Schuhmann: Lillard made offense tick
NBA.com’s advanced stats writer John Schuhmann has been doing a team-by-team, “One team, One stat” preview in which each team is characterized by one key stat. In his preview today of the Trail Blazers he highlighted the difference Damian Lillard made offensively when he was on the court last year.
That was the biggest offensive, on-off-court differential in the league for players who logged at least 1,000 minutes with one team. And though Lillard has a fantastic season as a rookie point guard, the drop-off was more about the Blazers’ bench than it was about him.
With Lillard on the floor, the Blazers scored 105.0 points per 100 possessions, a number which would have ranked 10th in the league. With Lillard on the bench, they scored 93.5, which was four points per 100 possessions worse than the 30th-ranked Wizards.
Read Schuhmann’s full post here. The Trail Blazers were 11.5 points per 100 possessions better on offense with Lillard on the court, the biggest differential in the league. LeBron James was second behind Lillard in that statistic.
Erik Gundersen
Erik Gundersen is the Trail Blazers beat reporter for The Columbian. He's a graduate of the Allen School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon in addition earning a degree in Spanish. He's covered the NBA for four seasons. You can also occasionally find his work on ESPN.com's NBA section for their TrueCities series. He also fist-bumped with Kanye West once. Follow @BlazerBanter on twitter for more Blazers and NBA news.