93 MJ Assist-Tracking: Track 4 Threepeat

[OhayoKD]

You know the drill. Last time we did 89 MJ playing without the triangle.
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=115597879#p115597879
Now we return to Triangle Jordan.

Specifically we’ll look at Jordan in one of his toughest scoring series to get a better idea of how much he was able to bolster the scoring of others (I wanted to game 3 but since I can’t find the game we’re settling for 5):

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Watch on YouTube

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We’re going to count all the same stuff we counted in the previous threads:

Spoiler:

1. Defenders taken out (DTOs) -> this is when a player entirely or near-entirely renders a defender unable to affect an offensive play themselves(excepting a reset)

2. Additional Defenders Affected (ADAs) -> this is when a player helps render a defender unable to affect an offensive play

Will be looking for these on non-baskets and on rebounds and will be counting the two as separate things. Will also count plays where there was an opportunity to take-advantage of a player's off-ball creation but the opportunity was passed on. Will not be looking for on-ball creation though I encourage any interested party to look for the same things with the ball. I also encourage any interested party to do their own tracking/vetting.

…

I will also be qualitatively judging “creations” as either “Great”, “Good”, “Decent’, or “Weak”.

I have chosen 1 game for each player and will look at the first 40-possessions of each.

Also, in order cover what I perceived as a gap in my previous tracking, we’ll be counting something else:
[spoiler]

5. The value of compromised defenders is not linear

This is particularly pertinent with players who are creating more via volume(alot of assists) as opposed to efficiency (high DTO-per assist). There are more players can reliably take out their own man than players who can reliably take out 2 defenders and there are more players who can reliably take out 2 men than there are players who can capitalize on opportunities to take out 3 and so on. DTO is basically assuming all “defenders taken out” are created equal, inflating the assist/creation quality of players who are doing lots of replaceable things vs players doing less hard to replace things. If this tracking is representative, Bird who took out multiple defenders in only 4 of his 13 assists might be a beneficiary of this. Accordingly, I might start counting Extra Defenders Taken Out (EDTO) with future tracking.

EDTOs are defenders you take out who aren’t primarily responsible for guarding you. Please note that in a possession where a player makes multiple passes, EDTOs will not be counted for taking out a guy who is primarily guarding that player a second time. Nor will they be counted if a new defender taken out happens to be your guy.

As always vetting is encouraged.

Let’s begin:

Assist 1 - 4:38

Jordan drives inside, leading one defender into a screen and taking out 2 defenders with a pass to set-up a jumper. Good.

Assist 2 - 6:30
Jordan draws his guy and throws an overhead pass to take out 3 setting up a dunk. Great

Assist 3 - 7:40
Jordan gets the ball at the top of the key and swings it to Pippen taking out his own guy and delaying a second. Decent

Assist 4 - 10:00

Jordan takes out 2 defenders with a lob to Pippen. He gets a little assistance from a teammate for the 2nd but whatever. I think that still meets the standard of “nearly”. Good

Assist 5 - 10:25

Jordan gets the ball at the elbow and snaps it to Pippen, taking out his own man. Pippen drives and scores vs 2 defenders. Weak

Assist 6 - 37:09

Jordan gets the ball at the elbow, draws a double, and distracts the big[/i] allowing his teammate to delay his contest. Cartwright converts. It’s not explicit that he’s looking at Jordan but his head swerves towards MJ. [b]Good

[b[Assist 7[/b] - 37:35

Jordan gets the ball mid-post, backs his defender down to the paint, draws the big before dumping it to Cartwright. The big being a dto or an ada is borderline for me, but for now I’ll credit Jordan with taking out 2 defenders. Good

Assist 8 - 49:05

Jordan brings the ball to the free-throw line and pulls back drawing armstrong’s defender into a screen, distracting ewing, and taking out his own man with a through lob, Armstrong’s defender bumps into a second screener and Armstrong converts the semi-contested jumper. Good

Assist 9 - 50:30

Jordan circles around the paint getting his defender stuck on a screen to get open for a pass, draws Pippen’s defender at the free-throw line and has an opportunity to get 2 dtos at 50:35. Instead he pulls back and finds Pippen with an easier read taking out one defender and delaying another. Pippen converts. Good.

Assist 10 - 51:40

Jordan leads the break and throws a no-look to Grant taking out his own man. Because he keeps looking at Pippen until it’s time to throw the pass, Pippen’s defender is tricked into thinking he’s going to try to find Scottie inside and doesn’t bother to check if there’s another rim threat. There was probably an opening(albeit a riskier one) to find Pippen with less work to do but his defender doesn’t look back until Grant is kneeing him so all’s well that ends well. Decent.

Assist 11 - 54:20

Jordan drives to the free-throw line, fakes a pull-up, and chucks it to Pippen taking out his own man and distracting Pippen’s leading to a late rotation. Pippen converts. Decent.

Assist 12 - 54:45

Jordan brings the ball up and fires it from the back-court to find Scottie, taking out one defender and hindering another. A third defender runs into a Bull and Pippen exploits the opening to score. Decent.

Assist 13 - 55:10

Jordan drives, draws a double, and finds Armstrong in the corner for a wide-open jumper. Good

Assist 14 - 1:24:40

Jordan gets the ball with the clock ticking down effectively ending the game. Jordan throws it over 2 defenders and distracts a third to find Pippen who dunks to give Chicago a 3-point win. Good

22-8-10



Tally and Analysis

For Jordan’s 14 tracked assists, I gave him 22 DTOs, 10 EDTOs, and 10 ADAs giving MJ a total of 32 defenders affected; This also gives Jordan per-assist rates of 1.6 defenders taken out, 0.7 extra defenders taken out, and 2.3 total defenders affected.

For a comparison to other perimeter contemporaries, over 13 tracked assists(86 Finals Game 1), Bird had 16 DTOs, 7EDTOs[/b], and 9 ADAs for a total of 25 defenders affected and per-assist rates of 1.2 defenders taken out, .54 extra defenders taken out, and 1.9 total defenders affected.

For Magic’s 17 tracked assists(86 WCF Game 1), I gave him 37 DTOs, 19 EDTOs, and a total of 3 ADAs giving Magic a total of 40 defenders affected; This also gives Magic per-assist rates of 2.2 defenders taken out, 1.1 extra defenders taken out, and 2.4 total defenders affected.

Over 13 assists (89 ECF Game 7), Point-MJ got 22 DTOs, 10 EDTOs, and 8 ADAs giving MJ a total of 29 defenders affected; This also gives Jordan per-assist rates of 1.7 defenders taken out, 0.8 extra defenders taken out, and 2.2 total defenders affected.

Here is a record for how other players(or other versions of the same player) have fared using this tracking-process (excluding EDTOs):

Spoiler:

For a comparative frame, Hakeem, per-assist, had 2.3 DTOs and 2.9 defenders affected in HOU-LAC game 5 and HOU-SEA game 7(93, 12 total assists). Over 8 assists in the first game of the 2009 ECF I had Lebron with 2.4 DTOs per assist and 3 defenders affected on average. Over 8 on video Jordan assists in the 5th game of the 1991 finals, I gave Jordan, per assist, 1.5 DTOs and 1.9 total defenders affected on average.

I’m busy so I’ll just let other people do the analysis for this one for the most part. Will say in terms of raw passing this is the most impressed I’ve been with Jordan though it didn’t translate to a better tally. I suspect New York threw more extra bodies than other teams but to start confirming that the next-jordan related thing might be assist-tracking the suns series.

I’ll end this by copying and pasting the caveats from the last couple of threads. The subject’s Bird, but all of this applies here too I think

Spoiler:

1. Quantity matters too

Bird averaged 9 assists this finals so even if this sample is representative, this doesn’t stop Bird from creating more than players who generate higher quality assists but register less of them.

2. What isn’t counted

While Bird scoring poorly here aligns with some of the per-possession tracking we’ve done
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=114250252#p114250252

alot is left out when you only look at plays featuring assists:

Secondary creation, the effect a player has as a ball-handler, rebounding gravity, and creation which is not capitalized on are not captured here.

If you have multiple teammates who can do alot themselves (mchale, parish, to a degree ainge), your contributions may be more likely to end in scores. Bird’s total creation may be overrepresented by whatever he is creating in the plays he records an assist relative to players with less fortunate context:


Any sort of off-ball creation would not show up(unless it occurs alongside an assist-play) and while I’m skeptical how much is there
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=114336565#p114336565
a truly holistic appraisal would account for that as well.

3. Misses/Turnovers

A benefit of working off-ball is you have less opportunity to turn the ball over. A con is you have less opportunity to draw extra defenders thereby “missing” potential passing windows. Neither shows up if you’re just tracking assist-plays.

Getting bored of assist-tracking to be honest. Will probably swap back to rim-load next. Since we’re onto 94, the Bulls game 7 vs New York will probably come next. might also want to do something for shaq with the late 90s.

I’ve also promised stockton vs isaiah but I don’t know when I’ll get to it.