Author Topic: Assist Leaders and Team Offense  (Read 6609 times)

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Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #15 on: January 25, 2013, 11:00:08 AM »

Offline soap07

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I guess what I'm wondering is, does Rondo play a role in that one way or another?

The current Celtic offense was designed to essentially hide Rondo and Perk while evenly distributing shots among Pierce, KG and Ray.  It's not Rondo's fault that Doc has made little to no changes to that scheme in the last 4 years.

Mike
Gotta agree with this

Hide Rondo? The guy has the ball in his hands 90 percent of the time. Most of KG's points come off open jumpers from Rondo's penetrations when he's not pounding the ball. This scheme is completely different than the one in 2008. Rondo was pretty much Mario Chalmers in the offense then, except without the 3 point shot.

Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #16 on: January 25, 2013, 11:07:09 AM »

Offline PhoSita

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It sure seems from your follow up posts that what you are trying to do is blame the Celtics offensive problems on Rondo.


That's far too reductive.

The fact that the Celtics suck offensively is not Rondo's fault.

Does that means he doesn't play a role in it?  I don't agree with that, either. 

What I'm trying to get at is there's a disconnect between a common sense notion that a pure passing point guard facilitates offensive production and the fact that Rondo racks up tons of assists even as the Celtics continue to suck offensively.

I accept that the Celtics are a bad rebounding team and that obviously plays a role.  But it seems clear that as far as Rondo and the Celtics are concerned, assists do not correlate with efficient offensive production in a clear or direct way. 

My instinct is that Rondo's inability to shoot from outside and reluctance to score plays a role in this, and he'll probably not ever be able to run a high powered offense like Nash or Stockton.  But maybe that's wrong.  Maybe the Celtics would be just as terrible, or worse, with a point guard who gets fewer assists but scores / shoots more (e.g. Jrue Holiday).  I'm skeptical about that, though.
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Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #17 on: January 25, 2013, 11:15:27 AM »

Offline PhoSita

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I guess what I'm wondering is, does Rondo play a role in that one way or another?

The current Celtic offense was designed to essentially hide Rondo and Perk while evenly distributing shots among Pierce, KG and Ray.  It's not Rondo's fault that Doc has made little to no changes to that scheme in the last 4 years.

Mike
Gotta agree with this

Hide Rondo? The guy has the ball in his hands 90 percent of the time. Most of KG's points come off open jumpers from Rondo's penetrations when he's not pounding the ball. This scheme is completely different than the one in 2008. Rondo was pretty much Mario Chalmers in the offense then, except without the 3 point shot.

Rondo's role has changed for sure, but I agree with MBunge in the sense that I think the priorities of the offense are still essentially the same even though the makeup of the team has changed drastically.
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Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #18 on: January 25, 2013, 11:20:58 AM »

Offline MBunge

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I guess what I'm wondering is, does Rondo play a role in that one way or another?

The current Celtic offense was designed to essentially hide Rondo and Perk while evenly distributing shots among Pierce, KG and Ray.  It's not Rondo's fault that Doc has made little to no changes to that scheme in the last 4 years.

Mike
Gotta agree with this

Hide Rondo? The guy has the ball in his hands 90 percent of the time.

Then where was the play for him at the end of the game instead of two plays for Pierce?  Rondo averaged 10.6 points the championship year.  He's scoring 13.7 points this year.  His assists have skyrocketed, but does it make any sense for Rondo to be scoring just 3.1 points per game more than he did his second year in the league?  With this team?  With Ray gone?

Doc runs the offense almost entirely through Rondo now, but it's still an offense designed around getting Pierce, KG and Ray shots and Ray's not around any more.

Mike

Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #19 on: January 25, 2013, 11:40:35 AM »

Offline BballTim

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  It's fairly common knowledge that our abysmal offensive rebounding is the biggest drag on our offensive efficiency. If we were an average offensive rebounding team we'd be an above average offense.

It is fairly common knowledge that our offensive rebounding contributes to the poor offense, along with Rondo's inefficiency and the lack of outside shooting overall.

   Common knowledge? Yes. Current knowledge? Not so much. Rondo's efficiency is fairly close to average for a pg.

Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #20 on: January 25, 2013, 12:59:03 PM »

Offline mmmmm

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What you're saying makes sense, and it's something I've read about in the past.

I guess what I'm wondering is, does Rondo play a role in that one way or another?

Would Rondo be running one of the best offenses in the league if you gave him more bigs and more outside shooters?

Given how, in the fall of 2010, when we had Shaq and Jermaine and Semih as our Center rotation, well, yeah!

That team, during that fall before all the injuries took the wheels off, had to be one of the most dominant starting lineups I have seen in years.

Also, when we have had a healthy Chris Wilcox, our offense is pretty [dang] efficient.

Is it that Rondo has grown up in the league playing in an offensive "system" favoring slow, half-court play with a heavy emphasis on mid-range jumpshots and he needs to get more used to pushing the tempo and getting it to guys cutting to the rim or spotting up outside?

Would our offense be equally as bad if you switched Rondo for another prolific passer with a somewhat different skillset (e.g. a healthy Rubio or Steve Nash, or even somebody like Jrue Holiday or Greivis Vasquez) or do Rondo's weaknesses exacerbate the difficulties that this roster has in terms of taking and making shots from deep and in the paint?

Its hard to say.   I do know that there have been lots of studies that show pretty compellingly that assisted shots are much more efficient at generating points.   Thus, if you swap out Rondo, whether the resulting team is more or less efficient (with no other changes) depends on what the overall team assisted shot rate ends up.  Just because a given PG passes less, doesn't mean the team's passing rate declines, as he may now be a recipient of assists.

But the bigger effect is still going to be the distribution of shot locations.  That's overwhelmingly the most important factor.

I don't think the flaws in our offense are due to Rondo at all.   I think they are very simply an obvious shortcoming in our front court personnel.

Think about it:  We are missing two big men that we were supposed to have when the season started:  Darko and for the most part Wilcox.   And we haven't replaced them.

Wilcox, in particular, affects our shot location profile because while he has his shortcomings, the one thing he does well is score close to the basket at a high rate of efficiency.  If we could just get him back on the floor for 15-20 minutes a game, that would make a big difference.
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Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #21 on: January 25, 2013, 02:07:30 PM »

Offline BballTim

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It sure seems from your follow up posts that what you are trying to do is blame the Celtics offensive problems on Rondo.


That's far too reductive.

The fact that the Celtics suck offensively is not Rondo's fault.

Does that means he doesn't play a role in it?  I don't agree with that, either. 

What I'm trying to get at is there's a disconnect between a common sense notion that a pure passing point guard facilitates offensive production and the fact that Rondo racks up tons of assists even as the Celtics continue to suck offensively.

I accept that the Celtics are a bad rebounding team and that obviously plays a role.  But it seems clear that as far as Rondo and the Celtics are concerned, assists do not correlate with efficient offensive production in a clear or direct way. 

My instinct is that Rondo's inability to shoot from outside and reluctance to score plays a role in this, and he'll probably not ever be able to run a high powered offense like Nash or Stockton.  But maybe that's wrong.  Maybe the Celtics would be just as terrible, or worse, with a point guard who gets fewer assists but scores / shoots more (e.g. Jrue Holiday).  I'm skeptical about that, though.

  Rondo's already shown that he can run a high powered offense. We had one going in 2010-2011 before he started with the plantar fascitis. He was putting up more assists at the start of the season than anyone ever has and the Celts were playing like a top 5 offensive team.

Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #22 on: January 25, 2013, 02:36:44 PM »

Offline soap07

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Rondo's efficiency is fairly close to average for a pg.

Great, I'm glad that we have a franchise point guard that is fairly close to average for a point guard, while almost every other top point guard has better efficiency numbers.

Quote
Then where was the play for him at the end of the game instead of two plays for Pierce?  Rondo averaged 10.6 points the championship year.  He's scoring 13.7 points this year.  His assists have skyrocketed, but does it make any sense for Rondo to be scoring just 3.1 points per game more than he did his second year in the league?  With this team?  With Ray gone?

A. The entire of the offense is not summed by by the last minute of the game.

B. Rondo has had plays called for him at the end of the game multiple times this year. Does anyone remember the national TV game that went into overtime? I'm forgetting the team....but that's one instance.

Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #23 on: January 25, 2013, 02:40:42 PM »

Offline BballTim

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Rondo's efficiency is fairly close to average for a pg.

Great, I'm glad that we have a franchise point guard that is fairly close to average for a point guard, while almost every other top point guard has better efficiency numbers.


  I guess it's a good thing he's leading the league in assists then, it turns out that adds to our efficiency as well.

Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #24 on: January 25, 2013, 03:13:32 PM »

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That´s because they don´t correlate, or better, only minimal and indirectly. Having a high assist PG basically has nothing to do with offensive efficiency. From the way assist are counted, to the fact that there huge differences in "how" you create those assists, they are one of the least reliable mainstream stats.

Steve Nash wasn´t just leading the league in assists, he was also a dangerous shooter.

There was an article on the front page last year about a stat summit including several nba executives, which highlighted some of the flaws of this particular statistic quite tranparently.
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Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #25 on: January 25, 2013, 03:26:29 PM »

Offline soap07

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Rondo's efficiency is fairly close to average for a pg.

Great, I'm glad that we have a franchise point guard that is fairly close to average for a point guard, while almost every other top point guard has better efficiency numbers.


  I guess it's a good thing he's leading the league in assists then, it turns out that adds to our efficiency as well.


Point Guards with better PER's than Rondo: 18.5

Chris Paul - 26.12
Russell Westbrook - 23.08
Tony Parker - 22.95
Kyrie Irving - 22.30
Kyle Lowry - 21.56
Jose Calderon (!) - 19.99
Steph Curry - 19.85
Eric Bledsoe - 19.33
Kemba Walker - 19.23
Ramon Sessions - 19.03
Jrue Holliday - 18.90



Deron Williams (in a down year! and will likely overtake Rondo with the way he is playing now) - 18.3

Rondo, in spite of all his assists and rebounds, isn't even top 10 in PER among point guards. Among point guards. Some people will say PER is skewed towards scorers. There are guys on that list who are not scorers first (Calderon, Lowry, Holliday) who do a nice job distributing the ball. Chris Paul is certainly not a score first point guard.

Fine, if you don't like PER, I bet if you run the same numbers for Win Shares/48, you'd get a similar list. It's great that Rondo gets assists but it's not a stretch to say that the list would be similar.

His assists add to our efficiency - but his inability to shoot and score efficiently detract from it, just as our offensive rebounding, turnovers and inability to shoot does.

If you're a defense, and you know the C's can't from the outside and that they have no inside presence, it makes the C's very guard able.

Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #26 on: January 25, 2013, 03:39:07 PM »

Offline Fafnir

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Rondo's efficiency is fairly close to average for a pg.

Great, I'm glad that we have a franchise point guard that is fairly close to average for a point guard, while almost every other top point guard has better efficiency numbers.


  I guess it's a good thing he's leading the league in assists then, it turns out that adds to our efficiency as well.


Point Guards with better PER's than Rondo: 18.5

Chris Paul - 26.12
Russell Westbrook - 23.08
Tony Parker - 22.95
Kyrie Irving - 22.30
Kyle Lowry - 21.56
Jose Calderon (!) - 19.99
Steph Curry - 19.85
Eric Bledsoe - 19.33
Kemba Walker - 19.23
Ramon Sessions - 19.03
Jrue Holliday - 18.90



Deron Williams (in a down year! and will likely overtake Rondo with the way he is playing now) - 18.3

Rondo, in spite of all his assists and rebounds, isn't even top 10 in PER among point guards. Among point guards. Some people will say PER is skewed towards scorers. There are guys on that list who are not scorers first (Calderon, Lowry, Holliday) who do a nice job distributing the ball. Chris Paul is certainly not a score first point guard.

Fine, if you don't like PER, I bet if you run the same numbers for Win Shares/48, you'd get a similar list. It's great that Rondo gets assists but it's not a stretch to say that the list would be similar.

His assists add to our efficiency - but his inability to shoot and score efficiently detract from it, just as our offensive rebounding, turnovers and inability to shoot does.

If you're a defense, and you know the C's can't from the outside and that they have no inside presence, it makes the C's very guard able.
He's 42nd among guards for OWS for this season. He's also 42nd among guards for usage. Which is one of the big reasons PER rates him so poorly, same for NBA efficiency.

OWS is all about scoring efficiency too, though I'm not sure if it weights as heavily towards getting shots up to determine value. (I doubt it)

Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #27 on: January 25, 2013, 03:57:10 PM »

Offline BballTim

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That´s because they don´t correlate, or better, only minimal and indirectly. Having a high assist PG basically has nothing to do with offensive efficiency. From the way assist are counted, to the fact that there huge differences in "how" you create those assists, they are one of the least reliable mainstream stats.

Steve Nash wasn´t just leading the league in assists, he was also a dangerous shooter.

There was an article on the front page last year about a stat summit including several nba executives, which highlighted some of the flaws of this particular statistic quite tranparently.

  I posted this elsewhere recently, but last march some Wizards fan felt that Wall was losing a lot of assist opportunities because the Wizards were such poor shooters. They looked (on the synergy sports website) at all of the passes Wall made that led to a scoring chance (which would end in a basket, miss or turnover) and compared that to all other turnovers. Wall's passes led to a (roughly, from memory) 44% scoring rate, up from 35% on all other scoring opportunities. (possessions that ended in free throws weren't included in the study fwiw). That 9% increase was just over the league average calculated at 82games of an 8% increase.

 For comparison they also looked at Rondo. Passes from Rondo led to scores about 56% of the time compared to about 35% (same as the Wizards btw) on all other scoring opportunities. That was more than double Wall's increase and 2.5 times the league average.

Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #28 on: January 25, 2013, 04:10:41 PM »

Offline BballTim

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Rondo's efficiency is fairly close to average for a pg.

Great, I'm glad that we have a franchise point guard that is fairly close to average for a point guard, while almost every other top point guard has better efficiency numbers.


  I guess it's a good thing he's leading the league in assists then, it turns out that adds to our efficiency as well.


Point Guards with better PER's than Rondo: 18.5

Chris Paul - 26.12
Russell Westbrook - 23.08
Tony Parker - 22.95
Kyrie Irving - 22.30
Kyle Lowry - 21.56
Jose Calderon (!) - 19.99
Steph Curry - 19.85
Eric Bledsoe - 19.33
Kemba Walker - 19.23
Ramon Sessions - 19.03
Jrue Holliday - 18.90



Deron Williams (in a down year! and will likely overtake Rondo with the way he is playing now) - 18.3

Rondo, in spite of all his assists and rebounds, isn't even top 10 in PER among point guards. Among point guards. Some people will say PER is skewed towards scorers. There are guys on that list who are not scorers first (Calderon, Lowry, Holliday) who do a nice job distributing the ball. Chris Paul is certainly not a score first point guard.

Fine, if you don't like PER, I bet if you run the same numbers for Win Shares/48, you'd get a similar list. It's great that Rondo gets assists but it's not a stretch to say that the list would be similar.

His assists add to our efficiency - but his inability to shoot and score efficiently detract from it, just as our offensive rebounding, turnovers and inability to shoot does.

If you're a defense, and you know the C's can't from the outside and that they have no inside presence, it makes the C's very guard able.

  Notice I said "our" efficiency, not "his" efficiency. And one could argue that the team's no more guardable than they were in 2008 when they had 3 HOFers still in their primes.

Re: Assist Leaders and Team Offense
« Reply #29 on: January 25, 2013, 04:28:50 PM »

Offline MBunge

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Rondo's efficiency is fairly close to average for a pg.

Great, I'm glad that we have a franchise point guard that is fairly close to average for a point guard, while almost every other top point guard has better efficiency numbers.

Quote
Then where was the play for him at the end of the game instead of two plays for Pierce?  Rondo averaged 10.6 points the championship year.  He's scoring 13.7 points this year.  His assists have skyrocketed, but does it make any sense for Rondo to be scoring just 3.1 points per game more than he did his second year in the league?  With this team?  With Ray gone?

A. The entire of the offense is not summed by by the last minute of the game.

B. Rondo has had plays called for him at the end of the game multiple times this year. Does anyone remember the national TV game that went into overtime? I'm forgetting the team....but that's one instance.

Again, Rondo is scoring just 3.1 points per game more this year than he did in the championship year.  Does that make any sense, given his development and the fact that Ray is gone?  Last season, Rondo averaged 10.8 shots a game and Ray averaged 10.7 shots a game.  With Ray gone, Rondo is getting just 1.3 more shots a game this year.  Does that make any sense?

Mike