jordan morgan

I saved this mailbag question because it required some digging, though little did I realize just how much. The query is simple enough:

When is the last time that all 5 of Michigan's starters dunked in a single game? #mgomailbag

— Dan Luchi (@Looukey) May 5, 2021

Michigan had a couple athletic point guards in the John Beilein era and tallied many glorious, dunk-filled blowouts. This should be easy. I'll still go year-by-year just in case something comes up; my shortcut is to use Bart Torvik's play-by-play data to check the number of dunks by the starting point guard(s), then investigate further if necessary.

all for naught [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

2020-21: The starting point guard is Mike Smith, who records zero dunks.

2019-20: Zavier Simpson records his first career dunk in a loss to Wisconsin; the only other Wolverine to throw it down in that game is Franz Wagner. C'mon, guys.

2018-19: Simpson doesn't dunk.

2017-18: Ditto, same goes for Jaaron Simmons and a pre-"Thunder" Eli Brooks.

2016-17: Derrick Walton does many incredible things. Dunking is not one of them.

2015-16: The mortal version of Walton also doesn't dunk.

2014-15: A cursed year in which a dunkless Walton gets hurt and his replacements are Spike Albrecht and Andrew Dakich.

2013-14: A young, spry Walton attempts a slam at the Breslin Center. He misses it. Michigan wins, so it's cool, and he's also the only starter to even try to throw it down, so it doesn't really matter for this exercise. Anyway, that's the only dunk attempt of the year for him.

[Hit THE JUMP for the 2013 team getting remarkably close multiple times, but do they make it?]

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.]

The origins of Juwan Howard. I generally don't lead with long articles behind paywalls with no nuggets to pull out and discuss independently, but Brendan Quinn's profile of a literal basketball court in Chicago is too good not to:

The 10-year-old cooked up his nerves. Deep breaths rising and falling, in and out; his hollow chest turning molten hot. OK, Nook, you can do this. He took a step toward the courtyard, where out in the clearing a pack of boys whooped and laughed, playing baseball and talking smack. A cloud of dust rose from the field and through it walked young Juwan Howard, all tall and awkward, coming to introduce himself.

The boys stopped and turned.

“Isn’t this great?” Howard said. “I’m so excited to live in a townhouse!”

A pause hung, then an explosion of laughter.

“Townhouse?” one of the boys said. “These ain’t no townhouses!”

It's one Juwan Howard had built shortly after getting a giant NBA contract, and is as much about America as it is Juwan Howard.

[After THE JUMP: in which the ripped jersey flagrant is revealed to be a one off]