2012-2013 Lakers in Review #4: Darius Morris

Much like at Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness, Hack-a-Shaq will have end of the year reviews.

Same rules apply as grades are handed out according to pre-season expectations vs. actual production. 


Point Guard: Darius Morris

4.0 PPG, 1.6 APG, 1.2 RPG, 0.2 WS, .016 WS/48 on 38.8% shooting and 36.4% shooting from three point range. Grade: D+

2012-2013 in brief: A second round draft choice the year before, Morris was slated to be a prospect, learning from guards Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant. Forced into playing time by a massive amount of injuries, Morris played bad offensively, but well defensively. 

2014 status: 1 year left on his contract, earning 962K with a team option for two seasons. 


******



At first glance, it looks like Darius Morris had an awful season, shooting under 40% and only averaging 1.6 assists per game; pretty lackluster stuff for a young and promising point guard. But here is where offensive stats don't tell the full story, as Darius Morris had a lot more value on the defensive side of the ball than the offensive side. 

Having only played 48 games (and started 17 of those) it's tough to write too much about the Lakers' top point guard prospect. Despite having a pretty rough season, he was still a major improvement over last season, in which he registered a negative WS/48 (-0.045), a negative total Win Share (-0.2) and had an offensive rating (an estimate of how many points are produced per 100 possessions) of only 84. He managed to up all of those totals over the previous season, bumping his offensive rating up by 12 points to 96. There was some good improvement seen out of him, but some bad habits persisted. 

His tendency to over dribble the ball severely limited offensive possessions and ended up turning them into "Hero Ball" possessions instead of looking for a high percentage shot. Morris frequently would shoot early in the possession, leaving nobody to get the potential offensive rebound, basically costing the Lakers a turnover due to the lost possession. On fast breaks, Morris would get tunnel vision and aim to finish the play himself instead of passing it for an easier look, often resulting in a missed shot or an offensive foul on Morris. Defensively, Morris would often crowd his defensive assignment, even when he shouldn't, and get burned off the dribble (this was noticeable in Earl Clark as well. More than this later). His passing was average and could improve significantly working with Steve Nash. 

Let's hope this never happens again. 

Morris also had a few positives this season as well. His dribble penetration was vastly improved, as getting to the paint was something he did pretty frequently. He would sometimes try to get to fancy with his passes (sometimes leading to a very nice assists, other times leading to a turnover), but displayed improved vision in the paint and increased awareness of the defense around him. His three point shot improved to the point of him taking nearly 4 three point shot attempts per game, making 36% of them. His defense at the point guard position was above average, using his superior 6'4'', 190 pound frame to muscle smaller opponents out of the lane and contest shots against bigger opponents. 

In short: Morris has a lot of potential and showed improvement over last season. If he could get rid of some bad habits, he could become a solid two-guard in the mold of Monta Ellis. 

Game Preview: Denver Nuggets at Los Angeles Lakers

The Lakers are back in action tonight after having a long couple of days to think about their horrid offensive performance against the Indiana Pacers on Tuesday night at the Staples Center. Tonight, they’ll play their Western Conference Quarterfinal opponents from last season, the revamped Denver Nuggets, who return largely unchanged except for their participation in the massive four-team trade during the offseason by the Lakers, Nuggets, Philadelphia 76ers and Orlando Magic; the Nuggets sent defensive and three point specialist Aaron Afflalo and stretch four and strictly a scorer Al Harrington in return for swingman Andre Iguodala. Personally, I think the Nuggets got a great deal out of this, acquiring a player who has had experience being “the man” and has pretty extensive postseason experience for a team who is largely inexperienced in that aspect.

Los Angeles (7-8) dumped Denver (8-8) out of the opening round of last spring’s postseason, winning 96-87 in Game 7 at Staples Center as Kobe Bryant averaged 29.1 points in the series and Steve Blake had an enormous 19 points and 3 assists in the final game, having replaced a largely ineffective Ramon Sessions.

The Superstar guard isn’t far off that pace this season, leading the NBA with 27.7 points per game. He’s averaging 31.8 over the past four games, but the Lakers have dropped three of them to fall to 2-3 under Coach Mike D’Antoni.

They failed to capitalize on another big night by Bryant in Tuesday’s 79-77 home loss to Indiana, giving up the decisive basket with 0.1 seconds to play. Bryant overcame the flu to pour in 40 points, but he committed 10 turnovers while Los Angeles shot a season-low 31.6 percent from the field and missed 20 of 43 from the line. 

The Lakers have been the most polarizing team so far this season. The Lakers have had games where they look completely horrid on the fundamentals of the game; Tuesday night was an excellent example as the Lakers missed more free throws than they made (23 missed) and continued to turn the ball over at an alarming rate, turning it over 19 times to increase the season average to 17.20. On the other hand, there are nights like last Saturday in Dallas, where the Lakers looked like the best team in the league scoring with balance, playing hard on defense, and not turning the ball over at such a high rate.

The leaders for the Lakers so far: Bryant in scoring with 27.7, Dwight Howard in rebounds with 10.5, Bryant in assists with 4.9, Bryant in steals with 1.5 and Howard in blocks with 2.8. So far, this has largely been a two man team with Howard being second in scoring with 17.9 and clearly being the second option behind Bryant. Surprisingly, Pau Gasol seems to have taken a backseat to Metta World Peace, but it seems unintentional because Gasol still has more shots taken and free throws taken than World Peace, yet he’s averaging 13.1 points per game to World Peace’s 13.3; this speaks more of Gasol’s struggles within D’Antoni’s offense than World Peace’s best start to the season since the 2008-2009 season.

For Denver, Iguodala leads the team with 15.7 points per game, Ty Lawson in assists with 7.6, Kenneth Faried in rebounds with 11.1, Lawson in steals with 2.1 and Kosta Koufos with 1.7 blocks per game. This is a very balanced team that could be a sleeper in the West. Lawson and Andre Miller could be the best one-two punch at the point guard position in the league, not to mention the size this team has in the middle with Koufos, Timofey Mozgov and JaVale McGee all being over 7 feet tall. This without mentioning the talented Wilson Chandler coming off of the bench for Danilo Gallinari, and Denver suddenly becomes a very dangerous and deep team.

In Laker injury news: Steve Blake will be out for another 2 weeks after an MRI on Wednesday revealed that he still has an abdominal strain. Steve Nash will also be sidelined for at least another week as his leg fracture appears to be healing at a snail’s pace. In the meantime, Darius Morris and Chris Duhon will continue to fill in at the point guard slot.

Starting Lineups:

Position	Nuggets	Lakers
Point Guard	Ty Lawson	Darius Morris
Shooting Guard	Andre Iguodala	Kobe Bryant
Small Forward	Danilo Galinari	Metta World Peace
Power Forward	Kenneth Faried	Pau Gasol
Center	Kosta Koufos	Dwight Howard

Steve Blake Has Stepped Up in Steve Nash's Absence

I’m sure everyone knew Steve Blake was going to be an important role player off of the bench for Los Angeles; what with Steve Nash never having played more than 32 minutes a game in his career. And with Nash out for what looks like a week (although other reports have said a month), Blake was going to be instrumental in L.A’s plans to start off well this season. Blake has been underwhelming in his first two seasons with the team compared to how well he was doing with in his stint with Portland.

With Mike Brown and assistant Eddie Jordan implementing the Princeton Offense this summer, it looked like Blake was going to have to work hard, or risk losing his job to Darius Morris or Chris Duhon. So far, Blake has not disappointed. In just 4 games this season, Blake has managed to equal his Offensive Win Share from last season, recording a good 0.2 to start the season. He had 0.2 OWS in 53 games last year, which was one of the lowest in the league for players that participated in 50+ games. At this pace, Blake will finish with a tremendous 4 OWS in 82 games. His offensive rating (an estimate of points produced by the team per 100 possessions when the player is on the court) is a sky high 119. His true shooting percentage (a tool used to measure shooting efficiency taking into account 2-point field goals, 3-point field goals and free throws) is a ridiculously high 62.2%.

The Princeton Offense clearly agrees with Blake, as he keeps the offense running smoothly and efficiently around star players Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard. While his PER rating is a below average 12 (mainly because he’s shooting 43.8% in total field goal percentage), it’s still much higher than the past two seasons in Los Angeles, which were 7.5 and 8.5 respectively. Blake has been everything the Lakers have needed at the point guard position, more so than All-Star Steve Nash has been so far this year, as he really seems to be working hard to keep his job. It is a very small sample size, but he has been one of the only players off the bench to actually do his job. If Blake can continue this pace this season, the Lakers have a chance to go far into the playoffs. 

In unrelated news, Steve Blake was fined 25,000 dollars by the league for some...lets go with colorful language directed at a fan during last Friday's game against the Clippers.