Last Season:
The Knicks:
Stephon Marbury averaged 12.9 Field Goal Attempts a game.
Jamal Crawford averaged 15.0 FGA/gm.
The Bulls:
Kirk Hinrich averaged 13.3 FGA/gm.
Ben Gordon averaged 16.3 FGA/gm.
Right off the bat we see that the Bulls back court shot the ball more often than the Knicks' supposedly "shoot-first" guards.
Marbury (5.4 apg) and Crawford (4.4 apg) combined for a 9.8 apg average.
Hinrich (6.3 apg) and Gordon (3.6 apg) combined for a 9.9 apg average.
So we see that both backcourts generate about the same number of assists per game.
The Knicks backcourt had slightly better hands:
Marbury (2.4 TO/gm) and Crawford (2.7 TO/gm) averaged 5.1 Turnovers/game.
Hinrich (2.4 TO/gm) and Gordon (3.0 TO/gm) averaged 5.4 TO/game.
Now, the argument has been made by Jack Cobra that the Knicks are a frontcourt oriented team (Eddy Curry), and the Bulls need their guards to carry the scoring burden. This is absolutely true this season, with the Knicks needing to feed the ball into Zach Randolph and Eddy Curry.
Last season, though, the Knicks front court scoring was mostly Eddy Curry, along with marginal contributions from Channing Frye, and Quentin Richardson's perimeter shooting. The Bulls had just as much offense from their front court, in the form of Luol Deng, with some marginal contributions from PJ Brown and Andrew Nocioni's shooting.
The rest of the Knicks team last season featured players like Jared Jeffries (43 starts, 23 mpg), Renaldo Balkman, Malik Rose and David Lee (30 mpg) who are not offensive-minded players. The Knicks offensive choices came down to four players really:
Curry: 12.5 FGA
Crawford 15.0 FGA
Marbury 12.9 FGA
Richardson 11.1 FGA.
Not surprisingly those were the top four shooters on the team in terms of FGA/gm. Curry should have been the number option. It's worth noting that while Curry seems to third in terms of FGA, he took more possessions than the backcourt - his possession often resulting in fouls, hence he lead the team in FTA a game, too (8.1).
The Bulls top four options on offense:
Deng: 14.9 FGA
Gordon: 16.3 FGA
Hinrich 13.3 FGA
Nocioni 11.0 FGA
Ben Gordon was more of the offense's first option than Deng. He took more shots, and got to the line more.
The argument still exists that Deng and Nocioni are not the viable options in the frontcourt that Curry was last season. That may be true, but the Knicks backcourt fed Curry and the rest of the frontcourt (Frye had 9.2 FGA/gm) more than the Bulls did their frontcourt. The Knicks spread the ball around more, and had a more unpredictable offense, meaning that they could be lead in scoring by any number of players - Curry more often than not, but Crawford and Marbury, and David Lee on a few occasions, too.
The non-statistical analysis:
My experience/opinion: Hinrich right now is the best "pure" passer of the lot (TUP backs me up on this). Marbury in his prime averaged over 8 apg, but that's not the Marbury of nowadays. This Marbury actually tries harder to pass the ball around. As I have alway complained about Marbury, I find his passes never really hit a player in the right spot so he can shoot quickly or make a quick move. Crawford is a better at this then most realize - the majority of his passes, especially entry passes to Curry, result in points or Curry getting fouled (or a really good missed shot, i.e. one from within 5-10 feet). Marbury's passes have a lower success rate. Gordon's passing is just average for a shooting guard, and terrible for a point guard. Hinrich has good, solid passing, but his offense hurts his assist rate a bit... it's too perimeter oriented, and jumpers don't result in as many assists as passing to a guy like Eddy Curry in the post does.
Thus far this year the Knicks are averaging even more assists, now that they have two legit front court options in Randolph and Curry. Both Marbury and Crawford are averaging 7.0 apg.
Conclusion: The Knicks' backcourt may have a reputation for being ball hogs, but they are no more ball hogs than the Bulls backcourt. Certainly that may not mean nothing, but when viewed thru the prism of the differences in public perception of the two backcourts by the media and fans, one has to wonder why one has the reputation for ball hogging and the other doesn't?
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I agree that the Bulls backcourt is a better, efficient shooting backcourt. No doubt.
But I think you can't have just one source of offense, either. One, you have to have other scorers besides Curry (or Deng), which is my point - both backcourts score as is needed. That doesn't mean they aren't good passers.
Secondly, the Knicks backcourt is effective at getting into the paint and drawing fouls. Both players shot more FTs than their Bulls counterparts. That makes up for their lower shooting %.
"Both players shot more FTs than their Bulls counterparts. That makes up for their lower shooting %."
Disagree. If it made up for their lower shooting percentages, the true shooting percentage would reflect that. The bottom line is that it doesn't.
I've been at work all day and just saw this.
Here's my opinion of why the Knicks guards are so often criticized: They're far more talented then the Bulls. Jamal Crawford has all the talent in the world, both to score from anywhere on the court and create his own shot, and to see the floor better then most people in this league. Crawford should produce more then he does,and because of that, he deserves criticism.
This isn't necessarily the case for the Bulls guards. Hinrich is the prototypical white, scrappy, overacheiver. He's not nearly as quick or fast as JC, and while he's a good set shooter, he can't get his own shot really. Kirk is also alot better defensively and alot of that is because of effort, which people appreciate so they don't bash him.
As for Gordon- who i hate, by the way which anyone who reads my site realizes- he's just not that good. Sure he can occassionally light it up, like he did in a game two years ago going 9/9 from 3-point range. But he's too small at 6'1 to play 2-guard, but he can't pass well enough to play point. He's also dogshit defensively.
That's some typical racist bullshit from Rickhouse.
Because some black dude doesn't live up to YOUR expectations due to wasting his "natural talent" he "deserves" criticism?
And Hinrich, by comparison, is "scrappy" and "unathletic" which are characteristics you whitefolk can appreciate?
Do I really need to spell out the racist double standard at work here? (Damned if I do, damned if I don't...)
Tell you what, go to amazon dot com, order Why Black people Tend to Shout by Ralph Wiley, choose 1-day delivery. Read the entire book as soon as it arrives, and then return to blogging after you've infused your racist tripe with some small level of knowledge and edification.
OK brother, that's some major BS. It has nothing to do with race- Crawford just has more talent then Kirk, i don't care what color either are. Only an idiot would argue Hinrich as mreo talent. JC is tremendously talented, but by my obserbations (who saw him on our team as the ninth pick back in 01(?), I think he's more talented then Hinrich. Don't bring race into the equation because that has nothing to do with anything. That really pisses me off, man, because i don't give a shit about that. By all accounts, Kirk is 'unathletic' and 'scrappy'. These are facts. Other words that can describe him are 'sucky' and shitty'. JC should be better then he is in my opinion, and that doesn't have to do with race.
God, i am so pissed off that last poet asshole would bring up race.
speaking of Knicks and unathletic players, I watched NY-Orlando yesterday and I had the impression that Zach & Curry form the most unathletic frontcourt in the league
they make dear old Marc Jackson look like Dominique Wilkins, Dwight Howard was playing at the upper floor
and, while we are at it, Q Rich is horrible, I think I saw his best game of the year stat wise but he's completely useless, jeez...
he's the shade not only of his old self, but of an NBA player
Curious to know what SML and you Knicks fans/bloggers think about that
Rickhouse,
You're so racist.. the next thing you're going to tell me is that the Sonics don't win any games anymore is because they have too many white guys on the team!
Good analysis SML. I think that that SGs should be compared to SGs and PGs to PGs. Gordon and Crawford are SUPPOSED to shoot alot. As for Marbury and Hinrich, Hinrich's TS% is 56% and Marbury's 54% -- not a big difference.
I have no interest in weighing in on the specific exchange between Rickhouse and Last Poet, but want to address the larger issue.
Do I personally think that race plays a general public perception in all of this? Yes I do. I have NEVER ONCE heard of Hinrich described as a ball hog or shoot-first... from ANYBODY. Not once. Despite a career of 8 assists per game, Marbury could never shake that tag.
In fact, there almost exists no such thing as the "white ball-hog". No one could convince me that if Pistol Pete Maravich were black that he would be listed as one of the 50 greatest. Adrian Dantley also played for losing Utah Jazz teams, averaged over 30 points a game in FOUR seasons, even won a championship with the Pistons and is STILL not in the HOF. Absurd.
This is kind of dumb. You're basically arguing semantics. The bottom line is actually quite simple: Hinrich/Gordon are better shooters than Crawford/Marbury, and you don't want bad shooters taking as many shots as Crawford/Marbury do, especially when you have more efficient scorers inside.
Marbury in 06/07:
41.5 FG%
48% eFG% (adjusts for threes)
53.9 TS% (includes free throws)
Crawford in 06/07:
40% FG%
45.8% eFG%
51.7 TS%
Hinrich in 06/07:
44.8 FG%
51.4 eFG%
55.9 TS%
Gordon in 06/07:
45.5 FG%
51.3 eFG%
57.2 TS%
It's all about efficiency here.