“You Have to Try, You Have to Care!”: The (Totally Subjective) Definition of a Playoff Team

There really is no way to predict who will end up making the playoffs, especially in the Eastern Conference.

However, the one thing that seems to be magnified as the post-season nears in a relatively small professional sports league with amazing parity is effort.

It seems sufficient to answer the question, “Who’s going to make the playoffs?” with the question, “Who wants it more?”

With each additional game played, the significance of the remaining games increases, particularly in the East. Meaning teams not only have to fight through the aches and pains collected during the season, but also the mental demands of the increasing pressure to win.

With the Eastern Conference playoff picture about as clear as the Swamp of Sadness, the playoffs will likely come down to the teams that are willing to fight through the looming threat of going home early.

Sadly, in watching the games last night you could see one team that has seemingly already lost its will to fight.

Watching the two late games last night – the Chicago Sky vs. the Washington Mystics and the Atlanta Dream vs. the Sacramento Monarchs – you could really start to see what separates playoff teams from those that will be adding lottery picks to their roster in 2010.

The Dream beat a Kara Lawson-less Monarchs team in Sacramento to win their second straight in the midst of a five game road trip. Rookie forward Angel McCoughtry strengthened her argument for Rookie of the Year with an impressive all-around game, recording 26 points, 10 assists, and 5 rebounds. Complementing McCoughtry in the post was Erika de Souza who finished with 27 points and 13 rebounds, helping the Dream dominate a traditionally strong Monarchs team inside.

The Dream did exactly what you want to see from a playoff team – they beat a limping team when they had to, even though they were in the middle of a road trip across the country. It makes you think they might be holding fast to the dream of their first playoff bid.

Then there’s the Chicago Sky.

Yes, the Sky beat the Mystics 92-86 to keep themselves in the playoff race.

But the score is actually deceiving – we 34.9 seconds left the Sky were actually down 85-84. The final score is more the result of an untimely turnover from Washington point guard Lindsey Harding and subsequent free throws.

Meaning the Sky were very close to losing this one.

That’s disturbing.

The Sky were essentially, though not mathematically, in a must-win situation at home on four days rest and center Sylvia Fowles returned to the lineup from injury. The Mystics were playing the second of a back-to-back, having beat the Seattle Storm at home the previous night. Oh yeah – they were playing without All-Star guard and standout defender Alana Beard.

No comment on rookie guard Kristi Toliver’s minutes.

It’s not uncommon for Golden State Warriors commentators to sum up the team’s 50th to 60th loss of a season by saying something along the lines of well, despite the narrow loss, it was a great moral victory. Since the NBA – nor any of the aforementioned imaginary basketball deities – has never recorded moral victories, this type of comment always works my nerves.

However, the Chicago Sky –the team that I will throw 100% of my fan fervor behind pending a clear strategy – have helped me to see the value of such a seemingly paradoxical claim by looking at its inverse:

Despite the narrow win, the Sky must be demoralized.

Ok, I know that immediately sounds ridiculous. But had you seen the game – or once you put the game in context – it all makes sense, though it still maintains a hint of absurdity.

If the Sky are not able to step up and put away a battle-weary team on their home floor, what reason do we have to believe that they can survive the fight to the playoffs?

With two of their remaining four games against the Detroit Shock, how will the Sky fend off a grittier, hungrier, and scrappier Shock team?

Looking at both their performance last night and their performance throughout the season, there is no reason to believe that the Sky have what it takes to win this race to the playoffs.

That’s a totally subjective opinion – obviously, I have no way of knowing what will transpire in the coming week. Maybe the Sky will suddenly wake up and play as though they know each other and might have been to a practice together once or twice.

In the meantime, I think they’ve given us ample reason to count them out.

And if that isn’t ample reason to make some changes in the off-season, I’m not sure what is.

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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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Sky Offer Glimpse of a Bright Future In a Stunning Victory Over the Storm…at Key (!!)

Two of the three people I chatted with at Key Arena last night prior to the Chicago Sky’s surprising 86-81 victory over the Seattle Storm expressed similar thoughts with the news that Sylvia Fowles would be returning to the Sky’s lineup:

Well, hopefully they’ll be able to make a game of it.

On the court warming up was a young, sputtering Sky team that had lost four in a row. In their last two games, they traveled to Phoenix for the privilege to get trampled by a Mercury stampede and then got discomfited at home by the Indiana Fever.

There was no way a Sky team that looked so lost and confused would compete with Lauren Jackson and Sue Bird with those crazy Key Arena fans shouting at them.

So it’s a good thing that Sky team that got routed at home by the Fever chose to stay in Chicago. We may never know what they did to that old Sky team, but it’s doubtful that anybody will miss that disorganized and demoralized team.

There are a number of interesting themes and story lines that one could take from last night’s game in addition to Fowles’ return.

Sue Bird was missing in action, going 1-10 from the field. The Sky shot a scorching 63.2% from the three-point line. And a large part of that hot three point shooting was Kristi Toliver, who had a breakout game, keeping pace with fellow rookies Renee Montgomery and Courtney Paris who also formally introduced themselves to the WNBA this past week.

However, the overarching theme that struck me as I watched the game was that the Sky actually looked like a coherent basketball team, like they had actually played together before or practiced a few plays.

For the first time this season, I was not asking that same tired question: What exactly are they doing? That goes beyond Fowles’ return or Toliver’s hot shooting. It was like a shift in mindset or philosophy occurred after the loss to the Fever.

If the Sky played like they did last night all the time, they would be atop the Eastern Conference.

If the Sky continue to play that well, they will be a threat to make some noise in this year’s playoffs.

And if the Sky’s young players continue to develop individually as they become a stronger unit, they will be a perennial contender for a long time.

So what on earth happened?

Really, both teams played well overall last night, the Sky just played better. I say that acknowledging that the Storm did seem a little flat and confused on offense and had erratic defensive rotations. However, the fact is that they played well enough to stay within one or two shots of a team that shot 60.8% from the field. Which probably makes this a particularly tough loss for the Storm – as Sue Bird said, this was one they could have had and let slip away.

Part of the story for the Storm is that although Bird had an off game, Tanisha Wright played extremely well. She played by far the best game for the Storm and at times, the best player on the floor for either team. The most impressive element of her game on display last night was her ability to set up her teammates.

While Wright is not necessarily an exceptional ball handler, she is a very decisive ball handler and she attacks holes in the defense extremely well when she sees them open up. That allows her to get to the rim extremely well, but also set up open teammates when she draws help defenders.

Last night, she not only scored 18 points on 6-9 shooting, but also had an assist ratio of 32.34% and a pure point rating of 5.20, numbers that resemble those of the league’s top point guards. She was not only looking to distribute the ball to others, but she was doing it extremely well. While there is not really an adequate substitute for what Bird brings to the game as a point guard when she’s on, Wright did an admirable job of keeping the Storm in the game.

Given how well Wright played and that Jackson turned in a decent performance, if the Storm had gotten a better scoring performance from Bird, they could have won this game. Aside from Jackson, they went 1-10 from the floor as a team. From that point on, they didn’t shoot below 50%, shooting 73% in the second quarter. Their assisted field goal percentage was also relatively high, staying well above 70% after the first quarter.

The Sky were just far more consistent and kept the pressure on the entire game.

There’s a reason why I’ve said the Sky are my favorite team: they not only have all of the pieces in place to be a successful basketball team, but those pieces are extremely talented.

Two post players whose skills complement each other perfectly to put an enormous amount of pressure on the defense. A MVP candidate and one of the best all-around players in the league. And a number of perimeter players who can shoot the three, especially with Toliver playing well. All they needed to do was pick a system – and a rotation -- and run it consistently to maximize their talent.

In statistical terms however, what makes the Sky potentially great is that they have all the elements of the Four Factors covered as well as the Synergy rating metric that I added as part of my “Team Dynamics ratings” last year. While the key factors statistically for the Sky last night were shooting and synergy, the most important thing was the way they played the game.

First, they were looking inside to both Dupree and Fowles. In fact, it almost caught me off good when they went to Fowles right away, getting her the ball on four of their first six possessions. Yes, oddly that’s not the norm for this team – getting the ball their 6’6” center.

But last night, they chose to establish the post game early and work outward from that. In doing so, they put pressure on the Storm to constantly rotate and open scorers all over the court. And to Fowles’ credit, she was great at passing the ball back out of the post if she couldn’t make anything happen herself. Even though she didn’t score and didn’t record a lot of assists, she was responsible for setting the tone for the game and getting the offense going in the beginning.

But second, in order for an offense to work through the post, the guards have to throw it into the post. Post entry passes sometimes seem like a lost art, but the Sky did an extremely good job last night. In fact, one of the things that really made their offense look different last night is that they were actually looking to get it into the post.

They often run a dribble-weave type play where the three perimeter players weave around the three-point line passing the ball to each other. Normally it seems as though they get so caught up in just running the play – weaving in and out and handing the ball off – that they don’t look to actually create scoring opportunities. The main thing they did well last night was to actually recognize scoring opportunities when they arose and actually use the weave to keep the defense off balance and find passing lanes rather than just randomly running a weave.

By using their passing to break the defense rather than just looking for one-on-one opportunities, the defense was forced to rotate. Another quick pass forces a second rotation and by then the defense is scrambling. Keep moving the ball and eventually a scoring opportunity opens up. Having a player like Toliver who has a beautiful quick release only enhances the offense because she made the defense pay for poor rotations.

However, even though it should be clear by now that I am partial to maximizing ball movement, sometimes at the end of close games it just comes down to having someone who can take over the game. For the Sky last night, it was Jia Perkins. By my Credit numbers, she was the third most important player behind Dupree and Toliver. And while Dupree and Toliver definitely played better over the first three quarters, having Perkins on the court down the stretch was essential for the Sky.

Down two points with 4:48 left, Perkins just decided to take over. She scored 10 consecutive points on a mix of three point shots, drives, and jumpers. Then she drove and got an assist setting up a three for Dupree. When you have a player who you can trust with the ball in their hands for 13 consecutive points, it makes end of game strategy really simple – get the ball to Jia and run the offense. Perkins might not be the top candidate for MVP this season, but I cannot think of five better candidates than her for the award at this point in the season.

A strong post game complemented by strong perimeter shooting and a MVP candidate who can single-handedly drag the team across the finish line – if the Sky continue to follow the blueprint they followed last night, they will give the Fever a strong challenge for the Eastern Conference title.

Related Links:

Wright Fills Important Role for Storm
http://www.wnba.com/storm/news/wright090713.html

Transition Points:

There will be more on Toliver tomorrow…and watch out – Chen Nan too. (Click here to see those rookie rankings)

Fowles left the game late in the fourth quarter after a collision and did not return. I cannot find an official report anywhere, but I overheard coach Key talking in the tunnel after the game and he was saying that it was a dislocated shoulder that they popped back in and should be ok. Hopefully it does not become a long-term problem.

Tanisha Wright is quietly putting together a very good season and has been an outstanding complement to Sue Bird. I was looking at some league stats the other day and in addition to being in the top ten in assists this season, she has been among the most productive players overall. She probably will not get an all-star bid, but she deserves serious consideration.

Lauren Jackson played well in the first half, but was less effective in the second half. Part of that is that she got at least three scoring opportunities in the first half off offensive rebounds and three point play opportunities (although she missed the free throws). For some reason, she just got less scoring opportunities in the second half, getting off only four shots.

Janell Burse is also having a remarkably productive season. It’s hard to point to one thing she does well, but she just really does not make a whole lot of mistakes. She is one of those players who seems to have a sense of what she can do well and just puts herself in position to do that.

Someone recently suggested that I build my point guard rankings around watching Sue Bird closely and figuring out how to evaluate point guards based on her performance. Actually, Sue Bird's shooting slump at the beginning of last year was what inspired the point guard rankings last year. And what stood out last year also stood out last night – Bird is at her best when she is in attack mode. When she gets in a zone carving up defenses and creating for others, she is almost unstoppable and it makes the Storm almost impossible to beat, even if she isn’t shooting well.

That is where my basic claim about point guards comes from: playing point guard, moreso than any other position, is all about decision making rather than purely measuring points, assists, and field goal percentage. To the extent that we can find ways to measure the effectiveness of their decision making on the floor, I really think we can come up with valid ways to quantify what a point guard does well. The fact is, when Bird is in attack mode, Bird is hands down one of the best decision makers in the game (I believe Penicheiro in her prime was probably the best ever).

Watching Bird’s defense was also useful to reinforce a point I (and others) have made repeatedly – it’s almost impossible to quantify defensive performance. Bird was guarding Toliver and “responsible” for a few of those threes Toliver made, but it was unclear what exactly was going on for the Storm defensively on many of those shots, especially in the second quarter. It looked like there was just confusion about who was supposed to rotate where and on at least two occasions, Bird looked like she was dropping off Toliver and nobody rotated to pick her up. Without knowing what they were trying to do, it was difficult to know whether Bird was to blame or someone else.

Because every point guard is part of a particular defensive scheme, it’s really hard to come up with a way to compare them that makes any kind of sense.

I forgot to check my camera’s batteries before the game. Or let me rephrase – I checked them, but didn’t bother to walk the two blocks to the store to buy batteries before entering the arena. So no pictures. Idiot.

Key Arena offers Thai food now and I decided to splurge on one of those dishes rather than go for the overpriced hot dog. This was a big ordeal for me – hot dogs and beer just seem to be necessary for any live ball game. However, the Thai food and Coke did me well and was much more filling (and healthy?) than a hot dog and beer.

They showed Part 2 of the Storm history series last night and I really enjoyed that too. The best part was when they showed a clip of Lin Dunn responding to a reporter who asked if the Storm would be trading Sue Bird after she was drafted. Her concise, confident, precise, and simple response drew a loud response from the crowd -- "No."

A quick note on Jenny Boucek's firing from Sacramento: Baffling. As in I can't even wrap my head around how inexplicable it is. Fortunately, Mechelle Voepel is in a good position to make the argument that the decision goes beyond "baffling" to "senseless". I'll co-sign. Check out her blog post if you get a chance.

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Sky-Storm Preview: What Can We Learn From Chicago’s Consecutive Blowout Losses…About the Fever and Mercury?

With just under six minutes left in the first quarter of the Indiana Fever’s rout of the Chicago Sky on Friday, Katie Douglas calmly dribbled around a Tammy Sutton-Brown screen and hit a smooth transition three-pointer over Dominique Canty’s outstretched arm to put the Fever up 20-6.

After watching the ball fall right through the net, Canty just stood there at the three point line frozen for a moment, swinging her arms into a clap before briefly dropping her head.

Immediately, the word demoralization comes to mind – the Fever went on to absolutely dominate the Sky and it was like Canty appeared to feel the weight of it as she was a fraction of a second late rotating on the switch. However, it might be more accurate to say that it looked like she was exasperated or mentally drained and just had a lack of answers for a looming onslaught.

I guess being blown out twice in a row just does that to the human mind.

There really was no reason to believe that the Sky would end their own three game losing streak by ending the Fever’s eight game winning streak, especially without Olympian center Sylvia Fowles. Sky coach Steven Key was quoted as saying part of the problem was that they’ve been trying to “reorganize without Sylvia”…which implies prior organization and that Fowles is somehow worth about 30 points to the Sky.

Neither rings true to me – being embarrassed like that begs probing into deeper problems.

Problems that I have no way to know about…

And so I thought it was more interesting to compare the performances of the Fever and Mercury, the first place teams in their respective conferences, and to look forward to thinking about how the Sky might rebound tonight against yet another tough opponent: the Seattle Storm.

Anatomy of a blowout: Can the Mercury maintain their pace?

During one the Mercury-Sparks broadcast last Sunday, one of the commentators wondered if the Mercury could keep up the pace they play at over the course of an entire season, partially to (correctly) imply it might be a different story once the Sparks get their full complement of players back.

Looking at the Mercury’s last three games, this might be a legitimate concern. Their victory over the Sparks was really a little more than five minutes of dominant play. In their blowout of Chicago, they shot a blistering 70.6% in the first quarter, then didn’t even shoot 40% in any other quarter, not to mention that their assisted field goal ratio fell from 75% in the first quarter to 25% for the game.

And although this might sound paradoxical because they needed a last second shot to beat Sacramento last night, they actually put together an entire half of really good basketball. They shot 21-40 from the field in the second half, were 7-16 from the three point line, and had an assisted field goal ratio of about 80% in both quarters. In the third quarter, they also had a 44% offensive rebounding percentage. They were really playing extremely well– the Monarchs just really stepped up their game to match them.

So the obvious knock is that they are having some difficulty maintaining their pace although they end up looking dominant in the final score. Of course the final score is all that matters and if all they need is one quick spurt to put a team away, then who am I to complain? But it also stands in stark contrast to how Indiana blew out the Sky.

Anatomy of another blowout: How good are the Fever?

To be fair, it seems that part of the issue is that Chicago gets off to really bad starts, digs themselves a big hole and then just cannot get out of it.

The 33-9 hole they dug themselves in the first quarter just felt completely insurmountable, even if you knew intuitively there was still time to come back. Part of that was because the Fever never really let up.

Really it’s hard to take much away from what the Fever did to the Sky because it was 66-36 at the end of three quarters, meaning most of this game was garbage time, whether the coaches publicly acknowledged it by emptying the bench or not. Neither team played particularly well in the second half.

But one thing you can say about the Fever is that they never let up.

Whereas the Mercury seemed to get out in front in coast, the Fever maintained a very high level of play. After shooting 72.2% in the first quarter, they shot over 50% in every quarter except the third (31.3%). Their assisted field goal ratios went up after the first quarter, hitting 100% in both the 2nd and 3rd meaning they were keeping the ball moving to get scoring opportunities. And as is characteristic of Fever basketball, they also kept the Sky to an abysmal 29% field goal percentage for the game.

Whereas the Mercury are having dominant moments, the Fever seem to playing consistently good basketball.

Of course, the difference might be star power

The Fever play extremely well, but their stars – as good as they are – are just not in the same stratosphere as Diana Taurasi and Cappie Pondexter. Really, nobody is this year. So the Mercury have the capacity to just overwhelm opponents with star power and athleticism.

The Fever don’t necessarily have that luxury and I would argue they need to rely on strong teamwork to maximize their talent and win games. Lin Dunn has done an excellent job of getting the most out of them this season.

But something I found interesting when looking at the post game statistics is that the Fever also do a really good job of getting a contribution from multiple players – looking at minutes in a blowout with that much garbage time is not very useful, but looking at Credit ratings is. No player on the Fever was more that 9.29% (Eshaya Murphy) responsible for their victory of the Sky. In contrast, the Mercury’s Credit ratings range from 0-18.61% (Taurasi and Pondexter was responsible for another 11.86%)

The Mercury to this point have been a very star dependent team getting rather inconsistent contributions from their supporting players. Will that stop them from winning a championship? Perhaps not, especially if Penny Taylor returns. But it’s an interesting thing to note.

What’s in store for the Sky at Key Arena?

So obviously, I am headed to Key Arena today assuming that another loss is in store for the Sky, even if Fowles returns. The Key is just too insane for a struggling team like the Sky to suddenly put it together there.

Kevin Pelton already posted a nice preview of the game at StormTracker. Fowles is rumored to come back tonight and if she does, maybe the Sky will fare better tonight than they have in their last two games. Either way, what will be interesting to watch is how well the Storm balance being a star dependent team versus a chemistry dependent team.

Most of all, I’m still eternally waiting for the Sky to find some sort of rhythm or system that will maximize this amazing young talent they have. They have all the pieces to be an extremely successful basketball team and really have no business being embarrassed the way they have been.

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Jia Perkins is Making Her Case As an All-Around All-Star Starter…and Sky Lead Guard

It must be nice to have the best guard in the Eastern Conference playing for your team.

Especially when you choose to sleepwalk through about 35 minutes of a game and need someone to bail you out at the last minute.

Jia Perkins strengthened her case for being voted into the 2009 All-Star game as a starter, hitting big shots down the stretch to lead the Chicago Sky to a 74-70 win over the Sacramento Monarchs in the UIC Pavilion last night.

However, as good as it must feel to add a game to the win column, once again, the victory cannot leave much for the Sky to feel proud of.

The Sky blew an early 10 point lead, went into the fourth quarter tied, and were down by five late in the fourth before Jia Perkins returned to the game after an awkward fall to give the Sky the necessary jolt of life at the end of the game.

In search of their first road win, Sacramento managed to stay in the game by playing typical Monarchs basketball: playing hard, crashing the offensive boards, and playing a rather methodical, if sloppy, offense. But it’s not really that the Monarchs “crumbled down the stretch” as the Sacramento Bee reports – it’s probably more accurate to say that they reduced it to a chaotic mess of turnovers, free throws, and scattered defense…and Jia Perkins lifted the Sky above the fray.

Aside from the 2nd quarter in which the Monarchs shot 58% on 7-12 shooting from the field, the Monarchs never shot above 33% in any other quarter. Their 21.86% turnover percentage for the game probably didn’t help them much either, though the Sky returned the favor with a 21.51% turnover percentage of their own.

So if the Monarchs never really had complete control of the game, that begs the same old question that people should be tired of hearing from Rethinking Basketball:

What exactly are the Sky doing?

Again, just to contextualize the question: as a distant observer that is not privy to practices, video sessions, or pre-game chalk talks, I do not necessarily expect to fully understand what a professional basketball team is doing play to play. Ultimately, we will never really know what’s going on with any given team if we are not a player or other paid employee.

Nevertheless, it’s obvious when a team is just completely disorderly. But yes, as an outsider, I wasn't with them step for step at every moment: many times the Sky players seemed to be asking, “What are we doing?” about a few seconds before I thought to ask, “What are they doing?”


When they aren’t standing around waiting for one of their post players to take their defender one on one from the wing, they have their guards ignoring their post players and forcing up contested jump shots or drives to the basket that end with blocked shots. And when they did try to settle down and run something, they looked just as confused.

On one play in particular during the third quarter, the Sky brought the ball upcourt, Erin Thorn had the ball at the top of the key, saw Sylvia Fowles on the left block, and zipped a pass right into the crowd. After the play, it looked like Thorn was gesturing to Fowles to say that she expected Fowles to pop out a little on the wing… but Fowles didn't...and Thorn threw a pass to nobody. Who's ever fault it was, it was one of many moments where the Sky’s dysfunction was so evident that you almost had to feel sorry for them.

It’s not really that they started playing better as a team at the end of the game either – Perkins bailed them out by playing aggressive defense, making plays for teammates, and hitting big shots at the end when the team needed it.

So despite the victory, the enduring question, “What are the Sky doing?” still stands.

Basketball is ultimately a team game. And usually, good teams have systems.

Right now, the only system the Sky have going for them is Jia Perkins. So the question becomes, how should they best utilize her talent?

And right now, Perkins is carrying the Sky as a scorer and distributor.

So if for some reason you don’t already think Perkins is an all-star, let me just rehash the facts.

By almost any metric you look at – EFF, MEV, plus/minus, Tendex, WARP, whatever – Jia Perkins is the best guard in the East, if not one of the top guards overall in the WNBA. She gets it done offensively as a scorer and defensively, putting pressure on the other team’s lead guard and picking up skills that shift the momentum of games at critical moments.

Upon returning to the game after an injury scare in the third, Perkins put the breadth of her skills on display in the final minutes of the game, putting pressure on the Monarchs’ guards to help create turnovers, running the offense, getting out and scoring on the fast break, hitting a key three, and hitting clutch free throws to ice the game.

Another way to quantify Perkins’ contribution to the Sky is by looking at David Sparks’ metric for assigning credit to players for their contribution to their team’s final score (that is described in depth here...I also used it for Team USA here). For this particular game, Perkins deserved 15% of the credit for her team’s success, with Candice Dupree and Sylvia Fowles coming next closest hovering right around 10%.

However, while Perkins gets most of the credit for scoring, another major contribution she makes to the team is running their offense. Whatever it is the Sky do with the ball, Perkins does it best.

She has the best point guard numbers on the Sky and compares very favorably to other WNBA point guards in her ability to run a team. She recorded 8 assists last night, had a pure point rating of 10.75 and an assist ratio of 31.74%...all while scoring 17 points on 46.15% shooting from the field.

Those are extremely impressive numbers for someone who most people consider to be primarily a scorer – she is making extremely good decisions with the basketball setting up her teammates in addition to scoring.

So not that it matters who is officially named point guard with Dominique Canty and Jia Perkins in the backcourt, but Perkins is the best lead guard on this team and the team actually plays better when she is doing everything – scoring, passing, and playing defense. While some people fear that giving a scorer distributor responsibilities, that does not seem to be the case with Perkins.

In their 5 wins prior to last night’s game, Perkins had a pure point rating of 4.79, an assist ratio of 21.35%, and a turnover ratio of 7%. In their three losses, she had a -3.48 pure point rating, a 15% assist ratio, and a 14% turnover ratio. In other words, without establishing a strong correlation, we can see that there is at least some sort of pattern of Perkins functioning as more of distributor in the Sky’s wins in addition to scoring.

This is clearly Jia Perkins’ team right now and if they are not going to have a highly structured system that utilizes their post players, it seems that they should be putting the ball in Perkins’ hands and letting her work her magic.

Transition Points:

Perkins is currently #7 in WNBA.com’s MVP race, but I think an argument could be made for her to at least be ahead of almost anyone not named Lauren Jackson. She’s having an amazing season, her team is doing well, and she is coming through for her team whenever they need her. If that’s not the definition of a MVP, I don’t know what is.

I actually watched last night’s game to get a look at Kristi Toliver, but apparently she was not feeling well last night. I hope she is able to get healthy soon.

Mouthpiece Sports recently asked Kristi Toliver about whether she can be the Derrick Rose of the WNBA. Aside from the fact that they are both rookie professional basketball players and reside in Chicago, I don't think the comparison is really fair to either player.

Continue reading...

Toliver Impresses in Victory Over Dream...so...Who Should Start at Point Guard for the Chicago Sky?

Where should I even start with the Chicago Sky’s 99-98 victory over the Dream?

If you have any sort of affection for the Sky, yesterday’s win against the Dream was actually painful.

It was one of those exceptions to the cliche “a win is a win” -- sometimes even a win is best construed as a learning opportunity.

You may know that the Sky are my favorite WNBA team. So I was particularly excited to watch Kristi Toliver’s progress on the court after having stared at her statistics over the last few days.

However, as I watched the Sky yesterday morning while trying to focus on Toliver, I couldn’t keep from getting extremely frustrated about the same question I wondered last year abut the Sky: what exactly are they doing?

Hmm…that might sound harsh. So let me clarify….

It’s not so much that I expect a team to justify what they’re doing to me, a random WNBA blogger. Nor should I really expect to understand a professional basketball offense will be totally transparent to fans who haven’t spent time watching practice or reading at playbooks. But panic is one of those feelings that comes through pretty clearly even through a webcast, both in watching the coach patrol the sidelines and watching the players trying to create seemingly arbitrary answers to a worsening problem.

Just before the start of overtime, WNBA LiveAccess commentator Art Eckman said the following about the game just before the start of overtime.

…the kids’ day has been delighted with a surprise. The surprise is a team could be down 18 points and come back and take a two point lead and then take the game into overtime.

LaChina Robinson may call it a valiant effort on the part of the Dream and, yeah, it was. But I call it a massive collapse on the part of the Sky.

And coincidentally, I would say that the Sky’s collapse yesterday was partially related to the object of my observation: the point guard position. I entered the game wondering who should start at point guard for the Sky after comments on a previous post from KT #7 suggested Toliver should start over Dominique Canty. What I think this game demonstrated is that before answering that question, the Sky need to figure out some sort of identity that they can depend on when things get rough.

The collapse

After Armintie Price made a jump shot from the wing at the beginning of the 4th quarter, the Sky were ahead by 18 points. With a minute left in the game, Atlanta had not only erased the deficit, but taken a two point lead.

So what happened?

Really, there are two connected explanations for the collapse – one is evident just by looking at the play-by-play, the other is less obvious from the stats or play-by-play: the Sky’s apparent lack of a coherent offensive system to rely on when things get tough.

If you’ve spent time watching basketball at any level, you probably know that momentum is a really strange phenomenon, which is not only about strategy or ability, but also the mindsets of the teams involved. It is generally a convergence of the losing team feeling like they have nothing to lose and the winning team either getting arrogant, playing not to lose, or starting to question the strategy that got them the big lead to begin with.

But pinpointing the shift in momentum during this game was much simpler.

About a minute after a three point play by Jennifer Lacy cut the deficit to 15, KB Sharp entered the game for Toliver. I thought to myself, “Hmmm…that’s weird. Has Sharp even played yet this game?” The answer was no, she had not played. But it probably didn’t seem to matter at the time – the Sky clearly assumed the fourth quarter would be a smooth garbage-time coast to a victory. At that point, the Sky had the following lineup in the game: Sharp, Price, Shyra Ely, Chen Nan, and Erin Thorn.

Within the next minute the lead was down to 12.

So after the Sky emptied the bench and watched the Dream’s confidence grow as the momentum swung their way, they then brought Jia Perkins, Sylvia Fowles, and Candice Dupree back in the game with 7:09 left. But essentially that was a panic signal. But I’m not going to explain the loss entirely psychologically. Something else happened…or didn’t happen.

It would be easy to look at Sharp’s -9 plus/minus rating and put the blame on her. But a) she did not insert herself in the game for the first time after sitting all game and b) three starters re-entered the game with a 12-point lead.

When the starters re-entered the game – Canty came in at 5:38 – things didn’t get better. They were scrambling, taking contested jump shots and trying to force plays that weren’t there. The ball movement that helped them successfully find shots to that point stopped, despite having three guards on the floor (Perkins, Canty, and Sharp/Toliver). Even if we ignore the fact that they had not played a three guard lineup all game until the fourth quarter, the bigger issue here is that after building an 18 point lead, they suddenly looked lost.

Normally, one might say, well it was a lack of execution. But that assumes there is something in place to execute. So what is it, may I ask, that the Sky are even trying to execute? I can never figure that out. And it really doesn’t matter who is in the game if the team doesn’t have a common understanding of what’s supposed to happen.

System: "a method or set of procedures for achieving something."

There is certainly value to having a looser approach to basketball rather than a rigid system that limits players. And that appears to be the way Sky coach Steven Key likes to run the Sky. In fact, Toliver even said that at the beginning of the season in an interview with Slam Magazine.

“He’s a really nice guy, first and foremost, and he’s really fun to be around,” said Toliver. “He lets players play and that’s one of the things I like a lot. He’s not going to do a lot of X and O type of stuff because he wants to get up and down the floor and let you use your strengths. He knows that this team is balanced inside and out and he knows where to get people into the right spots to be successful. He knows how to get the best out of his players.”

Fun, loose, fluid, and player autonomy are nice when you have a veteran team that has experienced success in the past and knows exactly how to bring it about. Or for a team that has Kobe Bryant (+ all-star cast) or Michael Jordan. But at the end of a game when the momentum is swinging in the opponent’s direction, a young team that has yet to play in even one playoff game together needs a little structure. They don’t have that implicit sense of how to win games together yet, by no fault of their own. They just haven’t been together long enough.

And that was painfully obvious at the end of yesterday’s game – there was no structure with which to fall back on when everything started to feel chaotic.

The Sky rely very heavily on jump shooting and guard penetration. Dupree is often getting points taking baseline jumpers – which she is pretty good at – and Fowles will get an occasional touch if she happens to be open off a pick and roll or a result of the defense shifting in response to guard penetration.

Really, it sometimes looks like they are relying on some sort of dribble drive offense, which is somewhat effective, but assumes that you have multiple players who can get to the basket from the perimeter. Really, the Sky only have two players who have demonstrated the ability to themselves to the rim for easy shots or assists: Canty and Perkins.


Given that, it would seem to make more sense to do the exact opposite and focus on setting up their two talented post players and surround them with three point shooters, like Toliver and Brooke Wyckoff. Spread the defense, give the post players some space to work off of each other and move the perimeter players around the gaps.

People might say that a post-oriented system would not work for the Sky because Fowles is not the type of aggressive personality that demands the ball. However, it’s really difficult for me to forget that Fowles was not just solid at the Beijing Olympics last year, but Fowles was arguably Team USA’s most productive player. It’s not that she cannot be a more productive player, it’s that Team USA found ways to put her in position to succeed and the Sky have not.

But I digress..

So back to the original question about who should start at point guard for the Sky, how can we really answer that question if there is no clear system for the point guard to run? I don’t think anybody could really come up with a definitive answer, but I think yesterday’s game did give us a good sense of their options.

Status quo: Dominique Canty

Canty offers something that I highly value in a point guard: the ability to drive and put pressure on the defense. She’s not the most efficient scorer off the dribble, but she’s among the top point guards in the league when it comes to getting herself to the line. After missing her first three free throws in the first quarter, she went 7-7 the rest of the way. And in the beginning of the game, her ability to drive and get to the line was really giving the Dream problems.

Typically my knock against Canty is that she’s not particularly effective at getting her teammates involved within the “offense”…but that was not really the case in this game. She had a pure point rating of 3.70 for the game, which is solid. Her assist ratio, though not stellar was above average at 24.19%.

These numbers are well above Canty’s numbers for the season thus far, but from this game, she played the point guard position well just in terms of her ability to run the team and distribute the ball. And if it is some kind of dribble drive the Sky want to run, then it makes sense to start Canty.

However, I would argue that the dribble drive does not actually play to the Sky’s strengths because they really only have two players who can execute that type of offense effectively.

So hypothetically, it might make more sense to start Toliver at point guard next to Perkins and spread the defense to create space for Fowles. And Toliver gave us a glimpse of what she could do yesterday.

Supporting a shift in strategy: Kristi Toliver

I admit that I have a bias in favor of point guards that are able to break down the defense and create offense for others. And so when considering Toliver as a potential starter in the WNBA, that’s what I’ve been looking for.

And although she has not demonstrated the ability to get deep into the lane, she would actually be an outstanding option to run a post-oriented offense next to a guard like Jia Perkins who could drive to the basket.

If you did not watch yesterday’s game, what might stand out to you is that she’s shooting the ball better and getting a decent number of assists. When the Dream tried to run zone defense, Toliver also showed that she could easily be used as a zone buster as well, further supporting the idea of using her to spread the court. She can get her shot and has an array of jab steps, fade aways, and a relatively quick release that help her as a scorer.

However, what impressed me most was that she did a much better job of moving the ball in this game. It doesn’t really show up in her numbers (pure point rating of 0.00 and turnover percentage of 16.6%) but she looked much more patient in her decision making, swung the ball across the court against the zone very well, and took advantage of scoring opportunities when they came to her.

With 12 seconds left in the third quarter, she ran a beautiful high pick and roll with Fowles, drawing the defense toward her and zipping a perfect pass to Fowles for the layup. It was more of a defensive lapse by the Dream, but Toliver recognized it quickly and made the play happen.

Toliver is not by any means going to be a traditional “pass-first” point guard, but she has shown the ability to score and make plays for others as she has gotten more comfortable with her teammates. My initial question was whether she could run a team rather than looking primarily for her own scoring and I think she’s starting to show the ability to do that. The next question is whether she can do it consistently.

Then again, maybe wondering if she or Canty is the better starter at point guard is the wrong question altogether.

Jia Perkins may be the best point guard on this team

Last season when Dominique Canty was injured, Perkins demonstrated the ability to run the team extremely effectively. And contrary to what you might think, it’s not just because she’s a great scorer. She has all the ball handling, passing, and intangible ability that you might want a point guard to have.

Yesterday, she recorded 6 assists and 0 turnovers for a pure point rating of 11.11. In my latest point guard rankings, she ranked in the top five. She is one of the most productive guards overall in the league and has the ability to score efficiently. Furthermore, she’s the type of player who can put up near triple-double numbers occasionally.

Putting the ball in her hands and allowing her to make decisions in an open and loose offense, seems like a good bet. The only downside of putting her at point is that it might detract from her ability to score. But in the right type of system, she’ll be able to find her scoring opportunities while also getting the ball to her teammates…as she managed to do yesterday.

If she were in charge of making plays with Toliver next to her expected to score and both of them focused fundamentally on creating easy shots for Fowles inside and Dupree on the baseline, the Sky could be an extremely difficult team to defend. Then depending on the matchups, Canty could come off the bench either to get more penetration in the key or continue looking to the post while Toliver and Wyckoff spread the court.

Of course, this just reinforces my original point – given that there is no clear point guard starter on the Sky, they need to work out their system before they make that personnel decision.

Trade possibilities: Could swapping Kristi’s help?

If the Sky were to decide that Toliver simply doesn’t fit into their dribble drive scheme (and I argue she has not demonstrated the ability to run that kind of offense) then could a trade be in the Sky’s best interest? CJ at the TIB blog suggests exactly that and even proposes a trade idea:

So is KT stuck with the Sky? I don’t think so. I could definitely see a trade with L.A., swapping the Kristis: Harrower and Toliver. I think then you put two talented guards on teams that are better suited to their sensibilities. Harrower could certainly take over the PG duties in Chicago without missing a beat, and matching Toliver with Parker could be a formula for a decade’s worth of very interesting basketball (KT’s four years partnered with Marissa Coleman being ideal training for a combo with Parker).

On the surface, this makes a lot of sense for the Sky: Harrower has been one of the most efficient facilitators in the league thus far this season, keeping turnovers low while having a high assist ratio and pure point rating. However, given the Sky’s other personnel, I’m not sure it’s a “traditional” facilitator that the Sky need -- if they want to play an inside-out game, Toliver is a much better outside shooter, and if they want to play a dribble drive system, Harrower is not necessarily more effective at that than Toliver (though she has posted a better 2 point field goal % this season).

The Sky clearly have options at point guard and I don’t think an analysis of individual strengths and weaknesses really helps to figure out who should start there. If they keep falling apart down the stretch with an Olympian and two other potential all-stars on the team, then the problem has to go beyond individual players making poor decisions. They have to develop a system that will prevent these fourth quarter implosions.

In the end, the Sky’s success will come down to them figuring out what exactly they are trying to do. And with so many young and constantly developing players, that is no easy task.

Related Links:

7/2009 - Sky 99, Dream 98 (OT): Just Warming Up
http://atlantadreamblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/72009-sky-99-dream-98-ot-just-warming.html

Chicago's Steve Key on Kristi Toliver
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/mystics-insider/2009/06/chicagos_steve_key_on_kristi_t.html

Transition Points:

Shalee Lehning vs. Nikki Teasley… How do you measure Lehning’s impact? From watching the game, Shalee Lehning played much better than Nikki Teasley. But is there a way to show that statistically, especially when Teasley ranked #8 in my most recent rankings? I think so: one of the statistics included in my rankings is plus/minus. In yesterday’s game, Lehning recorded a plus/minus rating of +10 while Teasley had a plus/minus of -11 (click here for complete numbers).

It wasn’t that Lehning did anything spectacular, but she got the ball into the hands of the players who needed it down the stretch comeback. And it was a pretty impressive performance for a rookie point guard in a tight game. But what was most interesting was her enthusiasm – all throughout that comeback, Lehning was high fiving teammates and clearly the most excited one on the court during every stoppage of play. Part of being a leader is keeping people’s spirits high. And whereas young players are sometimes reluctant to try inspiring teammates, Lehning is clearly willing to do so. I don’t know whether she should assume a larger role on the team (her shot is really inconsistent) but she is a solid back-up nonetheless…

But after seeing so little production from the point guard position during this game, I have to wonder why they chose to waive Ivory Latta…

Continue reading...

Point Guard Rankings Update & Surprises: Cappie Pondexter and Jia Perkins...Top 10? (Late Edit)

Yesterday, I posted the first point guard rankings of the season including an analysis of the three rookie point guards drafted in the first six picks of the draft.

However, I did not initially post the full stats of all the point guards due to time constraints, so I figured I would do that today since there were no games yesterday.

As I got ready to post the tables of stats for all 25 point guards, I noticed that a few players had impressive games on Sunday that might be worth accounting for (e.g. Sue Bird: 9 assists, 0 turnovers against the Mercury on Sunday).

Then I just got curious about a few things.

Comments on last week's post about Briann January regarding whether the Chicago Sky should start Kristi Toliver over Dominique Canty made me wonder how well Jia Perkins is doing as a potential point guard option this season. And then I started thinking about another off guard who often plays the facilitator role: Cappie Pondexter of the Phoenix Mercury.

Both players have not only posted impressive point guard numbers this season, but have also managed to crack my top 10.

Update: Stats were updated @ 3pm PST due to a small Excel error and the addition of a new stat, Tendex. Some minor typos were corrected as well.

The skeptics will say there must be a flaw with this process if so many non-point guards – Perkins, Pondexter, Taurasi – can rank in my top ten. However, I would respond that the statistics are only describing very impressive play on the part of these players as lead guards thus far this season. And maybe, as these rankings initially set out to do, there are things beyond being the shortest player on the court that make someone an effective lead guard.

Pondexter’s point guard numbers, for example, really shocked me. I have watched her bring the ball up and initiate the offense, but never really thought much of her as a playmaker or facilitator for her team. The numbers tell a different story – Pondexter is among the most efficient lead guards in the league, making plays for others while limiting turnovers and still managing to score efficiently. You can only imagine what this team would have done with Lauren Jackson surrounded by such talented perimeter players.

Sorry for the oversight Cappie.

The Rankings (as of 6/21/09)

Below are the numbers for the top 10 point guards in each category: facilitator ability, scoring ability, and game impact. (Click here for the full explanation of why I’m using these statistics)

Ticha Penicheiro (injury) and Shannon Johnson (recovering) have been removed from the list to accommodate Perkins and Pondexter.

There is a lot to chew on here, so I will look forward to feedback from others.

Does Cappie Pondexter's performance thus far this season seem to match these impressive stats? What might the stats be missing/exaggerating?

Facilitator Ability  PLAYER Ast. Ratio Tov% PPR Tot. Rank 1. Harrower, K. 32.05% 4.57% 7.24 70 2. Johnson, T 33.83% 10.72% 6.34 67 2. Bird, S. 36.29% 11.16% 8.67 67 4. Whalen, L. 25.44% 7.27% 5.92 62 4. Harding, L. 32.36% 11.16% 5.36 62 6. Teasley, N. 36.43% 14.17% 3.24 57 7. Pondexter, C. 22.17% 7.58% 4.91 55 8. Lawson, K. 23.62% 11.81% 2.17 47 9. Mitchell, L. 31.99% 15.99% 2.51 44 9. Moore, L. 26.05% 14.65% 1.57 44

Scoring Ability  PLAYER TS% 2 pt% Pts/Z pt pos Tot. Rank 1. Brown, K. 68.31% 56.25% 3.08 75 2. Taurasi, T. 68.05% 55.81% 53.85 72 3. Bevilaqua, T. 61.57% 55.55% 2.14 66 4. Pondexter, C. 56.08% 53.40% 2.63 64 5. Johnson, T. 55.09% 52.38% 2.04 58 5. Perkins, J. 58.68% 45.61% 2.37 58 7. Teasley, N. 65.57% 33.33% 2.10 51 8. Bird, S. 53.79% 45.65% 1.85 50 9. Whalen, L. 47.94% 46.51% 1.91 47 9. Hammon, B. 50.84% 50.00% 1.58 47 9. Montgomery, R. 51.36% 50.00% 1.55 47

Game Impact  PLAYER Plus/Minus Tendex Tot. Rank 1. Perkins, J. +35.2 17.25 46 2. Bird, S. +36.8 15.42 45 3. Johnson, T. +23.7 14.21 42 4. Harding, L. +50.5 8.75 41 5. Pondexter, C. +7.8 21.17 40 6. Wiggins, C. +23.3 7.75 31 7. Taurasi, D. -12.1 22.03 30 7. Brown, K. +7.1 8.58 30 9. Lawson, K. +3.8 9.41 28 10. Harrower, K. +8 7.37 27 10. Hammon, B. +8.1 6.68 27

Overall  PLAYER Facilitator Scoring Impact Tot. Rank 1. Johnson, T. 67 58 42 167 2. Bird, S. 67 50 45 162 3. Pondexter, C. 55 64 40 159 4. Brown, K. 41 75 30 146 5. Perkins, J. 34 58 46 138 6. Harrower, K. 70 37 27 134 7. Whalen, L. 62 47 24 133 8. Teasley, N. 57 51 22 130 9. Taurasi, D. 26 72 30 128 9. Bevilaqua, T. 34 66 22 122

(Late) Transition Points:

The Tendex metric is described at Dougsstats.com. H/t to Scott for letting me know about it -- it makes more sense to me than Win Score. And if you look at the numbers from last season, the ordering of point guards looks much more reasonable.

Coincidentally, the two players who benefitted from the switch from Win Score to Tendex most were Perkins and Pondexter. Among the players hurt most were Kiesha Brown and Vickie Johnson.

Tendex hurt the rookie point guards: For the record, with the shift to Tendex, there was a shift in position for Briann January, Renee Montgomery, and Kristi Toliver who I looked at previously:

January, 77, #19
Montgomery, 73, #20
Toliver, 69, #23

In other words, they each have weaknesses that they will need to work on...

Continue reading...

Point Guard Rankings & Rookies: What a Difference a Weekend Makes...

On Friday, I wrote a post singing the praises of Briann January with the intent to later post statistical rankings of her rookie point guard counterparts relative to the rest of the league.

I then set out to crunch the numbers and reflect on the best means with which to evaluate point guards. And those numbers were supposed to support my point...

As of Friday afternoon, Renee Montgomery and Briann January were neck and neck statistically, with Kristi Toliver ranking 24th in the league among my chosen point guards.

And then more games were played.

Hours after my Friday post, Indiana Fever coach Linn Dunn nailed January with a DNP-CD. Renee Montgomery struggled and slipped significantly statistically. And Kristi Toliver put together two consecutive solid games, despite the Sky losing.

In other words, everything I was going to write was rendered worthless within hours.

This of course is the fun of following sports and trying to apply statistical analysis before teams have even played five games.

I put all of that out there to make an obvious point about these statistical rankings: I fully acknowledge that they’re not only imperfect but also subject to change, either because of a coach’s change in strategy, a significant injury, or natural player development. All of that is exacerbated when looking at rookies who are constantly growing as players, figuring out their role on the team, and responding to the team’s demands of them.

It’s messy. And that makes it fun.

These numbers are not meant to be the final word on the hierarchy of WNBA point guards; instead, I would hope that they serve as a conversation piece. I personally love them exactly because of how my initial thoughts were ruined this season: they allow me to track trends in players across the league and hopefully help me see things I might have missed through standard observation.

To be clear, it would be silly to claim that statistics tell the full story of basketball. However, I find it equally silly for people to pretend that their own observations are perfect. The numbers complement what we see and what we see can complement the numbers. Whichever way you approach a sport, the more information we have, the better we are able to understand what we are looking at…and hopefully form grounded, substantive opinions.

With that in mind, the main purpose of this post is to present an analysis of the first three point guards drafted in the first round – Kristi Toliver, Renee Montgomery, and Briann January. At the end, I’ll look at their performance relative to the rest of the league’s point guards.

Ultimately, I think I can say this about these three right now: judging who’s best among these three point guards is more a matter of taste than any sort of objective standard. And in the end, the goodness of fit with their team might matter more than the isolated skills they bring to the court.

A refresher on the Rethinking Basketball point guard statistics…

(Feel free to skip down to the section titled "Who’s the WNBA’s best point guard after two weeks?" if you hated high school math as much as I did and have a PTSD reaction anytime you see numbers in sequence beyond your bank account or a digital clock. Near the end of the post is a narrative summary of the rookie point guards and the top 10 WNBA point guards overall)

Last season, I used the following statistics to evaluate point guards:

Pure point rating
Net plus/minus rating
Points per zero point possession
Hollinger assist ratio
Usage rate
Boxscores
True shooting percentage

I generally like the results – by the last rankings I posted last season (click here to see those), Lindsay Whalen and Sue Bird were on top…and you’d have a really difficult time convincing me there is something wrong with that outcome.

Nevertheless, I am going to continue to tweak things, with the intention of making the outcome even stronger.

As it happens, the NBA draft is point guard heavy this year so there have been a few stories floating around the web recently about point guard analysis. Draftexpress, ESPN’s TrueHoop (observation, not statistical), HoopsAnalyst, and the Wages of Wins have all had in depth analyses of NBA point guards that I took a look at before launching into my own analysis of WNBA point guards.

First, the Arbitrarian blog no longer posts its “Boxscores” so I am not going to use that (sorry, just extra numbers for me to crunch right now). So for now, I will go back to Dave Berri’s Win Score, simply because it’s easy to calculate (petrel’s description from last year is pretty solid). I will think further on this for future iterations of these point guard rankings.

Update: I settled on Tendex ratings for now. More on that here:
http://rethinkbball.blogspot.com/2009/06/point-guard-rankings-update-surprises.html

Second, after reading through all the other articles, I realized that my framework did not really have any way of accounting for a point guard’s ability to break down the defense and get to the basket, whether to score or set up a play for someone else. The importance of this was especially evident in TrueHoops account of Minnesota’s recent point guard prospect workout – the ability to beat a defender and score either on pull-up jumpers or getting to the rim. It says something about quickness, ball handling, and a player’s instincts.

And when you think about it, if a point guard is going to have the ball in their hands at the end of a game, it would be a huge asset to be able to beat a defender and set up easy shots for their team. That was exactly the problem I described when I watched Sacramento playing Minnesota the other day.

So I spent some time thinking about how best to capture that.

Draftexpress suggests that free throw attempts per possession are a pretty good way to assess a player’s aggressiveness driving the lane. And while that’s true, it doesn’t seem to practically capture what one might want. At the end of a game, for example, a player might simply pick up free throw attempts in the bonus as a team fouls to stop the clock. A player could get fouled on a three. And really, if a player goes to the basket for a layup and gets fouled, getting one free throw for being able to complete the play is much better than getting two for not completing the play.

But HoopsAnalyst has used a different metric for years that I have ignored until now: 2 point field goal percentage. Again, when you think about how point guards might score, a more effective way to assess their ability to get to the basket might be their ability to complete two point plays. Point guards are unlikely to be scoring two point field goals on post ups or set shots because, for the most part, they have the ball in their hands making plays.

TrueHoop nicely characterized some of the ways a point guard might score two point field goals:

Anyway, Tyreke was dominant.

Refusing to simply muscle his way to the hoop (which he did handily a few times), he scored in a half a dozen different ways. Pull-ups on the wing, runners, balanced fade-aways, and a particularly spectacular jab-step and crossover that sent Flynn (without question the best defender of the group) reeling. His jumper needs work but I wouldn't call it a weakness, and he'll definitely hit enough to force defenders to respect it.

Lawson and Flynn played about how I expected them to. Controlled the ball well, took high percentage shots and occasionally switched gears to get to the rim.

Given how an elite point guard is likely to get two point field goals – pull-ups, runners, fade-aways, driving lay ups, changing pace in space – knowing that they are able to complete those plays tells me a lot more about their ability to attack the basket and complete plays than free throw attempts. And if they are able to beat a defender in the variety of ways described on TrueHoop, they will draw a defense in ways that enable them to distribute more effectively as well. So ultimately, I went with 2 point percentage.

Third, after thinking conceptually about what I wanted to see from a point guard, I also decided to drop usage percentage and add turnover percentage. The decision to add turnover percentage was simple – turnovers are bad. A point guard who makes a lot of them is not likely to be elite (yes, even though great point guards make a lot of turnovers, their turnover percentage should be low).

Usage percentage is just more of a descriptive statistic than one used to evaluate anything. Knowing that a player is individually responsible for a team’s plays does not help me assess their quality. For example, some teams might be so loaded with scorers at other positions that a point guard using up a whole bunch of plays would be counter productive. Conversely, some teams have Olympians or all-world point guards who might best benefit their team by using a lot of plays. Furthermore, a point guard who can’t shoot or turns the ball over a whole lot is best served by giving it to someone else. A good shooter who is not shooting a lot might hurt their team.

In other words, there’s no way to say whether a player’s usage percentage is good or bad without taking account of a whole lot of other variables. It’s not really something I can individually rank a player on.

Since this may all seem a little unwieldy, I’ve broken down these statistics into three categories: facilitation ability, scoring ability, and game impact. And came up with some interesting results.

Which rookie point guard is best so far?

(Note: Most stats are through 6/20/09, plus/minus stats though 6/21/09)

Facilitation ability

So fundamentally, a point guard needs to be able to bring the ball up the court and distribute it to others. Ideally, that player would be able to facilitate scoring opportunities for others. A first obvious question might be one that can be answered by looking at a player’s assist ratio:

How often does a player create an assist? (Hollinger Assist Ratio)

Here are the numbers:

Hollinger Assist Ratio

January, 29.26%, #7
Toliver, 21.95%, #14
Montgomery, 18.65, #20

Just for some perspective, if we drop two outliers at the top and bottom of the assist ratio rankings, a high assist ratio is 36.72 (Temeka Johnson) and a low assist ratio is 13.24 (Deanna Nolan).

The order of assist ratios among the rookie point guards is identical to the order of their assist averages, with January ranking just above average (23.34%) in assist ratio among the point guards on this list.

Neither Montgomery nor Toliver could be considered effective distributors based upon these numbers. And, if we ask a second question about a player's ability as a facilitator, that point becomes even more clear.

How efficiently does a player create scoring opportunities per others?

To answer that, let’s take a look at these players’ pure point rating:

Pure point rating:

January, 1.43, #11
Montgomery, -2.18, #19
Toliver, -7.29, #23

Again, for some perspective, the high pure point rating is 6.95 (Temeka Johnson) and the low is -7.98 (Shannon Johnson).

So what does this say about Toliver?

Although Toliver’s assist ratio tells us that she is creating an assist on almost one of every four plays that she makes, she has not been particularly efficient at creating those opportunities.

More specifically, if we consider the fact that turnovers are statistically more harmful than assists are helpful, the fact that Toliver has more turnovers than assists on the season means that she is not making very good decisions in trying to distribute the ball.

More generally, whereas we can use assist ratio to describe what a player does with the ball, we can use pure point rating to evaluate how well a player is distributing the ball.

Unfortunately, none of these three point guards does very well when it comes to turnover percentage all ranking in the bottom five of this list of point guards.

Turnover percentage:

January, 16.72%, #20
Montgomery, 16.96%, #21
Toliver, 21.95%, #24

Combined with the pure point rating and assist ratio, what this tells us is that January is clearly doing a better job than Montgomery at picking up assists despite committing turnovers at about the same rate. That Toliver is committing a turnover so often is what accounts for her low pure point rating.

To say that Toliver has been ineffective as a distributor is therefore an understatement. And this supports a point I’ve made previously – players with low pure point ratings in college, typically do not make a big jump in the pros.

Scoring Ability

However, Toliver’s strength in college was her scoring ability and one might hope that she has been a more efficient scorer than distributor in the pros.

And judging from Montgomery’s distributing stats, one would hope that she’s making up for it with point production.

Having examined how efficiently these point guards distribute the ball, we might now want to know how efficiently a point guard is as a scorer. Theoretically, a poor distributing point guard could make up for that by being an efficient scorer.

A first question I might ask is as follows: how well does a player shoot the ball when adjusting for free throws and the increased difficulty of three pointers into account?

For that, I use true shooting percentage and to this point, Toliver has not done well in that regard:

True Shooting %:

Toliver, 57.32%, #5
Montgomery, 51.36%, #8
January, 44.50%, #20

While Montgomery has been an average distributor, she’s been a rather solid shooter based on her true shooting percentage. The opposite is true for January – she’s been an effective distributor, but not so effective as a shooter. And that’s expected – she was not known for her shooting ability entering the league.

Although Toliver is still a rather inconsistent shooter, she’s demonstrated against the Sun on Friday and Mystics on Saturday that she can shoot the ball.

However, in addition to knowing that she can shoot the ball well, we might also want to know how efficient she is in scoring for her team compared to wasting possessions.

That leads to a second question, answered by the statistic points per zero point possession:

How often is a player individually responsible for scoring possessions compared to non-scoring possessions?

This can be used as a proxy for scorer decision making – how well are they balancing scoring possessions with non-scoring possessions? – but also as a way to think about how well your point guard is managing possessions.

So for example, if a player does create a lot of turnovers or end possessions without scores, this stat will help us see if they are making up for that with points, rather than assists.

Pts/Zero Pt. Pos:

Montgomery, 1.55, #12
Toliver, 1.51, #14
January, 1.21, #19

So first of all, it’s worth noting that all three of these players is below average (1.64) in this stat among the 25 point guards I selected for these rankings. But although none of them are particularly efficient scoring point guards, both Toliver and Montgomery are close to average and shooting a high enough percentage that they could probably establish themselves as efficient scorers in the league.

However, a third question we might ask about scoring ability is: how well does the player score inside the three point line?

Where Montgomery really separates herself from Toliver and January in terms of scoring efficiency is 2 point field goal percentage.

2 Point%:

Montgomery, 50%, #6
Toliver, 38%, #13
January, 36%, #17

While Montgomery may not be very efficient as a distributor, she is finding ways to get herself high percentage shots, and that bodes well for her future as a point guard.

This would suggest that Toliver is doing the majority of her scoring from low percentage outside shots, which might end up being ok given her true shooting percentage. But the low 2 point percentage seems to suggest that she is not as good at creating high percentage shots inside the three point line, which is pretty much consistent with what I’ve seen of her.

Toliver spends a lot of time with the ball at the top of the key looking for her own shot without really being able to beat her defender. That not only hurts her scoring ability, but also her ability to make plays for others.

Chicago Sky coach Steven Key addressed on possible cause for this problem in a recent Washington Post article:

One of the of knocks on her before we drafted her was that she's not physically as strong as a lot of other people. She's not as big as everybody else. But she also has a larger skill set than most people do. We've been working with her on that, trying to make that adjustment, until she can get a little stronger, until she can gauge how deep she can go into lane before she can still get her shot off, how much body contact can she take and not be off-balance. Until she figures that out, we're helping her get around it the best she can.

Perhaps this explains her low 2 point% -- a tentativeness about scoring in the lane.

So we now see that Montgomery is the better scorer, January the better distributor, and Toliver struggling at both so far. So the next thing to examine is how good a playmaker the player is.

The difference between these two statistics and the facilitator metrics above is that I am now looking at quantifying “intangibles” by using these metrics as proxies – ball dominance, a team’s reliance on a player, and aggressiveness in driving to the basket.

To put a player’s performance in perspective, it is sometimes helpful to look at their usage percentage -- the percentage of a team’s plays that a player is individually responsible for while on the court. And the outcome for Toliver is somewhat alarming given what we found out above.

Usage %

Toliver, 35.83%, #1
Montgomery, 17.57%, #13
January, 16.93%, #14

Toliver is using up more plays than any starting point guard in the league....and yet, she’s a below average shooter and distributor. Which means Toliver has essentially been a ball stopper to this point in her career – she is getting the ball and individually responsible for burning plays.

Just to put it in perspective, the three players closest to Toliver’s usage rate are Nolan (30.51), Becky Hammon (30.66), and Diana Taurasi (27.38)…but these are all-stars whose teams are dependent upon them to make plays. It’s quite perplexing that Toliver is using a larger percentage of plays on the court than any of those three, especially when considering that the Sky should be looking inside to Sylvia Fowles and Candice Dupree.

(Note: Since this is a statistic that does not stand very well on its own without some indicator of a player’s efficiency with the ball, I am no longer including it in the rankings. But it’s still interesting to look at when judging the quality of a point guard)

Game impact

Lastly, given that a point guard likely has the ball in their hands a lot, you would hope that they have a positive impact on the game. For that, I use Win Score and plus/minus.

Here are those numbers:

Win Score:

January, -.39, 15
Montgomery, -.65
Toliver, -.83

Plus/Minus:

January, +5.5, #10
Montgomery, -2.4, #15
Toliver, -8.5, #18

The plus/minus numbers are more clear – January has had a relatively positive impact on her team when on the floor whereas Montgomery and Toliver are not contributing as much as one might like.

Win Score does not look favorably upon any of these players.

Thus far, this confirms what one might essentially infer from the previous statistics: Toliver is struggling to contribute positively out of the gate.

Who’s the WNBA’s best point guard after two weeks?

When compared to other point guards in the league, Montgomery and January have been about average, while Toliver has been struggling to make a case as a potential starter one day.

Every starting point guard was included in these rankings in addition to a few players who often assume point guard roles on their teams (Hammon, Nolan, Taurasi, Candice Wiggins).

(Note: for the complete rankings and numbers of the top point guards so far this season, click here.)

Briefly, the following players from last year’s rankings were left out because they either have not played significant minutes or are no longer with a team:

Nikki Blue
K.B. Sharp
Tan White
Ivory Latta
Jia Perkins (I don’t think she’ll be running point much this season with Toliver around)
Katie Smith (does not do well in these rankings)
Shannon Bobbitt (limited minutes this year, but I like her!)

In their place are the following:

Our three rookie protagonists
Shavonte Zellous
Kara Lawson
Nikki Teasley
Kristi Harrower

I just did a ranking of 1-25 in each of 8 categories from above (excluding usage rate, which is more of a descriptive stat than evaluative).

One quick caveat: looking at last year’s statistics, using Boxscores along with these stats gives a much more reasonable result than using Win Score. At the moment however, I don’t have the time to come up with Boxscores without the help of the Arbitrarian…I put in an email to him…hopefully he gets back to me. So take these with a grain of salt knowing that the results will be different once I get that additional stat.

Here are the top 10 WNBA point guards overall as of 6/21/08 (total points in parentheses):

1. Temeka Johnson (174)
2. Kiesha Brown (169)
3. Kristi Harrower (153)
4. Sue Bird (148)
5. Lindsay Whalen (143)
5. Diana Taurasi (143)
7. Nikki Teasley (138)
8. Tully Bevilaqua (136)
9. Kara Lawson (127)
10. Noelle Quinn (117)

14. Renee Montgomery (93)
15. Briann January (91)
19. Kristi Toliver (80)

For rankings as of 6/22/09, click here.

What we see is that all three of these rookie point guards are knocking on the door of “average”. None of them is really among the top tier guards right now.

I keep saying “right now” because these statistics are based on a very small sample – you have to imagine that by the end of the season, players like Bird and Whalen will move up while Kristi Harrower and Kiesha Brown will fall back down to earth after solid statistical starts. And Boxscores – a metric that takes account of the player’s contribution to a team’s wins – will help that as well.

But what’s interesting is looking at the point guard styles of our three rookies of interest:

January is looking like she will end up being more of a “distributor” point guard, with a below average usage percentage, an above average assist ratio, and an above average pure point rating. That is great for a team that has scorers to pass to. She might be the closest thing to a “pure facilitator” among these three point guards, but will have to cut down on the turnovers.

Montgomery is looking like she could either turn into a scoring point guard, but I think it’s also obvious that she has all the tools to become an elite combo guard with the ability to penetrate the lane and score or distribute.

Toliver is hard to peg, but right now her only real strength as a pro is three point shooting. She really has not demonstrated the ability to distribute the ball efficiently at this point, which is why I would not put her in the “combo guard” category.

Of course, you could say she’s not that much worse than Montgomery, but from watching the two play, Montgomery is able to get by her defender and make plays. That simply is not Toliver’s game at the professional level. Right now she is a turnover prone three point shooter who seems to be looking for her own shot more than that of others. That doesn’t bode well for her future, but hopefully she’ll get better over time.

So in the end, the "best" of these three will depend on what a team wants...at least partially.

Here are a few other notes about the rankings:

So I’m sure seeing Kiesha Brown as the #2 point guard raises red flags about this process. However, despite the caveat that this is a small sample size, Brown is actually playing extremely efficient basketball right now.

Brown is not exactly a big playmaker but she is doing a great job of protecting possessions – her turnover percentage (the percentage of plays in which she commits a turnover) is 6.23, the second lowest of any point guard in this group (Vickie Johnson has yet to commit a turnover this year). Brown is playing better basketball this season and the statistics show that.

During last week’s game against the sky, Mike Thibault said the following about Brown during a halftime interview:

“Well I think part of her problem was that people were always trying to get her to be a starter where she was…in LA they started her a lot of games. And what happens with a lot of teams is they go get a cheaper backup…and what you get is a situation where we don’t need her to be a starter now. We’re not looking for her to be a starter. She could be if we had an emergency. But we’re looking for a player that can play a couple of roles for us – at both guard spots. And so I think it makes a difference in how you fit in a team when you know what the expectations are. LA needed her to be the starting point guard..and we don’t need her to be that, we need her to be a complement to Lindsay Whalen. And this may be why she can settle in a little bit better.”

The funny thing is that the same could be said about Temeka Johnson’s shift from LA to Phoenix – her role and expectations got clearer and she performed better. Obviously, Thibault was not taking a cheap shot at LA’s system…but…

Speaking of which, Temeka Johnson has been phenomenal this season. She is near the top in almost every category. The only one she is below average in is usage rate…which actually makes her season thus far more impressive – she is distributing the ball efficiently, and taking good shots while also not dominating the ball on a team with Taurasi and Cappie Pondexter. To this point, she has been the perfect fit for the Mercury...

Kristi Harrower #3? Really?

Let me just give you her numbers to this point:

PPR: 6.85 (#3)
Plus/Minus: +12.1 (#7)
True shooting %: 47.79 (#14)
Points per zero point possession: 1.98 (#6)
Turnover%: 5.40 (#1)
Assist ratio: 32.42% (#3)
2 point%: 47.3% (#7)
Usage%: 11.52 (#22)

Harrower is not a superstar point guard. But as of right now, she’s just not making many mistakes and getting the ball into the hands of her superstar teammates. She is not dominating the ball at all as evidenced by her low usage rate and that’s probably a good thing.

Would it be nice for the Sparks to have a more dynamic point guard? Sure. But Harrower is playing some of the most efficient basketball in the league right now, which is something that could not be said for any one of the Sparks’ point guards last year...

Sue Bird has not been scoring very well to start the season (until yesterday), which is really hurting her ranking right now. It is likely that once she starts shooting more effectively she’ll rise in these rankings. But she's been on fire distributing the ball in the last three games after publicly lamenting a 7 turnover performance against the Lynx: 22 assists, 0 turnovers is not too bad...

Lindsey Harding is currently ranked #12 which might be surprising given her relatively hot start. But while she is doing a lot right, her shooting has been abysmal thus far, with a true shooting percentage of 34.58% and a 2 point% of 23.68%...

In watching Whalen in the game against the Sky, she is still doing all she can to make plays for the Sun. The problem is the Sun have not been making shots (until about Friday); in that game against the Sky, I counted at least five assists that Whalen lost simply because her teammates did not make shots after Whalen set them up nicely...

Wondering about my personal favorite from last year, Leilani Mitchell (#18)? Some folks…ahem…some haters... suggested last year that if given starter minutes, Mitchell’s production would go down. Thus far, that’s exactly what’s happened this season. I have not watched the Liberty enough yet this year to say exactly what’s going on, but I can say her shooting numbers are among the lowest in this group and her assist numbers are down considerably as well. Hopefully she can turn it around...

Transition Points:

I was tempted to follow Draftexpress’ lead and add steals per 40 minutes to the mix. While it’s not a perfect proxy for defense, it does demonstrate a measure of athleticism. Something to think about for the next iteration.

I have to wonder if Renee Montgomery will assume a bigger role on the Lynx with Augustus out for the season. The reason is that they will have to replace her scoring somehow or seriously change their offense. Montgomery has demonstrated the ability to score in spurts and they might need more of that now.

I got a look at Shalee Lehning for the first time yesterday. She is not necessarily a player who will “wow” you, but she makes good decisions with the ball and keeps the offense moving. She looks really comfortable within Atlanta’s offense. It was especially interesting comparing her to Leilani Mitchell because they both are very decisive young point guards. The big difference – and an important one – is that Mitchell is ultra-quick. It will be interesting to see how Lehning does as the season wears on.

Nikki Teasley also looked like a pretty good point guard in yesterday’s game against New York. She is extremely patient with the ball and just looks in complete control bringing the ball up the court. She’s decisive, but unlike Lehning or Mitchell she does not commit to a specific decision unless she’s sure it’s right. While Lehning and Mitchell spend a lot of time dribbling back and forth across the court surveying opportunities, Teasley just calmly surveys the situation and lets the game come to her. It’s impressive…and it’s showing up in the stats this year.

If only the Dream had played defense yesterday.

Two WNBA point guards have been signed to endorsement contracts with a new company that makes athletic shoes designed specifically for female athletes, Atlanta-based Nfinity. Will be interesting to watch for any of those promotions.

The Chicago Sky did not look very good against the Sun on Friday…and then dropped Saturday’s game against the Mystics who were also coming off a back to back. I am still a little confused about what they are attempting to do on offense. Hopefully they work that out as the season goes on.

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