SB Nation User Blog: Scotter

WBCA Classic Recap: UConn Solidifying Post-Montgomery Identity

Scotter — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:54:53 -0000

University of Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma is happy with his team's newfound defensive intensity, while their perimeter play continues to evolve. (AP Photo/Bob Child)

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In a struggling economy, even the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team stayed home for the holidays.

With the University of Connecticut not hosting NCAA tournament games this season and head coach Geno Auriemma serving as president of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, the Huskies stayed home for Thanksgiving weekend and hosted the WBCA Classic.

Although Hofstra University, University of Richmond, Clemson University accepted invitations to spend the staycation with UConn, they might not have had pleasant experiences on the court: the Huskies won each of their games by at least 39 points. However, despite the wide margin of victory, the players an coaches weren’t content with the way they played in two of the games.

So how did these three games benefit UConn?

It was a chance to continue to build a new team identity.

Since the beginning of the season, the players have talked about finding that new team identity.

Last season, the team identity was built around point guard Renee Montgomery to such an extent that despite returning every other major contributor their identity is still developing. Auriemma willingly channeled all the aspirations of the team into simply getting Renee Montgomery a championship. "Win one for Renee" wasn't quite "We have Diana and you don't," however last season’s team didn't need that kind of protection from its captain and Montgomery wasn't built to carry the same load in the same way as Taurasi.

The sequel to "We have Diana and you don't" was "We're UConn and you're not" the following season. In 2009, the team is still working to define the legacy of the next era. At least for UConn it's far too early in the season for identity defining rally cries, but last week featured the continuation of several early season trends that will likely help define this season's team.

A Shift to Defense

Playing hard for forty minutes continues to define this team.

When asked how playing UConn helped their team all three opposing coaches talked about their players experiencing what it's like to play against team with that intensity level.

"Our players say they want to play as hard as UConn and I say that's a great verbal statement, but now we need to execute it better on the court," said Hofstra Head Coach Krista Kilburn-Steveskey. It's not as simple as just hustling -- getting an entire team to perform that way requires training and practice as well as commitment from the players.

Where UConn's early season intensity level has shown up the most is on defense, and that's where the week began. The players were welcomed back from three days off to visit family with intense practices dedicated to defense as well as maintaining focus and overcoming adversity. Increasing the challenge was the addition of Sue Bird, who spent two days practicing with the team early in the week. "We were working on defense so (Bird) was really happy because she got to be on offense for two days," said UConn Associate head coach Chris Dailey.

During the three games the team often left their coaches with little to criticize on that end of the floor. The high point was the game of the weekend against Richmond.

Richmond won its other two games in the tournament, but unfortunately faced UConn players that were disappointed in their play 24 hours earlier. UConn ran out to a 14-0 lead and led 51-14 at the half. They set a team record by making ten three point field goals in the first half, but it was the defense that impressed the team's coaches.

"I don't know that defensively we could play any better than that,” said Auriemma following the game. “I don't think they were able to generate any kind of offense at all in that first half. And it seemed like we had everything guarded the way we want to guard it, we were exactly where we needed to be."

While UConn's overall play was uneven at times during the other two games there wasn't much to criticize on defense. It was strong enough to get Dailey to upgrade her assessment mid-sentence at halftime of the final game against Clemson: "Our defense has been good, great exactly."

The word "great" isn't exactly tossed around lightly by the UConn coaches to describe a current opponent.

Their early season defensive performance is a key piece of the team's new identity. Last season's team did not begin the season as a really strong defensive team. The team was so historically good on offense that there wasn't much pressure to play superlative defense early in the season. The "couldn't guard a chair" line was applied to several players, and after a mid-season game against LSU, Auriemma felt the need to rededicate the team to defense with a long and intense practice. The team did improve as the season progressed and they could be absolutely suffocating at times on defense, but it never reached the historic greatness that UConn teams are measured against.

In contrast, the 2009 team has been strong defensively from the start. A bigger backcourt has significantly helped the defensive rebounding. While last year's team didn't force many turnovers considering how athletic they were, this year's team has been much more aggressively playing the passing lanes and forcing turnovers. The team's performance has even surprised Auriemma, but perhaps not the fans who predicted a stronger defensive identity from this team.

Inside Focus

Along with the shift to a greater defensive identity has been the previously discussed dedication by the players to getting the ball into Tina Charles.

Charles has continued to be aggressive reinforcing the idea that she's capable of sustaining this type of play. Against Clemson, Charles scored twenty points in the opening half, but it's also been a team effort.

Despite not making a single jump shot, UConn scored 54 points in the first half against Clemson with 42 points in the paint and 12 made free throws. UConn would score 62 of its 87 points in the game in the paint with 17 of the remaining 25 points coming at the line.

The Clemson game may be the strongest example of the team scoring in the lane, but all season there has been a collective commitment to getting the ball into the paint even against defenses that are packing the paint to try and stop Charles.

Evolving Perimeter Play

That commitment to getting the ball to players in the paint hasn't always led to the surest decision making so far this season.

While the defense may be better than it was a year ago, the turnovers have also been considerably increased. The turnover problem may have been expected from a team playing without Montgomery or really any “true” point guard at all, but the way the turnovers are happening might be cause for concern.

Defensive pressure on UConn's guards hasn't caused many turnovers. Instead there have been an unusually large number of unforced miscues. Dribbling the ball off a foot or not picking the ball up cleanly have been a bit too common. But more importantly, the commitment to getting the ball inside has led to far too many errant passes into the lane.

Many UConn players are capable of making NFL passes -- they're not simply passing to the open player, but are trying to thread passes through a window in the defense to where their teammate will be. When both the quarterback and the receiver read the defense correctly the result is some of the most beautiful plays in basketball. Although there have been plenty of those this season, there have also been too many forced passes into the defense when the initial openings into the lane aren't there. Extending the football analogy, the patience to go through the progressions and take the “check-down” pass to open perimeter player hasn't been there consistently in the early going.

In the past the focus has been on the point guard position, but the turnover problem extends beyond lead ball handlers alone -- other players are increasing their ball handling roles and looking to make more plays with the ball as well.

For example, Maya Moore has been much more aggressive with the ball. Her first two years she would look to get the ball to a guard if she got a defensive rebound or forced a turnover that didn't lead directly to a breakaway layup. This year she's keeping the ball and pushing it up the court herself fairly often. She's also looking to make more plays in the halfcourt, and has been guilty of both of the previously discussed types of turnovers that have plagued UConn a bit in the early going.

Just about every player is more involved as a ball handler than they were a year ago, and there will be growing pains associated with that. Even with the turnovers this is still a team averaging 90 points per game and as good as any on offense in the country, but it is something that will evolve throughout the season as players become more comfortable with their expanded roles and the new team identity becomes more clearly forged.

A Look Ahead

The season slows down with only one game this Thursday against Vermont. It was a game Vermont scheduled because Vermont's star Canadian players -- Courtnay Pilypaitis and May Kotsopoulos -- believed that if they couldn't play for UConn then they at least wanted to play against them. They got their wish early as Vermont played UConn in an NCAA opening round game last year. UConn won the game by 39 points, but after the game Auriemma talked about how impressed he was with Vermont. And Pilypaitis and Kotsopoulos talked about how much fun the experience for two Diana Taurasi fans from Ontario.

Vermont has had a great start to the season. They're getting votes in the polls for the first time in nearly a decade, and both teams are excited about the matchup even though it will likely be another UConn win by a large margin.

"After two quality days of rest and relaxation it was back to practicing and getting ready for our next game against the national champion UConn Huskies,” Pilypaitis writes about the upcoming game. “We are all looking forward to the game and want to compete against the best. We are taking this as a challenge to see where our team is at this point in the season. It is going to be fun to have our freshmen experience playing against UConn on their home court. The returnees know how much fun we had last year."

UConn's Auriemma also expressed excitement about playing Vermont, "When we saw them play last year, I was really impressed with them. We played them here. Now they're all seniors. I'm really looking forward to that game. That should be a lot of fun."

Transition Points:

The Womens Hoops Blog has been all over Courtnay Pilypaitis for a while. As Auriemma says, she's impressive.

Poll

Just how "impressive" is UConn's defense?

UConn's Solid Start With Two Guard Front: What's the Verdict After Three Games?

Scotter — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:25:32 -0000

More photos » by Bob Child - AP

Maya Moore and UConn's quest for another national championship got off to a good start this week (AP Photo/Bob Child)

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After three regular season games, at the very least UConn has done nothing to indicate that its unanimous #1 ranking was undeserved.

After a brief championship banner unveiling without much pomp or circumstance, UConn opened their first game against Northeastern with a 28-0 run over the first five and a half minutes of the game, the first 22 points of which were scored before Maya Moore even took a shot. There are few ways to get create a run like that, and this was the kind of execution that's admirable against any opponent, with Northeastern only committing three turnovers during that stretch. Any fight Northeastern may have had was extinguished in those first five minutes, and UConn cruised to a school record 69 points at the half even though the team had already gone into their "work on the halfcourt offense and keep the score down" mode.

The second game -- a trip to San Antonio to play ranked Texas and promote this spring's Final Four -- had the feel of last season's NCAA tournament games. With it's size and athleticism, Texas made the game difficult for UConn at times with the help of some UConn foul trouble, but there was no way that they could match UConn's level of play over 40 minutes.

All-American center Tina Charles played only 8 minutes, starting guard Tiffany Hayes played only 7 minutes, and backup center Kaili McLaren played only 5 minutes in the first half because of fouls. Despite playing without a true post player for over seven minutes of the last ten minutes of the first half, UConn still managed to increase its lead from 16 points to 21 points at the half.

With the starters back in the second half, Texas had no chance of narrowing that lead. It may have been a perfect early season game from the UConn coaches' perspective. They got a chance to see the team overcome some adversity with a solid win, but they still had plenty of mistakes to complain about in practice.

Friday's annual game against Holy Cross began slowly offensively. Unlike Northeastern, the Holy Cross coaches and players had the benefit of playing UConn every year and that familiarity at least gives them a chance not to be overwhelmed right from the tip.

Holy Cross managed to keep UConn in the halfcourt over most of the first five minutes, and the UConn players seemed unsure of what they wanted to execute. UConn coach Geno Auriemma put on a press to speed up the game and a few forced turnovers and transition baskets resulted in Maya Moore and the rest of the team finding their groove. The bench players played almost exclusively during the last fourteen minutes of the game, and carried themselves well, overcoming their more limited scoring skills with crisp passing. The off the court highlight of the night though may have been Maya Moore candidly reacting with excitement to be on the jumbotron screen while sitting on the bench late in the game. When asked about it after the game the National Player of the Year reminded everyone that, "Yep, were still kids."

So after three games, one against an opponent ranked in the top 15 by both the AP and the coaches, and an average margin of victory of only a tick under fifty points per game, what can be said about this UConn team?

It's too early to draw many conclusions The real test for this team is on December 23rd against Stanford. The heart of UConn's out of conference schedule - Stanford, Florida State, North Carolina, Duke, and Oklahoma - doesn't begin until that game with Stanford. There may come a point where the grind of the Big East regular season mixed with those out of conference games wears the team down. But, there are a few observations that can be taken away from these three games.

Intensity

UConn teams have usually stood out for their intensity over forty minutes. The players are used to being judged by their play on each possession, rather than the final score. Yet even in enormous blowouts, UConn's intensity has been the focus of opposing coaches through both the exhibition games and the first three games of the regular season.

Vanguard University coach Russ Davis -- whose team played Pac-10 powers Stanford, Cal, and Arizona State before finishing the exhibition season with UConn -- said, "I think the difference between them right now is that their intensity level is the highest intensity level we have seen so far. You see McLaren diving (after the ball) up 30, and Maya is playing like it's a Final Four game."

The Longhorns' Kathleen Nash who scored 22 points against UConn said, "Their intensity was at another level. For a team to come out and play that hard -- for that long -- and just do every little thing right makes them a great team."

Geno Auriemma certainly has something to do with the team's intensity level over the years, but Maya Moore has also been a consistent influence. Whether she becomes the clear vocal leader or not, it's Maya who sets the tone in terms of work ethic and intensity. And she's done it since the beginning of her freshman year. It's Maya that sets the standards on the court. As Maya said following the Holy Cross game, "You have to be mentally mature enough to not look at the scoreboard. You have a choice. We can develop bad habits in this game or we can break them and turn them into good habits."

Tina Charles is the center of attention

Tina Charles has always been a center of Geno Auriemma, but now -- perhaps for the first time -- she really is the center of the team's attention due both to her own effort and changes in the makeup of the team.

Charles has been consistently aggressive on both ends fo the court and the guards have also been more dedicated to feeding Charles the ball in the post. Despite excellent offensive numbers, Charles had a tendency to become an after thought in the UConn offense in previous seasons partly as a result of her effort and partly because of her teammates. Former point guard Renee Montgomery could get the ball to the posts off of dribble penetration, but her lack of size limited her ability to be a strong post entry passer. And Montgomery really was the center of the offense as well.

With Montgomery gone the focus of the offense has changed, and this team has a few more players with the ability to get Charles the ball in the post. Maya Moore and Kaili McLaren both have been tremendous at making the post entry pass off of high-low action, but during the last two seasons, UConn has lost an important half court floor spacer and post entry passer at mid-season in Mel Thomas and Caroline Doty. Those losses had an impact on Charles' ability to get the ball in good position.

This season UConn doesn't have the quick penetrations into the lane with the dump off passes to the post on the weak side that fans were used to seeing both from Renee Montgomery and Ketia Swanier. But, the ball has been getting into Charles in the post with greater efficiency.

Although this season's guards can't create the same type of penetration, there is a conscious effort by the guards to get Charles the ball in the post. Caroline Doty was called the best post entry passer on team last season by Geno Auriemma as a freshman, and that skill has been evident again in the early going. Having her back has helped Charles and freshman Kelly Faris has a similar ability to anticipate the opening and quickly make the post entry pass before the defense can rotate.

As a result of Charles' aggressiveness and a team more focused on getting her the ball, nearly 40% of UConn's possessions have gone through Charles when she's been on the floor in the first three games. She's scored over a fifth of the team's total points and grabbed over a fifth of the team's total rebounds, despite averaging only 19 minutes per game in the early going.

Point Guard Update

With Lorin Dixon out with a hamstring injury both Tiffany Hayes and Caroline Doty have been filling the point guard spot during the first three games. The combination of Hayes and Doty as a starting backcourt has been mostly effective, but individually they've had different experiences.

Although Hayes has been the one with the starting point guard label so far, it's a position that she has said she doesn't really want. "It is kind of different because when you are at point guard, you have to make that right pass at the right time to the right person. When you are on the wing, you receive the ball and you either do something with it, make something happen or pass it to the open person. It is different from a point guard’s perspective because you have to know who you are passing it to, what they can do with it, where to go after you pass it to that person. It is kind of different, but I have been working on it in practice so it has been getting better."

While her overall play has been okay, Hayes has had thirteen turnovers and eight assists in three games and her coach has said she was trying to do too much. Often times she's over-penetrated to begin possessions, attacking until the defense stops her. That's often left her too deep when the defense does shut off her penetration to smoothly start the offense and also created some of the turnovers.

In contrast, last week's Swish Appeal poll winner, Doty, has 17 assists and only 3 turnovers through three games and has been more relaxed at the point. However, Doty has not yet embraced the point guard spot publicly either.

Knocking off the rust after not being able to play for six months had been difficult enough for Caroline during the preseason without the pressures of playing point guard. "I'm just trying to stay smart and work hard," said Doty. "It is getting there. I still have a lot of stuff to work on especially sharing the point guard role with Tiffany until Lorin gets back. It is definitely a lot of work. It requires a lot of work and concentration. I'm willing to do it, and I'm going to keep getting better."

After the Holy Cross game UConn associate head coach Chris Dailey said, "I was teasing Caroline. I had to remind her that we recruited her as a point guard." When she committed to UConn, Doty had said that the coaches' belief in her ability to play point guard was one of the reasons she chose UConn, and she still has the skills if not all the athleticism that made the UConn coaches think she could play point guard when most programs were recruiting her as a shooting guard.

"I'm just trying to stay focused and do the right thing," said Doty in describing her approach to the position. "I see that Tina is working really hard down low, get her the ball. Maya is flashing to the ball amazingly so I am just trying to get the right people the ball at the right times. See the play develop as it is going on and just try to see what pass is going to be there before it happens and just kind of play from there.

With Hayes trying to do too much early on, Auriemma has shifted the team into more two guard fronts to take pressure off of her, and allowing her to dump the ball to Doty or Kelly Faris if she runs into too much defensive pressure or feels uncomortable. Of course UConn isn't alone in replacing a point guard: Auriemma recently said that North Carolina men's coach Roy Williams asked for information on UConn's two guard offensive sets because North Carolina's star point guard Ty Lawson had moved on to the NBA . It hasn't been all smooth sailing at point guard, but Geno Auriemma has been remarkably upbeat and after each game instead of worrying about plugging leaks in the backcourt.

Poll

What is the most important reason for UConn's success so far?

Intensity

30 votes

Tina Charles

4 votes

Performance of point guards in two guard front

2 votes

All of the above

55 votes

IT'S ONLY 3 GAMES!!!

45 votes

Other

5 votes

141 votes | Poll has closed

Can UConn Meet Expectations While Searching for Both a Leader and a Point Guard?

Scotter — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:23:17 -0000

More photos » by Bob Child - AP

8 months ago: Connecticut head women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma, left, and player Renee Montgmery listen to the applause of the crowd at Gampel Pavilion at Storrs, Conn., Wednesday, April 8, 2009 during a homecoming celebration for the team. Montgomery holds the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball trophy. Connecticut beat Louisville 76-54 in an NCAA college basketball game on Tuesday in St. Louis to win the title for the first time since 2004. (AP Photo/Bob Child)

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The 2009 National Championship banner will be unveiled this afternoon, and all but one of the UConn players that played minutes in competitive situations last season will be in uniform again.

That of course includes the 2009 National Player of the Year Maya Moore as well as Tina Charles -- the All-American center and Final Four Most Outstanding Player -- who will be there after a summer leading the World University Games team in scoring and a few weeks playing with the Senior National Team this fall.

Their two All-Americans return along with Kalana Greene, Tiffany Hayes, Kaili McLaren, Caroline Doty, Meghan Gardler, and Lorin Dixon, eight of the nine players that played rotation minutes during an undefeated season. However, the one missing player is of course Renee Montgomery -- a player that led the team, handled the ball, and took the shot when the offense broke down for four years.

While filling in the hole Renee Montgomery leaves behind both as a leader and a point guard is a challenge UConn coach Geno Auriemma would gladly do without, it's also a challenge that will largely define this season.

Will arguably the most talented frontcourt in the nation be derailed by it's backcourt? Who among Lorin Dixon, Caroline Doty, Kelly Faris or Tiffany Hayes, emerge as the point guard? Or will it be a season with players being forced into the position of lead ballhandler without ever really claiming it?

The way the backcourt situation evolves will keep most fans' interest even as the UConn Huskies simply overwhelm most of their opponents this season.

Contradictions

Listen to UConn coach Geno Auriemma for any length of time talk about point guards and you will be met with contradictions. He's spent much of his career talking about great point guard play. The University of Connecticut is essentially Point Guard U in women's basketball after all.

No school has had more outstanding players or collected more accolades at that position. Auriemma will tell you that, "Point is and always will be the most important position on any basketball team." And in the same media session tell you that, "Anybody can handle the ball that's played in high school. It's just a matter of learning what to with it." Ask Geno about the various labels for positions and he will lament the present designations of "point" and "shooting" guards and express nostalgia for a time when there were simply "guards."

While overtly contradictory, we've all seen that contradictory nature of play out at the point guard position. No position has the ability to sink or limit a team the way the point guard position can in basketball. And at the same time there's little evidence that teams need anything much beyond solid point guard play to win championships as long as there are talented creators at other positions.

Take a look at the starting point guards on championship winning teams over the last two decades in the NBA. Only one player has averaged over 7 assists per game on a championship winning team since 1991. Which player did that? Avery Johnson and his 7.4 assists per game. No position. WNBA history isn't much different.

Can point guard be the most important position on the court even if having a great player at that position doesn't matter very much? Perhaps, and Auriemma does indeed have an underlying coherent philosophy when it comes to backcourt play. And that philosophy will have a big impact on whether Geno Auriemma can sort out his backcourt well enough to win a 7th national championship this season.

The role of a point guard

First, the leadership aspects of a point guard and the ball handling responsibilities of a point guard need to be separated.

When talking about the importance of point guards whether it's Jennifer Rizzotti, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, or Renee Montgomery, Auriemma is almost always really talking about leadership. It's hard to win if the player with the ball the most, the player making the majority of the decisions isn't a leader. It's hard to win if that player isn't someone the other players trust and believe in. That's why one of Auriemma's favorite instructions to his point guards is, "Everything is your fault."

Sue Bird was told that after only playing 8 games as a freshman because of an ACL injury. Everything from a bad play in a game to players standing in the wrong order in a layup line would be her fault. Renee Montgomery eventually received a similar level of responsibility. There were two older All-American wings on that team in Shea Ralph and Svetlana Abrosimova, but the inexperienced point guard was charged with responsibility for the team. Players need to believe in the person with the ball.

And yet there's also truth to Auriemma's distaste for labeling guards even if he can't stop himself from labeling them himself. Teams are usually better off when their point guard is a competent scorer off the ball and ball handling responsibilities can be distributed among two or three players.

It takes a tremendous point guard to really control the ball and still be successful against good defenses. In basketball, asking the shortest player on the court to take on that much ball handling responsibility isn't likely to result in great offensive efficiency.

Auriemma's teams have almost always operated out of a two guard front when bringing the ball up and a three guard motion offense in the halfcourt. If the point guard is pressured the ball is swung and the other guard initiates the offense. When teams decided to pick up Renee Montgomery defensively 80 feet away from the basket, Tiffany Hayes simply brought up the ball and initiated the offense instead. When Sue Bird won her first of three Nancy Lieberman awards as the nation's best point guard in 2000, she was 2nd on the team in assists and only 7 assists away from being 3rd. It's a system where point guards that suceed the most have a shooting guard skill set as well as the ability to learn to play the point.

Options

This season Auriemma has four players all with very distinct abilities to fill the point guard position vacated by Montgomery.

Lorin Dixon was given what was essentially one last chance to seize the starting position. After mid-season ACL injuries to the team's starting shooting guards during both her freshman and sophomore, DIxon was given a chance to start and in both seasons was unable to keep it both times. While Dixon can flash her incredible athleticism and speed, she's struggled to find her place in a halfcourt offense.

A continuity offense built on passing, cutting, and shooting is not a natural place for a 5'4" guard with a very suspect jump shot. This summer Dixon was credited with working the hardest on improving her game and attended Point Guard College, earning her one more chance to start. Dixon started both exhibition games but unfortunately she suffered a hamstring inury early in the 2nd exhibition game. The injury will likely sideline her for at least a couple of weeks. Dixon's injury speeds up what was likely an inevitable return to the bench, but it also puts an additional pressure on the other thrre guards to perform.

With Dixon's injury, sophomore Tiffany Hayes takes over the starting point guard role to begin the season. She performed well as freshman, but faces new challenges as most of her great performances came in games where she was basically left unguarded as teams focused on UConn's three All-Americans. As the season progressed Hayes did take on more and more point guard duties allowing Montgomery to move off the ball when teams devoted special attention to Renee. And by the NCAA tournament she was confidently directing her teammates.

Now Hayes must adjust to the greater defensive attention and increased responsibilities, while still finding ways to score herself. Hayes, the youngest player on the World University Games team this summer, has the talent and confidence to play the position, but it won't be easy. The most positive sign so far hasn't come during the run of play, but rather during the team huddles where she's clearly the player doing the talking.

Caroline Doty would likely be the key player for UConn this season, and if not for tearing her ACL for a second time in a little more than a year last January there might not be nearly this much uncertainty when it comes to the point guard position this season. Last season Doty started opposite Montgomery in the backcourt until her injury and specialized in 3-point shooting, making ten in a row at one point. Unlike Hayes, Doty came to UConn with a desire to play the point. And while she lacks the ball handling and penetration abilities of the classic point guard, UConn isn't a place for a classic point guard.

Doty has the best combination of skills and leadership abilities for the position out of the four players, but a summer spent rehabbing instead of playing basketball took her out of the intial competition to soem degree. She's still the player I expect to be in possession of the "point guard" designation at the end of the season. If that comes to pass, I expect the UConn backcourt will be in pretty good shape at the end of the year.

The fourth player, Kelly Faris, is the only true freshman on the team and the emergency candidate at point guard. She'll be a key player even if she never plays a minute with the "point guard" label, especially with Dixon out of the lineup to begin the season. Faris is a player without a natural position, but with strong basketball intelligence and a well rounded game. She'll play in the backcourt in much the same way that Jillian Harmon played for Stanford last season. The team might be able to survive if Faris is indeed forced into the point guard role, and she'll now likely get plenty of opportunities to play the position late in blowouts. But, she's more likely to help as the off guard in combination with Hayes or Doty at the point. She needs to be effective handling the ball and initiating the offense.

I suspect that having both Hayes and Doty in the starting lineup will work well. Both have versatile and well rounded skills and these two roommates should be able to share the load of running the team. Faris is the type of player that's usually succesful at places like Connecticut. Auriemma has already said that he doesn't expect her to play a truly bad game in an UConn uniform.

I don't think anyone could accurately predict how everything will play out, and that's what makes a team unanimously picked as the best team in the country interesting. Today after one last celebration of the 2009 National Championship, a talented team begins a search both for leadership and a succesful backcourt dynamic under the weight of incredible expectations.

Poll

Who will be UConn's starting point guard come tournament time?

The Evolution of the WNBA

Scotter — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:46:38 -0000

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.

Four Factors

In order to take a look at how the league has change in other ways, I charted the Four factors for the WNBA over the years.

The Four Factors split the game of basketball into it's statistical components: shooting measured by effective FG% ((FGM + 0.5*3PA)/FGA), rebounding measured by what percentage of FGA are offensive rebounded, turnover rate measured by turnovers divided by possessions, and the free throw line measured by FTM/FGA (This includes how often teams get to the FT line and how well teams make their FTA). I decided to include the assist rate, assists/FGM, in additions to the Four Factors because it's a defining trend in the league's evolution.

Compared to the NBA over the same period, the WNBA has been fairly stable.

Offensive rebounds and turnovers are gradually trending down, and assist rate has also trended down to the point where it's fairly close to that of the NBA. WNBA players are getting better and better at creating their own shot, and that increase in shot creation hasn't hurt the league's offensive efficiency at all.

It's clear that the WNBA has been moving away from a college basketball type game towards a NBA style game, and I think that's good for the league. It may no longer be the game that the fans who fled men's basketball in favor of women's basketball years ago love, but it is a game that NBA fans and basketball fans in general can embrace.

As someone who's watched the WNBA since it's inception, it's been exciting to see so many NBA fans realize that they enjoy the current WNBA, whether it's Q McCall or Phoenix Stan or Bethlem Shoals or my favorite NBA writer and fellow Bulls fan Kelly Dwyer or any other recent convert. That combined with the level of interaction between NBA and WNBA players seen in social media like Twitter has made me a believer that the future of the WNBA heavily rests with converting NBA fans. It will never be a replicate of the NBA, but it's reached a point where it's similar enough with the 24 second shot clock and increased offensive efficiency that it's easier for NBA fans to simply appreciate the differences.

And if you're interested in how the NBA has changed over the last three decades look here.

The Evolution of the NBA

Scotter — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 08:29:58 -0000

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.

As you can see pace dropped like a rock beginning with the merger and accelerating when the league moved the 3-point line closer in 94/95 before finally bottoming out during the lockout shortened season of 98/99. Offensive efficiency was rising even before the 3-point shot was introduced in the 79/80 season and leveled off at around 108 pts/100poss. The league finally reached that level again just last season. To get an idea of why league efficiency and pace changed over the last 30 seasons since the introduction of the 3-point line here's a graph of the league averages of the four factors, and I included the league average 3PA/FGA because the 3-point shot has had the greatest impact on changing the game over the last 30 years.

As you can see them most notable change is the increase in 3PA/FGA over the last 30 seasons, growing from just over 2% of shots taken in the early 80s to just over 22% of shots taken last season and accompanying growth in 3-point accuracy. It would probably be a smooth curve if not for the 3 seasons of the shortened 3-point line. This curve makes sense. In the early years of the 3-point line players weren't equipped for shooting the 3. You had a league full of veterans that had never played with it in HS or college. Even the scorers at guard had skill sets primarily built around getting close to the basket for shots because that was how you won. The ABA did have the 3-point line, but there weren't a lot of 3s taken, only 4% of FGA in the last season of the ABA for example, because the players didn't grow up with the 3-point line. In the 1st season of the line 3.1% of shots were 3s. Apparently a bunch of guys realized they couldn't make it It wasn't until 84/85 that at least 3% of FGA were 3-pointers again. Over the 80s some players adapted. Even someone like Magic was knocking down 3s by the end of the 80s.

But, colleges also played a big role in the evolution of the 3 in the NBA. Beginning with the Southern conference in 1980, individual conferences began adding various 3-point lines. Now rookies began entering the league with experience shooting 3s in college and that only grew as the standard NCAA 3-point line was adopted in 1986. And now for the last twenty years every player has grown up with the 3-point line as a part of youth basketball, and it's become a constantly increasing feature of basketball at the lower levels.

The rise in the frequency of the 3-point attempt has resulted in the steady decline of pace with the league bottoming out at basically the limit of what the 24 second shot clock would allow. There was a huge incentive to score on the fast break before the 3-point shot, but the possibility of launching a 3 at the end of shot clock has largely erased that incentive. While the pace of the game has rebounded some, it's hard to envision the league average traveling north when of 95 again. The rise of the 3-point shot also coincided with a steady decline in offensive rebounds. There's more offensive rebounds in fastbreak situations and on shots close to the basket, the 3-pointer both devalued the marginal fastbreak opportunity and the marginal shot close to the basket.

As I said, I believe the late 80s and early 90s was by the best period of NBA basketball. By then the 3-point shot had created the floor spacing that didn't exist in prior years. It was always 6 or 7 players within a 15 foot radius of the hoop. The Lakers won two championships and went to three finals in the 1st four seasons of the 3-point era, despite never having more than 100 3PA in the regular season. The 76ers won the 83 championship with only Andrew Toney attempting more than 8 3s in the regular season, and they shot 1 for 10 on 3PA in the playoffs. Then in 83/84 the Lakers suddenly took 226 3PA as Michael Cooper began taking over a 100 3PA. By 86/87 5% of FGA were 3PA and most teams, especially the good teams, had at least a couple of solid 3-point shooters on the roster spacing the floor. But, fewer than 10% of FGA were 3PA as late as 91-92. Denver led the league with a 1005 3PA that season, only the Thunder failed to break 1000 3PA that season. The Bulls had 454 3PA as a team in 91-92 and Ben Gordon had 422 3PA just last season.

The late 80s and early 90s was this period where the league reached it's historical peak of offensive efficiency. Yes, the NBA reached that same peak efficiency last season. And I am pleased by the recent trends in the NBA, but the present offensive efficiency reached on the back of 3-pointers and and unchecked dribble penetration by guards doesn't match the late 80s and early 90s qualitatively in my book. In the late 80s players had adapted to the 3-point shot and the resulting increase in floor spacing had boosted offenses, but not taken over offenses. Pace was declining during this period, but was still above 96 poss/g through 92/93. Turnovers were down and offensive rebounding still hadn't declined very much. Players leaving college before their junior year of college hadn't really hit the NBA yet. And most of all the NBA had this blend of players with the post up and mid-range skills necessary to play in an era without the 3-point shot and players with the ability to make the 3 and space the floor that resulted in the highest quality of play the league has ever seen. And then there was also the intersection of so many of the greatest players in NBA history. It just was the best period of basketball in my opinion, and unfortunately it can never be that way again.

If you want to look at the numbers behind the graphs here's the spreadsheet.

A Few WNBA Finals Thoughts

Scotter — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:58:29 -0000

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.

Replacing Renee Montgomery: UConn's offense this season

Scotter — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:31:38 -0000

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.

To this point I have been discussing quantity and not quality, and it's the quality of the UConn offense without Renee that most people are really interested.

UConn is going to average around 70 possessions per game this season, and someone is going to end each of those possessions. However, it is important to understand that 40% of what Renee was responsible for offensively will end up going to Maya, Tina, Kalana, or Tiffany and the other 60% will rest with the players directly playing her minutes. Where those possessions ultimately end up plays a huge role in determining the quality of the offense

The chart above covers the 17 games last season where UConn used an eight player rotation or less. I'm using that filter so that we're only looking at what players did in the competitive games. The chart shows each player's poss% (Usage%) which the estimate of each player's slice of pie when they're on the court. Pts/100 possessions is a measure of each player's total offensive efficiency (All shooting areas, turnovers, and offensive rebounding). This stat describes the quality of a player's offense. To give you an idea of where a player's pts/100 poss came from I provided each player true shooting% (This is a player's overall shooting efficiency combining 2P FGA, 3P FGA, and FTA) and their TO% (The % of a player's possessions that end in a turnover instead of a shot attempt).

Maya Moore, Tina Charles, Kalana Greene, Tiffany Hayes, and Caroline Doty were all at least as efficient as Renee last season. That Renee acheived the same efficiency as Doty, Hayes, and Greene with a significantly larger share of the pie is impressive, but UConn is in a good position to absorb that loss.

When Diana Taurasi graduated, for example, she not only was responsible for the biggest share of the pie, she was also the team's most efficient player. And unlike this year's team the established rotation players didn't have the shot creation abilities to increase their offensive roles and compensate for the loss of Taurasi. So the freshmen, especially Charde Houston ended up filling that hole.

Charde had the shot creation abilities to eat up a huge chuck of the pie (30% of the pie when she was on the floor as a freshman), but couldn't produce anything close to Taurasi's offensive effiiciency (Only 99 pts/100 poss). As we've discussed, this year's UConn team has four players with the shot creation ability to absorb that 10% difference between a role player and a star player without a loss of offensive efficiency. So the team is likely to do as well as or better with that 40% of Renee's possessions.

What's happens with the other 60% is conjecture at this point. The key here is how Caroline Doty returns from her ACL injury. Doty isn't capable of taking on 25% of the offense like Renee, but she is capable of doing just as well with her 15% of the offense as Renee would with the same size slice of pie. If Caroline can at least play 20 to 25 minutes in competitive games and Tiffany Hayes can pick up another 5 minutes or so then the team will be able to replace about 85% of what Renee did with similar levels of production and more if Doty proves capable of more than 25 minutes per game by the time postseason play rolls around.

Last season, UConn was able to replace Caroline Doty's production after her injury without an offensive drop off by simply increasing the minutes of both Kalana Greene and Tiffany Hayes who were capable of same level of quality offense. That's what can happen following Renee's departure, a redistribution of resources that effectively substitutes for the loss. But, Renee Montgomery's graduation does mean the team couldn't absorb an injury to the five players discussed so far without a significant offensive drop off.

Lorin Dixon is the player whose minutes will fill in the cracks unless incoming freshman Kelly Faris plays well enough to pass the junior Dixon in the rotation. The magnitude of the offensive dropoff without Renee will unfortunately be defined by the number of minutes that Dixon plays above the 12 minutes she averaged in competitive games last season.

As you can see from her red line on the chart, Dixon is significantly behind every other player in offensive efficiency. The difference between Montgomery and Dixon even if Montgomery used Dixon's small slice of the pie is 3 points over 40 minutes (0.8*10 poss vs. 1.1*10 poss). It may not seem huge, but over only 10 possessions that's a huge difference.

I know many fans are hopeful for big improvement from DIxon this season, but a giant improvement would at best cut down those 3 points to 1.5 points. That's still a large drop off over 10 possessions. When you have the front court that UConn has, that's preferable to a marginally better offensive point guard that's taking shots before the ball has a chance to find the front court players.

One of the interesting things about basketball is that there are players that bad teams can't afford to have on the court, but these same players can be very effective for really good teams that have the offensive stars to carry them. And the players that can carry the scoring load for a bad team, can also hold a good team back offensively.

Still, if DIxon is playing starters minutes that's probably a total four or five point loss per game because a non-scoring threat also negatively impacts the other players on the court in addition to the 1.5 to 3 points that comes directly from the individual difference between Montgomery and Dixon.

UConn obviously doesn't have the same margin for error without Renee Montgomery, but if things break right they realistically have a chance to be just as good. Considering they were as good as any WCBB team has ever been on that side of the ball last season, that would be quite an achievement.

If things don't break quite right this is still likely to be the best offensive team in college basketball, largely because no team can match the combination of ofensive quantity and defensive quality of TIna Charles and Maya Moore. The only team that has a chance to challenge that offensive title is Stanford if Nneka Ogwumike breaks out in a big way to give Stanford two 1st team All-Americans.

Atheltic testing results finally released

Scotter — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:35:14 -0000

Atheltic testing results finally released

It's finally out.

Mario Austin to play for the Bulls' summer league team

Scotter — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:11:08 -0000

Mario Austin to play for the Bulls' summer league team

Apparently Mario Austin is back on the Bulls radar. He was drafted in 03' and has been decent in Europe. The Bulls still own his rights so he's a minor asset that could be included in trades or used to fill in the bench after a big trade. Maybe he just wants out of Europe or maybe the Bulls are actually interested in getting some value out of their long lost 2nd round pick.

Salmons: One season fluke?

Scotter — Sat, 23 May 2009 03:13:58 -0000

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.

		Jumpers			Close
	Att.	eFG%	Ast'd	Att.	eFG%	Ast'd	Foul%
Bulls	73%	50%	51%	27%	66%	50%	13%
Sac 09	68%	47%	40%	32%	63%	36%	13%
2007/08	58%	42%	39%	42%	63%	35%	14%
2006/07	66%	43%	43%	34%	63%	45%	14%

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.

		3P FGA			2P Jumpers			Inside Shots
	Att.	FG%	AST%	Att.	FG%	AST%	Att.	FG%	AST%
2008/09	24	0.418	62	43%	0.388	26	31	0.63	36
2007/08	14	0.331	89	43%	0.387	4	41	0.625	35

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.

Can the Bulls survive with Salmons at SG?

I've seen questions about his ability to play SG, and I believe there were reports out of Sacramento at the time of the trade that he played better at SF. But at least according to 82games Salmons has at the very least not played any worse at SG.

		SG			SF
	MIN%	PER	opp PER	MIN%	PER	opp PER
Bulls				22	17.2	17.2
2008/09	18	17.4	21.6	30	18	17.1
2007/08	39	16.7	15.5	22	14.6	16.8
2006/07	26	14.5	15.3	23	12.8	17.6

His opponents PER this season in Sacramento wasn't good at SG, but it looks like a fluke compared to the rest of his career. Salmons appears to be a player that gives up about the amount that he produces. (In looking at the opp PER numbers, you should keep in mind that Salmons likely played most of his minutes at SG with Artest on the floor in 06/07 and 07/08, and played SF with defensive liability Kevin Martin on the floor)

The other question at least in my mind is can you afford to play Salmons at SF if you dump Deng. There were obviously long stretches where the Bulls were very effective offensively letting Gordon and Salmons take turns. The team scored an impressive 113.8 pts per 100 possessions in Salmons minutes in Chicago. But, playing Rose, Gordon, and Salmons is an unsustainable defensive disaster for a good team. The Bulls also gave up 112.7 points per 100 poss with Salmons on the floor. It's obviously not just the fault of Salmons. When Rose and/or Gordon was on the floor the team also gave up at least 110 pts per 100 poss. Salmons played about 75% of his minutes with Gordon and the team scored 105 points and gave up 104 points per 48 minutes in their minutes together. Rose, Gordon, and Salmons on the floor together is too poor defensively to be sustainable over the course of a season. Unfortunately Salmons just doesn't rebound well enough or contribute enough to the team defense to be starting at SF along with Gordon and Rose. If it was a different starting SG and PG than Rose and Gordon then starting Salmons at SF would be more feasible.

Going forward the Bulls can survive next season with Salmons at starting at SG. Defensively it's a good place to place him, especially in the East with all the big starting SGs. It's easier defensively for him to start at SG and then slide over during the game to backup the SF because most teams go smaller and quicker off the bench in the backcourt. That aren't a ton of starting SGs whose biggest threat is dribble oenetration. There are also less help responsibilities defensively at SG, especially if he's assigned to stay with a shooter. And offensively playing SG or SF hasn't really made any difference to Salmons based on his past history. Salmons can't replace Gordon's offense by himself, but he can at least fill the void enough that the Bulls can make up the difference in other areas, particularly on defense.

I see a lot proposed lineups with everyone back or at least Gordon and Deng starting, and Salmons coming off the bench. That's not something that's likely to work well for Salmons. There's a reason Sacramento has always been worse defensively with him on the floor, and that he was also an offense killer until this season. Bringing his offensive style into an already established game flow is a recipe for offensive distruption, and he has to score well enough to justify that distrubtion. And normally bringing a mediocre player off the bench isn't a big deal, but Salmons is the type of player that actively hurts his team with his mediocre play because of his ball dominance and turnover issues. I find myself in the strange position of being relatively content with Salmons starting at SG, but wanting no part of him as a starting SF or bench player.