Sort of interesting that, like the original topic before this, you are seeing things more at a league-wide birds eye view, while I would prefer a more rubber meets the road, team by team analysis.
Looking at the Golden State Warriors last year they had several players more efficient than Monta Ellis, their lead scorer. This would suggest to me they should want to run their normal offense late, and provided they can get their guys the same shots as normal, it would be much more effective than giving it to Monta over and over to go for what would probably usually end up in a low percentage jump shot.
Now last year’s Bulls on the other hand (he was rarely healthy this year), they had only two players that scored more efficiently than Derrick Rose. Joakim Noah, an opportunity scorer, who actually got much of his ‘opportunity’ off Rose attacking and dumping off, or off Rose missing a layup and him offensive rebounding it. Then second Kyle Korver, who can score only by being set up, and with Derrick Rose by the far the primary guy on the team that could set him up.
In the Bulls case, it just seems a no brainer to go to Rose attacking (to score or pass) late as a preferred method of best case offense. As opposed to say, what they did earlier in games, having him come down, dump the ball off to Noah, while Rose did some mostly useless off ball routes that rarely amounted to anything, or for waiting for Deng to come around a screen trying to get open for a 20 footer, or dumping it down to Boozer, on the rare off chance his man bites on his pump fake, and he can roll to the rim instead of shooting a low % fade-away jumper.
So two different teams, two totally different prescriptions I would have for the value of superstar offense late in a game.
This is a classic problem of how much to value shot creation ability. It is entirely variable based on the needs of a team, and the ability of a team to produce alternate offensive outside of that shot creator, and if they do it at better or worse levels.
Is our prescription for the 01 Sixers offense going to be less Iverson and more Aaron McKie and Tyrone Hill? I think not, the Bulls are setup closer to that than people think.
Chicago was 19th in the league in TS% as a team this year, but 5th overall offensively, the gap bridged mostly on their dominant offensive rebounding. The best way to take advantage of that offensive rebounding, was for Rose to collapse defenses and get up a shot close to the rim.
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When I was a bigger baseball fan I remember arguments over clutch, and believe Bill James being one of the first to throw cold water on the whole idea that clutch existed (I think he may have backtracked some recently, becoming at least more open minded). But saying essentially, this or that guy just got hot for one whole year in these small sample situations, and look next year, he might suck.
In basketball though, I think of clutch as something different. Merely the ability to maintain, or close to, your standard level of play, when many players around you are wilting to varying degrees under the pressure. Perhaps performing above your average consistently is not really possible outside extraordinary cases, but that most will suffer for the pressure certainly seems to happen, in turn elevating the value of those who don’t lose their cool.
Going back to my example of the Skiles era Bulls, one reason they fell often late in games (when they did fail - I’ll leave off saying they were bad there always without the hard data) was their regular offense stymied because Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich were terrible clutch players for like 3 years in a row. They were shooting like 25-40% in clutch situations, something awful every year. Now that was two of the top 3 options on the team. The result of this was that late offense was turned over to the one ‘clutch’ player, Ben Gordon, as he tried to play pseudo-superstar in a role over his head.
Ben did pretty damn
well for
himself actually. Especially his rookie year, 20 games double digit 4th quarter scoring. So to the extent those teams were good in the clutch, it was primarily on Ben Gordon hero ball. That is not my hazy memory, but the stats of the primary offensive players involved. But still as a one man show, without the other top options contributing much, and teams knowing the gameplan, they would double and harass Gordon and he would fall short a lot of the times too - more as the years went on. Yet with Deng and Hirnich being so... bet-wettery (oh and Nocioni likewise) I just cannot see where the Bulls were any better off continuing trying to run their system offense late in those games, as opposed to Gordon hero mode. In fact their failure to, is likely what led the coach to abandon it.
So, I don’t think we can just assume that in lieu of superstars closing games, every team could perform their offense equally as well in those situations as they do in the rest of the game.
Maybe what the data is showing at a larger level, is just too many team's with less than the best star scorers (whether Monta Ellis, Melo, Kobe) getting the ball too much late, and not enough Micheal Jordan's, and LeBron's James, actually being successful to push up the data. And yes also, Derrick Rose, I believe.
Not because Derrick Rose is as good as those players, but because the Bulls have a critical weakness outside of him at playmaking, that goes beyond mundane searching for answers like fatigue. Luol Deng cannot create offense off the dribble in the first quarter and he also can't in the 4th quarter. If you watch the Bulls without Derrick, they have no choice but to run their system offense late, and they try to... and it disintegrates too often late in tight or pressure packed games, especially vs better defenses, for it to not be understand, at least in large part, as being a symptom of deficiency in a specific area of offensive skill - shot creation.
