Not surprisingly a large point of discussion this season has been about Derrick Rose's play and why it's been so bad. Some explanations offered so far: 1). Scheme 2). Loss of athleticism 3). Mental roadblocks I think #1 is the least likely and #2 and #3 are far more plausible (you can easily imagine how they might co-evolve). My subjective eye tells me Derrick doesn't have the same lift or play with the same agility as he did in the past.....even if you start the clock at last season. I think a useful stat to capture whether or not Derrick 'still has game' is % of shots blocked at the rim. For a guy who made himself great driving to the basket with elite athleticism this would seem to be a good indicator of how capable he is of playing the way he used to. Here's an excel table I put together for his career: Rose_block by rosenthall posted Dec 11, 2015 at 11:54 PM The relevant stat is on the far right. The only other year when his blk% in the paint came close to where he's at now was the year after his first torn acl and he was equally as terrible then as he is now. (In fact his PER's from those two years are almost identical at 9.7 & 9.8). How might scheme affect this stat? A good secondary question to ask would be whether or not Hoiberg's offense creates better or worse opportunities for Rose to drive to the basket. So far Hoiberg's Bulls have looked a lot like Thibs' Bulls, but a big difference between them so far is how they use their bigs. Hoiberg likes his bigs to hang out on the perimeter to create more offensive spacing while Thibs liked them to stay close to the basket to rebound the basketball. The idea is perimeter bigs allow for better offensive spacing, which ought to create more room to drive to the basket. There are a few stats we might want to consider: Under Hoiberg's watch the Bulls ORB% has gone from 5th best in the league to 21st, presumably because they play outside the lane a lot more. Supporting this observation is the fact that Hoiberg's Bulls take less shots in the paint than they did with Thibs. Last year Pau, Niko, Noah and Taj took 60% of their shots in the paint. This year they're taking 50% of their shots in the paint. This observation is true for all of the bigs except Noah, who's only taken 2(!) jump shots this year. Niko, Taj & Pau are all playing more perimeter oriented games. Furthermore, Derrick's being featured less in the offense this year. His usage last year was 31.7. This year it's 24.9. Taken together you'd expect to Derrick to be significantly more effective around the basket since he'd have more space to drive and more opportunity to pick his spots but the exact opposite has happened. His effectiveness going to the basket has fallen off a cliff. It looks to me like Derrick doesn't have that extra gear to his game this year......or if he does have it it's not being used.
Looking some more... He's taking fewer threes, more mid range and more layups than last year. But he's converting layups worse than last year. He's also getting to the line less despite getting to the hole more, which is alarming. He's also shooting less. His minutes are up this season (wasn't this supposed to be the opposite when Thibs was gone?) 32.9 to 30 His FGA in those minutes are down 15.2 to 16.4 His trips to the line are down as well 2.6 to 3.7 During his MVP year Rose played 37.4 MPG -> 19.7 FGA -> 6.9 FTA A far cry from his former self last season and this season. Basically the entire team this season has taken a step back from a scoring efficiency standpoint from last season.
http://espn.go.com/espn/print?id=14333878 I would go with this here and would like to see the Bulls taking more shots in the paint and Rose driving more to the basket. But this is not the makeup of this Bulls. I think we can only hope that the team adepts better to this style and will improve better sooner then later...
Over the years people have clamored for Rose to take fewer threes and take it to the hole more. This year he's doing it. But as you have shown, he's getting blocked more. He's also getting to the line less. Much of the benefit of Rose taking it strong to the hole is that he is supposed to get to the line more for those high percentage FTs, which isn't happening. The guy who was MVP is long gone it seems.
Yes, I think it's alarming that we're basically getting the style of play we want from Rose and the results have been terrible. It's even more remarkable when you consider there's a big difference between himself and last year.
Rose at his best was a true "quick-twitch" athlete...he was sudden and powerful. Last season, he could still display that suddenness and power, but not on a reliable basis. This season, he really hasn't even flashed it, leading to the fear that it's gone. Frankly, it looks to me like Rose aged about 10 years over the summer. This is why, although he's taking it to the basket more this season, defenses are able to very effectively deal with his offensive thrusts. I'd understand what I'm seeing better if this was a season in which Rose was coming off knee rehab, but he's not. What I do know is that it's hard to watch.
