What Happened to Jose Calderon?
by Adam Francis on Aug 17, 2010 10:13 AM EDT
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PrintAfter discussing the issues associated with a potential TJ Ford/Jarrett Jack reunion yesterday, the HQ takes an in-depth look at how to get the most out of Jose Calderon, should he stick around.
There have been some pretty bleak pictures painted about the Toronto Raptors next season.
-Missing the playoffs.
-35 wins tops.
-Last in the East.
And on and on.
Regardless of how optimistic you are about the club, the fact remains that minus Chris Bosh and even lesser players like Antoine Wright, this team is going to experience a drop-off.
How could the drop-off be mitigated to a certain extent?
Well a break-out season by Andrea Bargnani around the area of 22 and 8 a night would be a start.
And another step forward by the "Young Gunz" wouldn't hurt either.
However there's one player remaining from Toronto's playoff teams, one player whose play was instrumental in the team's past success, that really could prove to be a difference maker.
That player?
None other than the point guard the team appears to be trying to push out the door right now; Mr Jose Calderon.
When Jose was on top of his game, he was a sight to behold, rarely turning the ball over, splashing shots from all over the court, and even making the odd "tricky lay-up" or two. He went from virtual unknown under Rob Babcock to borderline All-Star in only a few short seasons.
However since his high-point of 2007-08, things haven't been so pretty.
Check the stats:
Calderon 2007-08 - Wins Produced - 15.68, PER - 20.5, AST% - 42.3%, TS% - .607
Calderon 2008-09 - Wins Produced - 11.91, PER - 18.7, AST% - 41.0%, TS% - .613
Calderon 2009-10 - Wins Produced - 5.8, PER - 16.5, AST% - 33.8%, TS% - .569
Are we seeing a trend here?
Since his third season in the league, Calderon statistically has been on a decline, and really, it's been across almost all categories.
I picked the metrics above because I felt they did the best job of truly looking at key areas of Jose's game that have dropped off.
Let's look first at Dave Berri's metric, "wins produced." Wins produced rewards players who gain and keep possession for a team, as well as turn the ball into points as efficiently as possible. These factors have been proven to correlate with team success.
Jose Calderon was always a high "wins produced player" because he was such an efficient shooter, and he also had traditionally one of the lowest turnover rates in the league. Point being, he was extremely helpful to his team because he was a lethal shooter from all over the court, and didn't cost his team extra possessions very often with sloppy decision-making.
Wins produced is thus a very effective metric to evaluate Jose by because the decline in his WP score indicates declines in his areas of strength, shooting and passing. Calderon was never known as a lock-down defender, so it was his amazing offensive abilities that helped boost this and other stats (such as his PER.) However as we saw last year, when those offensive pieces were out of wack, paired with his consistent defensive struggles, Calderon barely looked like an NBA player at times. And his wins produced score echoes this fact to a large degree. I mean, Jose produced nearly 12 of the Raptors' 33 wins during that 2008-09 season, that year, more than even Chris Bosh, who produced a shade under 10!
Last season?
It wasn't even close.
PER, another view of player efficiency by John Hollinger, shows a similar trend as Jose's score continues to slump towards the league median of 15.0.
And finally, I grabbed two metrics which I thought emphasized Jose's strengths, assist percentage and true shooting percentage. Assist percentage attempts to estimate the percentage of baskets that came as the result of Jose Calderon's passes while true shooting percentage emphasizes shooting accuracy from 2pt and 3pt range, as well as the free-throw line.
These stats too have declined although interestingly, Jose's true-shooting percentage during the 2008-09 season actually jumped up. (This was due to his otherworldly free-throw shooting percentage.) The big drop-off though in both metrics comes between this past season and the previous one. While a true shooting percentage of .569 isn't abysmal around the league, it did represent a career-low for numero ocho. For some reason, Jose couldn't hit the broad side of a barn door last year.
And of course the assist percentage is hardly stellar either.
While it still put Jose ahead of guards like TJ Ford and Chris Duhon, to put it in perspective, point guards without much of a rep for being "pass-first typses" like Baron Davis and Raymond Felton either surpassed that mark or nearly equalled it, and the 33.8% was the lowest mark of Jose's career since his rookie season.
So what gives?
Did Raptors' fans see the best of Jose two seasons ago and are simply going to be watching his decline going forward? (Provided he isn't traded of course.) He will be 29 years old this season, an age where many an NBA player starts to decline thanks to the years of wear-and-tear on the body. And he's struggled with nagging groin and other injuries over the past two seasons as well. Perhaps then it would be advisable for Colangelo to ship Jose out as soon as possible to ensure as high a return as possible?
As discussed yesterday in my "Sunday Thought," let's hope said return is not TJ Ford, but if there's nothing out there, would it actually make sense to keep Jose?
It might and here's why.
For all the stats above, many are heavily influenced by two factors; coaching and teammates. Metrics like "Wins Produced" and "PER" try to take teammates out of the equation, but there's no question that getting more open looks from teammates helps a player's true-shooting percentage, and if your players aren't converting on your passes, no matter how nice the passes are, then that hurts your assist percentage.
And of course if Jay Triano wants the team to get out and run and spend as little time as possible setting up an offence in the half-court, then Jose, who is more effective one would argue in the latter, will be negatively affected by that as well.
I turned to Synergy's technology to try and see just how Jose was used last year. (Disclaimer, SB Nation has provided us with a free Synergy account.)
During 45% of the time on offence, Calderon was used as the pick-and-roll ball handler, and 23% of the time he was the spot-up shooter on offence. Those two roles were by far the most abundant in his offensive schema. After that, 12% of the time he worked in isolation and only 2.4% of the time was he the one converting off the screen-and-roll at the basket.
The most glaring stat though?
Only 8.6% of the time did he attack in transition.
Jarrett Jack in contrast did 15% of the time, almost double Jose's mark, and considering Toronto played at a medium pace by league standards (they were 13th out of the 30 teams last year in this rating), this I think speaks volumes as to one of the reasons Jose was ineffective. With the team looking to get out and run more, Jose's best skill-sets, running the pick-and-roll from a set offence perspective and getting open jump shots via ball-movement, were somewhat negated.
Backing this up is a look at the Raptors' pace-rating two season ago, Jose's statistical high-point.
That season, the Dinos played at the league's 8th slowest pace!
And it's not as if Jack's transition percentage was even that high.
Rajon Rondo, a player built for the fast-break but who played on a Celtics team that was 22nd in the league in terms of pace, had 20% of his offence made up of transition plays.
And Chauncey Billups, not known as a speedster really, had 18% of his offence come via transition thanks to Denver's up-tempo style (5th fastest pace in the NBA last year.)
The point here is that if Jose sticks around, the coaching staff needs to make a few tactical decisions.
If they want to get out and run more and take advantage of their newfound athletes, then they should forget about Jose being a starter, and instead, use him off the bench with a second unit that can be much more effective in the half-court; a unit comprised of players like Linas Kleiza and Andrea Bargnani, and perhaps even David Andersen, who from reports seems to be a solid pick-and-pop option.
The problem though is that looking over the roster, there aren't a lot of "skill" players to team Jose with on this team anymore. Gone are the Anthony Parkers and Jason Kaponos, who could spread the court with excellent long-range shooting. The team never had and still doesn't have, a wing who can create off the bounce, thus also opening things up for Calderon. And the team now lacks a post-player who requires consistent double teams down low. (No matter how much of an Andrea fan you are, admittedly it's "wait and see" in this respect.) It's simply going to be very tough I'd argue to get the most out of Calderon, and that's a shame because when used correctly on offense, he can still be an extremely valuable piece.
So perhaps BC holds onto him until the season gets going and teams come to grips with their situations at the 1. Calderon I'd argue would be a great fit on a team like Orlando, backing up Jameer Nelson, a yin to his yang in many ways, or, gulp, Miami where he could take advantage of the many open looks provided by LeBron, Wade and ironically, his former team-mate Bosh..
He's not done, in fact he should look at Chauncey Billups as an example of how to prolong an NBA career as a point guard who doesn't rely on athleticism to be effective, but if he stays a Raptor for the length of the upcoming season, the pressure is on Triano and co to get the most out of number 8.
And no, that does not include consistently playing him with Jarrett Jack...
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I think one factor that can’t be discounted is the Hedo factor. Since he arrived, neither Hedo nor Jose got nearly as much ‘ball’ as they were used to – so I am certain that Jose’s assist percentage drop could be attributed there (at least partially).
And your point about him being a spot-up shooter 23% of the time is big – out of curiosity, what percentage of his offense in the past has been spot-up?
I really think Jose could play the transition game well – and let’s face it – with Triano’s running game (well, what we saw of it last year), the point guard isn’t always the one pushing the ball – having ball-handling wings like Sonny, Demar and Hedo meant that often Jose was a trailer or lane-man in the transition game.
Anyway, even if he can’t improve his running game (which I think he will), the team as constructed could really use his help for the probably 75% or more of plays where the running game won’t score a bucket, and a half-court offense will have to be used. Remember – a running game only works on defensive rebounds or turnovers – so roughly half of the possessions (or more, when the opposing defense gets back, forcing a slow-down) will be half-court, no matter which unit is on the floor.
Calderon’s game dropped off completely last year. I think that an important factor that limited Jose’s play was that he avoided playing basketball for a number of months (in the summer 2009). While, Hedo’s lack of durability in many games last season could be attributed to his commitment to his national team.
Some great points
dhackett1565 – always some solid questions.
First – great call on comparing last year’s spot-up shooter numbers to the previous years, something I wanted to do. Unfortunately the Synergy data is only for last year, so I couldn’t do that compare. However thinking about it a bit more, there might be a way to estimate it looking at a few other sites that track “percentage of 2-point shots” etc – not quite the same, but might give us an idea.
As well, rebounding is crucial, something that we’re going to dedicate a full blog post to later in the month. If the Raptors’ bigs can’t get the boards, it’s going to be a really hard for many players on this team to be effective, because there aren’t an abundance of typical “half-court” types.
For me the key is to make sure he’s paired with the right types of players to ensure Toronto gets the most out of his skills because as you mentioned, most of an NBA game is not played in transition.
Adam Francis - Publisher - RaptorsHQ.com
by Adam Francis on Aug 16, 2010 12:45 PM EDT up reply actions
That is why.....
We did not get screwed by #4 as much as we got screwed by Ex-# 23…….
Playing your way off the team
I was the biggest fan of Calderon when he was in competition with Ford for the starting job. He was such an effective decision-maker and spot-up shooter.
Fast-forward to last season. Franchise you’re dead-on “What happened to Jose Calderon?” I have never seen a player with so much potential be so inconsistent everytime he steps on the court. That jumper that was butter was no where to be found. He completely stopped driving to the basket. Is it a wonder that the team was being booed!
The biggest fault of Calderon is potentially his biggest strength is that he DOESN’T TAKE CHANCES!! We all know that his assist to turnover ratio is near the best in the league, but that statistic has its limitations. We need a starting point guard that will give alleys or high-risk passes (now and then) because we now have athletic SFs and SGs. The tempo of the game needs to be picked up since we don’t have enough big men to play in a half-court set.
I am all for giving Calderon another chance, but he will have to somehow remember the player that won-over the TO fans.
Calderon’s play has been aggressive at times, and he really picked up his alley-ooping as the season went on and he became more comfortable with Sonny, Demar, Amir on the break and on back-door cuts. I believe (based purely on my anecdotal recollection) that he led the team in alley-oops given.
by dhackett1565 on Aug 16, 2010 12:10 PM EDT up reply actions
'Alley-oops given' does not = aggressive point guard play
99.9% of alley oops are created by taking advantage of what the defense gives you – ie they are over playing the passing lanes, so you cut back door. Taking advantage of what the defense gives is smart bball but it is not aggressive.
True aggressive point guards break their man down off the dribble and create easy baskets for themselves or their team mates. They do not wait for the defense to open up and create a lane to the basket for them. They create the lane for themselves by forcing the defense to react to them and not vice versa.
Jose is not good enough (does not have the quicks or the mindset) to do that at this level. Maybe in Europe or at the world championships, but not in the NBA.
Aggressive or elite point guards also possess another skill that Jose does not have – the ability to create your own shot to rescue a busted play or to beat the shot clock as it winds down. As the primary ball handler on a given team elite point guards must be able to do this.
Jose knows that he can’t do this and (I believe) consciously avoids putting himself in such situations. As a result, his game is very methodical and predictable. He is a facilatator not a creater.
That being said, I think Jose’s risk free game makes him one of the best, if not the best, 2nd unit pgs in the league. He takes care of the ball, understands the offense and generally gets the ball where it needs to go. Plus, when Jose is playing back up minutes his body doesn’t breakdown as much. This means his legs are fresh and he is for the most part injury free. This is important because he is not a good enough athlete to play effectively when injured.
Finally, no one has addressed Jose’s defensive defficiencies which are significant to say the least. Defense starts on the ball. If you can’t stop the ball and keep the dribbler out of the lane you’re fucked. As soon as Jose suffers a blow by the bigs have to rotate away from their man and stop the ball, pulling them out of position. Once the dribbler gets into the lane they have a 5 on 4 situation which is a huge advantage. They can either take the shot or dish it off to a wide open big. If the miss the shot our bigs are not in position to board so the offence will lilkely get the rebound. A total mess and regrettably one of the greatest weaknesses of the Raps for years and years.
On top of that his contract is absurd. He gets paid all star money for a 2nd string game.
In the end the Raptors are not going to turn it around with Jose running the show. I would much prefer to get rid of his contract and take our time to patiently find an all star calibre pg to come in to play one of the most important positions on the team. If we have to suffer in the short term so be it.
You do a nice write-up on what makes an elite pt guard. I agree, Jose doesn’t fall in that category, but regardless of how you view him he still remains an effective one. He doesn’t turn the ball over and has the range to take a difficult shot with the clock winding down. An aggressive PG I think of somebody like Baron when he was the Warriors, no way would I think of Nash as being aggressive. Yet, Nash excels because he’s aware when the defense breaks down and quickly gets the ball to an open teammate.
I wasn’t a proponent of keeping Jose, but I think with this roster it really makes sense to keep Jose. This season will either be wildly exciting or extremely hard to watch. Jarrett is turnover prone (and just as bad defensively) and I’m thinking at some point fans will appreciate Jose’s conservative play.
It was bizarre wasn’t it? He just didn’t look like himself for 90% of the season and you would have thought that having the summer off would have helped – remember, everyone blamed Jose’s work with the Spanish team for the problems the season before.
He did seem to look a bit more comfortable near the end of the season but I’d love to see him doing work now with Weems and DeRozan ala Jack…however unlikely that may be thanks to the trade rumours that have been swirling.
Adam Francis - Publisher - RaptorsHQ.com
by Adam Francis on Aug 16, 2010 12:54 PM EDT up reply actions
You can’t underestimate how much Hedo Turkoglu negatively impacted this team last year. From cannabilizing the ball handling and assits opportunities for the PGs to that horrific “3 cooks in the kitchen” lineup of Calderon-Turkoglu-Jack.
Based on past performance, I’d be willing to roll the dice on Calderon as a starter to begin the season… but only if I knew Colangelo and Triano were committed to filling out the rest of the starting lineup with guys who can defend. Obviously, that’s not going to happen *cough*Bargnani*cough*.
by RaptorsHQ - Defensive Stance on Aug 16, 2010 1:13 PM EDT up reply actions
All On Colagelo
BC keeps managing this team like a fan. We need shooting, let’s get a one-dimensional one in Kapono then trade him for a one dimensional rebounder in Evans. Let’s get Hedo, and watch the pg numbers go down.
Calderon played a full season on an injured leg because BC left Ukic as the backup. He should have grieved it through the union, instead he played to his own detriment. Then, he gives up the ball to Hedo. He gets slammed for the poor defence when the enitre team sucked on defence. There are few PGs who can individually defend an NBA pg. Ukic, ironically, had the ability to do so. Rondo didn’t penetrate on him once in a full game.
Anyway, if Calderon were a prick, he would have been treated better and be more respected by BC. He deserves a new team.
It is obvious that he is not a 10 million dollar player, but he is a legit starter and very good offensive player who could help himself by taking a few more drives to the hoop. He is by far our best point guard now. BC gave him the contract, but really, most teams would have at that point. There is a common theme here in which players seem to go south once they are part of the Raptors. As long as we bounce around without a plan and shuffle the deck chairs every summer, we won’t develop anyone or maximize player performance as they are struggling to find their roles. Unfortunately, we would have been better off if Babcock had stuck around and developed through the draft. BC is basically trying to do that on the fly five years later.
Who, other than Bosh or possibly Bargnani, has developed or exceeded expectations on the Raptors since BC has been here? Jose has survived, at least.
Last few articles have been excellent
I also enjoyed this read as well.
Bounce Back ?
Can Jose rebound from last season? Would that not be great for the team, although hurt our lottery chances.
3 seasons ago arguments were being made considering Jose as a top 5(!) PG. Not that I realistically expect that conversation to reopen but lets see him come out healthy and with a chip on his shoulder. He has shown good chemistry with the young guys and this team lacks ball handlers.
Jose's contract
I don’t understand the rush to move Jose, for several reasons.
1) Jose has shown himself to be one of the best offensive talents on this team, which will be needed in the upcoming year, with so many mediocre-to-terrible offensive players coming in.
2) He has developed chemistry with the Young Guns, and has proven he can feed the post efficiently – so should be able to help with the development of Weems, Derozan, Amir, Bargs, Davis, and even Alabi.
3) His contract is NOT a burden for a rebuilding team. rebuilding teams build up through young players in the draft or otherwise, who are generally on low-cost contracts (DeRozan, Weems, Johnson, Davis, Wright, Alabi all on contracts under 6M per year – combined 13.4M this year). The Raptors will need that cap space (or tax threshold space) to sign all these up-and-comers to extensions and new contracts in 2 or 3 years.
Which is when his contract is either a valuable expiring – easily traded – or completely expired. So what’s the problem?
4) IF the Raptors are lucky enough to find a top-tier PG prospect in next year’s draft, Jose should be easier to move next summer than this. He will have another year to recover from his bad year last season – hopefully putting up respectable numbers, and will only have a two-year contract.
5) For those who say that the CBA change will make his contract even less desirable and impossible to move… The threat of the CBA is already there for teams with any foresight at all. And the CBA negotiations could turn out to be not nearly as bad as expected – so his contract could still be easily moved. And if the negotiations go badly for the players, we cna expect a lengthy strike, which will take a chunk of time (unpaid) off of Jose’s contract as a result – leaving him as an expiring contract in the year after the strike may take place.
Two interesting stats from synergy sports, I am taking these from another person posting and do not have synergy but I have no problem believing them.
Calderon also ranks last among 65 players who defended the ballhandler on at least 150 possessions.
Calerdon ranked in the 9th percentile of NBA players in overall D, ranks last among 166 players with min 600 D possessions.
Interesting – I wonder how much of that is Jose and how much is the system/team? What are the numebrs like for the rest of the team? Especially Jack, Banks, who also guarded PGs.
by dhackett1565 on Aug 17, 2010 3:52 PM EDT up reply actions
Off topic
Can the Raptors not offer to be facilitators in proposed transactions and in the process get assets they wouldn’t otherwise get. Is it within the realm of possibility that they use the trade exception or part of it to allow for a Carmelo deal to some other team while getting their hands on someone they could use like Nene and some other pieces?
Wouldn’t it be nice for the Raps to be a third party lubricant making more deals possible, even though, at first glance, the assets they have to offer for straight up deals are limited?
Happiness is that which gets lost in the details of its pursuit.
according to yahoo
calderon is the 20th best PG in the league
by raptors_run_the_show on Aug 18, 2010 7:28 PM EDT reply actions
Jacks numbers took a big hit last year because he got benched when the team started to struggle. He is hardly top 10 material but I think his overall numbers should be better this year (assuming Calderon gets shipped out). Remember, platooning will always hurt both players numbers. I think if Calderon goes somewhere where he is the clear starter his numbers should improve as well.
P.S. You have to factor in Turk and his disruption to both of their games.
Actually, I would expect the advanced stats for both players to increase if they are platooned, since they can give 100% for 24 minutes, rather than tiring as the 30th and 36th minutes add up.
I expect both of them to increase their efficiencies (eFG%, Assist%, TO ratio, etc) with Turk gone, and to see increases in their raw numbers as well, with more offense to go around without Bosh.
by dhackett1565 on Aug 19, 2010 11:28 AM EDT up reply actions
PS. Dwyer used per-48 stats for his rankings, so they are not ranked so low because of raw, minute-dependent stats.
by dhackett1565 on Aug 19, 2010 11:28 AM EDT up reply actions
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