Jeff Ruland potential

[70sFan]

This question is for a Bullets/Wizards fans - what do you think about Ruland potential? Have anyone watched him on consistent basis? I have seen only a few of his games and he seemed to be extremely skilled bigman offensively.

Do you think he could have become a strong all-star with a better health?

[SkyHookFTW]

This question is for a Bullets/Wizards fans - what do you think about Ruland potential? Have anyone watched him on consistent basis? I have seen only a few of his games and he seemed to be extremely skilled bigman offensively.

Do you think he could have become a strong all-star with a better health?

If you take his 4-year peak he was a 20/11 guy, shooting about 56-57% from the field with two all-star appearances. If he stayed healthy, I could see him as a four to six time all-star. He was only 28 when his injuries took him down.

[Owly]

Box notes:
Efficient scorer, big rebounder, hideous turnover numbers.

Transaction notes: That despite injury hit seasons he got traded "for" Moses in '86 (rather they were the main pieces going either way in a larger transaction, but Moses came with two 1sts and though the worse player [Terry Catledge < Cliff [not Clifford, headband etc] Robinson]) is interesting. Maybe money related on 76ers side? Also he played for Barcelona before his first NBA year iirc.

Got to go. Maybe tag Penbeast for more on McFilthy? McNasty? Whichever he was.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

He might have already reached his potential before his injury. He was great.
If he did not get injured and performed that well for 5 more years he would not be so forgotten.
He made the All-Star team twice and probably would have made it 3 to 5 more times if he did not get injured.
The arrival of Patrick Ewing would have made it more difficult to make the All Star team.

Johny Most called Ruland and Mahorn, McFilthy and McNasty. They banged the Celtics arround some and set some nasty screens.

[penbeast0]

Ruland was a physical guy (duh) with good post moves and some midrange chops. He could score and rebound and made some nice passes. Wes Unseld tutored both him and Mahorn on screen setting, blocking out, and the other big man skills of a true banger.

On the down side, while physical, he wasn't a particularly good defender and had very small hands for his size which may have led to the issues both with catching passes on the move and throwing the ball away too much which were his weakness. Think a stronger but slower version of George McGinnis without the great hops.

[kcktiny]

Prior to injury Ruland was a good scorer, a good rebounder, a good defender (but not a shot blocker), that shot well and drew a ton of fouls (9-10 FTA/48min his first 3 years).

His only downside was turnovers, over 5 TO/48min. Really hurt his offensive efficiency.

[tsherkin]

Watch on YouTube

[penbeast0]

Prior to injury Ruland was a good scorer, a good rebounder, a good defender (but not a shot blocker), that shot well and drew a ton of fouls (9-10 FTA/48min his first 3 years).

His only downside was turnovers, over 5 TO/48min. Really hurt his offensive efficiency.

I never saw him as a good defender, though he was a strong post guy. He wasn't a shotblocker as you said, but he also didn't have long arms, nor much lateral quickness, and wasn't a guy you wanted guarding anyone out on the floor. Mahorn was the defense focused Bruise Brother.

[trex_8063]

Box notes:
Efficient scorer, big rebounder, hideous turnover numbers.

As turnovers are the oft-forgotten aspect of offensive efficiency, I'll ask can someone [read: particularly someone who is NOT a play-maker] really be considered "efficient" if they have "hideous turnover" economy?

I've raised this point elsewhere, but whereas turnovers are so often ONLY associated with one's capacity as a facilitator, the majority of turnovers actually do NOT occur while making a pass (and particularly for big-men it's not remotely close).

[SickMother]

As turnovers are the oft-forgotten aspect of offensive efficiency, I'll ask can someone [read: particularly someone who is NOT a play-maker] really be considered "efficient" if they have "hideous turnover" economy?

I guess it depends on what one's standards are for efficiency.

In Ruland's peak season of 83/84 he posted a 117 TS+ on high enough volume that the only three players to post a higher TS Add were Adrian Dantley, Kiki Vandeweghe and Bernard King.

At the same time, even with that level of scoring efficiency (& the 10th highest TRB% that season), he only finished 20th by PER where Adrian, Kiki and Bernard finished 1st, 3rd & 6th.

I'd say Ruland still qualified as efficient in a general sense at his peak, but his turnovers limited him from having the kind of top tier efficiency his scoring/rebounding profile had the potential to produce.

[Owly]

Box notes:
Efficient scorer, big rebounder, hideous turnover numbers.

As turnovers are the oft-forgotten aspect of offensive efficiency, I'll ask can someone [read: particularly someone who is NOT a play-maker] really be considered "efficient" if they have "hideous turnover" economy?

I've raised this point elsewhere, but whereas turnovers are so often ONLY associated with one's capacity as a facilitator, the majority of turnovers actually do NOT occur while making a pass (and particularly for big-men it's not remotely close).

So for me ...

Efficient scoring ... I'm talking scoring only. If I'm doing this box - and I typically am because even if I've watched a player a lot, I haven't tracked them and human memory isn't that reliable generally - then it's box inputs things leading to ts%, ts+ ...

Turnovers are a detriment to being an efficient offensive player. But I don't know if it's off illegal screens or rebounds or passing/playmaking for others or it's from generating his own shot (or catching passes, which would occur it scoring and non-scoring positions). So barring some deep dive I'd regard this as part of something overlapping but different. Offensive efficiency I guess, where you're looking at something like Ortg (there may be other things but you starting moving away from just efficiency). And to reiterate it could well be part of the scoring, we just don't have good data, though someone inclined could probably get a mean average of what of turnovers come in shot creation if they wanted a slightly fuzzy idea of scoring factoring approximate scoring-related turnovers.

Turnovers aren't unimportant to me and for a long time were I think overlooked. It's just, for myself, I wouldn't use them in a stat in the "scoring" bucket (without tracking, expertise etc).

To phrase it as an answer to the question asked ...
Can an a really turnover prone player be considered offensively efficient, probably not if they're that harmful with it ... but your question chopped scorer, I would say they could well be a highly efficient scorer.

[ronnymac2]

This guy led the league in total turnovers in 1984 and didn't even average four assists per game. This is almost Shawn Kemp-levels of sloppy turnover economy relative to creative ability/load. It's terrible and shows a very low basketball iq.

[Owly]

This guy led the league in total turnovers in 1984 and didn't even average four assists per game. This is almost Shawn Kemp-levels of sloppy turnover economy relative to creative ability/load. It's terrible and shows a very low basketball iq.

Depends on other stuff and how many turnover you might think are a given but you raise assists and turnovers here ... just by the conventional A:T ratio his number is sub 1, but it's not a Duckworthian circa 0.5; Seikaly-eque 0.45 (there are worse but can't find the post I had).

It's a very high turnover number but I'd guess at a glance it's the worst a:t year of his meaningful career, and certainly the turnovers are very high and a:t is just one (simple) tool but I'd say the assists, from center, are a slight mitigation.

Whilst I don't love high turnovers I'd dispute that it necessarily show "a very low basketball iq" that would depend on the causes/circumstances (is it [mis]reading D, or is it setting picks, or is it catching passes, or is it grabbing rebounds ...).

[ronnymac2]

This guy led the league in total turnovers in 1984 and didn't even average four assists per game. This is almost Shawn Kemp-levels of sloppy turnover economy relative to creative ability/load. It's terrible and shows a very low basketball iq.

Depends on other stuff and how many turnover you might think are a given but you raise assists and turnovers here ... just by the conventional A:T ratio his number is sub 1, but it's not a Duckworthian circa 0.5; Seikaly-eque 0.45 (there are worse but can't find the post I had).

It's a very high turnover number but I'd guess at a glance it's the worst a:t year of his meaningful career, and certainly the turnovers are very high and a:t is just one (simple) tool but I'd say the assists, from center, are a slight mitigation.

Whilst I don't love high turnovers I'd dispute that it necessarily show "a very low basketball iq" that would depend on the causes/circumstances (is it [mis]reading D, or is it setting picks, or is it catching passes, or is it grabbing rebounds ...).

Are there worse offenders (in terms of Assists/Turnover ratio) who had similar volume (raw average)*** of assists and turnovers as Ruland? Shoutout to Penbeast's McGinnis mention as that is the only one off the top of my head that is comparable.

Fair point about what the high turnovers by themselves reveal about Ruland's Bball IQ. In all fairness, I'm not super familiar with Ruland's game on tape/eye-test observation.

***Equal or greater than 3.8 assists per game and equal or greater than 3.8 turnovers per game over a 200-game sample

[Owly]

This guy led the league in total turnovers in 1984 and didn't even average four assists per game. This is almost Shawn Kemp-levels of sloppy turnover economy relative to creative ability/load. It's terrible and shows a very low basketball iq.

Depends on other stuff and how many turnover you might think are a given but you raise assists and turnovers here ... just by the conventional A:T ratio his number is sub 1, but it's not a Duckworthian circa 0.5; Seikaly-eque 0.45 (there are worse but can't find the post I had).

It's a very high turnover number but I'd guess at a glance it's the worst a:t year of his meaningful career, and certainly the turnovers are very high and a:t is just one (simple) tool but I'd say the assists, from center, are a slight mitigation.

Whilst I don't love high turnovers I'd dispute that it necessarily show "a very low basketball iq" that would depend on the causes/circumstances (is it [mis]reading D, or is it setting picks, or is it catching passes, or is it grabbing rebounds ...).

Are there worse offenders (in terms of Assists/Turnover ratio) who had similar volume (raw average)*** of assists and turnovers as Ruland? Shoutout to Penbeast's McGinnis mention as that is the only one off the top of my head that is comparable.

Fair point about what the high turnovers by themselves reveal about Ruland's Bball IQ. In all fairness, I'm not super familiar with Ruland's game on tape/eye-test observation.

***Equal or greater than 3.8 assists per game and equal or greater than 3.8 turnovers per game over a 200-game sample

As I say I don't deny the turnover are high. And that part would be a barrier. And it's hard to get players good enough that you'll live with that level of turnover if they're not a playmaking guard and still want to play them enough minutes to accumulate the raw totals.

But looking for high turnover guys with a similar/worse ratio 80s Hakeem came to mind.
88-90 Olajuwon. 3.4 turns, 2.2 assists.
Ewing
87-90 3.5 turns 2 assists.
just looking at other high turnover players
Glenn Robinson
95-98 3.6 turns to 3 assists.
Oakley 87-89 (lower self-creation burden)
3.2 turns, 3 assists.
Stackhouse 97-99
3.3 turns, 3 assists.

[Owly]

Depends on other stuff and how many turnover you might think are a given but you raise assists and turnovers here ... just by the conventional A:T ratio his number is sub 1, but it's not a Duckworthian circa 0.5; Seikaly-eque 0.45 (there are worse but can't find the post I had).

It's a very high turnover number but I'd guess at a glance it's the worst a:t year of his meaningful career, and certainly the turnovers are very high and a:t is just one (simple) tool but I'd say the assists, from center, are a slight mitigation.

Whilst I don't love high turnovers I'd dispute that it necessarily show "a very low basketball iq" that would depend on the causes/circumstances (is it [mis]reading D, or is it setting picks, or is it catching passes, or is it grabbing rebounds ...).

Are there worse offenders (in terms of Assists/Turnover ratio) who had similar volume (raw average)*** of assists and turnovers as Ruland? Shoutout to Penbeast's McGinnis mention as that is the only one off the top of my head that is comparable.

Fair point about what the high turnovers by themselves reveal about Ruland's Bball IQ. In all fairness, I'm not super familiar with Ruland's game on tape/eye-test observation.

***Equal or greater than 3.8 assists per game and equal or greater than 3.8 turnovers per game over a 200-game sample

As I say I don't deny the turnover are high. And that part would be a barrier. And it's hard to get players good enough that you'll live with that level of turnover if they're not a playmaking guard and still want to play them enough minutes to accumulate the raw totals.

But looking for high turnover guys with a similar/worse ratio 80s Hakeem came to mind.
88-90 Olajuwon. 3.4 turns, 2.2 assists.
Ewing
87-90 3.5 turns 2 assists.
just looking at other high turnover players
Glenn Robinson
95-98 3.6 turns to 3 assists.
Oakley 87-89 (lower self-creation burden)
3.2 turns, 3 assists.
Stackhouse 97-99
3.3 turns, 3 assists.

New addition a bit low on turns but wanted to add for the ratio
05-08 Eddy Curry
2.8 turns, 0.6 assists.

[trex_8063]

[
So for me ...

Efficient scoring ... I'm talking scoring only. If I'm doing this box - and I typically am because even if I've watched a player a lot, I haven't tracked them and human memory isn't that reliable generally - then it's box inputs things leading to ts%, ts+ ...

Turnovers are a detriment to being an efficient offensive player. But I don't know if it's off illegal screens or rebounds or passing/playmaking for others or it's from generating his own shot (or catching passes, which would occur it scoring and non-scoring positions).

Fair points.

wrt the bolded part, I'm skeptical too many of the turnovers could have happened on illegal screens or rebounding (though I don't have much memory or eye-test on Jeff Ruland [Bullets weren't on TV much in those days], so I could easily be wrong). But I note, for example, that in '84 he led the entire league in mpg [41.1], but still averaged <4 fpg [3.8]. In '85 it was 38.8 mpg with just 3.5 fpg.
That doesn't seem likely of a guy who was committing 1-2 [or more??] fpg by way of illegal screens or over-the-backs on the offensive glass.

He did do a fair amount of playmaking for a big between '84-'86; but obviously he was known more as a scorer.

[Owly]

[
So for me ...

Efficient scoring ... I'm talking scoring only. If I'm doing this box - and I typically am because even if I've watched a player a lot, I haven't tracked them and human memory isn't that reliable generally - then it's box inputs things leading to ts%, ts+ ...

Turnovers are a detriment to being an efficient offensive player. But I don't know if it's off illegal screens or rebounds or passing/playmaking for others or it's from generating his own shot (or catching passes, which would occur it scoring and non-scoring positions).

Fair points.

wrt the bolded part, I'm skeptical too many of the turnovers could have happened on illegal screens or rebounding (though I don't have much memory or eye-test on Jeff Ruland [Bullets weren't on TV much in those days], so I could easily be wrong). But I note, for example, that in '84 he led the entire league in mpg [41.1], but still averaged <4 fpg [3.8]. In '85 it was 38.8 mpg with just 3.5 fpg.
That doesn't seem likely of a guy who was committing 1-2 [or more??] fpg by way of illegal screens or over-the-backs on the offensive glass.

He did do a fair amount of playmaking for a big between '84-'86; but obviously he was known more as a scorer.

Don't know. This was more about a general approach than Ruland. Fwiw...

Would say it depends on what you mean by "too many" ,,,

3.8 pfpg isn't exactly low. Even high frequency foulers don't foul out of every game or nearly that. Dawkins at his absurd apex gets to 4.8 that year, Mahorn 4.4, then Sampson's at 4.1 and this seems to be around the peak of the all time high fouls leaders.

A decent offensive rebounder with maybe not great hands getting more balls than typical knocked away ... seems plausible.

I think he was a screen-setter.

So yeah, "taking away" 2 turnovers a game or even one specifically as screen[s] would be huge change to perception ... I don't think it would need to be that, but more marginal changes cumulatively could (if true) turn that A:T ratio to look okay for a big, make the turnover% look less ... ghastly.

Obviously the bigger picture is in terms of team impact and there it's also a question of "what value". E.g. If he sets X many screens and gets Y marginal extra points for the team per game and rattles Z many perimeter creators over the season you trade that off against however many additional turnovers. I don't know what any of those values are or how to aggregate it but there is some trade off there (and in pursuing boards and basically everything) and a net gain/loss at any particular level of aggressiveness.

[kcktiny]

I never saw him as a good defender, though he was a strong post guy. He wasn't a shotblocker as you said, but he also didn't have long arms, nor much lateral quickness, and wasn't a guy you wanted guarding anyone out on the floor. Mahorn was the defense focused Bruise Brother.

From 1981-82 to 1983-84, when Ruland averaged some 2700 minutes a season, Washington ranked 4th best (out of 23 teams) in the league in defensive efficiency, allowing just 102.0 pts/100poss. Only New Jersey, Milwaukee, and Boston were better. And they were 4th best despite being a poor shot blocking team at just 4.5 BS/g (6th fewest).

Here's the minutes played over the 3 years of their key players:

8487 - Greg Ballard
8388 - Rick Mahorn
8158- Jeff Ruland
7037 - Frank Johnson
4062 - Ricky Sobers
3184 - Don Collins
2920 - Kevin Grevey
2861 - Spencer Haywood
2326 - John Lucas
2203 - Charles Davis

no one else played as much as 2000 minutes.

I consider Johnson, Grevey, Haywood, and Lucas as worse than average to poor defenders. I think their best defenders were - in order - Mahorn, Ruland, Sobers, and Collins - and Ruland also grabbed the most defensive rebounds for them over the 3 seasons.

[trex_8063]

[
So for me ...

Efficient scoring ... I'm talking scoring only. If I'm doing this box - and I typically am because even if I've watched a player a lot, I haven't tracked them and human memory isn't that reliable generally - then it's box inputs things leading to ts%, ts+ ...

Turnovers are a detriment to being an efficient offensive player. But I don't know if it's off illegal screens or rebounds or passing/playmaking for others or it's from generating his own shot (or catching passes, which would occur it scoring and non-scoring positions).

Fair points.

wrt the bolded part, I'm skeptical too many of the turnovers could have happened on illegal screens or rebounding (though I don't have much memory or eye-test on Jeff Ruland [Bullets weren't on TV much in those days], so I could easily be wrong). But I note, for example, that in '84 he led the entire league in mpg [41.1], but still averaged <4 fpg [3.8]. In '85 it was 38.8 mpg with just 3.5 fpg.
That doesn't seem likely of a guy who was committing 1-2 [or more??] fpg by way of illegal screens or over-the-backs on the offensive glass.

He did do a fair amount of playmaking for a big between '84-'86; but obviously he was known more as a scorer.

Don't know. This was more about a general approach than Ruland. Fwiw...

Would say it depends on what you mean by "too many" ,,,

3.8 pfpg isn't exactly low. Even high frequency foulers don't foul out of every game or nearly that. Dawkins at his absurd apex gets to 4.8 that year, Mahorn 4.4, then Sampson's at 4.1 and this seems to be around the peak of the all time high fouls leaders.

I'm not trying to characterize him as a low foul-rate guy; but he doesn't appear to notably high in his prime years, either. But again: in looking at fpg, it's important to keep in mind the extremely high minutes Ruland played (I mean, in a enough minutes, EVERYONE eventually fouls out).

Some of those high frequency foulers aren't fouling out only because their minutes were relatively restricted compared to Ruland's [probably because of their high frequency fouling].....

That 4.8 fpg Dawkins averaged occurred in just 29.8 mpg......per 41.1 mpg [Ruland's avg that year], Dawkins averaged 6.6 fouls. So on average, he'd foul out BEFORE reaching 41 mpg.
Mahorn's 4.4 fpg occurred in 32.9 mpg......that comes to 5.5 fouls per 41.1 minutes.
Sampson's 4.1 fpg in 32.8 mpg.....5.1 fouls per 41.1 minutes.
Caldwell Jones avg 4.1 fpg in 30.9 mpg: 5.5 fouls per 41.1 minutes.
LaSalle Thompson avg 4.1 fpg in just 23.9 mpg: 7.1 fouls per 41.1 minutes.
Alton Lister avg 4.0 fpg in just 23.8 mpg: 6.9 fouls per 41.1 minutes.
Roy Hinson avg 3.8 fpg in just 23.2 mpg: 6.7 fouls per 41.1 minutes.
Danny Schayes avg 3.8 fpg in only 17.3 mpg!!: 9.0 fouls per 41.1 minutes.
And Steve Johnson was barely better with 3.8 fpg in 18.4 mpg: 8.5 fouls per 41.1 minutes.
Some scrub I've never heard of named Darren Tillis (he played >10 mpg in 72 games) averaged 9.8 fouls per 41.1 minutes.

It's safe to assume these guys WOULD foul out a lot if required to play >40 minutes per game.

Even Isiah Thomas [to spot-light a higher foul-rate guard] averaged 4.0 fpg in 36.7 mpg: 4.5 fouls per 41.1 minutes.

Ruland is 1st in the league in mpg that year, but only tied for 9th in fpg, and clearly not close [in foul-rate] to the REALLY high-frequency foulers.
fwiw, he was tied for 99th in the league [in '84] in fouls/100 possessions.

Not low; but really not at all a high frequency fouler for the league circumstance he played in.
Still not impossible that he was burning unnecessary fouls on overzealous screens or aggro offensive rebounding [he does have a pretty decent OReb rate]; but it does through a little bit of cold water on the theory.

A decent offensive rebounder with maybe not great hands getting more balls than typical knocked away ... seems plausible.

I think he was a screen-setter.

I think he was too. I feel like I have a vague memory of penbeast0 stating that Ruland was an overzealous screen-setter, which would obviously throw some cold water on my arguments. Although memory [like OLD eye-test] is a bit of bitch-goddess: she proves you right sometimes, and totally leaves you out to dry others.

I could be misremembering both WHO was being talked about, as well as WHO said it, though.......perhaps qualifying the "bitch goddess" statement .

Obviously the bigger picture is in terms of team impact and there it's also a question of "what value". E.g. If he sets X many screens and gets Y marginal extra points for the team per game and rattles Z many perimeter creators over the season you trade that off against however many additional turnovers. I don't know what any of those values are or how to aggregate it but there is some trade off there (and in pursuing boards and basically everything) and a net gain/loss at any particular level of aggressiveness.

Yeah, and these are questions I absolutely cannot answer without at least a handful of games to watch for film-study.
70sFan, you got any full games for mid-80s Bullets? My curiosity has been mildly piqued; I might look for some later.

My impression is that Jeff Ruland was merely a fair-decent or "pretty good" offensive player who was tasked with FAR too much offensive carry because these teams were EXTREMELY limited offensively. So he put up some big volume numbers for bad offenses (because: who else did they have?)......but he was in a little over his head, as it were.

Side-note: anyone know much about Greg Ballard? In particular, was he good defensively?

I note all those mid-80s Bullets teams were bad offensively, but pretty good defensively (which suggests to me that Ruland [in spite of NOT being a rim protector] couldn't have been too bad defensively).

Rick Mahorn is there in '84 and '85, and I know he's a very solid defender.
Charles Jones is there for a fraction of '85 and then around for '86, and he's a rim protector.
Gus Williams was around for '85 and '86, and he's good defensively (but otoh, Jeff Malone was also filling big minutes in the backcourt, and he always struck me as a weak defender).
The '86 team had Dan Roundfield and Manute Bol, too.

Anyway, was just curious about Ballard, since he's a SF and one of the biggest minute players on the team for '84 and '85.