darius morris

[Eric Upchurch]

We know you're starving for live sports. While we cannot provide that, we can do the next-best thing: watch some old games while providing inane commentary.

Join me at 8:00 pm ET as we travel back to January 27th, 2011, when John Beilein's Wolverines went in search of their first win at the Breslin Center since 1997. Bob Wischusen and (gulp) Stephen Bardo are on the call. I'll be talking over them for much of it. Trust me, this is for the best.

If you'd like to take part in the live chat, you can get the full experience on my Twitch page.

Consider this a test run. If all goes well, plan on seeing a lot more of this while we're all waiting for something approaching normalcy to return.

that's a bucket [Eric Upchurch]

Previously: Part One

After looking at Michigan's stellar pick-and-roll production and how they do it last week, I dove deeper into Synergy's database to try to put this year's team in a historical context. At first I was just looking at other lead ballhandlers, then I was putting tables for every season together, then I realized I needed to add the screeners to the equation and look at how each team varied their P&R attack to do this right.

So what was going to be the second half of this series is now the second of either three or four parts. I'm trying not to make these too long to digest. These posts are going to be heavy on Synergy's stats, so I want to make a few notes before going any further.

While Synergy uses the terminology "points per possession" to describe how they measure production, that's very misleading when you're used to looking at KenPom. I'm switching over to describing Synergy stats as "points per play." The distinction is described in this useful Cleaning The Glass post:

CTG distinguishes between possessions and plays, and this distinction is important when diving into context information. A possession starts when a team gets the ball and ends when they lose it. A play ends when the team attempts a shot, goes to the foul line, or turns the ball over. If a team gets an offensive rebound, that results in a continuation of a possession but a new play. So a possession can have multiple plays.

Play contexts are per-play, not per-possession. For example, a team might come down in transition and miss a shot, get the offensive rebound, kick it out, and run a halfcourt set. Then might miss that shot but get a tip in to score and end the possession. That was all one possession, but three different plays and three different contexts: the first shot was in transition, the second in the halfcourt, and the third was a putback.

Because offensive rebounds start a new "play" within a possession, points per play are inherently going to be lower than points per possession. To help contextualize, I've included each player's national percentile rank for that season along with their stats.

For ballhandlers, "own offense" includes plays that finish with a field goal attempt, shooting foul, or turnover. "Passes" measure the result of shots that come as a direct result of the ballhandler's pass out of the pick-and-roll. "Keep percentage" is a stat I added myself that simply measures the percentage of a time the ballhandler uses his own offense instead of recording a passing play—Michigan has had players arrive at similar efficiency despite sporting very different styles.

an enjoyable pick-and-pop example

For screeners, you mostly just need to know the difference between popping, rolling, and slipping a screen:

  • Popping: setting the screen and then stepping out (usually to the three-point line) for what's almost always a spot-up shot. Occasionally a more versatile big man will drive off a pop. Think Moe Wagner.
  • Rolling: setting the screen and then going to the basket in the hopes of getting a layup/dunk. Think Jordan Morgan.
  • Slipping: faking the screen before running to a predesignated spot—usually the rim, sometimes spotting up if it's a Wagner-type or perimeter player—as a changeup to keep defenses from overplaying the ballhandler.

As a general rule, points per play are going to higher when the screener finishes the play than the ballhander because of the nature of the pick-and-roll. A pass is usually going to be thrown to an open man when the play works; while the ballhandler could take a shot because he got open himself, he also usually has to finish the play if it's well defended.

Consider the degree of difficulty of Zavier Simpson's or Cassius Winston's shots; it's hard to be a really efficient scorer off the pick-and-roll. Morgan, while a great roll man, often just had to catch the ball and finish an uncontested shot at the rim. Most of Wagner's pick-and-pop threes went up without a real shot contest. This makes sense: there's little reason to pass the ball to your big man if he isn't open. Teams also often default to a quick screen in late clock situations, which tends to create more difficult shots the ballhandler has little choice but to take.

The other thing to note in the screener stats: under number of plays in each category, "%" shows the percentage of the time each player popped, rolled, or slipped out of their overall screener plays used. The "%ile" under points points play in each category, however, measures percentile national rank. I realize this is a little confusing but I couldn't come up with a better way than Synergy in this case.

With that out of the way, let's dive in.

[Hit THE JUMP for a year-by-year history of Michigan's pick-and-roll offense and what we can learn from it.]

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[photos: Fuller]

Freshmen sometimes play like freshmen, but fergodsakes…

From Hardaway to Stauskas, Michigan fans in recent seasons have been spoiled by freshmen who show up and can immediately ball with the starters. So what's up with Walton/Irvin? Were we too high on them or is this normal for kids before Christmas? Will they improve enough by March to make Michigan the contender we thought they were at the beginning of the season?

Brian:  I DON'T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE

...

Okay, sorry, sorry. It is kind of weird that all of a sudden Michigan has to deal with freshmen playing like freshmen. Last year Stauskas was pretty great from the drop, GRIII was the perfect addition to a Trey Burke driven team, and even Albrecht came off the bench to play his role effectively and occasionally drop sick dimes on VCU or rain threes on Louisville. The year before that, Trey Burke! The year before that Tim Hardaway was just a (high volume, pretty effective) shooter but I'll take just a shooter from a freshman.

morris7
The last freshman who wasn't really efficient as a true freshman.

You have to go back to 2010(!) to find a Michigan team that didn't get really efficient play from at least one of its freshmen. That year, Darius Morris did get starter's minutes at the point but barely shot and had a post-like 27 TO rate. And even in that situation you can understand what happened: Morris was a no-shoot pick and roll savant playing with Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims. The former was a ball magnet with no conscience, the latter a PF masquerading as a C. He was never going to be a great player until he got to dominate the ball a la Manny.

Michigan's freshmen are not in that situation. Irvin can stand in the corner and jack threes a la freshman Hardaway just fine, hypothetically. Walton, too, is in a situation where he can contribute with his decent three point shooting and hypothetically good on-ball defense without having to dominate the ball, which doesn't seem like a good idea. So they can slot in to provide effective help for the GRIII/LeVert/Stauskas troika that spearheads Michigan shot generation. We just have to see them do it.

I think both have disappointed, and that it's reasonable to expect better production--some production--any production--from guys ranked in the top 50 most places. That's not to write either off. I mean, Caris LeVert. Players get better, often radically. But Michigan fans are well within their rights to be a little disappointed about how it's gone for the freshmen so far.

As for whether they'll get better, I DON'T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE. Someone tell me yes.

[After the Jump: people who work for Brian telling him 'yes']