Don’t let the name fool you, this isn’t going to be a regular post theme. I’ve had some requests to do a little something on Gerald Henderson, and he had an old-school-type scoring night. Very rarely in today’s NBA will you see a player score 21 points on 19 shots and come away feeling like you witnessed a special scoring performance.

But that’s what happened when the Heat visited the Charlotte Bobcats (and came away with a hotly contested 1-point win) — Gerald Henderson hit shots consistently and in the way that few today go about doing it. There aren’t many shooting guards in the NBA today that can’t consistently hit a 3-pointer nor be counted on as a high-usage slasher, but are still starting and functioning fairly effectively.

But much of Gerald Henderson’s game is built a lot like what we today are more used to seeing from a solid role-player power forward (not unlike a Udonis Haslem-type). Henderson fills empty mid-range space on the weakside, works in a few well-timed off-ball rim runs, and the occasional slash to the rim off the dribble. Last season, this all added up an effective field goal percentage 3.7-percent below the league average among shooting guards. (qualifications — 40+ games played, 20+ minutes played per game, via HoopData.com). In terms of getting to the foul line, Henderson manages a solid rate in terms of his number of touches, but it still isn’t enough to lift his scoring efficiency into the top tiers of shooting guard rankings.

But with all the efficiency talk aside, Henderson is an interesting watch. Only 7 guys in the whole NBA derived more offense off of off-ball screens. But (outside of Ray Allen), Henderson derives a lower percentage of his offense than all of them from spot-ups. In other words, we have, essentially, a pure mid-range shooter/garbageman in Gerald Henderson.

And most of the damage Henderson did against the Heat was indeed as more of a garbageman, or a space-filler. This worked especially well for him in transition (where Synergy shows us he excelled last season, ranking in the top 20th percentile among all players).

(Henderson is #15 for the Bobcats. He’ll be the one doing the shooting in pretty much all of the clips)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57HBD9Et9ZE&w=560&h=315]

Henderson had 4 transition plays, and you saw all the shot attempts. Main skill in transition isn’t exactly what you’d think for an athletic wing — rather, he just fills in empty space and waits to hit an easy rhythm jumper.

He does a similar act when not involved in any screen action/his teammates are running an isolation-type play that will likely result in penetration in to the lane.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7h6ZWWbsdU&w=560&h=315]

I don’t have video of Henderson’s only 3 on the night, but the make came in a very similar fashion to the clips you just saw. All of the initial action running to the strong side, then a quick swing to an open Henderson, who (tonight at least) hit despite some late shot-contesting from the defense.

Something different from last season’s trends with Henderson so far this season has been the relative lack of screen plays run for him. Synergy only tracked two for him in the Heat game, the first of which you’ll see is a pretty simple pindown from Boris Diaw that frees up Henderson for an easy baseline J. The second part of the clip features a basic curl action with Diaw again screening.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZXEr4V-WdY&w=560&h=315]

Our last two sets of clips are off-dribble and cut-action examples from tonight. In the first set, you’ll notice at least one designed play that had Henderson (at the bottom of the screen) rubbing off a DJ Augustin screen and receiving a quick pass while Augustin makes a cut out toward the left wing in case the quick pass/layup for Henderson isn’t there. In both the off-dribble and cut videos, Henderson’s relatively average finishing ability is on display. Synergy Sports Technology listed his points per possession off of cuts last season as average-to-mediocre, his main problem being fairly obvious — an average-to -mediocre finishing ability and an average-to-mediocre ability to draw fouls.  In isolation, however, Henderson was top-25 (minimum of 40 plays) in both overall proportion of possessions scored on and on free throws per possession. I’m not exactly sure where the disconnect between finishing on cuts and in isolation is happening, other than cuts totally excluding his mid-range ability that benefits him in isolation.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mhNe3ac7Rk&w=560&h=315]

Off the dribble, Henderson (so far in his career, at least) is pretty fond of the mid-range pull-up or jabstep-jumper combo, despite the ability he shows in these clips to pick his spots and get to the basket in regards to his drives.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nTZDLR1bVU&w=560&h=315]

This is probably the last time you’ll see me (and possibly anyone) on the site spend a good chunk of words covering the offensive game of a player who, statistically speaking, is an average shooting guard in the NBA. But there’s a certain uniqueness in a guard who fills free baseline territory like a utility power forward, but actually derives the majority of his offense from a mid-range off-screen game. Add in the uncommon ability to  be selective and generally pick good spots in isolation, and you have Gerald Henderson.