USG%: 35.7%, by far the highest in the league, ahead of westbrook's 32.7 and lebron's 32.0. next highest on the lakers was bynum at 23.8, which only ranked him 75th in the league. i believe it was the biggest gap among a team's top 2 in the entire league.
Shots per game: Kobe also ranked 1st in the league here by a healthy margin with 23.0 shots per game. Durant ranked 2nd at 19.7 per game. You would need to go down to Rudy Gay at #16 with 16.4 shots per game to match that type of gap. If you break it down by shots per minute, kobe also led the league, with carmelo/westbrook rounding out the top 3. two guys that don't exactly have the greatest of reputations.
Efficiency - TS%: Kobe's TS% for the season was 52.7%, which ranks him 20th among the top 25 scorers in the league. The 5 players behind him include guys like Carmelo Anthony, Brandon Jennings, Josh Smith, Al Jefferson and Rudy Gay. Kobe was also behind his two top 30 scorer teammates in Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum.
Simply put Kobe should not have been shooting so much. Im not going to use this thread to put blame on him, just stating a matter of fact. Could have been his teammates hesitation, lack of offensive system, he was asked by brown to take on the load, whatever. not the aim of this thread.
My main point is that whatever his role was last yr, it simply cannot happen again. Next we go into a little more details of what exactly Kobe was doing last yr.
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Kobe's role last yr was primarily that of isolation scorer, with some post ups, off screens, and p&r handler rounding out his most common plays.
Isolation plays accounted for more than one fourth of his shots at 27.9%. During these plays, Kobe shot 37.3% which led to 0.86 ppp, which ranked him 46th in the league.
Post ups were almost 1/5th of his attacks, at 19.3%. Here he shot 43.9% which lead to 0.93 ppp, ranking him 33rd in the league.
Pick and Roll Handler accounted for 12.2% of his shots. Here he had a 46 fg% and 0.86 PPP, ranking him 41.
Off-screen - 10.9% of the time, 1.0 PPP, ranking him 26th. So far the best results
Hand Off. This only accounted for 3.1% of the time, but i included it cause it was his most successful compared to the rest of the league. Here he had 1.16 PPP, ranking him 8th in the league.
Cut. This only accounted for 4.5% of the time, but in terms of raw PPP, it was his best, yielding 1.26 PPP. This ranked him at 64th in the league. Probably cause players that cut usually only get the ball when they're open and have a high % shot.
Things to note: Kobe is at his best when he's off the ball. Either cutting or coming off screens. Unfortunately I thought he had a better spot up numbers (ranked 177th), but even there he's getting a 0.92 PPP. those last 3 numbers i posted speak for themselves as well. Also of note, kobe had a total of 9 plays as the Pick and roll man, which kinda shows that there was a total lack of reliable ball handler outside of kobe. That changes with Nash.
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What can the guys do for Kobe?
I guess this section is kinda not needed since we know what Nash does and we all saw that article that stated Nash being the best p&r handler and Howard being the best p&r man, but for the sake of the details:
NASH Pick and Roll Handler: Nash's bread and butter. 60.9% of the time he's running this, thats pretty damn high!! leads to a 0.92 PPP. Nash doesn't really run anything else enough to make it worth noting, but when he isolates or spots up, he's elite, which is kinda obvious.
HOWARD Pick and Roll Man: 1.36 PPP, shoots 74%, nuf said.
GASOL: he's an elite post scorer at 0.95 PPP (ranked 21st), and he's really good at converting offensive rebounds into buckets, 1.19 PPP there.
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All this leads to the point I would like to discuss, which is what the heck Kobe should be doing on offense next year and if you think it'll happen. This question really depends on how the rotations go, mainly if Kobe is paired up with D12 in the middle quarters or Pau, since I assume its always going to be at least either nash/kobe on the floor and pau/d12 on the floor.
Nash on the floor: Kobe imo should be almost exclusively off the ball, identical to ray allen's role except a lot more cuts towards the basket vs. spot ups. This is going to be his biggest adjustment imo, cause statistically with all 4 on the floor Kobe should be the 3rd/4th option behind Nash/D12 and at times Gasol, depending on the matchup.
Kobe with Pau rather than D12: The team would be better off having Kobe stick with Pau during the mid game rotations. With Kobe being a post up threat, having Pau and his shooting range instead of d12 will be key. Pau, being a post up threat himself as well as a capable creator, gives Kobe a better chance of playing off the ball vs playing with D12. I also think this is when the princeton will be most utilized, with nash out of the game and trying to get kobe the ball on the move as a main objective.
The biggest adjustment, imo, and one i'm not sure of how its going to go, is going to be clutch time, or kobe ball time. I've already discussed that I think Nash should almost always have the ball with Kobe off the ball when they're both in the game, but can that plan be stuck to in the clutch, where kobe has always ALWAYS had free reign?
Last yr, Kobe upped his USG% in the clutch to an astronomical 41.5%. Kobe's TS% dipped from his 52.7% down to 48.9% during clutch time. In comparison, Nash's efficiency went from 62.5 TS% during the entire game up to a mind boggling 73.9 TS% during clutch time. A big question mark however will be how useful the Nash/D12 pnr will be when D12 gets the hack a shaq treatment. i wonder what the plan is going to be, could we even see some Nash/Kobe pnr with players like meeks/jamison in to spread the floor with d12 ready to attack the glass?
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CLIFF NOTES:
-When Nash is in the game, he should always initiate the offense, playing a 2 man game with D12/Pau as the matchups allow. Kobe should probably be a 3rd/4th option ala Ray Allen with more cutting and less spot ups.
- Kobe should be paired with Pau in the mid game rotations, with some princeton offense used to get Kobe the ball on the move / off the ball, let Pau create some. Nash/D12 an ideal pair.
- Main concern is how Kobe adjusts to his role during clutch time, where he's traditionally had full control. Must yield to Nash and adjust to a role he's almost never had.
If you got this far thanks for reading and how do you see the team using Kobe, how to you see Kobe adjusting, and if you were in charge how would you use Kobe?
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