Based on data available at hoopdata.com, through November 12 games, there are 62 shooting guards averaging ten or more minutes per game. Of those, Dion:
Making 50% at the rim against OKC
- Takes the thirteenth most shots at the rim per forty minutes (4.5). Of all shooting guards who have made more than one such shot, he has been assisted on the fourth lowest percentage. He gets the ball to the basket. Unfortunately though, he converts a poor 50%, approximately 15% below NBA average this season. Kyrie struggled similarly early last season, and that turned out allright, so hopefully this tide also shifts for Waiters.
- He jacks the nineteenth highest number of long-twos per forty (4.3), while nailing a robust 48%. This is 10% higher than current league average for SGs. These are the least efficient shots in the game, and ideally Dion learns this and quits showing a propensity for them.
- From three, he hoists frequently (6.5 per 40, 19th for SGs), and makes them at a ridiculous rate of 53%.
- He is only shooting 0.18 free throws per field goal attempt. This is below average for a shooting guard. His foul shooting of 60% sits well under the 75% from his two collegiate seasons.
Clearly the shooting from deep is unsustainable, but if everything else also ‘normalizes’, how does his production look for the first seven games? Well…
- For a guy attacking the basket reasonably often, I will assume his ability to draw fouls eventually regresses to the league-mean. If he also drained three-quarters of his freebies; that adds six points through his first seven games.
- If his shooting at the rim was only slightly below league average for an SG (59% compared to 65%), he makes two more field goals. So, four more points.
- If his shooting on long twos reduced to 43% (compared to 38% average), he only loses one bucket over the first two weeks.
- The huge aberration is the three point shooting. If his shooting from deep approached his collegiate level of 37%, he makes five less to date, or a 15-point reduction.
By subtracting seven total points and adding five more free throw attempts to his current seasonal output; his true shooting calculates as 54.4% – exactly league average for a shooting guard. That would rank 23rd of the 62 players, while using a relatively high distribution of possessions (19th most).
For what it’s worth, this occurred against a tough schedule. The defensive ratings of the Cavs opponents to date are: 2nd, 5th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 16th, and 26th. The team already braved a west-coast road trip, yet maintains a non-horrid offense (20th of 30 teams). Softer defenses should be forthcoming.
Overall, it is very reasonable to expect Dion to regress, but if he finishes with league average true shooting, high-usage, and an assist-to-turnover ratio above one; I will be thrilled. Performance to that degree from a pair of 20-year-old guards exceeds all expectations.
I do hope Waiters takes his conditioning seriously, hires a nutritionist, etc. A sleek Dion, moving a split-second faster and jumping a hair higher would be awesome. Work on this, young man. Your body is your temple, and if you do this right, a long NBA career, two max-contracts, etc, can be yours.
(Also, see my Part 1 article below on the Cleveland bench.)
I don’t know, this seems skewed to make him look worse than he is. Is he really “jacking up” long twos and threes when he’s making tons of them?
I agree that the long shooting isn’t sustainable, but when a player is making them, of course he should continue to shoot them until he cools off. Like Irving, it seems that when he is shooting well from the outside he should continue to shoot from the outside. The key is when he isn’t that he is able to get to the basket. Like Irving, he also seems to be able to get to the basket when he wants to.
He’s been great.
Good stuff Kevin, thanks. It’s good to think of what his numbers would likely look like with a larger sample. Whats been impressive and exciting is that he has the confidence to take these tough shots and has been knocking them down. Hopefully he’ll attack more often and stop taking 20 footers with 20 seconds on the shot-clock, but I’d rather have him be overly aggressive and have to reign him in than have him be passive and be talking about lighting a spark.
Cols714,
I just like to vary my verbage selection (as best I can…my vocab is limited). He is taking alot of long twos and threes, but he is a really good shot maker. His percentages will get worse from there though.
The main point of the article is that even when the shooting cools, it is reasonable to expect him to maintain a solid level of production due to current underperformance in other areas.
Off topic
Is Mike Brown the worst coach ever? He has had seasons coaching LeBron, Kobe, and Howard and has pretty much nothing to show for it.
It’s pretty generous to say that he had “seasons” with Howard.
Not defending him, though.
Cols – I think the standard needs to be lowered a bit if “Nothing to show for it” means not winning a championship ring. Mike Brown won a lot games (and a lot of playoff games). He has a better resume in this regard than Stan Van Gundy who coached Wade and Shaq, and then Howard. And I think Van Gundy is a great coach. It’s really silly the way a championship is the be all end all determinant for someone’s worth when it’s such a collective effort. Erik Spoesltra went from way over his head to one of the premier coaches in the NBA because LeBron, Wade, Bosh, and a bunch of role players that caught fire at the right time beat a young team that crapped its pants after beating two other young teams that crapped their pants and a beat up Celtics team. Honestly I think fungus in a petrie dish could have coached that team given those opponents to a championship. The problem with Mike Brown is he’s not exciting and his teams aren’t offensively excited – and we all want the re-incarnation of the Showtime Lakers. So guys like Mike DAntoni and Don Nelson get a pass when their teams “have nothing to show for it” because they are exciting to watch. Also, firing someone 5 games in and saying “has nothing to show for” coaching Dwight Howard is ridiculous – so apologize right now. I won’t allow that kind of foolishness to exist on the internet.
His at the basket stats will go up. They were much better in the last two games, and he seems to have figured out some better attacking angles and methods. If he works on his left in the off-season, they’ll go up even more. His 3 point shooting will come back to earth, or he will be the greatest three point shooter of all time.
He’ll also get better at getting to the line and getting free throws. Part of it is just getting calls. I’ve seen him nailed on some plays and not get a call. He’s a rookie… I have to think his free throw shooting will/can go up too. There’s nothing about him that makes me think he can’t be at least an 80% shooter there.
As for the long twos, if he’s canning them he’s good. One thing on guys who shoot in “low efficiency” locations and shoot well, is that NBA defenses are designed to defend at the basket and the 3 and are designed to give up the low efficiency locations. If one can become a master of scoring in these locations, then they can change the offense and defense configurations in one’s favor. I believe that is one reason Rip Hamilton has been so effective for so long.
Nice stuff here, Kevin.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/03/06/mapping_the_nba_how_geography_can_teach_players_where_to_shoot.html
Mixed with
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/waitedi01/shooting/2013/
Paints a picture of Dion being a bit of a non-traditional scorer so far, which could be part of the reason he’s so hard to defend. He reminds me of Jamal Crawford, except Dion has a penchant for that left baseline 2-pointer (which he makes).
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/crawfja01/shooting/2013/
Mitch Kupchak and Jim Buss are lunatics who don’t know how to handle anything. Mike Brown was hamstrung. The Lakers lose because they can’t deal with the new NBA and its slew of quick, penetrating guards. So what do they do? They hire the worst defensive point guard in the league, and trade for a shotblocking center with a bad back. The Lakers offense isn’t why they can’t beat anyone, it’s their defense. The Princeton offense isn’t the problem. But they have to go all in on Nash and have to re-sign Howard, so they hire, Mike “my offense is my defense” D’Antoni.
Brown is not a horrible coach. He’s a better assistant than head coach, but he’s been successful. He’s also been put on teams that were horribly put together. First was the Cavs whose above average players were Mo Williams, Andy, Z, and Delonte West. West was a lunatic, and the bench of those teams were horrible. Now this Laker team which has Meta World “Please don’t shoot”, Kobe “if I’m not happy you’re all suffering” Bryant, Dwight “I’m not the player I was” Howard, Steve “el toro” Nash, and Pau “the most underrated player in the league, but I can’t be the best player on the team cause Kobe is a child” Gasol, and a pretty bad bench. So MB got to go sit at home and collect his paycheck. Hopefully in his next stop, he can get a GM who knows what he’s doing. That being said, I think he rubs superstars the wrong way and he can seem doofy yet aloof and inaccessible in a way that other coaches don’t, which is why he’s better served being an assistant. I think he’d make a good college coach too, but don’t know if he could do the recruiting.
Oh, and the residual karma from hosing the Zen master will doom this whole enterprise. I just hope they make the playoffs at this point. With the Lakers in the lottery, we’d lose their pick, and they’d probably get a top 3 from David “the fixer” Stern.
OK OK, throwing Howard in there was dumb; However I stand by my point that Mike Brown is not a good coach. Both the Lakers and the Cavs seemed to hate whatever kind of offense he wanted to run. Both star players, LeBron and Kobe didn’t seem to respect him all that much.
Nate you need to do “my middle name is” descriptions for every player in the league. It could be like Hollinger player profiles. I would pay for insider just to see that for 400 some odd players
I think they fired Mike Brown when they did, because the Lakers would have an easy schedule and a long homestand, so it would make the decision look good. That said, he may not have been a good choice for them.
D’Antoni’s teams regularly had around average defensive efficiency. They played at a super fast pace, so the games were high scoring. He’s not Thibodeau, but he’s not as terrible as people think either.
Anyways, enough about the Lakers. Excited to see Neon Dion take it to Brooklyn tonight!
Anyone else going to the Nets game tonight?
I think people have to re-adjust their take on Dion. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: he shot better from 3 last year than “greatest shooter EVAH” Brad Beal. Thorpe was on True Hoop TV saying Dion takes bad shots and then Dion goes and lights up PHX. Sure we can expect some regression to the mean but let’s also admit that many were wrong about Dion as a shooter. Period.
Btw, did you see him BLOW BY Westbrook the other day? It was the quickest move I’ve seen him make yet and gets me drooling thinking about how that part of his game is due to get better and better…
I think objectively judging coaches is ultimately a lost cause, especially if ‘ringzz’ is your ultimate criterion. They are just too tied up with the players available and the GM’s judgement. We’ll never know how much of Shaq and Jordan’s success was down to Phil Jackson, and how much of Jackson’s success was down to them – 70/30 split? 80/20? 99/1? Impossible to say. If Jackson had coached the bobcats last year, could he have done much better? Then the coaches that people seem to regularly put forward as excellent can have a few bad seasons in a bad location and be viewed as a joke. George Karl can’t handle basic rotations but still has a job. Kurt Rambis couldn’t recognise Kevin Love’s greatness despite all indicators – he’ll be hired somewhere again.
So much of coaching today’s NBA is having the respect of the players, and part of that is being a ‘big name’ coach. In essence, you are being hired and paid for your brand as well as your knowledge. One of the big knocks on Spoelstra was not that he didn’t have the requisite knowledge, Xs and Os, leadership, etc, but that the players knew he was just a video coordinator made good. Stupid really, but when you think about what a coach’s day to day jobs are, it starts to make sense. In that way, Mike Brown failed as a coach at times because he couldn’t manage the egos effectively, though he had some difficult ones to try to manage. He couldn’t project total calm and authority like somelike Jackson or Popovitch or Sloan can, and so panic began to show throw in the media message. It’s complicated, and I think so much of it is stupid, but I do understand why the Lakers fired him, even though he is actually probably a good ‘coach’ in the most technical sensel
Btw, one could only hope the rest of the sports media would take a page from Sam Amico’s play book on how to treat an evolving opinion on a draft pick. He didn’t love the pick and thought the Cavs reached (though there really is no such thing in a 2 rd draft. Stupid hangover stuff from the NFL draft where a team,most certainly, can reach. Yes, I’m looking at you, Browns, with your Richardson pick!) but watched closely Dion’s play in summer league, pre-season and the regular season and now has evolved into a big supporter of the pick and Dion as a player. Rightly so, I should say…
Isaac
Who says “ringzzz” is my criteria? Mike Brown coached two superstars. Both stars ended up not respecting or liking the system they were place in. So yeah, Mike Brown isn’t a good coach.
Maybe he’s a great defensive coach and should be an assistant. But I’d be pretty mad if my favorite team hired this joker again.
Kj
I agree 100% with what you said. Dion is great. It’s only because of the lack of pre-draft hype about him that people are still wary.
@Cols714
Not everything is about you, I wasn’t referring to your comment, but the general conversation. ‘RIngzz’ if anything was a jab at ESPN commenters and the like.
I’m going to the Nets game tonight.
Who wants to meet up for a celebratory beer after?
off topic but how did the browns “reach” on TRich? And how do you make that assessment now? The leading pick for the Browns was Blackmon. Right NOW he looks terrible. I think you say this because of Doug Martin’s relative success but the Browns weren’t picking him at #3.
back on topic. Dion will be fine. He has no choice but to do well given how little scoring anyone but KI can provide. Here is a stat line from an ex-Cav….20.6 ppg, 5.5 apg, 4.9 rpg, 75% FT. Who? Ricky Davis in 2002-3! I’m not comparing them directly as players just saying points have to come from someone other than Kyrie this year.
DaveR,
Ricky Davis was terribly inefficient at scoring and also turnover prone. Early indications are that Dion can score efficiently and also be a willing defender.
@DaveR
There is such a thing as value in the NFL draft due to it’s length, basically. There is no such thing as value in the NBA draft, really. Anyway, the last 8 years or so of the NFL has proven almost conclusively that you can find an above-average RB after the first 2 rounds. You certainly NEVER draft one as high as Richardson esp. since RB ‘s also have such short careers, on average. Furthermore, having a good-to-great RB doesn’t mean winning lots of games or advancing far in the playoffs (see the Giants of the last few years). And yes, Martin is eclipsing Richardson but so is rookie Alfred Morris of the Redskins. Check out where he was drafted. Then look at all the leading rushers in the last 8 years and see where they were drafted.
So, it is almost unequivocal that the Browns reached and did not get value at all with the Richadson pick.
No, the Browns didn’t reach for Richardson. He’s been fine. The real problem was not offering up enough to get Griffin. That’s the type of draft pick that they needed. Instead they can be happy with their draft, Richardson looks good and Weeden looks like he can improve to the point where if they get enough talent he should be just good enough.
The problem is that they had more draft picks to trade than the Redskins and they didn’t do it. Griffin looks like a star and a franchise altering type of player. It’s another missed opportunity for them.
@ Nate Smith how awesome would it be if Dion really did end up being a top 3 point threat? That would open up so many opportunities offensively for him.
Speaking strictly on value per pick, the Browns definitely reached. This is a QB’s game now – teams rarely have featured 3 down backs.
On the judgeing coaches thing. I agree its reallly hard to actually rank them becaue I think a coach like Pat Rielly or Phil Jackson would be terrible on a terrible team lke the bobctts where as I think that Mike brown probably could have gotten them 5 more wins. I think brown would be an excellent coach on a young bad team or even a fringe playoff team. He’s a very good regular season coach and defensive coach, and even regular season offensive offensive system coach for an average team. He struggles when he has to account for multiple players with special skills and defecincies (On the cavs he had only LBJ who also didn’t have defecines which is why he was ok with him and not with Kobe, Pau, and Bynum). This is also why he struggled in the playoff when its less about schemes and more about indivedual sets and mathups on both ends. I never the premier example of this was the magic series. However I bet he could get Detroit to the playoffs this year and that Jackson wouldn’t be able to. The problem for brown is teams in the NBA don’t want tis type of coach who makes bad tams mediocre and mediocre teams good. There are only 3 coaches in demand in the NBA Type 1) Coaches that can make good teams great. There are clearly different groups here, There are the Rick Carlisles and Larry Browns who do it by getting coachable motivated players and deveoping great schemes , sets and matchups. Group B is Eric Spolestra Phil Jackson who do it via star mangement. My examples make clear the different style types but the result is the same. Group C is Doc Rivers and Popavich who alredy have a coachable star but mange the supporting cast and create better schemes and sets. Its the Hybrid in my opinion.
Type 2 is Don Nelson, Gentry, D’Antoni (as of now, clearly the lakers have higer hopes) Create an entertaining product and hopefully get to the 2nd round of the playoffs.
Type 3 develop talent while losing without letting the young players give up. Byron Scott is the 1 3 hybrid
@ Nate. I completely agree. The long 2 was turned Dirk into a supersatr. If he can continue to shoot +45 he turns the infamous long 2 into a weapon
Everything I could find on Dion suggested an incredible efficiency to his game and an uncanny ability to shoot off the bounce. Not just 2 dribble pull-up ala Jason Terry either. He consistently makes shots off a live dribble. Since that is customarily a difficult shot for most people, and Dion’s off hand on this J makes him look a bit goofy, people assume he has just been getting lucky and making “bad shots.” But they might not actually be awful for him. Of course I don’t expect him to continue shooting 50plus% from 3, but considering his unique ability and the fact that his catch and shoot opportunities are WIDE open, I expect him to finish the season at 40% or so.
His footwork in the Pick and Roll is beautiful. He passes either direction with relative ease, his finishing ability is already on the up-tick And he plays D! He has been a revelation. We should be thrilled by his performance, even if he had been the top overall pick. (obviously in draft not featuring A Davis, but you get my point.)
As a long time defender of Mike Brown, my only real criticism is that he isn’t a strong, somewhat cocky leader like Phil, Pop, or Mike Tomlin for example. If Brown were the coach of a team that didn’t feature an all-time great, he would get them to play a brand of basketball that would suffocate opponents and he would in the running for coach of the year on a regular basis. He didn’t win a title with LeBron because LeBron wasn’t ready to play “boring Tim Duncan” style basketball, regardless of its correlation with winning. Yes, some of that can be blamed on Brown’s inability as a leader to properly convince LeBron, but really, how many guys could have? This Lakers situation is beyond ridiculous.
Expecting an old Kobe, ancient and injured Nash, injured Howard, old Metta, and an all-time awful defender in Jamison to magically turn into a defensive juggernaut right off the bat is silly. If they didn’t want Brown, they should have fired him in the off-season. The fact that Phil Jackson was spurned for D’antoni can only add credence to our notion of Buss’s stupidity. They can still win a championship this season, but they could have with Brown as well.
Depending on how the Hawk’s season turns out, we could see Brown in Atlanta with Ferry soon.
Great stuff on Dion, Ben!
Ben,
I am certainly a Dion fan and think he is capable of big things, but you are practicing some hyperbole. 40% three point shooting is the realm of three point marksman. Daniel Gibson is a career 41% shooter. Kevin Durant and James Harden are really good high-usage shooters, and they both fall around 36 – 37% for their careers. That is an awesome percentage for a large volume guy; if Dion actually shoots 40%, that will be outstanding. As far as his finishing, at the rim he was 5 of 10 over his first three games and 6 of 12 over his last four. That is identical – not an uptrend. I was impressed by his assist rates as a prospect, but regarding his passing with relative ease, I wish to see more than his first 15 assists (only 4 of which were at the rim, which per 40 minutes ranks 36th of the 62 SGs).
Dion has been a hugely pleasant part of this early season, but there is no need to exaggerate it.