On a High Quality Offense that can win a Ring, and Why Chauncey Billups is Partly Wasted by the Denver Nuggets

There is no denying that Chauncey Billups of the Denver Nuggets is one of the top point guards in pro basketball. Almost everyone knows he is much better than the starting point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers, Derek Fisher. For the Lakers, some point guard duties that ideally would be performed by a point guard are performed by superstar 2-guard Kobe Bryant instead. Unlike many guards including even Allen Iverson, Kobe Bryant can often successfully in effect play both guard positions at once for long stretches of time.

But in order to get the full advantage of any top NBA player, you have to set the framework to make sure that player does what he does best as much as possible. If necessary, you have to keep reminding that player to do as much of what he does best as possible.

The Denver Nuggets have from time to time failed to do this with many key players. This Report will focus on one important Nugget: point guard Chauncey Billups.

There is an extremely strong correlation between playoff and Championship wins and assists, but especially assists by the designated point guards and, in some cases, by 2-guards who, either because they have point guard skills or because they are superstars, (like Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade) make a lot of high quality assists themselves. A high quality assist is when a player who is not likely to score on a play finds a player who is in one of his favorite situations for scoring and/or a player who is undefended, whereupon that player makes the score. An ordinary assist is any assist where the player making the assist might just as well have scored himself, or where the player who actually scored was not in a prime situation to score, but was able to score anyway.

The Quest for the Ring has developed offensive quality performance measures that get at the crucial subject of quality of offense, such as “playmaking identity”. You will see these measures in Real Game Reports, which as of this writing have been published for only a very small number of games. If you visit here regularly in the future, you will get to know “playmaking identity” and related concepts very well.

There are some coaches, with George Karl the most notable among them, who don’t accept (or maybe don’t understand) the importance of the difference between quality and ordinary assists, and who don’t subscribe to the idea that point guards are crucial to getting quality assists, to keeping the passing game going, and to occasionally running plays developed in practice where scorers get the ball in situations where it is most likely they can score. Although Karl and coaches in his mold are not against assists per se, they seemingly believe that all assists are the very same value. Moreover, Karl and coaches of his type believe that every player on the court is about equally responsible for keeping the passing game going.

Here is why the way Karl and anyone who thinks like him are wrong:

--More assists are generally better than fewer assists, but quality assists are far more valuable than ordinary assists for winning NBA playoff games.

-- The passing game will not always be where you need it to be to win playoff games unless the point guard has primary responsibility for maintaining it. To one degree or another, at some time or another, non-point guard players will eventually fall into the trap of attempting to get too many isolation scores.

--When a player other than a point guard or a superstar 2-guard makes an assist, it is not necessarily a positive thing, all things considered. For one thing, that player might have scored himself. If that player starts getting hooked on “looking for the open man” at the expense of looking to see if he can score himself, then that player’s overall effectiveness will be lower, not higher. Generally, if you are not a point guard, you look for the open man if and only if you think you are not in a good situation to score on the play. You don’t want to be often passing, regardless of how many assists you might rack up, in situations where you yourself have a good chance of making the score yourself.

--If the point guard is not primarily responsible for quality assists and keeping the passing game going, he will probably start taking unwise shots, so as to avoid becoming irrelevant in the offense. Other than superstar point guards who are great scorers, point guards should, even more so than other players, avoid impulsive “reach” type shooting. But under Karl’s approach, point guards will tend to take more reach shots than many of the other players.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS ASSISTS PER 36 MINUTES
1997-98 5.1
1998-99 4.2
1999-00 4.6
2000-01 5.2
2001-02 6.9
2002-03 4.4
2003-04 5.8
2004-05 5.8
2005-06 8.6
2006-07 7.1
2007-08 7.6
2008-09 6.5
2009-10 6.7
CAREER: 6.3

Ok, now notice that in 2005-06, Billups made 8.6 assists per 36 minutes, which is almost 30% more assists than he is making for the Nuggets now. Billups was on the Pistons that year, and they finished 64-18 in the regular season. After beating the Milwaukee Bucks 4-1 in the first round, and the Cleveland Cavaliers 4-3 in the semifinals, Billups and the Pistons lost the East final series 4-2 to the Miami Heat.

The previous year, 2004-05, Billups made only 5.8 assists per 36 minutes, but the results were about the same. That year, the Pistons beat the Philadelphia 76’ers 4-1 in round one, then they beat the Indiana Pacers 4-2 in the semifinals, and then they beat the Miami Heat 4-3 in the East Final. But the Pistons lost to Greg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs 4-3 in the 2005 Championship.

The previous year, 2003-04, Billups made the same assist rate as in 2004-05, 5.8 per 36 minutes. That year, the Pistons beat the Milwaukee Bucks 4-1 in round one, then they beat the New Jersey Nets 4-3 in round two, and then they beat the Indiana Pacers 4-2 in the East Final. In the 2004 NBA Championship, the Pistons easily defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 4-1.

So looking at all of that, you might say “Got you: Billups made fewer assists per minute when he won the Championship in 2004 than he is making for the Nuggets so far this year (2010). So there is nothing wrong with what Billups is doing for the Nuggets this year.

Well, then we have to dig a little deeper, don’t we, because Quest can’t be wrong, laugh out loud.

True, Chauncey Billups is making slightly more assists this year than when he won the Championship. But the 2004 Pistons were a defensive oriented team and were, like the 2008 Celtics, relying more on defense to win their rings than they were on offense. In fact, that Pistons team was overwhelmingly relying on defense to win, more so than the 2008 Celtics, and they were hardly relying on offense at all! The offense was practically an afterthought, although it was run on rock solid principles and was not merely an offshoot of the defense and a sort of gimmick type offense as the 2008-09 Nuggets offense was.

By contrast, the Nuggets both in 2008-09 and even more so this year are relying as much on volume scoring as on defense. The bottom line is that the 2009 and 2010 Nuggets are much more dependent on the quantity and quality of their offense than were the 2003 Pistons, yet Chauncey Billups is making only slightly more assists per 36 minutes for the Nuggets than he did for the Pistons when he and the Pistons won the Ring. He needs to be making more assists than he is if the Nuggets want to contest for a Ring.

Chauncey Billups made 8.6 assists per 36 minutes in 2005-06, which is the most of any year. While it might possibly be a stretch to say that he should be making that many for the Nuggets, he should at a rock bottom minimum making 7.5 per 36 minutes. Billups is making at least one fewer assist per 36 minutes (and per game) and probably two fewer per game than he should be making if the Nuggets are serious about winning a Championship. The Nuggets can not win an NBA Championship with Chauncey Billups making only slightly more assists than he made for the defensively oriented 2003 Pistons.

DIGGING EVEN DEEPER
In 2003-04, there were only five teams out of 28 other teams who scored fewer points per game than did the Pistons; they scored only 90.4 points per game that year. Flash forward to 2008-09, and we see that the Nuggets scored 104.3 points per game. So from there you can see the problem in stark detail:

In 2003-04, Billups wins a Ring while making 5.8 assists per 36 minutes for a team that scored 90.4 points per game. In 2008-09, Billups made 6.5 assists per 36 minutes for a team that scored 104.3 points per game. So in 2003-04, Billups’ assists per time versus team points per game ratio was .064, whereas in 2008-09 it was .062, slightly less. So far in 2009-10, that ratio for Billups is .061. Relative to points being scored, Billups is doing slightly less for the Nuggets than he did for the Pistons. Despite the fact that Denver is a much more talented offensive team than were the 2003 Pistons, Billups is not making any more assists, relative to points, for the highly skilled Nuggets than he did for the much less skilled Pistons. In a word this is a waste of both Billups and of the high skill of the Nuggets finishers, players such as Nene, Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith, and even the rookie Ty Lawson.

We’ve proved what we wanted to prove, but what the heck, let’s dig even deeper….

DIGGING DEEPER STILL: LOOKING AT ALL THE GUARDS
Now let’s have a look at all the guards on both teams:

2003-04 CHAMPION DETROIT PISTONS ASSISTS PER 36 MINS OF GUARDS
Guards who played less than 300 minutes during the entire season are not relevant and are not included

Chauncey Billups 5.8 assists per 36 minutes, a total of 446 assists.
Mike James 6.7 assists per 36 minutes, a total of 95 assists
Chucky Atkins 4.6 assists per 36 minutes, a total of 95 assists
Lindsey Hunter 4.6 assists per 36 minutes, a total of 85 assists
Bob Sura 4.5 assists per 36 minutes, a total of 89 assists
Richard Hamilton 4.0 assists per 36 minutes, a total of 310 assists
TOTAL 2003 PISTONS ASSISTS 1,702

2008-09 DENVER NUGGETS ASSISTS PER 36 MINS OF GUARDS
Guards who played less than 300 minutes during the entire season are not relevant and are not included

Chauncey Billups 6.5 assists per 36 minutes, a total of 491 assists
Anthony Carter 7.3 assists per 36 minutes, a total of 364 assists
JR Smith 3.6 assists per 36 minutes, a total of 227 assists
Dahntay Jones 2.0 assists per 36 minutes, a total of 78 assists
TOTAL 2009 NUGGETS ASSISTS 1,820

First, note that the 2003 Pistons had more playmaking guards than did the 2009 Nuggets, six versus four. And one of the Nuggets’ guards, Jones, made only 2.0 assists per 36 minutes. That big discrepancy is yet another fact that strongly suggests that Billups should have made even more assists than he did in 2008-09.

Since the Pistons were not relying on offense very much to win a Ring, the total number of assists was not as important as it is for any team that is relying on offense to win a Ring. Sure enough, as you will shortly see, the 2003 Pistons made substantially fewer assists than did the 2009 Nuggets.

As you continue in this section, keep in mind that quality assists are more valuable than ordinary assists.

As a percentage of all team assists made, Billups made 26.2% of the 2003 Pistons guards’ assists, and 27.0% of the 2009 Nuggets guards’ assists. But since the 2009 Nuggets had fewer guards making assists and especially fewer guards making assists at a good rate, Billups should have made a much greater percentage than 27% of the 2009 Nuggets assists. In other words, too many of the Nuggets assists were left to guards other than Billups and to non-guard players.

Again, the point is that Billups was wasted to some extent in 2008-09 and is again being wasted this year so far, especially considering how loaded up with scoring talent the Nuggets are. True, the regular season offense was good last year and is excellent so far this year despite this problem, but remember that this is not some ordinary basketball site.

This is the Quest for the Ring, where we focus on winning playoff games. And you do lose key playoff games and series if your point guard is not being used more strategically than the Nuggets are using Billups. If you want to win a Ring, among some other duties, your point guard must be primarily responsible for making quality assists, for playmaking identity, for keeping the passing game going, and for making sure that an occasional practiced play is run.

ASSISTS BY ALL GUARDS COMBINED
The number of assists made by all guards for the 2009 Nuggets was 1,160, which was 63.7% of the team total. Meanwhile, the number of assists made by all guards for the 2003 Pistons was 1,120, which was 65.8 percent of the team total. So Pistons guards made substantially more assists than did the Nuggets guards.

Do not let the apparently small difference fool you. This means that one out of every 50 assists that was made by a Pistons guard was made by a Nuggets forward or center, and this is a small but significant difference. This kind of thing can mean a different total number of assists and, more importantly, a different number of the quality assists that win you Championships.

This shows you that the 2009 Nuggets were relying more on forwards and centers to make assists than were the Championship-winning 2003 Pistons. Yet again, the Nuggets were a much higher scoring team than were the 2003 Pistons, so this should have been the other way around: the Nuggets’ guards should have made a greater percentage of all assists than the Pistons’ guards did.

We have now shown and proved in numerous ways the following conclusion. It is a bad idea to rely less on your guards and especially your point guards for assists and to instead therefore rely more on your forwards and centers for assists. George Karl and coaches who think that key responsibilities that have to be assigned to point guards or superstar 2-guards should be distributed relatively evenly throughout the team (or at least much more evenly than on many teams traditionally) are dead wrong. It will be next to impossible for any team following Karl’s approach to win a Championship.