Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls

Unless something drastic happens in the final weeks of the NBA season, Derrick Rose is going to win the MVP. He’s not a horrible choice — he’s in the top-5 on my ballot — but he’s probably not the correct choice. His supporters point to Chicago’s immense improvement from a year ago in the face of injuries to Joakim Noah and Carlos Boozer, who have missed a combined 54 games due to injury.

Only Rose isn’t responsible for a lot of that improvement.

It’s been well documented that under rookie coach Tom Thibodeau, Chicago has one of the top defenses in the NBA. The Bulls have improved their offensive rating 4.3 points, from 103.5 to 107.8, and their defensive rating 5.3 points, from 105.3 to 100.0. Here’s Rose’s individual improvement from last season to this:

Stats per 36 minutes

There’s no doubt he’s improved offensively and that has driven Chicago’s offensive improvement. Of course, the Bulls defensive improvement has been even more significant, and Rose plays a relatively small role in Chicago’s defensive dominance.

In 14 Bulls games I’ve tracked this year, the Bulls are boasting a 113.2 ORtg and 100.7 DRtg. The team breakdown is as follows:

Pos: Possesions played, OC: Opportunities Created, FD: Fouls Drawn

Rose’s huge EV numbers currently ranks 3rd in my database this year (although his outperforming his season averages on offense in this sample). He’s certifiably playing like a monster. His offensive load of over 54% — tops in the league — is indicative of just how much he does for Chicago on that end. He’s 2nd in Opportunities Created and 14th in assists per game, so it’s not just a shooting festival. Let’s give Rose a lot of offensive credit, but keep in mind that he’s not quite Steve Nashing* a weak offensive team, he’s Allen Iversoning* a weak offensive team. (Yes, players can be verbs too.)

*Nashing – to quarterback an otherwise weak offense to a top offense in the league. Also a superior version of “Iversoning,” which is carrying a weak offense to respectability.

Rose is a good defender too, but he’s not largely responsible for his team’s performance on that side of the ball: Chicago’s defense with Rose on the court is 101.8. Without Rose, it’s 93.1. From the 14 games I’ve tracked, Rose has the second lowest defensive usage on the team. Not surprisingly, Chicago’s defense is powered by players like Noah, Asik, Deng and Ronnie Brewer. Just from their defense, Chicago is getting about 19 or 20 wins above .500. The offense is dead average.

(It’s also impossible to ignore the value of COY Thibs. It’s rare we can clearly point to a coach lifting a team a few SRS points, and Thibs does that with his defensive schemes. Their rotations are ridiculously tight and they are as good in that department as the historical 2008 Celtics D.)

And lost in the Bulls shuffle is the all-star level play of Luol Deng. He’s defending incredibly well, and having his best offensive season since 2007. Even Deng’s three most frequent lineups without Rose have done well.

Not surprisingly, Chicago doesn’t have a large overall point differential with and without Rose (+1.2 with him). In 826 minutes, the Bulls are a staggering +7.3 without Derrick Rose. That’s not to say he isn’t great — he is — but starting with Chicago’s impressive record and distributing credit to Rose from there is giving him equal-part credit for their team defense, and that’s just wrong.

Rose is buoying the offense from below average to average, which shouldn’t be ignored. That’s precisely the reason he is a viable MVP candidate. But for people to think Rose is the reason for a 20-win jump like we’re seeing with Chicago is a gross misapplication of credit.

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Opportunities Created (OC): A Measure of Playmaking

Besides scoring, the major contribution to a basketball offense is playmaking. Or, more specifically, the ability to draw extra defenders away from their assignments. As a measure of how well a player does this, assists leave something to be desired; they are only tallied when a pass is made to a player who scores, regardless of how helpful the pass was. Which is why we need a way to detect who creates open shots for teammates by drawing extra defensive pressure. For that, I use something I call “Opportunities Created.”

The Method

One way to do this is to track any time a second defender leaves his man in order to help defend an offensive player. This can be voluntary defensive strategy or it can be the result of the first defender being beaten off the dribble.

Such events are actually fairly easy to keep track of. Here’s a quick example from a game:

(Yes, I believe all NBA replays should be watched in Italian.) Note the first play of the video, when the ball is fed into Tim Duncan in the post. At about 0:21, help comes to double-team Duncan. This leaves Michael Finley open for a 3. The unguarded shot — regardless of the result — was created by Duncan drawing defensive help away from Finley. That is an opportunity created (OC) by Tim Duncan.

At 13:30 of the video, Dirk Nowitzki drives on Tim Duncan and forces Ginobili to help. The ball is swung around until Jerry Stackhouse ends up with a jumper (despite a nice close-out effort by Finley). That is also an OC by Nowitzki, who originally broke down the Spurs defense, despite it not registering as an assist.

Every OC has to end in some kind of attempt, even if it is a fouled attempt. If there is never a shot (or foul), there can never be an OC. (What exactly would the player have created, then?) OC’s can be registered when a player draws defensive pressure and the following occurs:

• An open attempt
• An open “hockey” attempt (extra passing, as in the Nowitzki play above)
• A foul at the rim on a layup attempt (created by the scrambling of the defense)
• An offensive rebound putback (created because the rebounder’s defender was forced to help)

The Results

As we would expect, guards create much more than bigs. They have the ball in their hands a lot, drive and dish a lot, and are often the defensive focus of pick and roll action. (It has become popular to “jump,” or trap the pick and roll to prevent the dribbling guard from penetrating or taking an open jump shot.) In last year’s playoffs, here is the positional breakdown of OC’s:

The breakdown by position is similar to data tracked this year as well.

So how well do assists correlate to OC’s? Overall, for the 133 players who logged at least 150 possessions in last year’s playoffs, the average error was 0.86 assists (with a standard deviation of 1.81 assists). Of those 133 qualifying players, the following had the largest discrepancy between assists and OC’s per 100 possesions (number of OC’s per 100 in parentheses):

1. Rajon Rondo 6.8 (5.6 OC’s per 100)
2. Ronny Price 5.8 (1.2 OC’s)
3. Jason Kidd 4.7 (4.7 OC’s)
4. Luke Walton 4.0 (4.0 OC’s)
5. Jamrio Moon 3.9 (0.0 OC’s)

and the following players have the largest discrepancy between OC’s and assists (meaning they create more than assists would suggest):

1. Brandon Roy 5.3 (8.7 OC’s)
2. Nowitzki 4.0 (8.3 OC’s)
3. Ginobili 3.3 (12.4 OC’s)
4. Westbrook 2.8 (11.7 OC’s)
5. Reddick 2.4 (6.3 OC’s)

I will post the complete leaders from last year’s playoffs in a follow up post.

The Discussion

There is a fairly strong correlation with assists (R=0.83). However, the error rate in certain players is enormous, which was the impetus for the stat in the first place; we want to know who’s creating opportunities, not simply who is passing to good players.

It might be worthwhile to simply track double-teams, but there isn’t always an attempt of some kind after a double team. Sometimes, the ball is re-entered into the post and a second or third double team can come on the same possession. If the player turns the ball over, nothing positive came from the double team.

Future consideration should be given to the defensive version of this metric: “OC’s Against.” Those occur every time a defender has a teammate help him in his assignment. If a player never needs defensive help, it means that he is never responsible for the offensive “power plays” (4 on 3 on the rest of the court) that occur because of an OC.

Another useful follow up exercise would be to look for “ball-stoppers.” Most NBA players and teams are coached well enough to take advantage of the power play provided  when two defenders commit to one offensive player. Every once in a while, a player will allow the defense to recover and lose that advantage by holding the ball or not shooting when he should shoot, allowing a scrambling defense to recover. It’s fairly easy to spot, and seems worth tracking in the future.

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