Stable Uncertainty

[Morten Jensen]

** This thread discusses the content article: Stable Uncertainty **

 

[Dpauley23]

good read

 

[clonetrooper264]

Good article. The only thing I might disagree with is not calling Hinrich a distributor. Obviously he is not a scorer, so thus what is a point guard when he's not a scorer? I would say a distributor. I would definitely say that he is a pass first pg if anything...but that's just me.

 

[Morten Jensen]

I rarely see Kirk trying to set people up. No fault of his, as it's just not his game. His 6+ assists on his career does indicate otherwise, but he's always looked for his shot moreso than getting people in places where they can score. Keep in mind that Kirk handled the ball extremely much under Skiles and had a lot of his assists on simple passes to Ben or Luol on the wings and mid-range area. Derrick is far more creative and is aggresively trying to set up his teammates. Kirk is not that way.

 

[Hendu0520]

Great aricle, I agree 100 percent. IMO we have a bright future even if we lose Ben but it will definately hurt the team. I love your analysis on Kirk, he is solid but I think people are not realizing that with Rose on the team, Kirk's strengths are no longer as important to us. We are not a scrappy defensive team and having a great undersized defender is not going to help a weak defensive team very much at all. I would trade Kirk and a draft pick for some young muscle big man and a backup pg. Then sign Gordon.

 

[wjb1492]

Morten Jensen wrote:

I rarely see Kirk trying to set people up. No fault of his, as it's just not his game. His 6+ assists on his career does indicate otherwise, but he's always looked for his shot moreso than getting people in places where they can score. Keep in mind that Kirk handled the ball extremely much under Skiles and had a lot of his assists on simple passes to Ben or Luol on the wings and mid-range area. Derrick is far more creative and is aggresively trying to set up his teammates. Kirk is not that way.

I disagree - I don't think Derrick was all that great as a distributor this year, so I don't see Ben as having suddenly gone from playing with an OK to great distributor. He was OK for a rookie, and I certainly think he will improve with experience, but playmaking was not one of the things I was overly impressed with this season. I think this is another case of people seeing where Derrick's potential can take him than where he is.

On top of that, Ben's numbers weren't much better on a per minute basis this season than last, which was considered a down season team-wide (although Ben certainly had the best of the down seasons). And they're almost identical to the 06/07 season - the only difference is that he shot slightly worse from 3 this year than 2 seasons ago. So we're certainly not seeing an incredible jump in Ben's numbers as some sign of now playing with an amazing distributor.

And on top of that, if you check out the player-pair data at 82games.com, Ben shot .443 while playing with Derrick and .465 while playing with Kirk. Obviously with the 3 guard lineup there's going to be some noise in those stats, not to mention there's no control for what proportion of shots were assisted in each case - but not so much noise that you can just magically reverse the numbers and pretend Derrick helped Ben shoot better.

 

[Diddy1122]

Morten Jensen wrote:

I rarely see Kirk trying to set people up. No fault of his, as it's just not his game. His 6+ assists on his career does indicate otherwise, but he's always looked for his shot moreso than getting people in places where they can score. Keep in mind that Kirk handled the ball extremely much under Skiles and had a lot of his assists on simple passes to Ben or Luol on the wings and mid-range area. Derrick is far more creative and is aggresively trying to set up his teammates. Kirk is not that way.

Gotta agree with Wjb on this one. Kirk is not a guy who looks for his own shot. I don't even know where you got that from. And don't take just this season as an example, because Vinny told Kirk to be aggressive and look for his shot because they needed a scoring punch off the bench. And there's really no comparison between Vinny's offensive style and Skiles', because Skiles actually has a style. Vinny has a freestyle system that relies heavily on pick-n-rolls, and iso situations, not particularly inducive to high assist totals. Skiles system revolves around constant moving and screening, with the ball swinging from one side to the other for an open shot, so it's not always the PG getting the assist on the play.

I will agree that Derrick is far more creative, and is extremely unselfish, sometimes to a fault, but I in no way feel that Kirk is not a distributor. All the stats and everything I have seen him do the past 6 seasons tells me otherwise.

 

[clonetrooper264]

Morten Jensen wrote:

I rarely see Kirk trying to set people up. No fault of his, as it's just not his game. His 6+ assists on his career does indicate otherwise, but he's always looked for his shot moreso than getting people in places where they can score. Keep in mind that Kirk handled the ball extremely much under Skiles and had a lot of his assists on simple passes to Ben or Luol on the wings and mid-range area. Derrick is far more creative and is aggresively trying to set up his teammates. Kirk is not that way.

Well I agree somewhat. Derrick is definitely more creative than Kirk. He is also more aggressive, but not necessarily in trying to set up his teammates. I see Derrick's aggressiveness as more of a drive and kick type if he's trying to set someone up. Otherwise it's drive to score or maybe drop off to someone in the post if he gets double teamed. The latter doesn't happen too often under Vinny though. If Derrick played under Skiles he would definitely have more assists, probably more than the 6.something he had this year just simply due to the nature of the offense.

Also, I have never seen Kirk look for his shot more than try to pass in any season other than this past one, and I attribute that to Vinny telling Kirk to score more off the bench.

 

[Hendu0520]

I don't think Kirk looks to pass or shoot first I think he just does whatever the game brings to him. However I disagree that Derrick is not a great playmaker. He is way better than Kirk just because of the threat of the blowby. He might not have a developed or refined skill at distributing yet correct, but just the unbelievable threat that he is to drive he automatically creates for others even if he doesn't try to.

 

[Hendu0520]

It was obvious that our offense slowed down tremendously when Derrick was out of the game.

 

[wjb1492]

Hendu0520 wrote:

It was obvious that our offense slowed down tremendously when Derrick was out of the game.

Derrick on court offense - 109.2 points per 100 possessions
Derrick off court offense - 109.8 points per 100 possessions
Net -0.6

Ben on court offense - 110.2 points per 100 possessions
Ben off court offense - 106.8 points per 100 possessions
Net +3.4

Kirk on court offense - 113.4 points per 100 possessions
Kirk off court offense - 107.3 points per 100 possessions
Net +6.0

All from 82games.com. There are reasons for this that extend beyond the players themselves, of course, including who they were on the court with and who they played against. And Derrick certainly showed flashes of what we all hope becomes consistent greatness. And in the end it doesn't matter anyway, because Derrick has been named the PG of the future and this season was largely about him getting experience and figuring out what he needs to work on to be one of the great ones.

But what you say is obvious is not reflected in the team stats. There were certainly games where Derrick played great and the offense struggled a bit when he went out. There were also quite a few games when Derrick struggled and the offense settled down and dug out of a hole once he went to the bench for a breather. Overall for the season, the final numbers show the offense was better without Derrick than with. That's certainly not all on Derrick, but it's still not correct to act like the offense was great with Derrick and awful without him.

 

[Hendu0520]

wjb1492 wrote:

Hendu0520 wrote:

It was obvious that our offense slowed down tremendously when Derrick was out of the game.

Derrick on court offense - 109.2 points per 100 possessions
Derrick off court offense - 109.8 points per 100 possessions
Net -0.6

Ben on court offense - 110.2 points per 100 possessions
Ben off court offense - 106.8 points per 100 possessions
Net +3.4

Kirk on court offense - 113.4 points per 100 possessions
Kirk off court offense - 107.3 points per 100 possessions
Net +6.0

All from 82games.com. There are reasons for this that extend beyond the players themselves, of course, including who they were on the court with and who they played against. And Derrick certainly showed flashes of what we all hope becomes consistent greatness. And in the end it doesn't matter anyway, because Derrick has been named the PG of the future and this season was largely about him getting experience and figuring out what he needs to work on to be one of the great ones.

But what you say is obvious is not reflected in the team stats. There were certainly games where Derrick played great and the offense struggled a bit when he went out. There were also quite a few games when Derrick struggled and the offense settled down and dug out of a hole once he went to the bench for a breather. Overall for the season, the final numbers show the offense was better without Derrick than with. That's certainly not all on Derrick, but it's still not correct to act like the offense was great with Derrick and awful without him.

No one said that the offense was aweful just obvious that it wasn't as good.
Those stats are like another +/- stat, worthless to me.
Yes the team can play well without having a playmaker on the court. So sometimes the offense ran like it did in 06/07 when Derrick was out, but it was obvious that we couldn't get any penetration and we had to rely on the jumpshots, yes over an entire season that gets evened out, but if you watch the games other team's entire defense shifted and our offense completely changed when Derrick was out. I would say that relying on the jumpshot is less efficient even if we get hot sometimes and it worked out.
Most team's would trap or fully double team Rose off of the pick n roll, they wouldn't do that with Kirk in, that play alone created openings for the Bulls just by having Rose on the court.

Those stats are just another +/- worthless

 

[Hendu0520]

I mean do you watch the games or just look at box scores and stat web sites?

 

[wjb1492]

Hendu0520 wrote:

I mean do you watch the games or just look at box scores and stat web sites?

I watch all the games - and I love how people's response when they don't like what the stats say is to question whether the other person watches. It just so happens that what I saw this season is reflected in the stats - the offense very often moved better without Derrick than with. That's not a slam on his future potential - it's a reflection of games that already happened.

Derrick and Kirk have different games, obviously. And this is a team-based stat, not a Derrick-is-better-individually or vice versa stat. But your original claim was that the offense "slowed down tremendously" when Derrick was out. That's a claim about team performance - and the stats for the team disprove your claim. The team offense not only scored more when Derrick was out of the game than when he was in, the team offense with Ben or Kirk being on the floor was higher than for Derrick being on the floor. And it's a stat built over the entire season, so it's pretty tough to argue it was a question of luck and jumpers falling over 82 whole games. Yes, the other 4 teammates play a huge part in that - but Derrick played an awful lot of minutes this season, including substantial minutes with most of the other guys on the team. This season he wasn't the transcendent, carry the team guy except on a few occasions - and that's OK because it was his rookie season.

You can say the offense was oh-so-much-better with Derrick and you can ignore the stats, but neither of those things makes it reality.

 

[Rerisen]

I don't think Kirk is a great distributor by any means. He's pretty average. But he has one thing going for him in relation to the Bulls. He plays extremely well with Ben Gordon, probably due to their many years playing together.

The Bulls highest player pair this year was Hinrich/Gordon, +170 overall and +12.9 per 48.

Since Ben is our leading scorer this stat no doubt impacts positively on Kirk's own +/- and the team's performance with him on the floor vs Derrick.

As the year went on, I think Derrick Rose began to get more comfortable playing with BG and figuring out how to set up shots for him.

 

[Shakes]

Hendu0520 wrote:

I mean do you watch the games or just look at box scores and stat web sites?

Given that study after study has shown that people are a walking collection of conscious and subconscious biases, that eye witness testimony is completely unreliable, and that in my experience the average message board poster carries more agendas than Eddy Curry carries extra pounds on his gut, I'll take the imperfect but objective world of stats any day.

 

[Morten Jensen]

wjb1492 wrote:

I disagree - I don't think Derrick was all that great as a distributor this year, so I don't see Ben as having suddenly gone from playing with an OK to great distributor. He was OK for a rookie, and I certainly think he will improve with experience, but playmaking was not one of the things I was overly impressed with this season. I think this is another case of people seeing where Derrick's potential can take him than where he is.

Quite simply, I don't think that's the case at all. Derrick's versatily by default creates more opportunities for either himself or others. This is an area where Kirk will never be better than he currently is. Derrick is by far the better playmaker and playcreator. The fact that he scores at a higher rate than Kirk takes away some of the assists, but when you look at how Derrick gets his dimes, it's in more creative ways than Hinrich. Going forward, Derrick will surpass him quite easily.

On top of that, Ben's numbers weren't much better on a per minute basis this season than last, which was considered a down season team-wide (although Ben certainly had the best of the down seasons). And they're almost identical to the 06/07 season - the only difference is that he shot slightly worse from 3 this year than 2 seasons ago. So we're certainly not seeing an incredible jump in Ben's numbers as some sign of now playing with an amazing distributor.

A lot of this is by design. Under VDN, we didn't move the ball as much as under Skiles. Kirk's assists numbers were somewhat inflated because he handled the ball as much as he did, and both Luol and Ben were moving a lot without the ball.

This season we've seen Gordon go more into isolations. Given that John Salmons does the same, Derrick's assists numbers were definitely lowered. Also don't forget that Brad Miller had the ball in his hands a lot on top of the key, whereas Kirk had Ben Wallace to play with at that time. The ball just didn't go to Wallace unless it was for an open dunk. Kirk himself was a also a factor for Derrick not averaging more assists. Kirk came in and handled the ball A LOT. Even with Derrick on the floor.

And on top of that, if you check out the player-pair data at 82games.com, Ben shot .443 while playing with Derrick and .465 while playing with Kirk. Obviously with the 3 guard lineup there's going to be some noise in those stats, not to mention there's no control for what proportion of shots were assisted in each case - but not so much noise that you can just magically reverse the numbers and pretend Derrick helped Ben shoot better.

I assume you mean this season.

1. Kirk missed 31 games. That obviously carries a lot of weight in this. Had he played all 82, Gordon would not have maintained a FG-percentage of 46%.

2. Derrick was still a rookie. Ben had not played with Derrick before, so a gelling process has to be taken into consideration. As the year progressed, he and Rose became significantly better as a duo than he and Kirk.

 

[Morten Jensen]

Diddy1122 wrote:

Gotta agree with Wjb on this one. Kirk is not a guy who looks for his own shot. I don't even know where you got that from.

Kirk does look for his shot. Quite a bit actually. When he's dribbling around on the perimeter burning clock, he often ignores players coming off the screen, and instead tries to shoot off a pick himself. So I don't really know where you get the idea of him not being a shot-taker from. Because he is. He's still a PG, yes. I don't deny this. But let's not pretend he's the most unselfish player here. He's actively looking for shots, and takes bad ones due to lack of shot clock management. If he wasn't looking for his own shot, he'd give up the ball. Even Ben does that.

And don't take just this season as an example, because Vinny told Kirk to be aggressive and look for his shot because they needed a scoring punch off the bench.

Vinny also thought it'd be a good idea to put Derrick Rose on Paul Pierce at times during the series. But yes, he did ask Kirk to be more aggresive. Considering he came in with fresh legs and over the course of the first month took good shots, he was well in his right to say it. But good shots turned to mediocre shots. Mediocre shots turned to questionable. His assist rate per 36 minutes were at an all-time low (5.3) by a considerable margin. Despite the fact that he took over ballhandling duties even with Derrick in the game.

And there's really no comparison between Vinny's offensive style and Skiles', because Skiles actually has a style. Vinny has a freestyle system that relies heavily on pick-n-rolls, and iso situations, not particularly inducive to high assist totals. Skiles system revolves around constant moving and screening, with the ball swinging from one side to the other for an open shot, so it's not always the PG getting the assist on the play.

You're right and also wrong.

In Skiles' system, the PG was still the one with final say. Even with good ball-movement. Kirk often touched the ball last and sent it to Deng or Gordon coming off base-line screens. Because of that, his assist rate was inflated some. Duhon's too. Skiles focussed on PG play a lot, and incorporated this into a ball-movement offense. Even when Kirk and Chris played on the court together, they basically both played PG. Kirk didn't move much off the ball, and still dominated it at times.

I will agree that Derrick is far more creative, and is extremely unselfish, sometimes to a fault, but I in no way feel that Kirk is not a distributor. All the stats and everything I have seen him do the past 6 seasons tells me otherwise.

I just don't agree. Hinrich in my eyes is not someone who succesfully can go out there and deliver crisp passes. He just can't. Even if he wanted to. He makes some of the most simple assists in the world and is too conservative with the ball. He doesn't take chances, and would rather over-dribble or look for his own jumper than gamble on a play. Sometimes you need to gamble, and Derrick does this well.

A distributor in my eyes is one who is aggresively and active in looking to get the ball into the hands of scores. Kirk passes it around, but never seems to comprehend the fact that he has options around him. In this high-paced offense this year, he had a career-low assist rate. Even after he basically took over ball-handling duties over Rose when on the court together - Making Rose another offensive option, by the way!

Kirk, in my eyes at least, looks more and more like a half-court player to me. Someone who can't think on the go and make quick decisions. Because of this, he won't be succesful here in the long run.

 

[Morten Jensen]

The stats are somewhat flawed though. Derrick played 81 games at a 37 minute rate. Kirk played 51 at a 26 minute rate. The volume of extra minutes has an affect on the numbers, which obviously makes them only semi-accurate. Given that Kirk mostly matched up against second-units, he obviously had a higher succes rate.

I won't dismiss them entirely, but I also wouldn't use them in this aspect. Especially considering our bench improved significally with Brad Miller as well. You basically had two starting caliber players in Kirk and Brad playing against second stringers, whereas Derrick played against full-time starters.

 

[dougthonus]

Morten Jensen wrote:

I rarely see Kirk trying to set people up. No fault of his, as it's just not his game. His 6+ assists on his career does indicate otherwise, but he's always looked for his shot moreso than getting people in places where they can score. Keep in mind that Kirk handled the ball extremely much under Skiles and had a lot of his assists on simple passes to Ben or Luol on the wings and mid-range area. Derrick is far more creative and is aggresively trying to set up his teammates. Kirk is not that way.

I'd disagree with the assertion that Rose is really any better a distributor than Hinrich. I don't think either of them are great court vision guys, nor do I think either of them are selfish. Both look to get their teammates involved, but you don't see either setting up their teammates for lots of wide open shots.

Rose improved in that area as the season went on though. I think Hinrich makes lots of passes to guys in position for them to score without breaking down the defense though, he's good at getting Gordon coming off the back screen at just the right time and things like that more so than he is at driving and creating something in the lane.

Hinrich seemed better to me at getting the ball to guys on the team in positions they liked to start their offense than Rose did. While Rose had the advantage of drawing a buttload of defensive attention and then being able to find an open guy when the season went on.