Penetration Enervation

[kucoach7]

Fresh off a conference finals exit in 2011, the Denver Nuggets traded for 5 time all-star veteran guard Dwyane Wade. The previous season, Wade had scored 15.5 points a game in only 28 minutes per game for the struggling Raptors, shooting 53% from the floor. D-Wade averaged 1.44 points per shot, which was amazingly a down year for him.

"Dwyane was good at what he did," remembers Toronto teammate Andrew Bynum. " He got to the hoop and finished. If he didn't finish, it was probably because he got fouled and he was a pretty decent foul shooter."

Indeed, Dwyane made 78% of his free throws that year and may have made the All-star team again if he had been playing for a better team. The feeling in Denver was that they had landed the guy they needed to return to the finals.

"I thought we had our guy. Pairing him with Rondo and Klay was a dream. We were going to blow teams out of the water," notes GM The Syndicate (The Syndicate was not actually interviewed for this article). But what the Nuggets got was something totally different.

Thomas Robinson was a rookie on that team. "I remember everyone telling me. Tom, watch D-Wade. Watch how he finishes. You can learn a lot about how to score at the rim from this guy. I knew my stuff. I'd seen him play. I expected they were right. I would learn a lot about scoring at the rim from Dwyane. When I showed up to camp though, there's Dwyane, All-Star, king of getting to the basket, just barfing up jump shots on every possession. I was like, man, who is this guy?"

In 2010, Wade shot the ball inside 6.3 times per game in limited minutes, making 68% of them. In previous years he had taken up to 8.3 inside shots per game. In 2009 he averaged just 3 such attempts per game. And as he stopped attacking the basket. He stopped getting to the free throw line. His free throws per game dropped from 7.7 to 4.9 to 2.1 over the course of three years. Dwyane's field goal percentage, plummeted to 40%. His points per shot fell to 0.98

"It was a disaster for Dwyane. It was a disaster for our organization," laments The Syndicate.

Why revisit D-Wade's experience now? Well, once again one of our league's brightest stars is going through the same struggles. When Derrick Rose last played for the Trailblazers, he attacked the rim with reckless abandon, averaging 9.5 shots at the rim per game. He was so fierce, he got to the line almost as much, averaging 9.4 free throws per game. Like Wade before him, Rose was a hyper-efficient scorer, averaging 1.4 points per shot. With the aggressive penetration, came turnovers. Rose turned the ball over 3.7 times a game, posting a assist to turnover ratio of 2.49. This year, though has been a completely different story.

"I don't know, man. I just can't get tot the hoop like I used to so I'm like, I can shoot. I got a jumper. So I pull the trigger," says Rose of his play this year.

Pulling the trigger is a pretty accurate summary of the way Rose is playing this year. He is launching 11.9 jump shots and 7.5 threes a game, up from 6.9 and 4.1 a game just two years ago. Meanwhile he is averaging only 2.6 inside shots and 3 free throws a game.

"It has been a shock to be honest," says coach Toni Kukoc. "I have coached Derrick since his rookie year and when he came in this year I dreamed of defenses collapsing as Derrick drove and kick outs for wide open threes by CJ and Jeremy. I didn't expect this."

The results have been similar as those produced by Wade in his return to the Nuggets. Rose is posting career lows in field goal percentage and points per shots. But there have been some positive side effects. As D-Rose has stopped attacking the basket, the turnovers have mostly disappeared. He is averaging only 1.9 turnovers per game. His previous best mark was 2.8. This means his assist to turnover ration has skyrocketed to an absurd 5.75.

"It's a new me. It's a new game," claims Rose. "I'm putting up my best offensive year by some measures. I mean, I've been player of the week three times already this season."

Rose is right. His offensive efficiency is at a career high of 113.5, thanks in no small part to his running mate, CJ McCollum.

"We're a good team. Jump shots and threes are definitely my thing but I don't mind if he's getting in the mix. It's exciting," CJ claims.

But what happened to D-Rose and D-Wade, that caused this radical change in their careers. To answer that, we're going to dig deeper into PBSL history and visit the great Robert Pack.

"Yeah man, Robot was like Rose but he played defense," jabs Chris Webber, long-time teammate of Pack. "He could get to the hoop, draw fouls, he could do it all."

Looking back on Robot's stats we see a similar phenomenon. In 1997 Pack averaged 7 inside shots, 5.7 free throws, and 4.9 jump shots per game. Those numbers in 1998? 2.5, 2.8, and 8. The effect on his points per shot? A drop from 1.25 to 1.03. His assist to turnover ratio sprung up from 2.7 to 3.8.

"I turned 30 that offseason. Everyone knows the cliff is at 31 but for me, 30 changed my game," remember Pack. Pack would not make another All-star game after turning 30.

So what changed for these players? What was it that stopped them from getting inside like they used to? The answer is not in their inside scoring attribute. Derrick Rose still has a 100 and Pack's nor Wade's dropped at all in their transformational years. The answer is in their athleticism. These three players, while all great, were different athletically. Rose and Pack as point guards were gifted with much more quickness and much less strength than Wade. Where they all align closely is in jumping. Rose's jumping has fallen precipitously with his inside shooting, from 79 to 75 to 71. Wade dropped from 77 to 71 in one year. Pack's fall was even greater from 80 to 72.

"These guys still have elite hops," notes sevenfortyseven's Nathan Sliver, "but there appears to be a threshhold somewhere in the 70's at which point you cannot penetrate anymore. Based on Rose's three season decline, it may more accurately be described as a steep gradient. In your jumping is in the high 70's you can get to the hoop. If it's in the low 70's you can't, at least if you're a guard anyway. There may be other unobserved player attributes at work here though. When you look at a couple guys like Van Exel and Bonzi Wells, those guys could never jump but they still got to the rim alright. It will be interesting to watch Russ Westbrook over the next few years to see if he follows the same path as Wade because he has a pitiful jumper like Wade had/has. It looks like he still has a few years left on the clock though because he is such a prolific jumper."

The jury is still out on whether this jumping phenomenon is real but Derrick Rose doesn't care. "I'm just trying to win a championship in Portland and that means doing whatever I can with with whatever I have left in the tank to win basketball games."

[JNR]

Excellent article!

[TheSyndicate]

I thought this was going to be something else. But I like it anyway.

[Darth Vegito]

I thought this was going to be something else. But I like it anyway.

Me too! I saw the word "penetration" and my mind went straight to the gutter

[kucoach7]

I thought this was going to be something else. But I like it anyway.

Me too! I saw the word "penetration" and my mind went straight to the gutter

Click bait ftw

[ballsohard]

You may claim 5 points!