The WNBA crossed an important milestone this season: it was the first time the league averaged more than 1 point per possession. 

After being fairly flat for several years, the WNBA had it's most efficient offensive season.  Below is chart showing league averages for Points/100 Possessions (A measure of how efficiently teams score), Pace (The number of possessions per team each game), and Pts/G (Which is the result of efficiency multiplied by opportunity: pts/possXposs/g).  As you can see the league scoring dramatically increased in 2006, but that increase came almost entirely from the increased possessions per game due to the change to the 24 second shot clock with only a slight uptick in offensive efficiency.  This season saw a significant uptick in league efficiency as well as a uptick in pace.

Was this increase in offensive efficiency the product of having everyone in training camp before the season?  Was it the result of the shorter rosters this season?  Or was it the result of an increase in offensive talent?  I'm hoping for the latter, but what I'm really hoping for is that this was more than a one year spike. 

There's also no question that the Phoenix Mercury have had a significant effect in both boosting league efficiency and pace, and thankfully no one can say that you can't win championships playing that way in the WNBA.

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I watched a lot of NBATV this summer.  I watched Jerry West and Elgin Baylor trying to carry their team against the Celtics.  I watched Chamberlain and Russell play each other.  I watched the championship Knicks squads.  I watched Moses and Julius.  I watched the 80s Lakers and Celtics.  And thanks to Jordan, Stockton, and Robinson entering the Hall of Fame, I watched a ton of their games.  While watching all of those games, I was reminded that the period covering the late 80s and early 90s was by far the best period in NBA history in terms of the quality of play.  I'm going to talk about why, but also thought I would share some graphs showing the evolution of the NBA.  Here's a graph of league average offensive efficiency (pts/100 possessions) and league average pace (possessions/48 min) from the first season after the NBA/ABA merger through last season.

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• The Mercury are averaging roughly the same amount of points in the regular season and the playoffs (92.8 vs. 93.5) I looked at the Mercury regular season performance and realized that the Mercury's scoring improvement from 2008 to 2009 was coming from an increased pace, rather than increased offensive efficiency.  The playoffs have been the opposite of that.  The Mercury have averaged 9 fewer offensive possessions in the playoffs, but have been scoring the same amount of points because the team's offensive efficiency has been unreal in the playoffs, jumping from a league leading 1.06 points a per possession to  an incredible 1.19 points per possession.  However, the Mercury did give up a very high 1.11 points per poss on defense, up from 1.03 in the regular season. 
  
• There's no other way to frame this other than offense vs. defense on the team level.  While the Mercury are scoring 1.19 points per poss and giving up 1.11 in the playoffs, the Fever are close to their regular season averages.  The Fever are only scoring 0.96 points per poss, but they're also only giving up 0.94 points per poss as compared to scoring 0.97 and giving up 0.92 in the regular season.  Both teams have actually played a similar pace in the playoffs with the Mercury averaging less than 2 more poss/g minutes than the Fever.
• The two teams in the WNBA Finals were both out rebounded in the playoffs and the regular season.  Both have been much more active on the offensive glass in the playoffs than the regular season,  Who controls the boards in this matchup? 
• In the matchup of the league's best defensive and offensive players, Catchings and Taurasi have been equally important to their team in the playoffs.  The best player for their team both offensive and defensively by a wide margin.  Each has scored a quarter of their team's points and handed out a quarter fo their team's assists in the playoffs, and also led their team in rebounding.  What's unique about this matchup is that where each player's team needs them the most is not on the side of the ball where they are the best in the league.  Catchings has been THE key offensive player for the Fever in the playoffs, the only really efficient scorer.   Catchings's offensive efficiency has been 1.15 points per poss in the playoffs, none of the other 6 players that have played more than 35 minutes in the playoffs has done better than January's 1.02 points per poss.  Catchings has finished her 2 point FGA, shooting 58% after only 41% in the regular season, reached the FT line at an incredible rate of 2 FT/ 3FGA, led the team in assists, and crashed the offensive boards.  This is an enormous improvement over her regular season performance, and without it the Fever would have been out of the playoffs by now.  Taurasi's offensive performance has also been up across the board by a significant margin in the playoffs, but Taurasi's offensive efficiency doesn't  stand out on the Mercury the way Tamika's does.  Taylor, Bonner, Smith, and Willingham have all produced at least 1.23 points per poss.  Where Diana Taurasi is truly indenpensable to the Mercury is on defense.  She's the team's best weakside help defender (The most blocks by a player shorter than 6'4" this season), their most physical and most versatile defender, and a key defensive rebounder on a team without great rebounding posts. 
  

There has been a lot of discussion about UConn losing Renee Montgomery and what that means for this season. 

A debate about replacing Renee's intangibles could go on forever, but I thought I'd focus on the nuts and bolts of replacing Renee in the offense. 

No one of this season's roster can pick the pocket of an opposing guard at halfcourt like Renee, but I haven't seen anyone worried about replacing Renee on defense.  This also isn't about the individual merits of Tiffany Hayes, Lorin Dixon, or Caroline Doty starting at point guard.  Replacing a star player that was responsible for 25% of the team's possessions when she was on the floor is never a simple 1 for 1 substitution and it's a two guard system that doesn't put a lot pressure on the point guard's ball handling ability, this is the broader view of how the team as a whole replaces Renee.

To begin with, the Possession Distribution chart below is roughly how possessions were divided by UConn's starting lineup.  (I used stats from the 10 games after Caroline Doty's ACL injury where Geno used a rotation of 8 or less players to simplify things).

Possessions in basketball statistics are defined by acts that lead to the other team getting the ball, turnovers and the the FTAs and FGAs that result in a change of possession. 

Tiffany Hayes and Kalana Greene's 15% slice of the pie is indicative of the size of the offensive role for every player outside the big three of Renee, Maya, and Tina.  Caroline Doty, Lorin Dixon, and Kaili McLaren were all in that 15% area.  Meghan Gardler -- who played limited minutes in the 8 player rotation after Doty was injured -- was at 10% in her minutes and didn't generate the necessary shot attempts to get to 15%. 

Going into next season it's probably unfair to expect anyone except Maya Moore, Tina Charles, Kalana Greene, and Tiffany Hayes to increase the size of their pie slice from last season.  The size of a player's offensive role, or their slice of pie, usually doesn't change very much season to season, rarely more than +/-2%.  How efficient a player is with the possessions they use may change as the player improves, but their share of the pie doesn't. 

The exception to this are players that are highly skilled at creating their own shot.  They have the ability to expand their size of the pie when there is a gap left by a departing star, but even shot creators don't fluctuate as much season to season as you would think because usually the shot creators are taking the first bite of the pie before the role players get to the pie, in addition to the leftovers when the shot clock is running down. 

In Renee's case she was definitely familiar with the first bite, taking a very significant chunk of her shots very early in the shot clock before the ball got to her teammates.  So it's not that hard to imagine that the ball would have found similarly capable hands a little further into many of Renee's possessions.

The players that play the majority of Renee's minutes this season are likely going to be limited to around that 15% sized slice of pie.  That means 10% of the team's possessions, which amounts to 6 or 7 possessions per game, are going to end up in the hands of the four previous mentioned players.  That's a significant chuck, but not a particularly large one. 

Maya Moore and Tina Charles are capable of simply taking on that 10% by themselves without much of a drop off in efficiency, but I suspect a slightly more modest rise in their share of the pie.  Still they should combine to make up at least 50% of the pie next season, which puts half of that 10% in very good hands.

The key player here may actually be Kalana Greene.  Kalana had a small slice of the pie last season, but as a sophomore in 06/07 before Maya's arrival and Kalana's ACL injury dramatically altered the food chain, Kalana had a 21% slice of the pie, while maintaining the same level of offensive efficiency as Renee had last season. 

There have been a  lot of predictions made that Tiffany Hayes will greatly expand her offensive role next season and that may very well happen to some degree, but it doesn't have to have happen in order for the team to fill in for Renee.

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Was John's season a fluke? 

I've seen this the question asked quite a few times.  A player suddenly shooting the ball better at age 29 does raise serious questions, but I think there's a decent chance it's not a fluke. Lets take a look his shooting the last few years in Sacramento and with the Bulls courtesy of 82games.

The numbers that should jump out right away is his FG% on close shots.  63% for three straight seasons.  That's impressive efficiency around the basket.  And he's getting to the basket for a good % of his shots.  Gordon had an 80/20 split on his FGA for comparison.  So at the very least John will finish around the basket as well as any Bull.

It is true that he's only put up one really strong 3-point shooting season, but he was consistent all season long with his shooting.  He never shot worse than 37% in any full month this season, and shot at least 43% from 3 in his other 5 full months.  And he shot the ball pretty well from nearly every spot on the floor.  Prior to this season, Prior to this season John was a break even 3-point shooter at 33%, rather than a horrible 3-point shooter.  Visually it looks like he's developed a consistent, but unorthodox, trigger mechanism for his shot, but he obviously doesn't have a Ben Gordon like track record. .

The focus has been on John's improved shooting, but nearly as important was a career best turnover rate.  And the shooting and drop in turnover rate are likely connected.  This season in Sacramento 24% of his FGA were 3PA, and he was assited on 62% of his 3PM.  In 07/08 14% of his FGA were 3PA and 89% of John's 3PM were assisted.  That at least suggests that the pull up three he took often this season either never almost never went in or simply wasn't a part of his game prior to this season

In 07/08 and 08/09 in Sacramento, Salmons took the same % of 2P jump shots, had the same FG% on those shots, and the same assist% on those shots.

And he had the same FG% on side shots with the same AST%, but a quarter of his forays to the basket ilkely became those pull up 3-point attempts.  If he's shooting 40% on 3PA that's a reasonable tradeoff because it was that reduction in drives to the basket that likely led to a signifcant decline in turnovers.  In Chicago he took even more 3PA and his turnovers dropped even more.

Something that caught my eye almost  immediately is how much Salmons was assisted in Chicago compared to Sacramento. It's a fairly large jump, and I wouldn't have thought that Salmons was assisted on half of his shots in Chicago.  For comparison Gordon was assisted on 47% of jumpers and 38% of close shots.  At least part of the reason for the jump is Salmons getting a lot more assisted transition baskets with the Bulls, and the other part is more assisted 3s because he wasn't a primary ball handler in Chicago.

Much of John's game has been very consistent from year.  Improving his shooting allowed him to cut his turnovers, and turned him into a starting caliber player for the 1st time in his career.  So why did he shoot 41% o 3PA this season?  The stats suggest either he made changes mechanically that allowed him to make jumpers with consistency, or that with Artest gone and Kevin Martin out injured he was able to play big minutes as a #1 scoring option for the 1st time.  Which would have meant getting to take those 1 on 1  pull up 3s on a consistent basis instead of being put in catch and shoot situations as a reserve role player.  Salmons shot 41% on 3PA this year, but he still didn't appear to be an effective catch and shoot player.  It's probably a little of both.  He's an odd player, but I don't expect his shooting to be a fluke if he's allowed to do his thing.  If he's asked to conform to a system or asked to play a limited role off the bench where he can't get his 1 on 1 opportunities in the flow of the game there's a much greater chance that he reverts to the 33% 3P shooter and mediocre player.  You can live with John's style of play when it comes within the rythm of the game, but it's not what you really want from a guy coming off the bench.

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For awhile now I've been resigned to Gordon leaving because resigning him looked like it would create more long term problems than it solved from my perspective.  Especially because I wanted the Bulls to have the best possible chance of at least making a run at Wade in 2010.  Today, I changed my mind on Gordon because of discussion on this site.

The salary cap was 58.7 million dollars this season, and to be safe let's assume it remains the same.  I'm not the salary cap expert that other posters are, but the cream of the 2010 free agent crop would make a little over 17 million in 2010-11 if they didn't exercise their opt out clauses.  The Bulls getting Wade would likely ultimately be a result of a sign and trade so that Wade can get his full salary, but the Bulls still have to be a threat to sign Wade out right in order to force Miami's hand.  Bosh might be willing to come out right, but he'd probably prefer getting his max contract through a sign and trade as well.  So I'll assume the Bulls need to be close to 18 million under the cap to offer a max contract to free agent.  Which means they can't be much higher than 40 million dollars in committed salary.   

The Bulls right now have four players in Rose, Deng, Hinrich, and Noah under contract for 2010-11 at just over 29 million combined.  That's four solid pieces to add a star player to.  If the Bulls use 2 of their next 3 1st round picks that will add something around 3 million in salary.  So that puts the Bulls at roughly 32 million dollars in committed salary.  Leaving around 9 million dollars of room to play with.

So that leaves the Bulls will three players to make decisions on: Tyrus Thomas, Ben Gordon, and John Salmons.  I still believe in Tyrus, and in an ideal world I'd rather have Thomas than Gordon long term.  But, I know there's almost no way that the Bulls get a long term contract done with Thomas this summer after the way the playoffs went and that agreeing to a contract with him quickly in the summer of 2010 is just as unlikely.  If Tyrus doesn't sign this summer as expected, the Bulls should probably keep him until the summer of 2010 because the ability to renounce his rights creates flexibility.

So that leaves 9 million that can potentially be spent on Ben Gordon.  If the Bulls can get Gordon to sign a contract that pays out 9 million or less in 2010-11.  They can sign Gordon without it negatively impacting the opportunity to sign a max free agent in 2010 because the Bulls could renounce the rights to Tyrus.  And it would increase the options for the Bulls.  Because the threat exists for Wade to go to Chicago out right,  the Bulls can likely force a sign and trade with Miami.  Ben Gordon could be used in a sign and trade for Wade, which gets Wade to Chicago while still giving him his max contract.  Thomas could be signed and shipped to Miami or traded somewhere else.  The Bulls could just relinquish their rights to Thomas.  Or potentially depending on the numbers they might not have to give up the rights to Thomas in order to complete a sign and trade for a player like Wade.  Allowing the Bulls time to work out a contract with Thomas.  If the Bulls go after Bosh instead then the Bulls have the flexibility to keep Gordon and maybe send other players in a sign and trade.  The key is having the cap space to sign a Bosh or Wade out right in order to force sign and trades from either Miami or Toronto.

Salmons was aquired as Ben Gordon insurance.  Salmons can play the 2010-11 season for 5.8 million or he can opt out in the summer of 2010.  Opinion seems to be split about which option he takes, but it probably doesn't matter in the big scheme of things.  If Gordon doesn't resign then Salmons is good insurance and his contract in 2010-11 isn't big enough to impact free agency even if he doesn't opt out.  If Gordon does resign then Salmons should be able to be moved during the 09-10 season for players with contracts that will definitely be expiring.  San Antonio, for example, was reportedly interested in Salmons last season, and they'll have plenty of expiring deals next season.

The elephant in the room with all of this is of course the luxury tax.  Signing Gordon from my perspective only makes sense if the Bulls don't have to dump Hinrich or Deng for essentially nothing in order to get under the luxury tax.  While signing Gordon pushes the Bulls over the tax, perhaps they can minimize the tax by buying out Tim Thomas and/or moving Jerome James to a team with salary cap space.  Thomas already mentioned a buyout to the press.  I forget how the insurance issue ultimately works out if James is traded.  But, there's some potential to minimize the tax costs.

This is the way I can get fully behind a Gordon resigning.  If his contract doesn't cost more than 9 million or so in the 1st couple of years, and it doesn't require dumping Hinrich or Deng to do it.  Of course it also requires Bulls management having a plan.  And it would sure help if Vinny isn't the coach by the summer of 2010 if the Bulls aren't willing to fire him this summer.  Now go ahead and point out the flaws in my logic and/or math.  Start another Hinrich/Gordon war.  Show off how tough you are by calling Deng soft.  And if you get bored call LaMarcus Aldridge a ninny.

Here's Basketball on Paper stats for March.  I included Feburary as well for easy comparison.

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I started out skeptical of the 2010 plans because of the roster and salary structure of the Bulls, but the coup Paxson pulled off at the trade deadline has made 2010 an almost undeniable fact.  As I've been thinking about future possibilities.  This plan is what I keep coming back to.

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