Dennis Schroder: Inefficient play effecting Atlanta Hawks?

Dennis Schroder emerged as one of the best backup point guards in the NBA last season, but is his inefficient play in 2015-16 costing the Hawks games?

The Atlanta Hawks are in the final day off of their five-day break between games as they will take on the Dallas Mavericks tomorrow night at 9:30 PM ET. In this brief period of rest between NBA games as 2015 slowly draws to a close, the Atlanta Hawks sit at 13-9 through their first 22 games. Their record is good, but not great, as Atlanta hasn’t yet reclaimed a Top 4 seed in the NBA’s Eastern Conference.

Atlanta was not going to on a miraculous mid-season run like they did last year to win 60 games, but I did feel that this club should win 50 games in 2015-16. However, the Atlanta Hawks are slightly below pace to win 50 games with their .591 winning percentage on the year. That would get the club to about 48 wins on the season.

While Hawks fans have quickly blamed the team’s so-so start to a grueling onslaught of games. I feel there are three reasons for the Hawks’ current place in the Eastern Conference hierarchy:

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1. The East is better than the West this season. By the time the Hawks played their last game, their 13-9 mark would have had the team in 3rd place in the West behind only Golden State and San Antonio. 13-9 was good enough for 6th place after Friday night.
2. It isn’t the grueling schedule more than the injuries and the new pieces that are on the 2015-16 roster that have been to blame. Outside of maybe a third of the roster, there are either players new to the team or have had to take on different roles this season from last. Atlanta is still in the adjusting period and an early barrage of games doesn’t help.
3. We’ve seen somewhat of an untimely regression from backup point guard Dennis Schroder in year three after playing well during the Hawks’ rise in 2014-15. He’s not playing efficient basketball for the Hawks, given the amount of minutes he has to play for the team.

Through 22 games, Dennis Schroder is one of only three Atlanta Hawks to have played in every contest this season, along with starting power forward Paul Millsap and starting center Al Horford. As the primary backup point guard to Jeff Teague, Dennis Schroder has played the 5th most minutes on the team with 483.

While his Player Efficiency Rating is only slightly below the league average of 15.0 at 14.8, Dennis’ shooting and defensive play have been the reasons for his decreased value for the team. Schroder is shooting .396 from the field, .293 from three, and .806 from the line. His offensive rating is below par at 97 and his defensive rating is the same as last year’s at 106, not all that great.

When looking at the actual value he brings to the team in advanced metrics, Dennis Schroder is about as efficient as backup forward Mike Scott, a man who has long had a league-wide reputation for inefficient play. They both have the same number of win shares (0.5) and have roughly the same stats at offensive and defensive plus/minus, player efficiency rating, and value over replacement player.

The biggest issue with this comparison between Schroder and Scott is that Dennis Schroder has played more than twice the amount of minutes as Mike Scott, 483 to 251. While Schroder, Scott, and at times Kent Bazemore have made questionable decisions on offense, Bazemore is growing into a bigger role in 2015-16 and Scott’s is becoming more well-defined as a rotational piece for Coach Bud.

However, Schroder has to become a better floor general when Jeff Teague isn’t on the floor. Last year, there wasn’t as big of a tradeoff when Dennis Schroder would spell Jeff Teague. Now it is clear who the starter is and who isn’t.

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Atlanta was able to put teams away early in games last year, as the starters were strong and the bench could go the distance with anybody. Schroder may have had bad luck with some of his shots, but opponents could just as easily be game planning for how to defend the young point guard when he’s on the floor.

The Atlanta Hawks are certainly a playoff team, but if they want to get back to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2016, they’ll need their backup point guard to pick up the slack here shortly.