Can He Bounce Back? Is a new series here at NBAPlaybook, and in it we will be looking at players that had a rough 2010 and determine whether or not it was a fluke or a start of a trend.

Chris Douglas-Roberts is a real interesting case.  Where most of these “Can He Bounce Back” posts, we are looking at guys who had down years after strong years before that.  CDR had a down 50 games or so after 30 strong games.  In the first 23 games that he played (over the course of the team’s first 32 games), Douglas-Roberts scored 16.3 points per game and over his final 44 games (over the course of the team’s final 50 games) he only scored 6.4 points per game.

Where He Struggled

Whether it was due to new coaching and playcalling (which is what Chris Douglas-Roberts thinks) or if it was just due to attitude (which is what some Nets’ fans think), there was a significant drop off between his first 23 games and his final 44.  The main reason for the drop was that Douglas-Roberts stopped being aggressive (again, we don’t know what caused this – could be team strategy, could be him):

On this play, Douglas-Roberts comes off a screen set by Yi, and is looking to do two different things.  The yellow arrow is what the Douglas-Roberts from the first 30 games would do.  He would test the defense with attack dribble and more than likely find a crease (this is because CDR is at his best when forcing the issue).  Exposing this crease would let him get to the lane for the lay-up or the foul.  The green dashes show what second half Douglas-Roberts would do.  He takes a wasted dribble (a dribble that doesn’t advance him) and makes the pass.  It isn’t just this one play either, it was a theme in the second half of the season.

Again, here is CDR coming off a pick and roll:

Here, Douglas-Roberts comes off the screen and the hedge man is flat footed.  When a defender is flat footed like that you are supposed to go right at him, and the result will either be a drive by or a foul.  However, Douglas-Roberts settles for the jumper and lets the defender off the hook.

One more image, and to me, this one really shows the lack of aggression:

As the pass to Douglas-Roberts gets made, his defender tries to steal it and misses.  This leaves the lane wide open, to the point where every single defender on the court has their back to the basket.  Now, in fairness to Douglas Roberts their is a play called for Courtney Lee here in which Lee cuts through the paint, but when a defender cheats like this and misses, you need to punish him (the CDR of the first couple games would attack the basket).  Most players in the NBA have the awareness to break off their cuts if they see a player driving.  All he has to do here is rip the ball through, and he has a lane to the basket.  He doesn’t do that, instead, he stays where he is, holding the ball for a few seconds:

Can He Bounce Back?

If Douglas-Roberts becomes the aggressive driving player he was his rookie season plus 20 or so games last year, yes he can bounce back and have a very successful season with the Bucks.  Douglas-Roberts drives are so unorthodox (in a very good way) that he is often able to get to the rim where he can finish or draw fouls (He had a FT rate of 0.35 his rookie season – very good – only had a FT rate of .27 last year – slightly below average – due to lack of aggressiveness):

These clips are from two very good games that Douglas-Roberts had against the Warriors and the Sixers. He was successful, because he was able to make quick and aggressive decisions.

While Douglas-Roberts’ aggression could help him bounce back, the Bucks offense could be something that holds him back, mainly because they don’t do what he is really good often, and what they do a majority of the time CDR isn’t really good at.  Douglas-Roberts made comments recently that the Bucks are planning to use him in pick and roll situations more (the Bucks run pick and rolls a ton – 21.4% of their total offense – mostly to free up Andrew Bogut).  I wouldn’t recommend including CDR in these pick and rolls.  Last year with the Nets, CDR was involved in a pick and roll 15.4% of the time, but he only registered a PPP (points per possession) of .68, good for 141st in the NBA.  The big reason is that he settled for a lot of jumpers (like above) and turned the ball over a ton.  In fact, 19.5% of his PNR possessions ended in turnovers.  Though to be fair to him, when he is aggressive on the pick and rolls, he can get to the rim scoring lay-ups or drawing fouls:

The turnovers really worry me though.  I think they come from poor decision making.  In my opinion CDR struggles deciding when to hit the roll man and when to attack.  A lot of his turnovers come from either forcing the pass to the roll man or overdriving into 3 people and getting the ball knocked away.

Where CDR is really successful on the offensive end is on hand offs and cuts off of the ball (and moving off of the ball in general).  CDR was a part of handoffs 5.4% of the time, putting together a 1.08 PPP, good for 11th in the league:

As for cuts, CDR did that 10.2% of the time and he was very good at finding open space and making himself available for passes:

The problem is that the Bucks don’t really include this in their offense. They only ran hand off plays 1.3% of the time, and they only had cut plays 5.8% of the time (all numbers coming from Synergy, of course).

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All things considered, I think Chris Douglas-Roberts does have a bounce back year if he comes out as aggressive as he was the first 20 or so games of last year.  If he is aggressive, he will find himself in the lane, getting easy lay-ins and drawing fouls, and this is where he is really at his best.

I am a little worried about how his style will mesh with the Bucks, but there is still time for either the Bucks to incorporate more cutting/hand-offs into their offense or for Douglas-Roberts to improve his decision making coming off screens.  So I don’t think it will have too much of a negative effect.