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ALLEYOOP.COM
The Basketball Page for Thinking Fans
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FROM THE BASELINE
December 12, 2001
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The Problem with Rasheed
I watched Rasheed Wallace on a nightly basis for the last six years in Portland, and I have to tell you that he may be the most misunderstood player in the league. And today I'm going to point out his big weakness - one that has been almost completely ignored by the media.
As most of you know, Rasheed doesn't talk to reporters except for a select few. As a result most scribes, either secretly or not-so-secretly, think the guy is a jackass. This is only compounded when he gets his nightly technical foul and acts like, well, a jackass. The result is the same two story lines in nearly every article on Rasheed:
1. Rasheed is really talented.
2. But his temper (i.e., the fact that he's a you-know-what) prevents him from being a great player.
On the other hand, there are a few guys (such as ESPN's Ric Bucher and some writers at Slam Magazine and Willamette Week) that do have access to Rasheed. Their stories tend to follow the "he's just misunderstood" angle and give him props for his All-Star play the last two seasons.
But both "sides", so to speak, overlook the main weakness in Rasheed's game, the obvious flaw that is killing his chances of becoming a superstar. The weakness to which I refer is his almost comic lack of aggressiveness.
Unfortunately, the way NBA statistics are presented makes it very hard to see this. If you just look at the big three (points, rebounds, assists) it's almost imperceptible. But today I'm going to show you just how unaggressive he is by doing two things: 1) looking at per-minute stats, rather than per-game, and 2) comparing him to players at his own position.
The most obvious way Rasheed is unaggressive is offensively, where last year he attempted to break Anthony Mason's record for "most times passing out to a well-defended guard with four seconds on the shot clock."
Take a look at the numbers. He averaged 19.2 points on 50% shooting - pretty impressive. But look at his adjusted field goal attempts per game (fiel goal attempts plus 0.4 times free throw attempts), and you'll see he wasn't putting it up nearly enough.
Rasheed took 17.77 adjusted field goals per 40 minutes of play (side note: I always do stats per 40 minutes instead of per 48, because nobody plays 48 minutes, so to me it's a stupid way to look at things). Not so bad, right?
Guess again. Take a look at the guys around him on this list (he ranked 54th among players who played 500 minutes or more). Vin Baker, playing with more tires around his waist than the Michelin man, managed 17.86. Joe Smith took 18.13. Lorenzen Wright, Matt Geiger, Marcus Fizer -- they all managed to take it to the hole more than Rasheed.
But at least those guys played on other teams. Check out the name just ahead of Rasheed's: Arvydas Sabonis. That's right, even Sabas (17.81) managed to get more attempts up than Rasheed last season, and I have a feeling it's not because the coaches told 'Sheed to defer to him.
Hang on folks, I'm just getting warmed up. Sure, having him wave off plays and pass out of single-teams was a nuisance. But where his lack of aggressiveness really shows up is in his rebounding.
Here's where it's important not to fall for the per-game stats. Rasheed Wallace last year averaged 7.8 rebounds per game, which was 27th in the league. Not great, you might say, but not bad either. Sure, a 6'11" guy with his hops should be getting more boards, but you can live with it.
However, comparing his numbers to other players at his position, and comparing on a per-minute basis, shows what a sad sack he really is on the glass. Rasheed grabbed 0.20 rebounds per minute last season, which ranked 55th among NBA power forwards. Folks, there were only 70 power forwards in the whole league who played more than 500 minutes. Here's some of the guys Rasheed ranked behind:
- Kenny Thomas, who is three inches shorter and mostly plays on the perimeter.
- Shawn Kemp, who weighed 743 pounds and did drugs most of the season.
- Christian Laettner, who tore his Achilles three years ago and can't jump anymore.
- Tom Gugliotta, who blew out his knee two years ago and is two inches shorter than Wallace.
- And even A.C. fricking Green, who also is two inches shorter than Wallace in addition to being about three times his age.
Rasheed is 6'11". He can jump and has good hands. There's no excuse for him to be so pathetic on the boards. And if you're wondering, this year it's not any better. He's grabbing 0.22 rebounds per minute, and is getting outboarded by the likes of Kenny Thomas (again), Austin Croshere and Hanno Möttölä (or as Charles Barkley calls him, Umlaut).
Rasheed's talents are beyond doubt. But even if he never gets another technical foul, he'll still be miles away from becoming a superstar, because that's not his real weakness. His real weakness is his lack of aggressiveness, and until a coach brings it out of him (or he brings it out of himself), he'll never move up the ranks of NBA power forwards.
Pot Shots
All but ignored by the Kenny-Chuck-Ernie team in all the hoopla over Jacque Vaughn last night is what an incredible effort Shareef Abdur-Rahim gave. He limped around the whole game on his sore keister and still went 8 for 12 with 19 points, 11 boards and no turnovers (game score 19.9) ... If you didn't hear, Cleveland's Andre Miller separated his shoulder yesterday, which is a shame because the team was really starting to play well and is pretty much doomed without him ...
Dan Issels' actions last night will thankfully result in his getting fired sooner, but the big question in my mind is what took so long. It's obvious he can't coach, and even more obvious he can't GM (Keon Clark for Kevin Willis ring any bells?), so how many chances would he have been given to continue proving this if he hadn't yelled those slurs last night? ... And finally, player ratings for 1998-99 are now up.
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