying to mesh everything together this season. Not only should this be a more effective action for all parties involved, but they should be pounding teams with ball screens nearly all game long given the personnel on this roster versus the read/react motion offense or "flow" that Finch currently has installed.

- Points Per Possession (PPP): Measures the number of points a player generates for each possession of the ball
- Frequency Percentage (FREQ%): The percentage of a team's or player's shots that are of this play type

2021 P&R Handler:
- Minnesota Timberwolves (Team): 14.0 FREQ%, 0.88 PPP, 58.6 Percentile (13th)

- D'Angelo Russell: 34.4 FREQ%, 0.93 PPP, 72.9 Percentile
- Anthony Edwards: 26.7 FREQ%, 0.85 PPP, 53.0 Percentile
- Jaylen Nowell: 24.3 FREQ%, 1.06 PPP, 91.4 Percentile

2022 P&R Handler:
- Minnesota Timberwolves (Team): 15.9 FREQ%, 0.86 PPP, 31.0 Percentile (21st)

- D'Angelo Russell: 34.7 FREQ%, 0.87 PPP, 52.0 Percentile
- Anthony Edwards: 29.7 FREQ%, 0.88 PPP, 54.8 Percentile
- Jaylen Nowell: 22.7 FREQ%, 0.87 PPP, 51.4 Percentile

2021 P&R Roll Man:
- Minnesota Timberwolves (Team): 5.5 FREQ%, 1.17 PPP, 69.0 Percentile (10th)

- Rudy Gobert: 27.1 FREQ%, 1.32 PPP, 82.1 Percentile
- Karl-Anthony Towns: 12.5 FREQ%, 1.20 PPP, 67.7 Percentile
- Naz Reid: 25.0 FREQ%, 1.15 PPP, 59.1 Percentile

2022 P&R Roll Man:
Minnesota Timberwolves (Team): 4.6 FREQ%, 1.25 PPP, 82.8 Percentile (6th)

Rudy Gobert: 17.2 FREQ%, 1.33 PPP, 76.0 Percentile
Karl-Anthony Towns: 9.9 FREQ%, 1.20 PPP, 52.0 Percentile
Naz Reid: 20.9 FREQ%, 1.25 PPP, 66.7 Percentile

Takeaways:

- Rudy Gobert is being inexplicably misused offensively by Minnesota, which we already knew. He shouldn't be forced post-up opportunities. He shouldn't be constantly ducking into the paint trying to seal his defender. He should be directly involved in the play as a screener and roller with much more frequency. Consider that Utah led the league in P&R frequency a year ago with him leading the league in screen assists and high volume PPP as a roller. He should also be roaming the dunker spot, but not sitting in front of the hoop clogging the lane as we've seen him do so often. These are the things he's legitimately good/great at. His efficiency as a roll-man is nearly the same as it was last year, but the frequency being nearly 10 points lower is a disappointment. He's not a big offensive threat as it is and it's only exacerbated when he's used incorrectly.

- Minnesota's guard play needs to be better in P&R. They need to make more shots. I don't have the data available to me and I'd bet that they're trending upwards over the past handful of weeks, but they have to make their shots. They also have to reduce their number of turnovers. Those are wasted possessions without a shot attempt. That number is incorporated into the PPP formula and the Timberwolves backcourt has been sloppier with the basketball than they were a year ago. Going from 13th to 21st in P&R play was very much unexpected to this point. We should have seen something like 13th to 7th, for example. Hopefully, this corrects itself as the season continues.

- Jaylen Nowell, what happened? His ability to handle/score in P&R, and overall as a three-level scorer, is part of what made me optimistic in him as the sixth man moving forward. His falloff from an intriguing and improving young player to arguably Minnesota's worst rotation player is a massive disappointment. The talent is still there, I suppose, but he's taken a step back across the board in almost every statistical category.

- Minnesota has three elite bigs in the P&R and should be utilizing them more and more often. That's a clear strength that this team has. Give them more opportunities to make plays there. Punish teams here. The guards obviously have to get them the basketball cleanly, but that also means calling for more P&R in the game plan. There's no reason last year's team should have a higher frequency of P&R possessions than this year's team.

Lastly, the PPP value only represents the individual player/team in scoring opportunities, not what points may have been created away from that action. For instance, the P&R should be able to open up three-point looks from defenders having to help down on a rolling big. My eyes tell me that Minnesota's creating good looks in P&R and finding open shooters. They're just not always cashing in. Going to it more often could help yield better results, though.

I continue to believe that the fully-developed peak of this current roster, at least offensively, will come from a heavy dose of P&R basketball, which goes against everything Finch historically wants to do with his teams. Right now, the efficiency from the backcourt isn't there, and the frequency with which the bigs are involved isn't there either. Both of which can change in the right direction as the season progresses, but I think the overall volume of P&R still needs to increase too. That remains true for when everyone is healthy.

[thedoper]

The injuries were a perfect storm. Nowell is getting way more run then his play warrants and we are missing Prince and Kat which our statistically our 2 best 3 pt shooters. Im personally amazed we're still this close to 500 right now. I dont know what to say about Nowell. Hes bad on both ends and it hurts. Tweaks may give us a bit more offense right now, but unless we get red hot Dlo and Ant in the same game we dont have much of a chance offensively against good teams right now.