HoopsHype.com Columns

Beasts of the East again... How?
by Jon Finkel / April 12, 2002

The 2002 Detroit Pistons squad is a Long Island Iced Tea. As you look at the vodka, gin, tequila, rum, triple sec, sour mix and coke and wonder how so many tough tastes make a sweet drink, you look at the combination of guys like Jerry Stackhouse, Ben Wallace, Clifford Robinson, Chucky Atkins, Michael Curry, Corliss Williamson and Zeljko Rebraca and wonder how so many "Who's that's?" make a tough team that says "Watch this" as they clinch their division.

The answer is this: The composition, structure, properties and reactions of the individual players interrelates to combine a complex and successful entity, or team. In a word. Chemistry. In two words. Rick Carlisle.

Pretend you're coach Rick Carlisle, it's May 23, 2001, and you have just been given the head coaching job for the Detroit Pistons. You stroll into your new office in The Palace at Auburn Hills. You walk into your personal bathroom, look at yourself in the mirror and after you realize you look strikingly like Jim Carrey, you gather your thoughts and give yourself a little pep talk, "This is my team. I'm the head coach of the Detroit Pistons. We're coming off a dismal 32-50 season. I have one bona fide star, a defensive stopper and a cast of journeymen. We scored 95.6 points a game last season and gave up over 97. At least we can't get any worse." Now, as you splash your face with water, Doc Brown comes running in. He's just come back from the future and he drops off your future stats for the 2001-2002 season, which you haven't played yet. He tells you that he couldn't get the win-loss results because he didn't want to disrupt the space-time continuum, but he brought you as many of your team's statistics for the upcoming season as he could.

As quickly as he came, he hops back into his DeLorean, wild gray hair flying behind him, hits 88 miles per hour and is gone. You dry your face and sit down at your desk to study what the good Dr. Emmett L. Brown has brought you. You look at the stats for next year and here's how they compare to the current stats and roster you are inheriting:

In 2001-2002, your bona fide star, Jerry Stackhouse, is going to average 5 less minutes a game and 9 less points while his assists stay virtually the same. Your second leading scorer is going to score less than he did a year before, your total offense will drop by two points and you're only going to score 93.5 points a game. Your defensive stopper, Ben Wallace, is going to improve on the glass, but your team as a whole is going to get 7 less rebounds a game. "Great Scott!" you think as you mull these numbers over, "maybe we do get worse." The numbers on the sheet of paper begin to fade and you realize that if you want to see them all - even the win/loss record - you've got to come up with a plan. If a plan works, all the numbers will reappear on the page.

So, now you know what you have to work with and you begin to devise a plan based on all your coaching experience under the tutelage of guys named Fitch, Daly and Bird. If Stackhouse is going to score less and as a whole your team is going to score less, than you better make each shot count. To do this you have to take more high percentage shots, as a team, and bring in a three point specialist to make your shots behind the arc count. Executing this is tough. It means the team must adopt the mentality of getting the ball to the open man rather than getting your own shot off. Some ink on your page gets brighter and you see that you have hit upon a solution and the results from the 2001-2002 season prove it. As a team, your Pistons pass the ball an average of 1.3 more times a game. Doesn't seem like a lot, but when you factor in that they are smart passes and turnovers have dropped by almost 2 a game, that's a 6 point swing for your team. A much needed six points since you already know you will score less than you did last year.

Now that people are getting the ball in better positions to score, their shooting numbers go up. And since your players are taking their time getting the good shots, overall shooting goes down so far that you take 8 less shots a game. The reduction in shot attempts is livable, even practical. You can measure this and justify it by using the Adjusted Field Goal Percentage, which measures shooting efficiency by taking into account the total points a player produces through his field goal attempts. The goal is to evaluate the impact of three-point shooting. So, using this formula and team play, some ink on your page gets brighter and you see that you have hit upon another solution. Your adjusted Team FG percentage shoots from 45% to almost 50%.

That takes care of the offensive side of the ball. Now that you've made the most of the 93.5 points you know you are going to get a game, you've got to make sure the other team doesn't continue to average over 97. So, within the team concept, you let your defensive stopper, Wallace, run wild. Let him prove his numbers from last year weren't a fluke and give him the opportunity to explode onto the League as the premiere defensive player in the game. Luckily for you, he willingly accepts the challenge. Some ink on your page gets brighter and you know you've hit on another good idea. Wallace's overall numbers have improved. He's leading the league in boards, his steals are up by .5 a game, his blocked shots have gone up from 2.33 to 3.50 a game and his turnovers are down from last year.

This sets off a chain reaction for the rest of your team defense as other players follow your defensive captain's lead. More ink gets brighter on your page. Individually, everyone's numbers are slightly better, but if you evaluate your teams performance as one player, not 12 or so, you can see the vast Team improvement. Your Pistons are averaging half a steal more a game than last year. Their blocked shots have soared from 5.45 to just under 8 a game. As a whole, opponents scoring has dropped from 97.3 ppg against you to 91.8 ppg against you. Your Team defensive strategy worked.

You can now almost read the whole page. What you've done is changed the team concept from a 'me' mentality, to a 'we' mentality. The same mantra that is taught from grade school basketball right on up through high school, college and now in the pros. You, as Coach Carlisle, have gotten your team to buy into this and it has paid off.

Fast forward to today.

The stats are all legible now on the piece of paper Doc Brown gave you a year ago. They have all held true, except for one thing. You have now won fifteen more games than last year and you have just clinched your division for the first time in a dozen years. You walk into the office you've occupied for a year and once again you stroll into the bathroom. This time, you look at yourself in the mirror and say, "Can it get any better than this?"

Jon Finkel is a regular contributor to HoopsHype.com

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