FanPost

What Might We Expect From Dion In Our New Offense

With the recent hire of Igor Kososkov as our new Offensive Coach, there are questions about how our offense will look. Igor has coached both Steve Nash, Chauncey Billups and Goran Dragic...and in the case of Goran Dragic, he helped mentor him into his best season as a pro. This might very well bode well for Kyrie...not that Kyrie needs any kind of help.

For shooting guards, he's had the likes of Richard Hamilton, Leandro Barbosa, Jason Richardson, Vince Carter, and Jared Dudley.

Richard Hamilton was the teams leading scorer when Igor took over the reigns on offense under Larry Brown. This didn't change in year two (where the Top 3 where Rip, Billups and Prince.) Under head coach Flip Saunders, Rasheed Wallace got a larger share of the points, but it was still Rip and Chauncey doing their thing. While Igor was with the Pistons, Richard Hamilton had some of his best seasons in regards to actual production and advanced stats (he had two straight years of over 55% True shooting...and when Igor left, things dropped off quickly.) 3 of his 4 best seasons (in regards to PER) were under Igor as well...with only his 4 year in the league topping those (and that was the year before Igor go there.) His ORtg was at it's absolute best during Igor's tenure too. The one caveat to all of this (of course) is that Igor's arrival happened to coincide with Rip playing in the prime of his career. Igor may have helped...but when Igor left, Rip was 30...and so his "slide" may have as much to do with age as with coaching.

During his tenure there, Rip Hamilton had an average Per 36 stat-line of 18.7 PPG, 4.0 APG, and 3.5 RPG. His scoring percentages (FG/3P/FT) were 46.8 / 36.1 / 85.3. All of this came on only 2.3 Turnovers. I think we can all agree that we'd love to see Dion have these kinds of numbers. He was a very high useage player...despite playing alongside Chauncey (who was by no means a slouch.)

During Igor's first year with the Phoenix Suns...they had Shaq. 36 year old Shaq. They sort of tried to slow the offense down. I remember that year. It was kinda painful to watch. They had Amar'e for 53 games. They had Steve Nash for 74 and Jason Richardson for 58. Richardson was the teams 3rd leading scorer (in terms of PPG) with 16.4. Using a Per 36 he actually dropped to 4th as Leandro Barbosa (6th man) jumped to 2nd on the team (though he was 5th overall in regular PPG.)

Richardson is sort of the anti-Rip Hamilton in this scenario. He was already a very established scorer...but he was also already on the downside of his career (in regards to raw numbers.) He came over to Phoenix in a trade with Charlotte. His assist number dropped precipitously while in Phoenix (but with Steve Nash running the show, is it really any surprise?) His PER during the games he played with Phoenix was 16.9, 16.6 and he had a 19.1 for the 25 games he played in 2010/2011 season before being traded to Orlando (and watching his numbers plummet from there. His TS% were the best of his career during his time in Phoenix as well. He had a 58.1, a 57.4 and was shooting a 57.4 TS% before the trade to Orlando as well. He had the best ORtg of his career in those few seasons with Phoenix as well...posting a quality 113, 111 and 112. He's only been to the playoffs 4 times in his career (including once in Phoenix during the 09/10 season). His numbers that year far exceed anything he had in any other playoff run. His PER of 22.3 was nearly 5 points higher than his 2nd best. His TS% was a phenomenal 63.6% and his eFG% was 61.0. He had an ORtg of 131. Yes, it was only 16 games, so small sample size does apply. But it was a phenomenal smalls ample size where he connected on 47.5% of his 3 pointers and 50.2% of his Field Goals.

Jared Dudley was Charlottes 22nd pick in the 1st round of the 2007 NBA Draft. He was traded to Phoenix in his 2nd season and was primarily a bench guy until the 2011/2012 season (basically when Richardson left.) In the 4 full seasons he's been with Phoenix, he's missed exactly 4 games. 3 of those came last season. 1 came the seasons before. His peak year (in the locked out season two years ago) peaked at 31.1. Last year he was 27.5 and started 50 of the 79 games he was available. His PER has hovered around averagea (13.6, 15.6, 15.4 and 14.9 last season). Last year, the stats seem to be saying he was either asked to pickup more playmaking duties...or he has tried to round out his game a bit more...because his AST% was over 8.8 for only the second time of his career...and it jumped to 14.9 (nearly 6% higher than his rookie season.) His ORtg has dwindled each season since that 09/10 season as well, dropping from 124, 119, 115 and ending at 114 last season.

Ultimately, what I seem to be getting from this data is that Coach Igor will run the style of offense his headcoach wants to run (very grind it out in Detroit, run and gun in Phoenix.) He also seems to try to play to his players strengths. However, it seems to be very guard driven. I could be completely wrong on all of this...but I suspect we'll run something very close to what was run in Detroit just based on the types of players that we have.

What that means for Dion...is he'll have to move a little more off ball and play a version of Rip Hamilton. I think if he does that, you'll see his scoring efficiency jump big time this year. His PPG might not be at 18...but his APG could almost easily get to 5. It wouldn't surprise me to see any of this. It also wouldn't surprise me to see him actually take over as scoring leader in the new offense. One thing none of the PG's ever did for Igor was lead the team in scoring.

This is a Fan-Created Comment on FearTheSword.com. The opinion here is not necessarily shared by the editorial staff at FearTheSword