ETwaun Moore started 24 of 154 games in a prominent rotational role for a Magic franchise that averaged 21.5 victories the last two seasons. lRelated Pau Gasol on playing the Lakers, but not against Kobe Bryant Asked Friday if he would rather be mostly a practice player for a winning team or playing heavy minutes for a bad team, Moore's quick answer offered a window into why the Bulls keep hitting on the right end-of-the-bench players. "I'd rather be on a winning team," Moore said. "Winning games, even if your role is small, everyone is important. There are more accolades for everyone. It's more fun. "I enjoy this atmosphere and culture. I knew it'd be a good group of guys to be around, but it's better than expected. Everyone communicates with each other. Everyone respects each other." Read more http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...ron-brooks-bench-spt-1227-20141226-story.html
It'd be great of E'Twaun Moore could play some SF, but I don't think he can. He's a Kirk replacement and not a Snell replacement. Right now I'm not seeing a huge difference between him and Kirk. They have very similar strengths and weaknesses.
Can't say I caught many of Moore's games with Orlando, but his play in relief of Hinrich has been fine. He has played defense and on offense seems to understand his facilitating (read: don't force anything) role. It was good to see Thibodeau trust Moore down the stretch last night. Nice pickup. Sent from my Venue 8 Pro 5830 using Tapatalk
He looks to me like the definition of a replacement level player. Not really good at anything, but plays with a keen understanding of how his game fits in with others and manages to do just enough to keep things going. Guys like him can end up having 8-10 year careers, but are never guys you prioritize or plan for.
Both Dunleavy and Moore have 11.1 PER. But I think Dunleavy's is falling (it was well over 12 a couple weeks ago), and Moore's is rising. Dunleavy made it to 14 seasons There has to be a reason the Bulls signed him instead of Adrian Griffin (he's available!).
There are three ways to have a high PER - 1) collect assists (particularly good for PGs) 2) rebound (particularly good for PFs and Cs) and most of all 3) score (good for all players). For this reason, wings pretty much have to score to have a decent PER so a facilitating wing isn't likely to have a PER worthy of writing home about. The main reason Dunleavy's PER is dropping is because Rose, Butler and Gasol are all healthy. Rose, Butler and Gasol are all high usage players (combined usage % of 78.5%), meaning there's a very high likelihood that, when the Bulls starters are in the game, one of these 3 will either take a shot, shoot a FT or turn the ball over. That doesn't leave many possessions for Dunleavy or Noah to "use." Noah however, can get his PER up through rebounds (particularly offensive rebounds which are more highly valued). Dunleavy isn't asked to rebound much by the Bulls which is just as well since he isn't very good at it. Against the Pelicans the other night, Moore was allowed to close out the win playing the Hinrich Q4 SG role. He played 19:45 in the game. He only shot the ball twice and made one of these. He had 3 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal. He also had a turnover and a personal foul. That's a really good stat line for what Thibodeau wants out of Moore in that kind of game, but it didn't help his PER any. With Orlando, Moore's PER was about 11. He took about 12 shots per 36 minutes there. So far with the Bulls, he's maintained his 11 PER while taking fewer than 9 shots per 36. However, he's needed to make 60% of his 3s to do it. With Hinrich out the last 3 games, Moore's gotten bigger minutes. In these games, he's taken fewer than 7 shots per 36. Actually, that's not that bad...for those 3 games, Dunleavy's taken fewer than 6 shots per 36. So Moore's PER now stands at 11.1. I think Thibodeau is starting to trust him so he may play more minutes with the big boys going forward. We'll set his season PER at 10 and I'll take the under.
The Hinrich role is to shoot .365 while taking ill advised shots and run around after being beaten by his man, but with his hands up so he might get lucky to have an opponents pass hit him in the back. I'll take the 11.1 PER over the 7.9 one, and the guy who's 25 with some sort of future in the league.
Last year was a bigger sample at 79 games. His PER progression year over year was 8.8 -> 10.7 -> 11.1. Compared with the guy who's been playing instead at 7.9 PER in 27.7 minutes per game over 25 games.
I understand that you probably actively or passively ignored my earlier post on how PER is affected by role, but role really does affect PER and when a player's PER drops, it doesn't necessarily mean that that player's performance has fallen off. Moore may be playing the best ball of his NBA life and his PER may be in single digits. It's just the way the game works.
I think one observation I feel confident making right now is that E'Twaun is a low usage player, which limits the sorts of things you can do with him. For one, you can't pair him with another low usage player in the backcourt....it's too easy for the opposing defense. Two, it makes it hard to play him when the team needs to make a big comeback. I think we saw this tonight, when the team really could've used Aaron Brooks.
I saw what you wrote, but I think the 0-4 from the field and 30 total FGA for the season have more to do with his PER dropping 4 points in one game.
Sometimes players are low usage players by the nature of their games and sometimes players are put in roles that demand low usage. Moore had an average usage rate in his first 3 NBA seasons. With the Bulls, he's pretty much the 5th offensive option whenever he's playing meaningful minutes and he needs to be very judicious about the shots he takes or he'll be out of work. He seems to get this as his 12.1% usage rate is 2nd lowest on the team ahead of only Snell's 11.2%.
