Mike Conley - victim of new philosophies

[andrei]

Surprisingly, this is my first ever article on Mike Conley. A fact that I am ashamed as Conley did so much for this team last season. He deserved an article at least, if not a few.

Mike Conley is one of the best PGs in the game. He has been named a 5 PG last season for his exceptional play despite not making any all CSL teams or All Star. He had games when, even injured, he managed to lead the team in scoring and assists and a regular triple double thread.

What happened this season though? From a borderline Super Star he turned into a poor shooting, inefficient offensive player with a decline in all major stats across the board. We can see below that every single stat dropped for Conley this year. Although, it’s fair to say that his stat were absolutely awful before the trade for Al Jefferson. With a new big man, while the losses piled up, Conley’s stats went up (for some reason)



http://i.imgur.com/GYOnqnH.png

What happened? Was it just a poor season?

There are a lot of much more capable GMs than me that could answer these questions.

What I suggest, however, is that it’s all the fault of the Philosophy limitations introduced this season. The Defensive Intensity and Full Court Defense is now a shared Philosophy where the combined score can be 10 maximum. The Offensive Pace has also been limited to 3 maximum. The key difference with last year is that we simply had every philosophy at 10 – after seeing that this produces wins. A lot of wins.

With Conley, a player that likes to run offensively, press and play aggressive defense, the changes have been devastating. Now Conley does not have easy transition shots. Now Conley cannot defend as aggressively as he prefers. Now Conley can’t press and collect steals like a top 5 steals leader as he is. Although he did improve in TOs due to slower Pace.

I am personally divided on the subject. As a GM, I want to make sure that the players I manage have an opportunity to succeed. Even if that means allowing some unrealistic stats, scores and whatever else. As a Commissioner, however, I have to look at the league overall and confirm that, in my opinion, the league activity and interest have improved as GMs are trying to figure out the best philosophy for their teams.

Is Conley affected the most by the changes or are there players in even worse situations?

[Chilikonkarne]

Same issue here in Toronto with Kemba Walker from 41.7% to 37.8% but the main player impacted IMO is Rubio (currently 31.3%)
Maybe a small adjustment of the offensive pace (from 3 to 5) would solve the issue without impacting too much the league. After I agree we shouldn't change too much the setup since teams are building base on that.

[Dennis]

I post the following without games acces and I really don't know his ratings by heart. So conclude nothing out of my words guys, lol.
But, I believe it's to easy to say it is only the strat system. Dragic for example is shooting nearly the same %s without 10-10-10. So it's all about finding the right strategy.
On top I believe his 40%+ in 3s last season was a fluke. I believe his real rating is somewhere around 37%. (Like said I really don't know it, so don't believe I just gave away a rating, it's just me guessing).
So his FG% had to drop. Last year the grizzs were on a run and consequently Mikes %s had an all time high too. Maybe you need to work on his preferences or find a better chemistry for your team. I for example noticed that dragics Fg% drops by ~5% if I let him run the point. I like the new system as it needs the daparable mentality to improve the team. You need to turn every stone instead of using 10s.
Always open to shoot ideas of you want Andrei .

[emplep7]

I agree that finding the right strat can get him back to normal in most areas, but some (steals for example) won't ever get back to they're old level, which is probably a good thing for the league.

It also seems that PG's were affected the most as all of them dropped their shooting percentages and assist totals across the board for the most part. Limiting the turnovers though is a major improvement, so the affect on not getting steals is offset by not coughing the ball up as much.

I like the direction of the league and think that we are in the right direction, we just need some minor tweaks here and there to get it as perfect as we can with the engine we are using.

[OneNole]

Yea strats as well as teammates play a huge role imo. I will also say that I think once is far too low and needs to be bumped significantly as i dont feel pace effects wins/losses

[Cyrisnyte]

Interesting information. Some good players who saw their FG% drop this year.

[orangeparka]

Doesn't zone make guards chuck a lot? There's a ton of zone being played now as an alternative strategy and that might explain it IMO.

If we look at some midrange+3pt splits per36 from last season and this season I feel we'll see something like a big jump for most 1s and 2s.

[Dennis]

Yeah zoning plays a role too. But I believe we will see Conley bounce back next season.

[andrei]

you're right of course and, as I'm not super intelligent, the idea of moving Conley to SG or whatever never came up. Despite the fact that I was happy for daprable when he changed Hortford to SF..

[Dennis]

you're right of course and, as I'm not super intelligent, the idea of moving Conley to SG or whatever never came up. Despite the fact that I was happy for daprable when he changed Hortford to SF..

Im pretty sure you are way smarter than me, my friend:).

[WillyJakkz]

The only solution I can think of is to trade him

You are a great GM andrei, I'm confident you'll figure out which direction you'll need to go.

[Marcos_Beck]

Doesn't zone make guards chuck a lot? There's a ton of zone being played now as an alternative strategy and that might explain it IMO.

If we look at some midrange+3pt splits per36 from last season and this season I feel we'll see something like a big jump for most 1s and 2s.

If you compare NBA and league stats you can see that the league shot less than 36% on Js last season while NBA teams shot better than 39%. That's a 3% difference that would make teams thinking twice about zoning, because zoning gives away open jumpers too, not only open 3s. How do I know it? I did the comparasion.

Today there's almost no setbacks on zoning a team cause the team playing zone will always get more boards and commit less fouls. Teams can even punish the others from deep shooting better than 45% from deep but with players knocking down only 36% of the Js even when most of the league played zone.. Well, you can shoot 60% from deep, you're not winning a game when you brick that much Js, and you can't drive / shoot from the post / get free throws.

There must be some adjustment about that, but I'm sure Dennis Andrei and Jon will do something about it, either limiting zone or improving player's mid-range ability. They already have the detailed study I made comparing this CSL regular season to NBA as a whole, as a league. So we can take a lot of positives from that study and try to make the league even more real.