Porter Looks to Slow Run and Gun
Posted by thesandman1515 on October 2, 2008
That’s what the headline reads for Paul Coro’s article in the Arizona Republic. It freaked me out. Then I went on to read the article to see if it wasn’t just a slightly sensational headline designed for me to click on the article. But it’s not. “From what I’ve seen so far it’s very different, but he’s not going to throw everything at us at once,” forward Grant Hill told the Republic in the article. “It’ll be interesting to see if we totally get away from some of the old stuff.”
That sounds like a pretty big change. Especially since over the past month all Porter and Kerr have been talking about is how the team will still light up the scoreboard. But then, how much more do the Suns fastbreak than other teams? When I think of the “essence” of the Suns’ offense in the D’Antoni years, Marion and Barbosa streaking ahead of the pack isn’t what comes to mind. It’s Steve Nash driving baseline and passing the ball out to the three-point line.
Let’s take a quick look at the stats. In an article by Roland Beech from 82games.com, statistics show the Suns scored about 17 points off fast breaks in the ‘06-’07 season, with a 6.5 point net fastbreak average. That doesn’t take into account for points drawn on fouls, and the definition of fast break can be somewhat nebulous when tallying stats, but it will suffice for our purposes. The net fastbreak average shows that the Suns only had about three more buckets each game from the fastbreak. Not that impressive.
The real issue here is the motion offense Porter is installing. I think it’s a good idea in the long run, since it will help prepare the team for the post-Nash era somewhat. I don’t know how much good it will do this season though. The reason that the Suns’ offense has been so anemic with Nash on the bench over the past few years is that Nash is the offense. It’ll be interesting to see just how much Porter lets Nash freelance when he’s on the floor. Restrain Nash, and the offense becomes relatively mediocre. And if there’s not a significant change in a mediocre defense, the Suns could be in some trouble.
This entry was posted on October 2, 2008 at 10:22 am and is filed under NBA. Tagged: Grant Hill, Leandro Barbosa, Mike D'Antoni, NBA, Phoenix Suns, Shawn Marion, Steve Nash, Terry Porter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Rob Mahoney said
That 6.5 net number is pretty shocking, and seems pretty counter-intuitive. I’d take it with a grain of salt, all that said, though; it doesn’t pass the “gut check” evaluation.
I like the blog though, keep it up.
Dave said
I think the biggest difference with Porter’s offense will be Barbosa’s increased ability to play the point. Less onus on the point creating on every possession and more emphasis on getting the team into their sets and letting the point spend some time off the ball will do Barbosa’s ability to play the point the world of good.
thesandman1515 said
6.5 does seem a little low, especially when it seems the Suns are always leading 20-2 in fastbreak points on the TV end-of-game summaries. fastbreak points are probably one of the hardest stats to measure since it can be so subjective. Do secondary break points count? Shots within 5 seconds of a rebound? I would have guessed the net to be about 5 points higher, but I don’t have any stats to back that up.
Dave, you bring up an interesting point. everyone’s talking about how Dragic and Singletary will be Nash’s backups this season. I dont know the details of Porter’s motion offense, but here’s a site on the basics of the offense in general: http://espn.go.com/ncb/2003/0225/1514311.html. I think the Celtics implemented this type of offense last year, and Rajon Rondo did OK. there’s probably not a huge difference between him and Barbosa in terms of getting into the paint.