Nice post.
I would be interested in seeing # of Blazers passes per game over these years. I suspect it's much higher now.
ok....I'll post what I find and compare this season and those two other seasons I used earlier as gauges:
passes/game (league ranking)--->assists (league ranking):
2018/19 - 281.7 (
26th) ---> 23.0 (
25th)
2020/21 - 244.6 (
30th) ---> 21.3 (
30th)
2022/23 - 287.5 (
16th) ---> 24.2 (
20th)
potential assists (league ranking):
2018/19 - 42.1 (
24th)
2020/21 - 39.3 (
30th)
2022/23 - 43.2 (
21st)
assist to pass% (league ranking):
2018/19 - 8.2 (
19th)
2020/21 - 8.7 (
17th)
2022/23 - 8.4 (
23rd)
https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/passing?dir=A&sort=TEAM_NAME
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* the first thing I notice is what's missing: there is no mitigation or offset for turnovers. That's a pretty essential missing factor
* if you're using 2020/21 as the baseline the Blazers are averaging 43 more passes a game...which is a lot. But if 2018/19 is the baseline, Portland is averaging less than 6 more passes a game. That year was most likely the best offensive team under Stotts in the Dame/CJ era
* that last category may be the most revealing though. You'd hope that a focus on motion and passing would generate a high assist rate. But this year's offense isn't significantly better than those other years. And factoring the rest of the league, it looks like this year's offense is making more passes for less effect. And considering the significant spike in turnovers, it's pretty obvious, at least it is to me, that Chauncey's passing offense and running Dame off the ball is not generating the efficiency in the floor game needed
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since NBA.com didn't do it, I'll go thru the numbers and add...
turnover/pass rate (passes/turnover):
2018/19 - 4.9% (
20.4)
2020/21 - 4.5% (
22.0)
2022/23 - 5.5% (
18.2)
I guess we kind of knew that before I did the math. But it is more evidence that Chauncey's offense is not generating the type of efficiency it need to. Looks like it's a long way from doing so
I'm wondering if this is Chauncey trying to force a square peg roster into a round hole. Coaches need to tailor their schemes to the personnel and I'm a long ways from convinced that the Blazers have the kind of facilitators that would make a passing offense work well