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Jim O’Brien

Of Tweets and TJ and Ghosts of Point Guards Passed But Not Gone

by Tim Donahue on August 18, 2010 at 10:44 pm

The internet is an amazing, confusing place. It goes absolutely nowhere at a million miles an hour. It has destroyed the concepts of time, seasons, and personal boundaries. As a child growing up, I loved baseball in the summer, football in the fall, and basketball in the winter. At this time of year, I would have been dreaming about being Reggie Jackson, just a few weeks away from turning into Sweetness. It would have been months before I fantasized about swooping around the hardwood like Dr. J.

These days, I literally spend some time thinking about the Indiana Pacers and the NBA every day of the year. There’s been plenty to keep Pacer fans engaged – acquiring Collison, Danny Granger’s success with Team USA, and, sadly, Lance Stephenson’s arrest. And it certainly appears that Larry Bird isn’t done with the summer.

One of the big issues that is expected to be resolved before training camp is the future of T.J. Ford. The point guard has lost his starting job in each of the two years here, and reportedly danced a jig in front of his teammates when it appeared that he was going to be traded to Charlotte at the deadline. With an entire Pacer fan base wound up from all of the summer’s activity, it’s no wonder the following tweets from T.J. this morning caused a reaction.

Had a great talk yesterday with JOB!!!!

” God sends u through things to see how u will respond with ur faith ” sometimes it’s hard to believe. Thx u Jesus.. Blesses Day

Almost immediately, a thread opened on Pacers Digest to speculate on the meaning of these lines. I’ll be honest, I was swept up in it, too. I didn’t participate in the thread, but I did follow it closely. I was (and still am) baffled by this development.

To be honest, I am at a loss as to any “talk with JOB” not involving news of T.J.’s imminent departure from the Pacers that would make T.J. happy. At least, not one that I would think would actually realistically happen. I cannot see a conversation where O’Brien earnestly tells T.J. that he’s got a realistic shot at either the starting job or heavy minutes this coming season. The thought boggles my mind. The Pacers have done everything short of run a 24-hour ticker announcement on ESPN that they’re done with him, and now they’ve got Darren Collison.

I mean, can you see any realistic conversation that might make Ford happy to return to the Pacers this year?

At the same time, it doesn’t make a great deal of sense for O’Brien to be the guy letting him know that a deal was in the works.

But then, as I was trying put my thoughts together, I re-read the tweets – together.

Had a great talk yesterday with JOB!!!! “God sends u through things to see how u will respond with ur faith.” sometimes it’s hard to believe. Thx u Jesus. Blessed day.

And I thought, “Uhhhh…”

So, it seems like after T.J.’s great talk with JOB yesterday, he realized that God sends trials and tribulations to test man’s faith. It’s not unreasonable for Ford to have seen his struggles with the Indiana Pacers as a test of faith. It also seems that someone of Ford’s faith would probably seek solace in the Bible, specifically within the book that illustrates the story of a pious man who was tested by Satan himself – the Book of Job.

“Oh.”

Well, this is what I get for imbuing a 140-character social networking forum with way too much depth of meaning.

So, now I’m stuck. I have two alternate explanations for Ford’s tweets. One that hits deep in the sweet spot of the Pacers fan base and my interests, despite the fact that the conclusions drawn from this explanation create a mind-numbing amount cognitive dissonance, including the fact that it seems very unusual for Ford to refer to Jim O’Brien as “JOB” – an internet forum monicker that is unlikely to be used by his players or people around O’Brien. A second which has a much deeper, more significant meaning – which I am completely unqualified to discuss.

Yeah.

Right now, every instinct I have tells me that T.J. was actually sharing inspiration gained from reading the Bible, and that “JOB!!!!” is not Jim O’Brien, but Job. Because of this, I’m not going to dwell any further on the implications of the tweets themselves. Instead, it is still worthwhile to spend a few words on Ford’s future with the Pacers.

Or should I say, lack thereof?

The day the Collison trade was completed, there were reports that the Pacers were trying to buy out the last year of T.J.’s contract Ford was thoroughly uninterested, and it appears that the Pacers may have low-balled him, with the buyout amount being reported at only $5 million of the $8.5 million owed. I find it hard to believe that the Pacers expected that to actually work.

However, I am still firmly of the opinion that T.J. Ford has played his last game as a Pacer. At the time of the reported buyout offer, the Pacers Point Guard situation had Darren Collison as the apparent starter, a rapidly recovering A.J. Price as backup, and promising rookie Lance Stephenson as the third stringer. Since then, Lance may have butchered his future with the Pacers, but I still don’t think that changes the calculus here. The Collison trade created a $3.5 million Trade Exception at the same time as creating the same amount of space under the Luxury Tax. This leaves plenty of room to pick up a veteran point should Price not be ready and Stephenson prove…expendable.

O’Brien and Ford clearly mix like oil and water in terms of basketball, but both did an admirable job of keeping the situation from degenerating in the public eye. However, that seems likely to be tested to the point of breaking if they go into next season with this situation.

This Pacer locker room welcomes Darren Collison, James Posey, Paul George, and likely Magnum Rolle, as well as the hopefully healthy returns of second year players A.J. Price and Tyler Hansbrough. Add in young veterans Roy Hibbert, Brandon Rush, and Josh McRoberts, and cluster them all around Danny Granger, you begin to see a promising young core. A group that can begin to compete soon – this year – and hopefully grow towards contention over the next few years. I can’t imagine risking that dynamic by bringing a player who doesn’t fit either in the scheme, the future or, arguably, the locker room into the mix.

Now, some will say to hold onto his expiring contract as trade bait. I’m fine with that up until training camp, but no longer. The Pacers currently have over $28 million in “trade-able” expiring contracts, but there is no way they would want to trade all of them. That would mean basically rebuilding their payroll back to $70 million. This would be foolish because (a) it is difficult to tell what the new CBA will look like, (b) it would interfere with future year signings – such as Hibbert, Rush, and others coming off rookie contracts, and (c) a payroll that big is not really financially viable in Indianapolis.

Therefore, the Pacers could afford to forgo keeping Ford around as an expiring contract, effectively taking him as “savings.” In their place, if I am unable to trade Ford or negotiate a buyout prior to the start of training camp, then I would release him outright. I have nothing personal against Ford, but it makes no basketball sense or locker room sense to me to bring him back. This is a very aggressive move, and one the Pacers are likely to be hesitant to make, but I believe it’s a possibility.

In the meantime, Pacer fans will continue to wait and watch the summer unfold, in a virtual world where the daily inundation of blogs, posts, and tweets would surely test even the patience of Job.

74368403_10a

I may need divine inspiration to sort out T.J.’s tweets.

A Tale of Two Offenses: Indiana Pacers vs. Orlando Magic

by Tim Donahue on May 7, 2010 at 6:55 pm

I know what you’re thinking. The main difference between the Pacers’ offense and Magic’s is that one sucks, and the other is Orlando’s. Well, that’s a fair point. The Pacers provide no competition in two of the most important offensive categories. Orlando was 2nd in eFG% and 4th in offensive efficiency (points per 100 possession), while Indiana landed 22nd and 26th in those categories, respectively.

Over the last couple of seasons, I’ve watched the Indiana Pacers struggle, and, at the same time, watched portions of the Pacer fan base struggle to understand what offense Jim O’Brien is trying to run. Or why he’s trying to run it. As you would expect, this hasn’t been the most pleasant experience.

After watching and listening, I’ve really tried to see what Jim O’Brien’s end goal was. I’ve tried to see if there was a roster in the NBA that O’Brien would view as ideal, and how Obie’s tactics would evolve if he had that roster. I’ve basically come to the conclusion that Orlando is the best example.

From a roster perspective, I think it would be far and away Obie’s favorite of the 30 teams. Dwight Howard anchors both ends as a dominating inside presence, while almost everyone else on the roster brings a nice blend of athleticism and shooting. From a stylistic perspective, there would certainly be some differences if you were to substitute O’Brien for Van Gundy, but I don’t think they’d be huge.

In order to understand them, I tried to analyze the differences this year using a couple of wonderful sites: Synergy Sports and Hoopdata.

Nuts and Bolts

The basic design theory of the two offenses is similar — an array of shooters around an inside presence — but Orlando runs more sets, while the Pacer run (ostensibly) a motion. The Pacers also run at a faster pace. If you break it down specifically, you begin to find more (seemingly) significant differences. However, I believe those differences are actually more practical than philosophical. In other words, I believe that the offensive philosophies of Stan Van Gundy and Jim O’Brien aren’t all that different. At the core of them is a concept that has been brought up so often in Pacerland that some people treat it as an obscenity: spacing.

However, personnel does matter, and it shows it the specific ways that Orlando and Indiana try to use the spacing created by the threat of the three in the half court.

(Note: Shots and plays for different types of actions come from Synergy Sports, and represent “finished plays.” As such, they do not include plays where the initial action was a Pick-and-Roll (PnR) or a Post Up, but the finishing play was a spot up or a cut or offensive rebound. Still, I believe they serve as an adequate surrogate for this discussion.)

Difference # 1: Pick-and-Roll (PnR)

Orlando runs a lot more PnRs. They got almost 1,500 shots out of PnR action, which accounted for about 22% of their total. The Pacers, on the other hand, only got about 800 or 12%.

The PnR, at its very core, is meant to force the defense to “pick its poison.” The ball-handler is the crucial component in the equation, because he has to threaten the defense in three ways: (1) with the drive, (2) with the pass, and (3) with the shot.

About 78% of the Magic’s shots coming out of the PnR came from the ball-handler. The Magic used Jameer Nelson and Vince Carter extensively as ball-handlers, accounting for about 51% of the plays and 65% of the shots coming from that type of action. Both threaten the defense, at least with the shot and the drive.

The Pacers, on the other hand, really only have one player on the roster that can effectively run the PnR: A.J. Price. Earl Watson and T. J. Ford are terrible in this set because they offer the defense the easy solution of simply going under the screen and letting ‘em shoot. Additionally, they’re both very poor at making the quick decisions necessary as they come off the screen. Looking at the wings offers you no other glowing candidates. Neither Danny Granger nor Brandon Rush have exhibited the handles or passing ability, while Dahntay is basically just a bigger T.J., offensively. Indy’s ball-handlers are so poor in this role, that it’s almost impossible to critique the roll man.

Difference #2: Post Ups

The other area that Orlando utilizes more than Indiana is, unsurprisingly, is post up action (meaning low post). They got 880 shots out of the low post, or roughly 13% of their total. The Pacers got 584 shots, or 8.5% of their total. The difference here, in my opinion, is almost entirely reflective of the difference between Dwight Howard and Roy Hibbert, both in terms of physical capabilities and overall role/development (which includes minutes played).

Howard got 62% of Orlando’s shots in the post while Roy got about 67% of Indy’s. That’s a little incomplete in terms of actual post-play finishes, because it doesn’t factor in FTs. Howard was able to draw shooting fouls on 18% of his plays in the post, while Roy only did it about 7% of the time.

Looking at both rosters, Howard and Hibbert are really the only major back-to-the-basket players. Brandon Bass is, to some degree, but his 633 minutes this year was not much more than Tyler Hansbrough had for the Pacers. This is why I attribute most, if not all, of the difference in post usage to the difference between Dwight and Roy. Roy, in my opinion, is simply not ready to take on the load to that degree. In fact, it’s far from a sure thing that he ever will be.

However, it’s important to put this difference in perspective. In terms of overall usage (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor), the two are not all that different. Dwight Howard’s is 23.9, while Roy’s is 22.2. Where they differ is in terms of minutes and overall role/importance to the team. However, it seems to me that Dwight Howard would — and should — have a much larger role on any team than Roy would, at least at this point in his career.

I took a look at where and when Roy was used in the offense and benchmarked it against a random sampling of other post players. While far from exhaustive, it was somewhat informative. What it tells me is that while there may be some disenchantment with how much O’Brien uses Hibbert, there can be little question that when O’Brien uses Roy, he’s using him in a classic big man role.

Royaction

The chart above shows the distribution of Roy’s shots out of each different action. Just a tick under 50% of them came from the post, which compares favorably with the likes of Tim Duncan (41%), Carlos Boozer (21%), Andrew Bynum (49%) and Elton Brand (32%). This distribution suffers in comparison to Dwight Howard (62%) and Shaquille O’Neal (69%), but that’s understandable on a number of levels. Hibbert lacks the strength, athleticism and experience of those guys. I did look at one guy who didn’t have huge physical advantages over Roy, but still got 69% of his shots out of post action: Al Jefferson. I haven’t watched him enough to give a fully developed opinion, but he might make a good template for how to get somebody a lot of looks in the post who lacks the freakish attributes of a Howard or Shaq. (And he should also be of interest to Pacers fans who remember the Wolves offer of Al Jeff for Danny earlier this year.)

royspider

This chart shows Hibbert’s shot distribution by location. Again, his “inside” shots (within 10 feet) are a pretty impressive 70%. Duncan only gets 59%, while Brand is 46%. Boozer, who spends less time in the post, took 63% of his shots in this area. The physical beasts — Shaq and Howard — take over 90% of their shots from there. Now, this just represents a thumbnail, and I’d need to factor in fouls drawn and free throws attempted to get a full picture, but it looks to me like Roy is being used in essentially the right manner.

The question of “how much” is a little fuzzier (and I’ll give that more attention in future project). The short answer is that O’Brien is almost certainly not using Hibbert as much as he should, but I don’t think that it’s as drastic as some might think. When he’s on the floor, he is not being ignored. His usage rate is pretty solid, and he’s getting over 11 post touches per 48 minutes, which is comparable to Al Jefferson and Tim Duncan, who get between 12 & 13 per 48.

I also don’t believe the reasons for this are as dogmatic or ideological as many of O’Brien’s detractors claim. I think it’s a function of two major things. First is Roy’s relative inexperience and physical shortcomings. These are valid concerns, but I think Jim is overdoing the hand-wringing here. The second is the usage of Danny Granger. This offense really only consistently runs plays for two positions: small forward and center. All of the other players on the floor are secondary or fall-back options. When the plays for Danny are run (which is the majority of the time), Hibbert is brought up to the high post. This makes him a passer, instead of a scorer. Also, Roy’s looks in those sets are limited by what, in my opinion, is Danny’s disturbing propensity for “busting plays.” (Again a topic for another post.)

Difference #3: Pace

Jim O’Brien likes an up-tempo game, but that doesn’t mean that he’s always run it. His teams here are faster than his teams in Boston and Philly, but again, I think that’s somewhat driven by necessity. In all honesty, I cringe when I think of this roster trying to run an offense against an established defense in the half court. Roy’s emergence over the second half provides some promise, but it’s still a roster that lacks scoring punch in the half court. Also, the Pacers got a little faster this year, because they were usually desperately trying to catch up.

In any case, it would be really interesting to see what O’Brien would do with pace if he had Orlando’s roster. This season, Indy played at 97.1, while Orlando was at 92.0. I think the speed at which the Pacers played was exaggerated by their struggles, as I mentioned above. Orlando ran at basically the same pace as last year, which is right around the league average. How O’Brien would deal with this probably would create the biggest differences between the two coaches.

Freaky Friday

So, what would Obie’s Pacers look like, offensively, if we had Orlando’s roster? My wild guess for distribution of shots by action would look like this:

obiemagic

In this chart the shaded blue area shows the current Pacer distribution. The black outline is Orlando’s, and the red is what I think Obie would do with Orlando’s roster. I do believe that he would keep the pace up, so the transition stays the same. However, I’m sure that he would scrap the motion offense in favor of more PnRs and post ups. The post ups, as a percent, would drop marginally from Orlando’s rate due to the higher pace.

In both offenses, “iso” represents a failure. With the possible exception of Vince Carter, there are no players on either roster that you’d want to clear out and let pound the ball. “Other” includes cuts, hand-offs and off-screens. The Pacers do more of these as a result of the motion offense and employing a high-post big man. Orlando has no high post big men, and O’Brien would use more PnR than motion, given the presence of Carter and Jameer Nelson.

shotlocs

In the end, I think Jimmy would like a shot location distribution almost identical to the royal blue line of Orlando’s. The shade Pacers area indicates that they’re below average at the rim, which is bad, but above average from beyond the arc, which is a positive. Orlando does a pretty damn good job of stealing shots from the mid-range (10-23 feet) to feed threes.

In my mind’s eye, a perfect distribution would pull more from the mid-range to get the “At Rim” percentage to above the NBA norm (the red line). The mid-range is where offenses go to die.

So What?

Yeah, this was little more than an intellectual exercise. O’Brien will never get Orlando’s roster, and I find it exceedingly unlikely that he’ll be here beyond next year. Still, I think there’s some value in doing this. Levy2725 over at Indy Cornrows did an amazing analysis on Obie and coaching effectiveness a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t agree with all of his conclusions, but it is simply spectacular work. (I must admit, I’m a little intimidated.)

This was just an attempt to put some more context into the discussion.

Why Do the Pacers Care?

by Tim Donahue on March 28, 2010 at 2:01 pm

Here’s the deal: I know a large portion of the Pacer fan base has decided that Coach Jim O’Brien is the anti-christ, but I think he’s OK. Solid, not great. I do think he panicked when things went bad, however, futzing around with the lineup way too much. This probably cost the team a few wins (well, maybe a couple, who knows?), and I think it at least created too much uncertainty. There has been speculation dating back to even December that he lost the team, with direct comments coming from drive-by guys like Bob Kravitz and Kelly Dwyer, which are then repeated when national websites talk about coaching hot seats and the like.

In any case, though I have yet to see a definitive statement from what I consider a reliable inside source, it does seem (or at least, did seem) reasonable to me that the team has tuned out O’Brien. I also think that O’Brien should be fired at season’s end.

I’m generally hesitant to fire coaches unless one of two situations exist:

1. You have a better option in mind and pretty much lined up.
2. You simply don’t think it can get any worse.

In this case, I would also set a higher bar because of (a) the financial implications of paying two coaches given the team’s current situation, and (b) I cannot for the life of me think of any major name that would take this job unless the Pacers just paid through the nose (and we won’t do that).

To be honest, I know for sure that condition #1 doesn’t exist, and I’m far from convinced that condition #2 exists. Still, I would let O’Brien go. He really has done a poor job this year (after two good years), and I think he responded very poorly when things got tough. I think things will be tough again next year, and I believe that the relationship with the players is used up. Time for a new voice, so to speak.

But…

They have been playing much better lately. Yes, with two wins against Detroit and another against Washington, the schedule has not been tough. But they also beat both Utah and Oklahoma City. And more than that, they have been playing better at both ends of the floor. They’re executing the offense more coherently, and they’ve been more aggressive defensively. They’ve been more enthusiastic and more cohesive. During the Washington game last week, Slick Leonard was trying to explain the Pacers recent play, and he finally stammered, “They’re … just … playin’ better together.”

There was an almost audible shrug in his voice.

But…

It’s easy to just write that off as playing against teams that don’t care, are tanking or are looking past them. Even if that’s true, my question is, “Why do the Pacers care?” Or, put another way, “Why are they still playing with effort for O’Brien?” More pointedly, why do they actually seem to be playing more together and having more fun than they have all season? Why are we seeing more evidence of players being good teammates, like the way random guys like Murph and Watson are going out of their way to help and support guys like Brandon Rush and Roy Hibbert? Why are we suddenly seeing the nasty Danny that we came to expect last year? Why is Danny, arguably the only player on the team with a vested interest in the Pacers landing a top draft pick, suddenly playing better defense than he has in two years?

I mean, this is a team that, for all intents and purposes, looked like they were all heading their separate ways for most of the season. They largely seemed unhappy, occasionally surly and selfish just a few weeks ago, and now they actually look like a team. Still not a very good one, but an actual team.

Here’s something Jared tweeted Tuesday night:

@8pts9secs Solo on the floor forcing a jump. Can’t say these dudes ain’t trying. Can say they aren’t good, but can’t say they aint trying.

These guys spent two-thirds of the season rolling over and dying at the first sign of trouble, and now they’re suddenly resilient?

As I type this, it frustrates me that I just can’t casually give the answer that I really want to give: They’re doing it, because they’re good guys, and that’s what they were taught, and it’s the right thing to do. If you put on the uniform, you back your teammates and you try to win the games, regardless of their import. Hell, I’m sure my father would be baffled as to why I would even expect less effort. Baffled, and probably a little sad.

But beyond my expectations for poor effort down the stretch based on the way these players have played for most of the season, rolling over is actually understandable (though not necessarily admirable) given the futility they have all slogged through. I mean, it’s been miserable for fans; it’s gotta be worse for the players.

Look at the Sixers, Pistons, Clippers and Wizards. You watch those teams, and you seem to see players who have just completely checked out .

Why haven’t these guys? Why aren’t they mailing it in, particularly if O’Brien’s gone stale on them? Why, after a season of crap, do they look like they’re ready to go now?

I’m a huge Indiana Hoosiers fan, and I remember the last few years under Knight. They would start out strong, blowing through the preseason schedule before taking an early Big Ten lead. About midway through the Big Ten season, they would have a tough game against one of the other league leaders, and they’d lose. From there, it would be a downhill spiral, and by the time the NCAA’s came around, it was painfully obvious that the players just wanted the season to be over. This is the natural result of a miserable working situation. It’s the Friday afternoon after a deadline on a shi**y work week. You may sit there until the clock says 5:00 pm, but you aren’t going to get anything done.

Why don’t these guys have the thousand-yard stare?

It’s absolutely true that these wins mean almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. It’s also true that a higher pick is better than a lower pick, and this activity could be reasonably argued as short-sighted.

Look, I really don’t want to get into tanking. I am always in danger of violating some corollary of Godwin’s law when talking about tanking, because I unequivocally believe in what I said earlier: If you put on the uniform, you back your teammates, and you try to win the games, regardless of their import. I hold the coaching staff and the front office to that standard, as well. I am acutely aware of the difference in value between a pick in the top 5 and a pick in the top 10, and I am comfortable with the “price” of winning “meaningless” games.

But, while tanking may be the smart, expedient, or most beneficial thing, why is this team all of a sudden doing what I consider to be the right thing (by playing together and playing to win)?

Secondary to that, why did it take this long?

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