3QC Mid-Season Awards: Most Disappointing Player

Well, his PER is low… but that’s the flaw in PER. PER is a useful guideline when trying to figure out a player’s raw talent level, but doesn’t take into account what the player is doing for the team. PER doesn’t recognize that, for example, shooting isn’t part of Johnson’s game, and any shots the guy does take are either because a play broke down, or he’s trying to keep defenders honest. So of COURSE they’re going to be low-percentage, and he’s going to get penalized for that — but again, taking 7 shots a game at 40% is just as bad as taking 4 at 35%. Worse, even. PER won’t reflect that.

PER also doesn’t recognize that an assist every six minutes in a system like Orlando’s is a legitimate achievement, and a sign that the player is doing more effective ballhandling than the stats show. Like Nelson, Johnson orchestrates a lot of plays that don’t net him anything statistically. This fact also depresses his ORtg — a stat I don’t think maps very well to individual players anyway.

As for DRtg:

Johnson: 104
Daniel Gibson: 104
George Hill: 104
Eddie House: 101
Jordan Farmar: 105

And Win Shares — yeah, he’s tied for fifth worst on the team. That means there are either three or four worse players on the team.

I think the underlying message here is, there aren’t a lot of capable backup point guards out there to begin with. Most teams don’t have a backup point who can run the offense, shoot the ball, and play plus defense. (Heck, a lot of teams don’t have a STARTING PG who can do that.) So we’ve got Johnson: a guy who can’t shoot, can run an offense pretty well, and is mediocre on D. The alternative — and it’s kind of freakish how the Celtics, Lakers, Cavs, and Spurs all have basically the same guy — is a fairly prolific but low-percentage shooter who has no business running an offense and, again, is mediocre on D. Given the choice, I’ll take Johnson every time — running the offense is by far the most important job of a point guard. There’s nothing pretty about his game, but he is undeniably effective at that one thing.

Now, I’m not saying we’re set at backup point guard. Johnson’s passable, but not great. And over the offseason, I definitely think we should make an upgrade a priority - right after re-signing (or replacing) Turk and Gortat. I am, however, saying that a lot of the names that have been floated about — CJ Watson? Crittenton? — have shown no aptitude for running an offense. (Watson can’t even average an assist every 10 minutes on a Warriors team that is the polar opposite of the Magic in terms of how many assists there are to go around; Crittenton looks for all the world like the real descendent of the Jeryl Sasser/Reece Gaines school of oversized and ineffective point guards.)

I’m also saying that the point guard position is a delicate thing — and given how well things have been going for the Magic as a whole, I think it would be insane to disrupt our distribution scheme halfway through the season by bringing in a new guy, especially if he’s not a clear and proven improvement as a passer. That’s a desperation move. What need do we have to be desperate about? Give me a guy who averages more assists per minute than Johnson, and maybe I’d consider it. But why take a risk for a guy who may well turn out to be a downgrade?