Thinking out loud - Getting better defense, return to last year's offense and...

Since I like to track the team's offensive and defensive efficiency - and compare it to last year - I do it in this thread: http://sportstwo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149367

It seems that since Miller was inserted into the starting line-up, our offensive efficiency is slowly getting down, Roy is out of sorts, Blake's production is nowhere near as it was last year and the big's offensive production is on par to what it was last year. In other words - Miller has not really been a great help to the offensive development of Greg and LMA and has caused Roy's game to regressed playing out of position. His inability to shoot from the distance allows defenses to sag and crowd the post in half-court sets and switch on the open 3 point shooters.

On the other hand, our defensive efficiency increases steadily, despite the fact that Miller is no longer a good individual defender against point-guards (the main reason, imho, that Blake plays as much as he does). However, what he does much better than Webster - is switch on the perimeter and help funnel the other team's perimeter players to the side.

So - looking around, it seems to me that if we get another Vet that can switch on the perimeter on defense, share ball handling duties, but shoot better from 3 point land - we will be able to maintain the defensive side of the game, but restore some of the offensive shine we had last year. Add the fact that we lost Travis and need more scoring punch from the SF position and maybe restore the normal order of playing Roy at SG instead of at SF - and maybe we should look at a deal that has the following elements:

From Portland - Miller, JB and what little cap space we have left
From Chicago - Kirk Heinrich

For us - it gives us a better individual defender on the perimeter who is a vet that can play team defense while spacing the floor from the 3 pt. line. It also opens some of the log-jam and allows Rudy more minutes, because we do not need to find minutes for JB.

For Chicago - they get a small reduction in salary, Miller is a better offensive player in fast pace offense and Chicago plays faster than we do, they get a nice prospect to maybe fill the Ben Gordon role and they get a little bit of money by reducing their payroll. They also have a team-option on Miller a year earlier (I think) than Capt. Kirk. So far this year, Capt. Kirk is not really doing great for them - because he plays, again, out of position next to Rose. Miller will not be any worse.

An alternative - is to try and expand the deal - and add Salmons from Chicago (to replace Travis's scoring and move Roy back to SG) and send them Travis's contract with some cap filler (Maybe Howard and Pendergraph). They cut Salmons earlier (because Travis is expiring) helping them get more cap space for a push for Wade next year.

Not sure if Chicago will be interested - but this could be a basis for a solution after Dec. 15 when we are allowed to move Miller.

 

Should just point out, that if the 2nd option happens, we have units of:

Kirk/Roy/Salmons/LMA/Oden

Backed by

Blake/Rudy/Web/Dante/Joel

 

Lol, yeah, Miller is causing Blake, Roy to struggle, and in general bringing the whole offense down. I heard he also is responsible for Batum's shoulder injury and Outlaw's foot injury.

 

So, our offensive efficiency is not down? Roy is not much more of a jump-shooter because he does not handle the ball that much? Is Blake playing as good as he did last year when playing out of position?

Miller is a very good player - but so far, he has been a poor fit on this team offensively.

His inability to hit the long-ball requires playing Roy without the ball negating one of his biggest advantages, and it allows defenses to sag from the perimeter when Roy is handling the ball.

What part of this is debatable? The stats are there to support it.

 

If anything, I think you could say that when Miller leaves the game the offense looks even more stagnant and out of sorts. For me this isn't a simple matter of booting the new guy so things can just naturally revert back to the way they were last year. Team's are simply playing us differently this year, and Blake is as unsteady as I've ever seen him with the ball in his hands.

I'm not saying a swap of Miller for Hinrich would be a bad move, but I somehow doubt it would bear the kind of fruit you are hoping it would -- Cap'n Kirk is having an even worse season shooting than Steve Blake. I'm happy to keep Miller, but I think it's only going to work if Nate can somehow adjust his offense so he's not putting Dre in the corner ballside when Roy is running the high pick and roll.

 

Well, he seems to be playing out of position as well next to Rose. Not a huge surprise to me. These guys need to play their right position to shine. Same as Blake, same as Roy (who is playing mostly like his 2nd year right now, instead of super-star like he did last year).

How do you do it without changing the team's offensive philosophy on it's head?

For Miller to be effective - he needs the ball in his hands. Roy is a borderline all-star with the ball out of his hands instead of a budding superstar.

How do you fix this problem with these 2 guys in there?

 

Steve Blake is getting the same exact looks he got last season. He just isn't making him. I don't see how this is Miller's fault.

I still see Roy handling the ball all the time. He's still creating shots for the team and is averaging the same amount of assists as last year. The problem right now is he's playing out of position because Blake is playing SG.

We're also only 13 games into the season. It's very early. Miller is however averaging the most assists on the team

 

I'm not ready to kick Andre to the curb yet. The guy still gives us a different dimension at PG that we've never had and the team just hasn't figured out how to use him right yet. And when we do go back to last year's offense of Roy going ISO, teams are continually running guys at him and it's just not going to work anymore. Teams won't allow Brandon to just break whoever down and score.

 

Frankly, I haven't watched any Bulls games so I don't know how Kirk is being used (my guess would be an off the ball shooting guard ... which is pretty much the role he would have to play if paired up with Brandon, who really does act more like a point guard than a shooting guard).

Maybe you can't, at least not with this coach and with Brandon so uncomfortable off the ball, and so resistant to pushing tempo (and that's not necessarily a criticism of Brandon or Nate, just an observation).

I guess I got suckered into thinking that Miller and Roy would find a way to coexist on the court the same way that Miller and Iguodala coexisted in Philly -- both guys that like to handle the ball and can create. The chief difference is how much of Philly's offense was generated on the break or early in the shot clock and I think Iguodala likes to run a helluva lot more than Roy and Nate do.

I guess what I'm saying is that I thought KP signing Miller and Nate talking about turning over the reins to Dre meant this team was going to be embracing a more up tempo style of play, instead they seem like they are stuck somewhere between two styles of play and everything looks out of sorts.

Long and short of it, I'd move Miller if the right deal came along, I'm just not sure Kirk is the guy I'd want to move him for.

 

Actually he is not. He is shooting a lot more jump-shots (96% this year, 88% last year), He shoots more later in the clock because he did not have it in his hands earlier and it is Miller that shoots it and he shoots more of them as a catch and shoot player (assisted) than he create for himself before.

82games.com is your friend. While you are there, look at Roy's jump-shot vs. close shot percentages compared to last year.

Roy is not handling the ball that much, he is assisted on a lot more of his shots (41% vs. 30% - telling you he is not handling the ball that much), and, because he is not handling the ball - a lot more of his shots come later in the possession telling you he is taking a lot harder, low-percentage shots.

With Roy as the primary ball handler, last year, he shot more of his shots in the first 10 seconds of the possession, probably with the defense not already set. This year, he is shooting more of them in the last 3 seconds of the possession (21 seconds or later).

Well, we can't trade Miller anyway before December 15 - so no matter what - we have him around for a while more to see if this ship can be righted.

Again, this post came because of continued observation of the team's offensive production that I am tracking. There is a clear reason for concern with this team's offense - and Roy's production will not magically go up, imho, if he is moved to SG - the issue is who is handling the ball, imho.

Roy's PER before the ball was put in Miller's hands to run it as he wishes - was better than his last year's PER. Now, it is about where it was in his 2nd year. Roy still shoots from the same places as he did before the change - he is a perimeter player. But the way he gets his shots and when he gets them - changed. That is not a good thing in the grand scheme of things.

 

Fair enough. Anyway, it can not be done until December 15 - so we have more time to track it and see if they can solve it or not.

 

And you can bring up the teams offensive efficiency from last year, but I don't think anyone considered them a great offensive team last year. Too many times were the Blazers taking jump shot after jump shot and not getting any easy baskets at all. Hell, they were one of the worst offenses in the NBA when it came to fastbreak pts, and the team last year was young and athletic. I just find that unacceptable.

I think there's a real problem in the overall strategy of how players are used on this team. JMO.

 

Well, they were not a great defensive team last year - but they had a fantastic win margin. Their statistical efficiency was elite.

Last year's team shot less jump-shots than the Cavaliers and the Orlando Magic, but was labeled a jump-shooting team...

The offense was better last year. Maybe we were not really the 1st or 2nd in the league, but we most certainly were not 15, as we are now.

 

Honest question: What do the stats say happens when Roy plays 2G? My theory is, and
has been, that Roy's trouble have much more to do with the position he's playing than
who he is playing with.

 

I also wanted to add that the team's offensive efficiency numbers were awfully high last year for a couple of reasons. 1: They got a ton of second chance points off of offensive rebounds and I haven't seen the same level of snagging offensive boards so far this season (despite Oden and Przy's prowess). 2: Even with that huge offensive efficiency rating we only shot something like 46% from the floor which is pretty good for a jump shooting team, but nothing spectacular. and 3: the team seemed to shoot a ton of 3 point shots and had three guys on the team that were at or very nearly at 40% in Blake, Travis and Rudy, with Roy close behind at 38% or so, that number dipping (Blake at 35%, Travis out, Martell misfiring, but Roy and Rudy still pretty good) means we're not stretching opposing defenses as much as before.

It's like death by a thousand cuts, dips in production and shooting percentages from multiple players all adds up to make this not quite the cinderella team we were last year. There's still plenty of time to get better, but it makes me wonder if last year the team didn't play way above their heads and that it was somewhat inevitable that there would be a fall-off or a regression to the mean.

 

Why? Most small-forwards are even slower and more cumbersome than small-guards and thus would have a harder time staying in front of Brandon going to the rim from the dribble. The problem is that he is not going to the rim that much because he does not have the ball in his hands that much, and when he does - the middle is clogged because there are less long-range shooters the other team needs to guard honestly.

One of the reasons the Blazers ran so many pick and rolls last year was to get the mismatch with Roy with the ball being guarded by someone bigger and slower that can not keep up with him. The get the same advantage now automatically with him being guarded by a SF - yet it's not working.

Brandon's problems at SF are on the defensive end, not on the offensive end.

 

It's actually completely counter-intuitive. Roy is far more productive at small forward this year than he has been at shooting guard

http://www.82games.com/0910/09POR5.HTM

 

Blake is averaging the same amount of 3PT attempts this season as he did last season, a lot of them wide open looks. He's out there to stretch the defense and shoot jump-shots. He's simply not hitting them. The pieces have also changed so of course his numbers won't be exactly the same as last season, but the fact is he is out there to hit jump-shots and he simply isn't getting the job gone.

I've seen Roy miss dozens of wide open shots this year. Is his role a little different? Absolutely. Is he still adjusting? Yes. While not handling the ball as much as last year, he's still creating plays for his teammates, and Miller is as well. What's wrong with that? Didn't we all feel this team needed another playmaker to take the load off of Roy? Too many times Roy had to do it all by himself last season.

What's interesting here is Blake was the starter for the two years you mentioned(minus a few games when Jack was the starter), and yet Roy had two different PER's. Maybe some of it is just on Roy to get it done.

 

Looking at 82games.com, Roy's PER at the SF position is 23.8. At SG it was 16.4. Opponent's PER was 12.8 and 9.1, respectively. PER differential of 11.0 and 7.3, respectively. EFG% of .539 at SF, .390 at SG. Has only taken 3% less shots from inside at SF than when he was playing SG. I don't see all of this being an issue with Andre Miller, as the stats show Roy has been better from the SF position, which is a good portion of the time with Miller. I am not ta all saying I want Roy to continue playing SF. I don't. I want a different SF, and him playing SG, where he belongs, and gives us the biggest advantage. But the numbers don't show Miller being a huge issue here. I think has mroe to do with Roy himself. His FG% was off without Miller more than with him. He settles for jumpers, etc. Maybe he is being less aggressive, playing himself into shape, getting used to playing with more talent, I dunno. I think it's way too early to say it is because of Miller and spacing. And I don't know if the numbers show that that is an issue at all.

 

82Games.com shows some interesting things:

1. Our dunks and tips are basically the same (We actually tip 1% more this year, dunked 1% more last year).

2. We shoot more jump shots this year, and less close shots (Coming back to spacing and the middle being clogged because we can not space it).

3. We are shooting later in the possession - we got into our offense quicker last year.

Their win margin thinks the other way around.

I think this team is suffering, mostly, from marginalizing their best offensive player. They need to rethink their entire offensive scheme if Miller is the PG of the team - or rethink about having better outside shooting while Roy is handling the ball more.