After the Phoenix Mercury’s 100-82 victory over the Atlanta Dream on Saturday, Phoenix Stan declared Mercury forward DeWanna Bonner Rookie of the Year.
Before you dismiss Stan as a biased Mercury writer, the argument he lays out in favor of Bonner over Dream forward Angel McCoughtry is quite strong, especially the part about consistency. After all – and forgive me for being so semantic – but the award is for the Rookie of the Year, not Rookie of the Post-All-Star Break or Rookie of the Future. The year, as in this year.
For most of the season, I have argued something similar – that although McCoughtry strikes me as the more player with more star potential, Bonner is clearly the most productive rookie in the league, if for no other reason than her style of play fits perfectly with the Mercury’s style.
However, over the last month or so, that claim has been proven wrong – these are both very productive, very talented players, with bright futures, that are best compared as “different” rather than judging one as superior. And of course, the award is irrelevant to the young players themselves, as reported by Stan – all they care about is winning (which I suppose is a shame because if one of them didn’t care about winning it would be quite easy to choose between the two of them).
But even if they don’t care, I do. We (fans) do.
As such, I first want to modify the consistency argument that some people have made – statistically, McCoughtry has been right behind Bonner for most of the season. Bonner has maintained a pretty firm grasp of the #1 spot, but McCoughtry has been the clear #2 by any reasonable basketball standard for the majority of the season.
So given that, it probably should come as no surprise that the numbers reveal something different after McCoughtry’s consecutive Rookie of the Month awards: Bonner and McCoughtry are almost even now based on the framework of analysis I have used for rookies this season.
That pretty much negates the consistency argument – even if McCoughtry was not great during the first half of the season, the fact that she has drawn even with (or arguably surpassed) Bonner statistically means one of the following:
a) Bonner’s rate of production has declined, as McCoughtry’s minutes increased
b) McCoughtry has made up statistical ground so rapidly that she must be the superior player, or
c) Both.
With the consistency piece negated, it becomes much more difficult to determine who should win Rookie of the Year. WNBA.com makes an unconvincing argument for McCoughtry by citing one game, which is insufficient because the award is for performance for the duration of the season.
Most of the performance metrics – Efficiency, Tendex, and Model Estimated Value (I don’t have PER or WARP) – are too close to make a clear assessment. So it will probably come down to each individual voter selecting the person they just like better.
Nevertheless, I want to find an argument that goes beyond merely arbitrary. In doing so, I think there might be another variable that points to a resolution – since both of these players have been reserves for most of the season, they are also eligible for the Sixth Woman award.
As such, is it possible that one should win the Sixth Woman of the Year award and the other the Rookie of the Year award? I say yes.
The rookie ranking standard
In evaluating rookies this season, I’ve used the following standard for analysis based upon observation and the statistical work of others:
The best rookies can create their own scoring opportunities – and do so efficiently – while contributing to a team’s success.
As such, I’ve used a combination of three statistics – usage rate (the rate at which a player creates plays for themselves), Chaiken efficiency ratio (the ratio of scoring plays a player is individually responsible for vs. turnovers and missed shots), and Boxscores (a player’s individual to team wins).
As it has been for months now, Bonner and McCoughtry have been the only two rookies to rank in the top tier of the league in all three statistical categories. Just to establish the significance of that accomplishment, there are only 15 players – All-Stars and MVP candidates -- in the entire league who share that distinction. It makes it an impressive standard by which to judge rookies.
The numbers are as follows:
Bonner
Usage: 22.07
Chaiken Efficiency Ratio: 2.65
Boxscores: 2.79
McCoughtry
Usage: 26.77
Chaiken Efficiency Ratio: 2.07
Boxscores: 2.39
While Bonner is slightly more efficient and contributed slightly more to her team’s success, McCoughtry is more effective at creating plays for herself.
And the latter point about McCoughtry is what swings my opinion in favor of McCoughtry: she’s a playmaker, while Bonner is still primarily a player who is dependent on the players around her to set her up.
Although Bonner has a much higher offensive rebounding rate (20% to McCoughtry’s 7%) and free throw rate (44.9% to McCoughtry’s 30%), McCoughtry has a much higher assist rate (13.4% to Bonner’s 3%) and slightly higher 2 point percentage. McCoughtry is often heralded as the better all-around defender, but Bonner is an improving help defender and that’s extremely valuable in the Mercury’s defensive scheme.
Yes, Bonner’s playmaking ability has improved, but McCoughtry is clearly the better playmaker. Or to put it in Jeopardy terms, McCoughtry is probably the answer to the question, “Which rookie would you want to have the ball in her hands at the end of a game?” McCoughtry is that type of player that can create plays for herself and others when her team needs it.
McCoughtry has demonstrated the ability to take over games in addition to putting up statistics almost equivalent to those of Bonner.
Although the Dream have only gone 3-4 with McCoughtry replacing forward Chamique Holdsclaw in the lineup over the last 7 games, it’s worth nothing that 5 of those games were road games and the losses were to Los Angeles, Phoenix, Detroit, and Seattle – teams that were all hot when the Dream encountered them.
So when we consider which rookie is better, yes, it’s worth considering which rookie has demonstrated the ability to clearly dominate a game and carry her team to victory. It’s an intangible that we cannot measure statistically, but I think we have to agree that McCoughtry has more of “it” however you want to define that “It Factor”.
Conclusion: McCoughtry as ROY, Bonner as SWOY
But with these two players being the best two reserves by my rookie standard -- which is really just a playmaking ability standard – I think it’s fair to say that one of them is probably the Sixth Woman of the Year as well.
That is Bonner.
The reason is simple and less arbitrary than merely finding a way to reward Bonner for what she’s done. If we consider that the bulk of McCoughtry’s production this season has been as a starter, then it’s easy to claim that Bonner has been the better reserve. She has consistently brought more off the bench than any player in the league, while McCoughtry has emerged as clearly the most dominant rookie starter.
So yeah, ultimately that does look like a compromise, but I think it’s the reasonable way to go.
Here’s my ranking of the rest of the rookies, with statistical backing:
3. Shavonte Zellous
I really like Zellous’ game and over the course of the season her shot selection has improved and she looks like she’s playing much more under control as the Shock have settled into life after Bill. Statistically, she’s also the third best defender behind Bonner and McCoughtry. As has been the case all season, she still gets to the free throw line at a higher rate than anyone else in the league. If she can work on her playmaking ability in the offseason, she’ll be a dynamic second year player.
4. Anete Jekabsone-Zogota
The consistency argument in comparison to Zellous (and defensive ability) is what has Jekabsone in the 4th spot as opposed to #3. But in terms of offensive ability, she is probably one of the most well rounded and polished rookies of any. She doesn’t have the same type of game-changing ability that McCoughtry does, but on the other hand there isn’t much she cannot do.
5. Renee Montgomery
Montgomery is not the best rookie point guard in terms of making plays for others, but she is by far the most dynamic rookie point guard with her ball handling ability and ability to take opponents off the dribble, as evidenced by her top tier 2 point percentage.
Second Team/Honorable mention:
6. Briann January
(I’m partial to point guards, but she has demonstrated ability to lead her team as well as any other rookie)
7. Courtney Paris
(needs more post moves, but still one of the best rebounders in the league)
8. Quanitra Hollingsworth
(among the best rebounders in the league and working on scoring ability)
9. Shalee Lehning
(the only way you could argue against her being among the top rookies is if you are drinking a large glass of haterade. Even by the rather weak standard of EFF, available at WNBA.com, she’s #9. I could say more, but I think I’ve made the point by now).
10. Kristi Toliver
(if she played more…I would put her higher. But this is not a judgment of talent, but production)
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Rookie Rankings: A Resolution for the ROY Debate
Toliver Helps Sky to Victory: "Sometimes as a Young Player All You Want is a Chance."
After hitting a free throw with 7:11 left in the fourth quarter to increase her career high scoring to 24, Chicago Sky rookie point guard Kristi Toliver stood at the free throw line with a huge grin.
It was hard to say what exactly she was grinning at because it looked like she was grinning in response to someone off camera.
So let me recklessly read into her grin a little: it had to be a relief to play so well after recording a DNP-CD in Los Angeles against the Sparks.
Toliver finished the game with a career-high 25 points, going 5-8 from the three point line, and played a key role in a huge 21-4 run that propelled the Sky to a 96-77 victory over the New York Liberty.
In a way, I suppose you could say it was a "boring" 25 points. As the commentators discussed entering the fourth quarter, a number of those shots were literally loose balls falling into her hands and her shooting almost indiscriminately over the outstretched arms of defenders.
But even in seeming like one of the most accidental 25 point performances the league has seen, her shot is just so beautiful. Her shot looks almost effortless and has an almost perfect arc before falling softly through the net. Dare I say she has one of the prettiest jump shots in the WNBA?
During the third quarter, as New York Liberty rookie post player Kia Vaughn was on a roll on her way to her own career-high 12 points, Mary Murphy said, "Sometimes as a young player all you want is a chance." And really, the statement seems to apply more directly Toliver than Vaughn, who has not had as many explosive performances during her rookie campaign.
It's hard not to wonder sometimes if Kristi Toliver has truly gotten a chance to have the rookie season people expected of her when she was drafted #3 in the 2009 WNBA draft. Of course there might be reasons for that which are beyond the reach of us outside observers.
But the strange thing is that aside from a turnover problem that's no longer any worse than her rookie point guard counterparts who are receiving a lot more playing time, Toliver has performed well in spurts when she enters the game. In fact, she has arguably outperformed teammates who take her time.
If the Sky had firmly secured a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference or at the very least shown consistent play this season, perhaps this would be a non-issue. However, as things stand now, it's difficult to make sense of the situation in Chicago.
Talent-wise, there's no reason Chicago should not be a playoff team. The fact that they're not should raise questions. If everyone who watches the team is perpetually wondering what the *bleep* are they doing?, then perhaps there's reason to believe things aren't quite right.
I would have remained silent on the Sky because...well...they defy explanation moreso than any team I've watched this season. It's not like the Sacramento Monarchs who are aging and injured or the Liberty who seem to be a poorly constructed and managed team. This team has too much talent to not be in a better position.
And Candace Dupree's comments to the media the other day don't exactly help assuage doubts
"I just feel like people have no motivation, Dupree said. "This is the first time in franchise history we could potentially make the playoffs and I don't feel like everybody plays like that every night. We've got to pick it up."
Doesn't that sound like a red flag that something really is not quite right with this team?
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Point Guard Rankings (New & Improved!): Harding, Quinn Recovering Nicely from Minnesota Sophomore Slumps
When the Washington Mystics face the Los Angeles Sparks tonight in Los Angeles it will include a match-up of two former Minnesota Lynx point guard teammates who are enjoying career years in their third season on new teams.
Last year, Mystics point guard Lindsey Harding and Sparks point guard Noelle Quinn split point guard duties in Minnesota and both experienced drop-offs in production from their rookie year in 2007. Both were among the worst shooters at the point guard position and both seemed to struggle coming up with consistent performances on the Lynx.
So perhaps sometimes a change of scenery is all that is needed.
Clearly, the similarities between these players only exists at the broadest level of analysis – not only are they very different types of point guards, but by any reasonable standard, Harding is by far the better player. Harding was a strong Rookie of the Year candidate in 2007 and a fringe All-Star this year.
Harding’s numbers are up across the board and combined with the athleticism that was previously limited due to injury – one commentator recently said it looks like she’s on ice skates on the fast break compared to everyone else – she has arguably been the best point guard in the East.
In contrast, Quinn is on the opposite end of the point guard spectrum. She has typically been the most basic of point guards, one that merely gets the ball over half court and initiates the offense.
But this season, Quinn has been much more than that for the point guard-starved Sparks. She has come up huge in fourth quarters (and overtimes) for the Sparks attacking the rim and loosening up defenses to give her four Olympian teammates room to operate.
Quinn is definitely not having an All-Star caliber season, definitely not the leader of her team, and she isn’t starting. But she has a role on the Sparks and she has fit it well.
Not too long after the Los Angeles Sparks traded for point guard Noelle Quinn, I asked the following question:
Which Noelle Quinn will the Sparks get – the one that was a rather efficient distributor in 2007 or the one that was a marginal initiator in 2008?
My thinking was that the Sparks were a great fit for Quinn because she would be able to fill a role that matches her capabilities and wouldn’t be expected to do anything beyond that given the number of talented players around her.
Really, that line of reasoning applies to both Quinn and Harding – Harding is playing a system and under a coach that seem to maximize her capabilities.
Honestly, Harding's whole mindset seems to have changed this year – last year she appeared to be much more focused on her own scoring -- and while it’s hard to account for that, it’s obvious that the 2009 Mystics are a much better fit for her than the 2008 Lynx.
Ultimately, when evaluating point guards it’s helpful to consider the context – what the player has demonstrated they are capable of and what role they fit on a team. If being a point guard is more than just creating assists, but making decisions that make teammates better and helping the team win, then the structure within which those decisions occur is important.
So these latest point guard rankings – my ongoing obsession – are an attempt to do all of that: evaluate decision making within the roles players fill, and how much they’re able to contribute to their teams. Coincidentally, it was Harding and Quinn that gave me the hardest time in the process.
Moving beyond the statistics…but keeping them close to my heart…
In my past rankings, I’ve just taken the critical statistical categories, ranked each point guard (and others who fill the lead guard role) and just added up the points.
However, that seemed to contradict my argument about point guard styles – if each player is different, then how could I possibly argue that I could judge them on one blanket standard?
For example, I fully admit that comparing Phoenix Mercury guard Temeka Johnson’s assist rate – the percentage of plays she makes that end in an assist – to Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird’s assist rate is unfair.
Bird is a point guard that also assumes a large portion of the Storm’s scoring burden and that’s because she is the better shooter and craftier scorer. Therefore, Johnson’s plays end in assists more often simply because she’s not asked to do other things as much.
But that’s hardly a knock on Johnson or a claim that she should do more. It’s just an argument that most knowledgeable sports fans are already familiar with: the numbers describe a fragment of the story, but don’t necessarily explain the entire story.
So what is to be done?
Bob Corwin of Full Court Press suggested I weight numbers. However, that still assumes that some point guard traits are more valuable than others, which I don’t think is always true. As Bird said in response to the suggestion that she is the best point guard in the world, part of being a good point guard is understanding “what’s needed and when”.
However, that does provide some guidance – it is fair to say that some styles of point guard objectively do more than others, not just do things differently.
Last week I revisited the point guard styles I created last year defining five types of point guard – initiator, distributor, facilitator, scorer, and combo guard. And if you look at how I defined those there is a clear hierarchy although each one of those styles can be effective within the right system.
For example, having a player that can create scoring opportunities for others is probably objectively a more skilled player than one whose limit is bringing the ball across half-court and initiating the offense. And I can also say that a player who’s able to balance scoring and creating for others is better than almost any other type of point guard.
So by looking at a) the relative quality of each point guard within their style, b) comparing players across styles, and c) looking at the influence of each player on the game given their style, I think I can find a more reasonable way to rank point guards.
So which players fit which styles? And then what?
I fit players into styles and ranked them based on four criteria:
1) Using the point guard styles framework described last week to categorize the league’s point guards and rank them based on their relative ability within those styles.
2) Using the previous framework for evaluating point guards – which evaluated players on the ability to distribute, score, and impact the game – as it applies to their style. So for example, in looking at distributors, I evaluated them primarily on their distributor statistics whereas I looked more at scoring statistics to rank scorers…and for combo guards I looked at both. I looked at their game impact of each style.
3) Using a standard that I drew from the rookie evaluation framework – a player’s ability to make plays (usage %) for their team efficiently (Chaiken scoring efficiency) while contributing to wins (Boxscores).
4) Defense: it matters. So I took that into account using a combination of observation and some numbers I’ve been playing with.
Yes, this is not exactly an example of statistical parsimony, but the constellation of statistics helps to describe overarching patterns in a player’s game and make arguments about why one player is better than another. In addition, there’s a much more subjective quality this time – I am looking at what the statistics describe and making judgments rather than allowing the numbers to explain themselves.
And another change – although I think players like Jia Perkins, Cappie Pondexter, and Tanisha Wright are very effective lead guards, the reality is that they are not usually the primary ball handlers when they are on the court. So I decided not to include them in the rankings, though all three of them compare very favorably to the players below, which is a testament to their quality as players.
So don’t fear math phobes – I actually did not rely entirely on the statistics to make my arguments. It’s just a way to complement my own observations/biases and describe each point guard’s play in terms that allow for comparisons.
The Rankings:
10. Noelle Quinn, Los Angeles Sparks – Initiator: Trust me this one strikes me as odd too. But the fact is, Quinn is having the best season of any initiator in the league. And when you compare her impact on the game to the lower tier of distributors or even combo guards who just don’t do anything particularly well, it’s easy to make the argument for her in this spot.
Quinn has emerged as a strong fourth quarter scorer for the Sparks recently, but overall she is more of an initiator who brings the ball up and passes it off. While her Sparks teammates are a large part of that, she actually fell in the initator category last year.
What sets her apart from the rest of the players in my mind are two things: scoring efficiency and defense. Quinn has the best two point percentage of the group and among the best efficiency ratios of the entire league.
9. Ticha Penicheiro, Sacramento Monarchs -- Distributor: She’s arguably the best point guard in WNBA history. And it’s hard not to include Penicheiro on the list even though her career is on the decline and I have to admit a major reason she’s here is that I’m biased: she’s the first WNBA player I ever saw play in person and I fell in love with her game.
However, as a distributor she’s still performing well and has one of the highest pure point ratings of any point guard. But what makes Penicheiro especially valuable as a distributor is that she is still one of the best ball handlers in the league and has the ability to penetrate and find open teammates. Her free throw rate is among the top third of the league and is by far the best of any other point guard that fits the distributor category.
8. Kristi Harrower, Los Angeles Sparks – Distributor: I know Sparks fans are not particularly fond of Harrower, but she’s really having a solid year in terms of distributing the ball from the point guard position.
The key to Harrower’s game is that she’s efficient – she doesn’t take a whole lot of risks (she has the second lowest turnover percentage among point guards) and makes solid decisions with the ball (highest pure point rating in the WNBA).
She is not the quickest, the best ball-handler, or the greatest defender. But in terms of a player who is able to bring the ball up the court and find players open for scoring opportunities she’s solid. And a team like the Sparks – which is already overflowing with talent – does not need a whole lot more than that.
If you were picking players based on reputation or overall talent, you might take Penicheiro over Harrower. However if you’re judging Harrower on performance within the Sparks system this season, there are not many point guards having a better season.
7. Loree Moore, New York Liberty – Distributor: Moore is not a player that immediately jumps to mind when I think about the league’s best point guards, but she’s having a solid year, on both ends of the ball. I’ll borrow a comment from Liberty forward Shameeka Christon from after their recent victory over the Sparks:"Loree Moore was the difference in the second half for us,'' Christon said. "She pushed the ball for us in transition which led to easy baskets which we needed. She was also everywhere on defense. She stepped up big for us.''
She is one of the better defensive point guards in the league and that means that she is not only facilitating offense for her teammates, but also disrupting the offense for opponents. She does a little bit of everything, but seems to disappear for long stretches of time. And unfortunately, her high turnover percentage limit her effectiveness as a distributor.
6. Tully Bevilaqua, Indiana Fever – Distributor: Bevilaqua was not even supposed to be the starter for the Fever this season but has ended up having one of the best seasons of any point guard in the league. She is still one of the best defenders at the position, if for no other reason due to the effort she puts into just bothering opposing ball handlers, and she is extremely decisive with the ball and almost always seems to make the right decision at the right time.
In addition to having one of the lowest turnover percentages of any point guard, she also has among the highest scoring efficiency ratio. Which means that even though she does not take a whole lot of shots, when she does she is selecting opportunities that result in points for her team as well as any other point guard.
5. Temeka Johnson, Phoenix Mercury – Distributor: Although Johnson has among the best assist ratios and pure point ratings of any point guard, she is actually not the best of this group. What sets her apart is her game impact – she has among the highest plus/minus ratings of any point guard in addition to the highest Boxscore rating of this group. And that pretty much reflects what you might expect based on observation – Johnson makes excellent decisions and has been an essential part of the Mercury’s success this season.
She dropped a little from the last rankings I made because her numbers have leveled out as the season has worn on, but she is still by far the best point guard of her type in terms of getting the ball in the hands of her teammates within the flow of the offense.
4. Sue Bird, Seattle Storm -- Facilitator: So if saying that Sun point guard Lindsay Whalen is better than Bird doesn’t get me run out of Seattle, putting her fourth among all WNBA point guards might.
Again, the issue is Bird’s talent, but her performance this season. She disappears for long stretches of time and as I described previously, she shoots a large number of jumpers at a very low percentage. As a result, her impact on the game can be limited, despite single-handedly winning games at times. Although Storm fans would probably not agree, all three of the point guards listed ahead of Bird on this list are having demonstrably better seasons than Bird.
3. Lindsey Harding, Washington Mystics – Combo guard: So here’s the justification of Harding over Bird: Harding has been both an efficient scorer and distributor as well as being arguably the better defender. And the thing that really sets Harding apart from Bird this season is that Harding goes aggressively to the basket – she has among the highest 2 point percentages of any point guard and a much higher free throw rate than Bird. In other words, Harding does a very good job of creating easy scoring opportunities for herself both from the field and from the free throw line, hence allowing her to do more for her team.
So the argument for Harding this season is simply that she brings more to the court overall as a point guard…and perhaps is able to do so more consistently.
2. Lindsay Whalen, Connecticut Sun – Combo guard: I made my argument in favor of Whalen the other day and stand by it. But what separates her from Harding? On the offensive side of the ball, there really is not much that Harding does that Whalen does not do better, with the exception of a small advantage for Harding in terms of 2 point percentage. The argument in favor of Harding is that she has one of the best plus/minus ratings in the WNBA and she is probably the better on ball defender. But its hard to find much beyond that.
Based on observation, it’s harder to think of a point guard who sees angles and is able to creatively use those angles better than Whalen right now (a few years ago, the answer would have been Penicheiro). And she uses that ability to draw fouls and get herself to the free throw line if she doesn’t finish with an array of creative shots. And while she is not a great defender, she has the instincts to play the passing lanes and play pretty good help defense.
It’s hard not to argue that Whalen is the best “traditional” point guard in the game right now.
1. Becky Hammon, San Antonio Silver Stars – Scoring point guard: So last week I wondered aloud if Hammon was the best point guard in the league this season and after watching all the other top point guards, I came to the conclusion that she definitely is.
Here’s why – she’s a weapon on the court from the point guard position that is almost impossible to stop right now. She is by far the best overall player playing the position by a long shot – she is the only point guard who is among the league’s best in terms of the ability to make plays (usage %) for her team efficiently (Chaiken scoring efficiency) while making a large individual contribution to the team’s wins (Boxscores).
It goes right back to the quote from Bird – no point guard in the league is better at understanding what’s needed and win and getting it done.
If she’s not scoring, she’s setting up others. If her team needs her to score, she can do that from anywhere on the court at a high percentage. And moreso than any other player in the league right now, Hammon is able to create plays for herself and others seemingly out of nothing.
People can try to dismiss her as “just a scorer” but ultimately, her abilities as a distributor are comparable to most of the players on this list and her decision making with the ball in her hands is arguably the best in the league.
Transition Points:
Rather than dissect it, I thought I would redirect to a more nuanced and less myopic approach to the same subject by Shoals at the Baseline. Shoals clearly has a bone to pick with Berri, but he makes a solid argument. To summarize his argument: statistics are fine as long as they are placed in context and based upon common sense assumption. Out of context and devoid of common sense, statistics are completely pointless. Taking an anti-statistics position is silly unless you want to also claim that your observations are honed to perfection...and if that's so, more power to you. All the numbers do is allow us to see trends and make comparisons that are very difficult to make otherwise...and if you care about make substantive arguments with some nuance, yes stats help.
I am not as anti-Berri as Shoals is because honestly, I think the premise of many of Berri's arguments is solid -- our observations are often based on completely arbitrary assumptions about the game that really don't reflect the things that every coach knows lead to victory. But ultimately, both the "Basketball is not math" and the "Basketball is econometrics" arguments are misguided and incomplete.
For the record, she classified as a "distributor", which means she does more than just bring the ball upcourt -- she finds ways to get it to players in scoring position. Never an all-star, but she has a career in his league likely as a strong back-up.
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Storm – Sun Reflections: Bird the Facilitator vs. Whalen the Combo Guard
How could I possibly watch a Seattle Storm – Connecticut Sun game and not start thinking about point guards?
In a game that features Storm point guard Sue Bird going up against Sun point guard Lindsay Whalen – arguably the two best point guards in the game -- it’s almost impossible not to dig deeper into the comparison: who is the better point guard?
What makes it so difficult to make a decision is that they really are different players. But that hardly prevents people from making the comparison.
Mike DiMauro of The Day suggests that even Sun fans might have split loyalties as they struggle with their love for UConn that predates the Sun in Connecticut.
But in their own state, the Sun's competition, spoken or otherwise, is UConn. And while the college and pro games are markedly different, there's just no convincing the masses.One of the commenters on DiMauro’s article even pointed out that the public address announcer at Mohegan Sun Arena introduced Bird with a home-town “Suuuuuuuuuuuuuu Bird!” welcome.
So that means that you go beat Bird when she's here. You beat Diana. You get people to notice. Then you do what's truly important and win in the playoffs.
”Ever since the finals in '04, we've had intense games with Seattle,” said Whalen, whose 11 points, seven assists and four rebounds were huge. “It's big to beat them. They have Olympians over there.”
And one of them is Bird, who remains about as beloved a player as there has ever been in Connecticut lore and legend. Happily for Whalen, she was given one of the loudest ovations of the night with Bird in the house Thursday when it was announced she became the 12th player in WNBA history to earn 900 career assists.
Bird gets most of the accolades as is -- All-Star selections, All-WNBA selections, and Olympic gold medals…does she really need to get a hero’s welcome in Whalen’s house?
I know Whalen won’t say it publicly – which is classy – but with Bird in town and all that comes with that, the Sun's 64-53 win must have been just a little bit sweeter.
But let’s put winning aside for the sake of keeping my point guard obsession alive, even if neither Whalen nor Bird care to engage this dialogue.
Forget all the hoopla and ghosts of UConn success past, present, and future...I’m focusing on the performance on the court.
And I know I might be run out of Seattle for saying this… but if I were to make a tentative statement about who’s the better point guard based on last night’s game…
Edge: Whalen.
Now clearly, it isn’t fair to make this sort of claim based on one game of evidence. However, what I found interesting is that there were elements of each player’s performance last night that perfectly represent why I might give the edge to Whalen as the better point guard for the season as a whole.
And really the way I classified each player yesterday gives away why I’m making the claim – Bird as a facilitator and Whalen as a combo guard.
Yes, we can say that they are just two different types of point guards: Bird is probably the better shooter, while Whalen is the more physical player who uses her size and an amazing ability to see the angles of the game to do a little more off the dribble. But you would have a hard time convincing me that one is a significantly better playmaker than the other by any reasonable standard.
So if I consider them approximately equal as playmakers, I start to look at other things and the fact that Whalen can do more on the court because she’s a more physical player makes it easier for me to claim that she indeed is the better point guard.
And I have three rather simple reasons for that: her ability to attack the basket, her scoring efficiency, and her defensive versatility.
Attacking the basket
The way Whalen and Bird started the game last night really says a lot about their styles as players.
As stated previously – and mentioned by Sun coach Tom Thibault at halftime – Bird is probably the better shooter while Whalen is more physical and a little tougher.
True to form, Bird’s first three plays last night were three point shots, all good ones in rhythm. After that, she made two passes in the half-court to shooters that missed.
In contrast, Whalen’s first three plays were a fastbreak lay-up after a steal, a three pointer, then a missed contested layup on a fast break. Her next three were a nice pass to center Sandrine Gruda on a fast break that resulted in free throws, a missed jumper, and an assist to Gruda for a free throw line jumper, set up by a decisive dribble in the flow of the offense and a well placed bounce pass.
The point is that when Bird gets off to a cold shooting start, she sometimes disappears for quarters at a time. When Whalen is not shooting well, she keeps herself involved by staying in attack mode and finding ways to stay involved in the game, whether that be rebounding, making the right pass, or driving to the basket.
But when Whalen does attack the basket good things happen both for herself and others. It keeps the defense off balance, allows teammates to get easy scoring opportunities, and allows her to get high percentage shots. In last night’s game in particular, Whalen set the tone that allowed her team to win the game.
Scoring efficiency
However, the most important part of Whalen’s aggressiveness driving to the basket is that it gets her easy scoring opportunities. Some numbers from Swanny’s Stats illustrate this point.
Bird relies more heavily on her midrange jumper for scoring and unfortunately has not had a very good shooting year from that range. As of July 30th, almost 30% of her field goal attempts were from the 16-20 foot range but she has only made 30.4% of those shots, which is the 8th lowest in the league.
In contrast, just under 20% of Whalen’s field goal attempts come from the 16-20 foot range and she shoots the fourth percentage in the league from that range. And that’s just the beginning of the shot selection story.
Whalen is among the league’s top 50 in both free throw rate and 2 point percentage whereas Bird’s 2 point percentage is just inside the top 100 and her free throw rate – just below 10% -- is one of the lowest in the league. (Storm teammate Katie Geralds is the lowest of any qualified player at just under 4%). Free throw rate can also be considered a proxy for a player’s aggressiveness in driving to the basket in traffic – you don’t get fouled on a shot very often standing around the three point line and swinging the ball.
So what does this set of numbers tell us? Although Bird is generally considered the better shooter – and I won’t dispute that – Whalen does a better job of creating scoring opportunities for herself that she is able to convert – taking less long shots, attacking the basket more often, and finding her way to the free throw line.
In terms of overall performance, Whalen is both a facilitator in terms of setting up baskets for others and a scorer in terms of finding easy baskets for herself. That ability to penetrate the defense and attack the rim is a critical ability that many teams look for in a point guard. It’s not that Bird cannot do that, but this season, Whalen is a bit better at it.
Defensive versatility
This actually isn’t my idea but Thibault’s. And though he’s a bit biased, I think he’s right.
During the halftime interview last night, Thibault discussed the strengths of Bird and Whalen. To paraphrase, he said that although they are about equal defensively, Whalen’s physicality allows her to sometimes guard 2’s and 3’s.
I don’t think that means she’s a defensive stalwart by any means, but it certainly gives a team more options when trying to find winning combinations to put on the floor.
While this is not the most convincing argument for choosing one player over the other – WNBA.com has both of them listed as 5’10” 150 pounds – it’s an interesting point that Thibault made.
But maybe this all come down to a matter of a difference in mentality?
It’s not that Bird cannot drive, cannot be an efficient scorer, or cannot defend.
It’s that Whalen brings a physicality and toughness to the court in a way that Bird does not.
And that attitude almost prevents Whalen from disappearing for long stretches of time in the same way that Bird does – and that’s without even talking about Whalen’s rebounding ability, which is among the best of any point guard.
This is what I mean when I label Whalen a “combo guard” – she is a facilitator and an efficient scorer. It makes her more dangerous and more valuable to her team. Ultimately, it's about decisions the player makes on the court...and I do think we can evaluate the quality of those decisions.
But when Bird turns it on – as she did at the end of last season and in spurts during games this season – she is the best. Hands down. No dispute here.
I would just argue that Whalen is able to make that happen more consistently.
Transition Points:
- One thing I’ve been keeping track of more closely is lost assists. I count lost assists only on plays when the shooter misses a shot that would have given the passer an assist OR the shooter gets fouled in the act of shooting on a play that would have given the shooter an assist. Last night, I counted four lost assists for both Bird and Whalen. In fact, most point guards who are able to drive and find open players end up tallying 3-4 lost assists a game.
So ultimately, while it’s interesting to keep track of just in terms of documenting what a player has done, I’m not sure if it’s worth using over the long haul to compare players. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to know: is there a player that has significantly more lost assists than others? And if so, why? Were they just not setting up the shooters well or are their shooters just missing wide open shots that the player creates? Hard to tell.
- I was emailing Shoals about the merits of going to see the Sun-Storm game in Seattle when the Sun come this way…and trying to think of how to describe Whalen to a NBA fan. I came up with Utah Jazz point guard Deron Williams. Accurate? I’ll have to do more thinking on that.
- Another interesting, though perhaps useless, thing to analyze about point guards is their crossover. During the Storm-Phoenix Mercury game I went to with Shoals a while back, we got lost in this crossover wormhole…but he recently came out of it and did so in style with a post diagramming different types of crossovers and entitled, “Out of the Wormhole”. Very nice work by him and Tom Ziller.
- For my money, the best WNBA crossover is between Cappie Pondexter and Tanisha Wright. Renee Montgomery might get there one day. Between Bird and Whalen – edge Whalen.
- One thing I find really interesting about the WNBA is that it is still in competition with women’s college basketball in a way that most other professional sports aren’t. Even in the way people around the WNBA – players, coaches, commentators – refer to teams as “programs”. For a moment I thought this was unique to the WNBA, but then as I thought further about it, I could imagine that NFL football is overshadowed by college football in certain places around the nation.
For example, I attended the University of Michigan for two years and there is no way the Detroit Lions are bigger than UM football in Michigan. I imagine similar scenarios for NFL teams in relation to Florida’s trio of University of Florida, University of Miami, and Florida State University. And are the Tennessee Titans really bigger than University of Tennessee football? And haven’t there been entire movies made about how big high school football is in Texas, even if the Dallas Cowboys did just build a fancy new stadium?
A totally irrelevant thought that I found interesting because of the way UConn seems to overshadow the Sun.
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Deanna Nolan Quietly Exudes the “Superstar Attitude”…At the Expense of the Mystics
Some basketball players amaze me with their ability to overwhelm their opponents.
Other players stun me with their ability to make things happen that I couldn’t have imagined.
But I marvel at Deanna Nolan.
Moreso than any other player in the league, it seems that the only to fully appreciate her as a basketball player is to watch her play – stats, box scores, and game summaries just don’t seem to do her justice.
The Shock’s 81-77 victory over the Mystics last night is the perfect example.
Most of the summaries of last night’s game justifiably focus on the Shock’s surge/Mystics collapse in the fourth and Nolan’s game-high 23 points, further evidence that she is getting healthier by the game.
However, Nolan actually set the stage for the comeback victory with her performance in the third quarter. Nolan just looked unstoppable in the third quarter, hitting a variety of jumpers over whichever Mystics defender had the misfortune of guarding her.
Once the Mystics started swarming her when she got the ball in an attempt to stop her from scoring, she started finding open teammates and setting them up for scoring opportunities. Though she didn’t actually record an assist in the third, I marked her with four “lost assists”, baskets on which she would have been credited with an assist had her teammate made the basket. Two were very likely assists – Mystics guard Alana Beard blocked a layup attempt by Shock forward Cheryl Ford; forward Taj McWilliams-Franklin was fouled on a layup attempt after a beautiful drive and wrap-around pass from Nolan. But two others were open shots that the shooter just missed.
Nolan was outstanding in the 3rd quarter. And it was as though she expected all along that she would win the game. From the WNBA.com recap:
The Shock rebounded from a 53-41 deficit late in the third quarter.That is what makes me marvel at Nolan – she makes everything seem so effortless and matter-of-fact.
"We weren't worried,'' Nolan said. "We were hitting shots. It was just a matter of getting those stops. We were in an offensive rhythm ... attacking, getting to the basket, getting to the free-throw line.''
And what’s there to worry about if it all seems to come so naturally?
It’s not just the way she literally glides along the court looking like she’s on Astroturf while everyone else is running through quicksand. Nor is it the way floats over her defenders making it almost impossible to actually contest her shots as she hovers above their outstretched arms.
And she does it all with this expressionless game face that makes her seem like more of a cold-blooded assassin than someone merely playing a game.
Nolan is not expressionless in the way San Antonio Spurs post Tim Duncan is, whose glare never changes but somehow constantly exudes fierceness. Nor is quite like Boston Celtics guard Ray Allen who almost seems to wear a look of disdain for those that would dare expect to influence whether his shot is on or off.
Nolan’s expressionless game face is almost indifferent to the current circumstances or the people who valiantly endeavor to stop her. Those other five people in the opposing jerseys almost don’t matter as if to say:
I don’t care what just happened. I don’t care what you do next.
In the end, you can’t stop me.
Nolan strikes me as one of those players who is so good that she is unstoppable simply because she decides to be unstoppable.
Call it arrogance or confidence but the best athletes in any sport legitimately believe they cannot be stopped.
That’s not to say they don’t put in hours of practice over the course of years to develop the capacity to be unstoppable…but the fact is, that it’s as much a mindset as it is physical tools.
It’s what retired NBA forward Charles Barkley calls the “Superstar Attitude”.
‘If a guy was sleeping and thought he could stop me, I’d go over to his house in the middle of the night and slap the hell out of him. If he even was dreaming about the fact that he could stop me, I would go to his house, and I’d just walk in his room and slap the hell out of him, and say, ‘Wake up. Don’t even think you can guard me.’ That’s the mentality you have to have if you’re gonna be a superstar in this league.”’To borrow a lyric from Detroit-area native Eminem – one of the few people on the planet who can match the uncompromising bravado of Barkley – it’s like Barkley has an attitude that does not even allow for the possibility of “thinking of having them thoughts thought up” about stopping him.
As I watched the Mystics play the Shock last night, that’s exactly what I was thinking – Deanna Nolan is not even entertaining the possibility that a Mystics player might be able to stop her.
However, the difference is that Nolan does not seem to have the desire or need to go around forcing people to recognize that she’s better than them.
Rather than focusing on the insecurity of the short-view full of “what-ifs” and “maybes”, Nolan seems to have a sense of the long-view that allows her to put each fleeting moment in perspective, making the play-by-play almost insignificant in the context of the big picture.
If the Shock manage to sneak their way into the playoffs, Nolan’s unflappable demeanor would almost best embody the veteran presence of mind that allowed them to turn things around while all about them younger teams collapsed under the pressure of a post-season.
But it’s almost as though opponents can think, feel, or dream whatever they want because they simply pose no threat to a player like Nolan.
What they do just doesn’t matter.
Transition Points:
Shavonte Zellous chimes in on teammate Deanna Nolan in a recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
"There are a lot of great players in this league, but my teammate, Deanna Nolan, is the toughest player I've had to guard," Zellous said. "And I have to guard her every single day. She really pushes me. She helps me a lot with my game because she plays hard all the time. That's been a great thing about this team. They've all been so helpful and made me feel so welcome."“Hold up, hold up -- stop the beat a minute… I’ve got something to say…” Yes, Eminem is probably the worst possible person to quote in singing the praises of a WNBA player…given that the WNBA is a family league and all that. I mean, could you imagine him showing up and opening a Detroit Shock game to get the crowd going? The concert might get folks hyped…but…
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Revisiting Rookie Point Guards: How Does Atlanta’s Shalee Lehning Compare to Her First Round Counterparts?
If you were to select a WNBA All-Rookie First and Second team, would Atlanta Dream point guard Shalee Lehning be on it?
And if not, why not?
What makes the question interesting to me is that for some reason, people tend to focus on every single one of Lehning’s deficiencies – athleticism, scoring ability, defense, not a fast break player – rather than the one thing she has clearly established the ability to do well: running a team.
She had her detractors when she came out of college.
She was dismissed as irrelevant after the WNBA draft given the 11 player rosters this year.
She was dismissed after making the Atlanta Dream over incumbent point guard Ivory Latta.
I ignored her when I wrote about the WNBA's talented group of rookie point guards earlier this year.
She was dismissed as nothing more than a “ra-ra” player after becoming an important part of the Dream’s rotation.
And now she’s still dismissed after transitioning into a more substantive full-time starter on a potential playoff team. She is not even included among WNBA.com’s top 10 rookies despite starting 8 games for her team, tied for the most of any rookie.
During the Dream’s four game winning streak from July 22- August 1st, Lehning had 17 assists and 2 turnovers.
It’s not that she was playing All-Star caliber basketball, but she does what her team needs – she brings the ball up the court and initiates an offense that includes two All-Star post players in center Sancho Lyttle and forward Erika de Souza and two volume shooters in forward Chamique Holdsclaw and guard Iziane Castro-Marquez. So if she’s playing with four players who are better scorers than her by almost any reasonable standard, it’s actually a good decision to just get the ball up the court and set them up for scoring opportunities.
Lehning has exhibited the ability to perform the duties of a good point guard. And if she is able to exhibit that ability as a rookie, she deserves a bit more credit than she’s getting.
Yet you can still find people who will dismiss her in one of two ways:
1) All she does is bring the ball up the court and pass it (which I find to be a baffling critique); or
2) If the Dream had better point guards, then she wouldn’t even be on a WNBA roster.
Somehow, an assessment of what she does well is disregarded in favor of a general assessment of her ability that is based upon a counter-factual argument.
But why is that occurring?
In my opinion, the point guard position in basketball is second only to the quarterback position in football as the toughest position for a rookie to learn in sports…and Lehning has done an admirable job not only managing that learning curve, but doing it well enough to earn a starting spot over veteran competition on a playoff team.
To be clear, I’m not nominating Lehning for Rookie of the Year. I’m not even suggesting that she’s the ideal point guard for the Atlanta Dream. Nor am I suggesting that she should be considered the best rookie point guard (I maintain that the best rookie point guard this season is Minnesota Lynx point guard Renee Montgomery).
What I’m suggesting is that if you judge Lehning on what she’s done for the Dream overall rather than harping on what she has not done, she has actually demonstrated that she is a solid point guard.
So how would I rank her relative to the rest of the rookie point guards…or the rookie class more generally?
What does Lehning do so well?
Put simply, Lehning makes outstanding decisions with the ball given her limitations and rarely makes bad mistakes.
It’s not a terrible starting point for a rookie.
And I'm not just going to make a simplistic assist to turnover ratio argument. I'm talking more about how well Lehning plays the position.
As of yesterday, she leads the league in assist ratio – the percentage of plays she makes that end in an assist -- at 49.06%. To put that in perspective, the player in second is Sacramento Monarchs’ point guard Ticha Penicheiro. That also reveals a quirk with this particular number – if you don’t shoot much and pass a lot, then of course your assist ratio would be high. Nevertheless, the fact that half the plays she makes end in an assist is impressive as a rookie.
Here’s a brief comparison to the other three rookie point guards: Montgomery, Indiana Fever point guard Briann January, and Chicago Sky point guard Kristi Toliver.
Lehning: 49.06%
Toliver: 25.97%
January: 24.5%
Montgomery: 18.22%
Lehning also leads rookies in John Hollinger’s pure point rating, a metric that assesses a point guards’ ability to create scoring opportunities for others per minute on the floor. As a reference point, Los Angeles Sparks point guard Kristi Harrower has maintained the top pure point rating for most of the season and currently has a rating of 5.78. Here are the rookies:
Lehning: 1.84
January: .18
Toliver: -2.02
Montgomery: -3.125
Whether looking at these numbers or watching them play, it is fair to say that Shalee Lehning is the more effective distributor of any of the rookie point guards who have played a full season.
She’s not as flashy as January or Montgomery as a ball handler and creator, but she is mechanically sound and does the simple things extremely well, such as making entry passes to All-Stars or getting the ball to the open shooter at the right moment.
At this point it would be perfectly reasonable to comment that these numbers seem to be the opposite about common sense assessments of who the best point guards are – I have just provided two metrics in which Shalee Lehning and Kristi Harrower are the leaders!
What am I thinking?!?
What both of these metrics do is establish a point guard’s ability to make decisions about distributing the ball to teammates and running the offense. Relative to the rest of the WNBA, Lehning is making very good decisions with the ball and is very effective at setting up her teammates for scoring opportunities.
However, as I have explained in past point guard rankings previously and in yesterday’s post about San Antonio Silver Stars guard Becky Hammon, there are many ways to perform the duties of point guard – ability to distribute the ball is only one means by which to do so.
Scoring ability counts and that’s obviously what people hold against Lehning.
Lehning is not a scorer. And yes, that does make her an incomplete player despite the fact that she’s a very effective distributor.
And it should be extremely clear that by now that Montgomery is the best scorer of the rookie point guard crew.
Montgomery’s athleticism, outstanding ball handling ability, and ability to finish at the rim make her a very difficult player to stop. She first showed off her ability to score in traffic off the drive in an overtime win against the Washington Mystics on July 7th and pretty much did the same thing in a home loss against the Silver Stars on Sunday night.
While Kristi Toliver is clearly the better shooter (when she plays), Montgomery right now is the best overall scorer of any rookie point guard. She is also second among rookies in true shooting % and scoring efficiency ratio (the ratio of scoring plays to non-scoring plays as defined by missed shots and turnovers).
However, one way to assess overall scoring ability is to look at 2 point percentage, which can be something of a proxy for how well a player is able to get themselves easy shots and has been described as a very important WNBA statistic:
Montgomery: 52.43%
Lehning: 48.57%
Toliver: 44.23%
January: 38.88%
In fact, Montgomery is one of four guards in the top 15 in the league in 2 point percentage, right behind Becky Hammon (52.6%). The fact that Montgomery’s assist ratio is so low (also close to Hammon’s 19.2%) is offset by her scoring efficiency and ability to create easy shots for her team.
Will Montgomery need to get better as a distributor in order to be effective as a team leader? Of course.
But the split among this year’s crop of point guards – Lehning and January as distributors, Montgomery and Toliver as scorers – serves only to illustrate just how difficult it is to play point guard as a rookie. And that's not to mention the fundamental communication and leadership skills that it takes to run a team.
Given all those factors, Lehning probably deserves credit as the best distributor of the bunch right now.
Establishing reasonable expectations for a rookie point guard
A post on the Hoopinion blog yesterday further reinforces the point about the difficulty of making the transition from college to the professional ranks as a point guard.
It boils down to a very simple claim, backed by a look at rookie combo/point guard drafted outside the NBA draft lottery from 2003-2008 since the changing of enforcement of hand-check rules:
Given the difficulty of learning the point guard position, first year performance of rookie point guards drafted beyond the lottery will not clearly establish the path of his career.
How might we apply the same thinking to Shalee Lehning?
By focusing on what she does well in terms of what we know about the WNBA game – she creates assists, she minimizes turnovers, and she shoots a relatively high 2 point percentage by WNBA standards.
Not only are these indicators that Lehning is an effective point guard right now, but also that she probably is on her way to a solid career, if only as a backup.
With work in the off-season and a year of experience under her belt, she very well could become a better scorer.
But as for her standing as a rookie right now and judging her on her performance rather than arbitrary standards for imaginary point guards, we can say that she is an effective starter on a playoff team.
If that does not merit consideration among the top rookies, I’m not sure what does.
Transition Points:
Click here to see my latest rookie rankings....just in case you want to figure out where I plugged Lehning in after my extended analysis of her...
The obvious comparison to Lehning as a rookie point guard is New York point guard Leilani Mitchell...and clearly Mitchell is not having a particularly strong sophomore campaign. But somewhat similar to Lehning, she is most effective as a distributor when her team is effective as a unit. And thus far this season, it’s safe to say that the entire Liberty team has underachieved, if not played worse than they did last year. Otherwise, Pat Coyle would likely still have a job.
In response to my last point guard rankings, Bob Corwin of Full Court Press got in touch with me and we have had an ongoing conversation about point guards and how people around the league think about some of the players I ranked.
At some point during this conversation, he asked me why I was so interested in evaluating point guards. And I suppose I didn’t have a good answer.
It started last season by noticing people’s comments about the effectiveness of Seattle Storm point guard Sue Bird’s during an early season shooting slump. But maybe what precipitated that was that I was something of a defensive combo guard in high school and Isaiah Thomas was one of the first players that ever caught my eye in the NBA.
However, Lehning’s rookie year performance probably best embodies why I am interested in creating a framework for evaluating what it is point guards bring to a team. People make very arbitrary assessments of point guards based upon normative assumptions about what constitutes a "good point guard" that actually reflect people's thoughts about what makes a "superstar point guard".
For example, in the NBA, the San Antonio Spurs have won championships with both Avery Johnson and Tony Parker, two very different point guards. Last year's NBA finals featured a matchup between Derek Fisher and Tony Farmar vs. Jameer Nelson (all-star) and Rafer Alston (former And 1 player). The previous finals winner was led by second-year point guard Rajon Rondo, who still has no jump shot to speak of.
All of those players were vital to their team's success, but very differently.
There are many ways to play the position and it depends more on the situation than any rigid set of qualities.
However, Corwin also made the point that while there have been a few great point guards in the WNBA, the point guard position has never had a great player...and part of my struggle is to detach myself from NBA point guard standards and think more deeply about the WNBA, which does not have many dominant point guards in its short history...interesting point I'm still chewing on...and the reason why further point guard rankings are on hold.
Sacramento Monarchs' guard Ticha Penicheiro relayed a story about an interaction with coach John Whisenant that I found interesting regarding point guard play:On the amount of trust Head Coach John Whisenant puts in her: “He’s always saying he wants me to be Steve Nash or Chris Paul and just go in the paint and make something happen so we don’t call many plays sometimes. He just pretty much wants me to go out there and get in the paint and either shoot or give the ball to one of our post players or our shooters. He is always encouraging me to do that. He says ‘Be Steve Nash out there, be Steve Nash!’”
Obviously, Lehning is no Steve Nash...which is yet another point of critique...but uh...how many point guards have won two NBA MVPs anyway?
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Hammon's Playmaking Ability Beats Lynx: Is Hammon the Best Point Guard in 2009?
With 12 seconds left and the game tied at 87, San Antonio Silver Stars’ All-Star guard Becky Hammon stood near the mid-court line and faced up one-on-one against Minnesota rookie forward Rashanda McCants.
As she dribbled the clock down to about 7 seconds before really making a move to initiate a play, it seemed logical that the Silver Stars had put the ball in Hammon’s hands to take the final shot.
And why not?
Hammon is one of the craftiest offensive weapons in the WNBA and a rookie didn't seem to stand a chance against her.
With about five seconds left, Hammon dribbled around a Sophia Young screen, in a play that seemed to be a pick and roll. With Young quickly covered by Lynx defensive stalwart Nicky Anosike in the paint, Hammon kept the ball, temporarily mishandling it after taking one of those “not me” bumps from Lynx forward Tasha Humphrey on the wing.
Then Hammon worked some All-Star magic and showed why she's among the league's best players.
Hammon kept the ball for herself turning the corner and splitting McCants and Lynx guard Renee Montgomery. With two seconds left and Anosike in between her and the basket, Hammon took to the air trying to hit a running jumper. Seeing that she had no shot with Anosike in front of her and two other players around her, Hammon spotted center Ann Wauters wide open just inside the free throw line after Humphrey got lost on the rotation after bumping Hammon on the wing.
Wauters hit an uncontested jumper at the buzzer, sending the Lynx home with an 89-87 loss after a hard-fought fourth quarter comeback.
Add the Lynx to the list of teams who have been victimized by Hammon’s playmaking ability.
She set up a similar buzzer beating play to All-Star forward Sophia Young for a Silver Stars victory over the Storm on July 28th. But she’s also been dominant in losses to Sacramento, Seattle (August 1st), and Atlanta.
Nevertheless, when I talk to people about the league’s best point guards this year, they’ll normally list Sue Bird, Lindsay Whalen, Lindsey Harding, and then Temeka Johnson.
When they come to Hammon, they give a response like, “Well, she’s a great player, but not really a point guard.”
To be honest, since I’ve started watching the WNBA consistently last year, that’s how I’ve felt about Hammon. Despite the fact that WNBA GM’s voted Hammon as the third best point guard in the league in the pre-season survey (tied with Ticha Penicheiro and Katie Smith), it has always struck me as difficult to cast her as what people might traditionally consider a point guard.
Hammon definitely handles the ball well enough to be considered a point guard, but shoots the ball enough to seem more like a shooting guard. It has thus been tempting to cast her as a small scoring guard instead of a point guard.
However, after watching her in person at Key Arena on August 1st and against the Lynx last night, I think it’s probably time that we stop qualifying statements about Hammon and just consider her a point guard.
And if we consider her a point guard, has any point guard in the league been better this season?
Probably not.
What is a Point Guard?
Coincidentally, an article from a San Antonio NBA blog entitled "What is a Point Guard?" holds some insight into how we might expand our traditional notions of who “counts” as a point guard.
The blog essentially characterizes a point guard in much simpler terms than I have in the past with my analysis of point guard styles:
Once it is established that a player can effectively bring the ball up the court and initiate the offense – which is no easy task against pro-level athleticism and defense – defining a point guard is more a matter team-specific expectations than a rigid set of attributes.
He uses Tony Parker as an example of how a point guard fits within a specific system:However, it's not just individual man-to-man pressure that a point guard has to handle. They also have to handle traps both full court and half court. At times last year, George Hill struggled with all three. Full court man-to-man. Full court traps. Half court traps. When he struggled, we ended up with Bruce bringing the ball up court or a turnover. Neither of which is conducive to the Spurs scoring.
Of course, Parker’s particular style of play and athletic attributes are not necessary to play the point guard position – we can all think of a range of much slower and non-scoring point guards who have played the position well over time (Mark Jackson comes to mind).
Why don't teams do this against Tony? Well, a couple reasons. One, Tony is a very good dribbler. He is very difficult to trap because of both his dribble and quickness. Because of this, he can frequently beat the trap alone which puts the Spurs in a 5 on 3 situation. If the other team puts full court man-to-man pressure on Tony, Tony is usually fast enough to blow by his man which leads to a 5 on 4 situation. In short. Tony is dangerous offensively. The Spurs run a lot of very high screens to be able to have him shake his man and attack a big at the free throw line. Why would the other team GIVE them this situation by employing a full court press? The answer is, they don't.
The same type of analysis could be applied to any basketball team in order to establish what they might expect from a point guard: what are they trying to accomplish? And does this particular player allow them to do it?
Hammon-as-Point-Guard
The reason people may tend to disregard Hammon as a point guard is that she might appear to be spending more time scoring than initiating a team’s offense.
Her assist ratio – the percentage of plays on which she creates an assist -- is18.53%, just outside the top 50, well below that of most point guards in the league. Her pure point rating – a metric that measures how well a player creates scoring opportunities for others when on the floor – is also just outside the top 50 and well below that of the league’s top point guards.
In addition, although she is a rather efficient scorer, she is also a volume shooter. So when you add it all up, it just seems that Hammon would not be the type of player whom we would label a point guard.
However, what Hammon does extremely well is use the threat to score as a means by which to create opportunities for others. She’s not a point guard who is racking up assists just by swinging the ball to an open shooter – Hammon is often driving and forcing the defense to shift in ways that create open shooters.
And right now, Hammon is doing the job of creating scoring opportunities for others better than anyone else in the WNBA.
If being a point guard comes down to a matter of decision making – more specifically, making the decisions that help their team score points – then understanding Hammon as a point guard should come down to an evaluation of her decision making. If she is the best scorer on the floor in almost any game she plays, then creating scoring opportunities for herself is actually a good decision.
Her team needs a player who can penetrate and create offense for themselves and they need someone who can get the ball to All-Star forward Sophia Young and center Ann Wauters. Hammon’s ability to make efficient scoring decisions in addition to finding ways to set up others should put her in conversations as one of the best – if not the best -- point guards in the league.
But maybe the discussion of how we classify Hammon really doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s sufficient to just say she’s a great player, as Sue Bird commented after the Silver Stars' August 1st loss in Seattle. “She’s such a tough player,” said Bird, who guarded Hammon at times throughout the game. “She’s really, really creative. Really, really deceptive. She’s able to separate herself, even at her height, against players that are 6-5 and get her shot off. And I think the one thing I would use to describe her – the one quality – is that she’s just a winner. And she makes plays down the stretch that not many people in this league can make.”
If Hammon can win enough games to get the Silver Stars to the playoffs, she will be a strong candidate for MVP of the WNBA.
Transition Points:
Renee Montgomery was very impressive down the stretch of this game, ending a 12-0 run by the Silver Stars in the 3rd quarter and catalyzing a 10-2 Lynx run in the 4th that got started the Lynx’s comeback. And really for Montgomery it was more of the same – her outstanding ball handling ability allows her to get by defenders and get herself open for layups off the drive. Her athletic ability makes her an extremely effective finisher.
But the most impressive thing about Montgomery to me is her defensive intensity. She’s tough and willing to take on just about any defensive challenge. With her athleticism, she’s able to stay in front of most players in the league and pick up steals. If she develops her range and continues to grow as a defender, Montgomery may be among the top point guards in the WNBA in the near future.
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Storm + Mercury + Key Arena = The Perfect Way to Market the WNBA to NBA Fans
When Bethlehem Shoals of FreeDarko.com (a blog about the NBA, but not merely about basketball) asked me to recommend a Seattle Storm game for us to go to, the choice seemed obvious.
“The best game for a NBA fan to see will be the Mercury on Aug 4 or Aug 21,” I wrote back.
The Mercury feature two of the top candidates for WNBA MVP in Phoenix wing players Diana Taurasi and Cappie Pondexter, a high-octane offense that almost any NBA fan would recognize as reminiscent to Phoenix’s NBA counterpart, and as Mechelle Voepel wrote last month, “Storm vs. Mercury just has that panache”.
And last night's game certainly did not disappoint. Nor did the Key Arena atmosphere.
Although the Storm lost to the Phoenix Mercury in overtime 101-90, the game featured heroics from Storm point guard Sue Bird (again) at the end of regulation, a Taurasi-like performance from Taurasi, and Storm guard Tanisha Wright torching the Mercury for 21 in the first half en route to a career-high 25 points.
And oh yeah, Bill Russell was there too…and even more importantly, a Storm Trooper tried to step onto the court after a particularly bad call from the ref in the second half.
However, I spent most of the game talking to Shoals and another male friend, who I shall call Rudy (yes, the basketball version). Neither of them had ever been to a Storm game and both had expressed interest in going at various times this summer.
All three of us fit that 18-35 year old male demographic and I’ve spent quite a bit of time watching both NBA and NCAA men’s basketball with them at various times. I would consider both informed NBA fans that appreciate professional basketball as a sport as much as for its entertainment value. Rudy is a New York Knicks fan who I’ve watched, played, and talked basketball with for about four years now. We have all attended graduate school and are overeducated to different degrees.
These guys aren’t the “average lunkhead male” – they appreciate the game of basketball and have the ability to formulate sentences without grunting and demeaning women.
So long story short – they both enjoyed the game (in different ways perhaps) and said they would like to come back.
During the game we had one of those running conversations full of tangents, non-sequiturs, and worm holes, talking about the league, making comparisons to the NBA, and talking about Bill Russell. And there were elements of our conversation during the game that I found interesting in the context of my ongoing interest in how the WNBA could market to male NBA fans.
So to help answer the question, how can the WNBA market the game to male fans?, I ask another question:
What sort of first impression(s) might the WNBA make on (over)educated male NBA fans?
The crossover worm hole
Shoals met Rudy and I on the east side of Key Arena and immediately tossed me into one of his warped worm holes. A tweet sums up the issue nicely:
"Talking with @kpelton about who has the best crossover-as-fake, not just handle, in the league. I vote Wade, he suggests Rose. Et toi?", he tweeted.
Good lord.
If you knew me, you would know that I was not actually annoyed at the question because it’s stupid or somehow insignificant. The question was annoying because I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Shoals and I had been to the Adonai Hood Classic on Sunday as well and we talked about the issue there while watching Jamal Crawford. But as we started to come up with answers at the Storm game it became clear that the answer changed depending on any number of other variables that influence a player's decision to make a crossover.
Anyway...Pelton had apparently suggested that Cappie Pondexter had among the best crossovers in the WNBA and I agreed. So in addition to mentally running through every different variant of the “crossover” that I could imagine, I began the game paying close attention to Pondexter’s crossover. And of course, with Wright’s phenomenal first half performance, her ability to get to the basket with her crossover also became a part of the conversation.
But even though I’ve watched Pondexter play quite a bit, she never ceases to impress – as I told Shoals and Rudy, she is a triple-double threat almost every night. And her crossover is a major part of that.
She not only has arguably the best crossover in the WNBA, but also uses it extremely effectively in a number of different ways – on the fast break to get by whoever is standing in between her and the basket, in the half court to gain separation for whichever type of jumper she feels like punishing her defender with at the moment, or simply to penetrate to the basket to set up another player for a scoring opportunity.
Pondexter didn’t actually have a stellar game – going 6-19 from the field – but she also grabbed 8 boards and recorded 5 assists, at least backing up claim that she’s a triple-double threat.
Making NBA comparisons
At various points during the game we attempted to make comparisons to NBA players, since their frame of reference is the NBA. I normally hate doing that (because really it does a disservice to all sides), but since Rudy kept coming up with them, I rolled with it and it ends up being a good way to familiarize oneself with the game.
For example, we decided that Storm forward Lauren Jackson was like the Dallas Mavericks’ Dirk Nowitzki with the heart to play inside, Storm forward Swin Cash like the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Jeff Green with a better perimeter game, and DeWanna Bonner like Golden State Warriors forward Brandan Wright (not necessarily in terms of style play, but skinniness). Rudy at one point suggested that Storm guard Tanisha Wright is like the Utah Jazz’s Deron Williams, but I rejected that.
However, what’s interesting is that Pondexter – and Taurasi – seemed to defy comparison. Which is actually an interesting insight because it suggests that the WNBA actually adds something to the basketball universe. Imagine that?
WNBA player versatility
Skills seem to be much more evenly distributed across positions in the WNBA than the NBA, meaning you don’t have post players who have no skill other than being tall and dunking. On the perimeter, multiple players are able to initiate the offense.
And as Shoals mentioned later via email, “a bunch of versatile skilled players is the NBA's wet dream.”
Shoals was alarmed by the fact that 6’5” forward Lauren Jackson was hovering around the three point line and that guards Sue Bird and Tanisha Wright seemed to be splitting the responsibility of initiating the offense. Part of the reason why Rudy made the comparison of Wright to Utah’s point guard Deron Williams is that Wright almost appeared to be the point guard at times because she had the ball in her hands so often.
Taurasi was leading fast breaks, shooting threes, aggressively trying to block shots, and occasionally running the offense. Mercury center Tangela Smith was 4-6 from three point range and Storm center Camille Little hit a three to tie the game at 81 with 44.7 seconds left in regulation. I mentioned that if they watched a team like the Detroit Shock – who really don’t have a traditional distributing point guard – they might have been even more confused.
Shoals is a fan of versatile players and the blurring of positions that seemed to be occurring on both teams actually seemed to be one of the more exciting elements of the game to him. It makes basketball much more fluid and actually makes offenses much more interesting to watch, if you know anything about x’s and o’s.
Yes, males of the lunkhead persuasion will complain about missed layups and lack of dunks, but as Shoals pointed out, overall, few missed shots are actually bad shot attempts. Because there are so many versatile players who can move the ball and find different ways to score, the scoring opportunities created are pretty solid.
This is basketball in which style does not take precedent over substance, but the substantive abilities of the players give the game a style that the NBA aspires to (a “wet dream”)…or once had.
The WNBA as throwback game
It was interesting that Bill Russell was in the crowd because at multiple times throughout the game, Shoals mentioned how the game reminded him of the type of basketball you see in old footage of NBA basketball in the sixties.
“Weird Russell was there, that game reminded me of sixties ball,” he tweeted at one point.
For the uninformed, that is not a slight of the WNBA game – for someone who appreciates the sport of basketball, it’s a complement. In fact, both he and Rudy commented that given the choice between the WNBA and men’s NCAA basketball, they would probably watch a WNBA game. Shoals was quite adamant about this and I’ll leave him to explain that at some other point.
When you have versatile players and offenses predicated on passing and cutting without dunking, you don’t get worse basketball, you get sixties NBA basketball. Shoals noted at one point that even the post players get their points by cutting and being in the right position rather than on the two man isolation game that tends to dominate the NBA. Personally, as someone who appreciates ball movement and fluidity in basketball, that makes the WNBA one of the most appealing syles of play.
Framed in that way, it’s no wonder that someone like Bill Russell “is on record as being a big fan of the WNBA's style of play” as Kevin Pelton noted during the game on his live blog. As Bob Ryan alluded to in his article, “The Game You’re Missing” last year, if you actually know anything about basketball, you almost have to appreciate WNBA basketball.
If you don’t appreciate basketball, just say it… but don’t disrespect a game you know nothing about.
Engrossed to the point of standing during timeouts
In between all of our meta-analysis of basketball as a phenomenon, we did actually pay attention to the game.
Key Arena – and other arenas around the league – have a ritual of standing until the home team makes its first basket.
Rudy liked this – it seemed to add to the collective atmosphere when everyone sat down at the same time after the first shot. Shoals, who nobody could describe as a “joiner”, was initially less enthusiastic, grumbling when I implored him to stand up at the beginning of the game.
However, in overtime, as Shoals and I were standing and chatting about something or other, he stopped mid-sentence and said, “Wait – do we have to stand during timeouts too?”
Why we were standing during a timeout like dunces is beyond me… but that’s beside the point.
The point here is that the game was engaging in a way that just sort of grabs you and forces you to get caught up. Part of that is a direct result of being in Key Arena – it’s just an amazing basketball venue and when the crowd gets going, it’s difficult not to find yourself caught up in a wave of Storm fanaticism.
But a major part of it is that this is just good basketball and true fans of the sport would find a hard time not getting swept up in it.
The other side of the 18-35 year old demographic
Petrel of the Pleasant Dreams blog emailed me yesterday in response to my post about WNBA marketing and reminded me that there really is no monolithic 18-35 year old male demographic. Within that demographic there are people who are non-sports fans or sports fans who are not moved by the idiocy of shock jock sports radio. But more importantly, there might also be a cross-section of that demographic who is able to appreciate the WNBA game simply because it’s good basketball.
The unfortunate reality is that precision ball movement, cutting, and versatility – the strengths of the WNBA game – are simply not conducive to the short attention span clips of Sportscenter that people have become so accustomed to. To appreciate the WNBA, you can’t expect to be wowed by a highlight reel dunk; to appreciate the WNBA, you have to learn to appreciate the nuance of basketball.
And the best way to do that is probably to show up to a game.
Transition Points:
Thanks to Patrick from the Chasing the Title blog for providing us with these tickets.
Part of Shoals’ infatuation with Bill Russell stems from his interest in having Russel write the intro to his next FreeDarko book, which he is currently doing research for. He’s spent quite a bit reading about the man. Rudy actually went over to Russell and shook his hand, but apparently got no real response from the legend. Just one of millions of hands shaken.
In an attempt to stop over-analyzing basketball, I missed most of the halftime show to go grab a beer. However, Shoals’ girlfriend who was with us, thought the dogs during the halftime show were among the best part of the Key Arena experience.
It’s hard not to admire Tanisha Wright’s game and Patrick Sheehy has a great article on SPMSportsPage profiling Wright. Definitely worth a read. Although I’ve often focused on her offensive abilities, Sheehy does a good job articulating her impact on the defensive end.
I also watched the Los Angeles Sparks’ loss to the San Antonio Silver Stars earlier in the day, a matchup between the Storm’s two previous opponents. Would those games – a triple-overtime win against the Sparks and an overtime win against the Silver Stars – be as effective in swaying NBA fans? I’m not sure… the Mercury’s high-octane style of play is really perfect to entice new fans…we’ll see what Shoals thinks of future games. By the way, down two with four Olympic caliber post players on the floor, why do you settle for a jumper from point guard Kristi Harrower and a three from a frigid cold Tina Thompson…I don’t get it.
Storm Troopers need to remain a prominent part of the Key Arena atmosphere. Here's why: Shoals commented at one point that the refereeing in the WNBA seems to be less invasive than that of the NBA game, making the point that there aren’t quite as many stoppages of play…but I think that was more a function of the Mercury’s style of play. For the most part, their calls were inexplicable. While I don’t complain about the refs often because they make consistently inexplicable calls against both teams, I thought it would have been plenty appropriate for a squad of Storm Troopers to rush the court, capture the refs, and detain them until further notice.
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