| Memo to Mr. Allen: Sometimes, Silence is Golden Authored by Jason Schwisow - March 18, 2005 - 6:28 pm
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Why, then, is Ray Allen currently so unhappy? After a 102-95 loss to the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday that was highlighted by a blown lead, untimely turnovers, and some poorly executed shots by the Sonics down the stretch, Ray Allen demonstrated his spot-on impression of a geyser as he vented a little steam.
Approached by reporters in the locker room, including Danny O’Neill of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Allen twice complained about not getting any looks. Asked to clarify, Allen smartly suggested the reporters go ask the coach about why he wasn’t getting looks, failing to mention the tight defense of Rip Hamilton as a possible reason.
Adding a little more fuel to the fire, Allen also labeled his playing time “a frustrating situation," while once again suggesting the answers the reporters were looking for lay within the minds of the coaching staff.
Certainly, Allen has a right to be frustrated. He started off 0-4 from the field in the first half, played his fewest minutes of any game this season, and took his fewest shots of any game this season.
Unfortunately, the frustration seems misdirected, and for Sonics fans, Ray Allen grumbling or being passive-aggressive in the press is not a newly discovered phenomenon. Twice named to the NBA All Interview team, Allen simply doesn’t shy away from a question asked, the consequences be damned.
This is the same Ray Allen who last season complained openly and often about having to fly on a chartered plane instead of a team owned plane.
The same Ray Allen who has openly criticized Kobe Bryant, Tim Thomas, and Glenn Robinson, leading to or prolonging public feuds.
The same Ray Allen who has overtly chastised his peers for using the press as a conduit to facilitate a trade, while also hinting publicly that the tedium of the negotiations has affected him on the court.
The same Ray Allen who has publicly complained about the stiff defenses he has faced in 2005 and the calls he hasn’t been getting as his numbers have dipped.
Individually, none of these statements are particularly egregious, but taken in the aggregate form they can become grating and tiresome. That the Sonics are having a fantastic season as Allen struggles with opposing defenses makes his spontaneous chirping all the more frustrating, as his comments could signal a crack in the vaunted togetherness of the Seattle Supersonics.
With all apologies to the Tremeloes, sometimes silence is golden.
File this in the category of “sad but true:” Allen isn’t struggling because of anything his coaches have or haven’t done, but rather because teams have discovered they can get away with playing Allen physically on the defensive end. Ride him with the body, tap his arms while he’s shooting, and get in his way when he come off a screen and Allen’s game suffers. In a display of inadvertent complicity, Allen’s response to the increased physical play has largely consisted of complaining to the referees and committing frustration fouls on the offensive end.
As the season plods along, Allen’s numbers demonstrate the level at which defenders have been able to get in his head and disrupt his game. Allen’s current 42.3 FG% is the lowest he’s ever had in his career. His FT% has dipped below 90% for the first time since his 2001-02 season with the Milwaukee Bucks. Steals per game and rebounds per game? Lowest in this decade. Blocks per game? Lowest in his career. Assists per game? Lowest since being traded to the Seattle Supersonics.
As the season has gone on, Ray’s field goal percentage has evidenced a downtrend trend, further lending credence to the contention that opposing defenses are starting to take their toll on the Sonics star SG.
In October and November, Allen shot a glistening 44% from the field. In January, he dipped down to just over 40%, then back up to 44% in February, and now down to 38% for the month of March.
While his FG% spiked back up in February, it’s worth noting that February was also Allen’s shortest month of the season with only ten games played, partly because of scheduling, the All-Star Break, and a game missed at the start of the month because of the flu.
For those into sums, that’s 44% from the field for the first two months of the season, and 40% for the three months thereafter.
Arguably the best pure shooter in the NBA, there’s also disturbing signs regarding Allen’s eFG%. For my fellow statistical neophytes, eFG% stands for Effective Field Goal Percentage, a stat designed to better account for the number of three point shots a shooter takes among his other field goals than regular FG%. If a shooter makes a three pointer, his eFG% goes up, and vice versa.
Over Allen’s past three seasons his eFG% are 51.1% (2002-03), 51.4% (2003-04), and 48.9% (2004-05). Those silky smooth shots that have put Allen at the top of the heap when it comes to shooters in the NBA just aren’t falling at a rate that Allen is accustomed to.
Are Allen’s numbers decreasing because of defense, or because of Allen’s contention that he isn’t seeing the ball enough? If Allen isn’t touching the ball as much, it certainly isn’t noticeable in real time during the game. He still controls the ball plenty, often to the point of bogging down the offense as he dribbles and probes, helping turn the game into a one-on-one affair that plays into the other team’s hands. His assists have decreased have dipped much in the same way his FG% has, indicating that as defenses tighten the thumbscrews, Allen may not be doing a superb job of moving the ball around and finding the open man, but rather maintaining his dribble and continuing to grind out the possession.
Instead of going to the lane and drawing more contact to earn easy shots line, he’s slowly fallen into a habit of waiting for whistles out on the perimeter. Until Allen does a better job of adjusting to how he’s being defended, he can keep expecting the same shabby treatment.
Given Allen’s struggles, it’s presumable that Ray would see a dip in minutes as a result. And over the course of this season, his minutes have gone down…slightly.
In November and December, Allen played 40.2 MPG during a period when backup SG Ronald “Flip” Murray was on the IR. In January, Allen’s minutes dropped slightly to 39.8 MPG, and then down to 37.8 MPG in February and 37.9 MPG in March.
Perhaps its worth noting that Allen had two games in February where he played only 31 minutes that to the dip, one a game against the Bobcats where Allen was returning from a pretty severe case of the flu that lead to hospitalization, and one a blowout at the hands of the Bucks that saw the team going to the bench earlier than normal. In a display of statistical malleability, if one throws those two games out of the equation, Allen’s minutes for the rest of February average out to 39.5 MPG, more or less in line with his season averages.
In other words, one game against the Detroit Pistons where you see a dip in minutes partly because of foul trouble in the third quarter and partly because you didn’t make one shot in the first half under rigid defensive pressure seems like an iffy basis for lodging a public complaint. For a player who’s spent a lot of time stressing that games are won and lost in the fourth quarter, Allen should realize that sometimes a coach’s hand is forced towards making moves that ensure one of his best fourth quarter players is indeed available in the fourth quarter.
While Allen should be admired for wanting to be on the court, the way he’s expressed his desire just seems a bit lacking and ill-timed. If Allen’s minutes were cut back slightly to close out the season, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. When Flip Murray sits unused on the bench as Allen seems to be wearing down, the Sonics should not be faulted if they keep one eye on the playoffs and another on Ray’s ankles as other star players like Jermaine O’Neal and Brad Miller go down with serious injuries.
As a member of a team that prides itself for its chemistry, a team where two starters from last year’s team, Vitaly Potapenko and Ronald “Flip” Murray, often see “DNP-CD” listed next to their name in the box score and yet maintain a air of professionalism and quiet restraint, Allen should perhaps show a little public restraint on the topic about how his coaches and teammates are dealing with him
To risk affecting that well-crafted chemistry because you are miffed about minutes and the quality of looks you’re getting seems patently unwise at this stage in the season, and a potential waste of what has been a fantastic season. Not to mention the possible effect on Allen’s impending free agency.
Instead of airing his grievances in the press, Allen and his teammates need to get back to what made them so successful earlier in the season. Stop dominating the ball individually, move the ball around, and use/set screens to get better looks. The team’s offense is tailor-made for a player like Allen, allowing him to catch and shoot when the ball is moved around and let screeners do the dirty work for him.
Now is not the time for using the press to grouse about your role in the offense or a brief curtailment of minutes, but rather a time for engaging in productive communication with your teammates and your coaches while getting back to doing what made the team so successful the first two months of the season.
And if the coach chooses to sit you for a few minutes here and there…trust him. He’s been able to get you this far. Let’s see if he can get you a little further.
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