Reading King Jay's excellent fanpost on Nik Stauskas the other day, I began wondering whether the solution to Nik's struggles lies in none other than Timothy John McConnell. In order to find an answer, I tried to determine the impact TJ's presence had on Nik's shooting percentages and shot selection. I did this mainly with the help of nbawowy, an online tool that provides free on-off stats for the past two NBA seasons.

The search yielded only some minor results regarding Stauskas, but interestingly, it highlighted a team-wide trend that emerges when TJ is leading the team.

If anyone wants to skip reading the whole thing, the TL;DR version is this: Nik played somewhat better with Sergio, not TJ, and the team under TJ shot a lot more threes while sacrificing inside shots.

Before I begin, let me point out

1. English is not my first language. I'm not fishing for compliments here, I know I'm an advanced user, but any constructive criticism is welcome. Always looking to get better.

2. This is my first serious fanpost (I think), so excuse any formatting errors or poor readability/presentation.

3. TTP.

Part one: Nik's shot selection

In this part I tried to distinguish how Nik's game changed last season among 3 distinct scenarios, that together amounted to ~96% of his playing time.

Scenario 1 (Point-Nik) : Nik played without any other PG in the lineup. That means no TJ, Sergio, Bayless or Chasson Randle.

Scenario 2 (w/ TJ) : Nik and TJ in; Segio benched.

Scenatio 3 (w/ Sergio) : Nik and Sergio in; Tj on the bench

Shots created is the percentage of his FG attempts that were either a pullup, a turnaroung, a stepback or a fadeaway jumper. The listed PPS (points per shot) refer exclusively to these types of shots.

When Stauskas was forced in the Point-Nik role he struggled individually, but the team inexplicably performed well. His usage skyrocketed and so did the instances when he had to create his own shot. Predictably his efficiency suffered. I probably should have included assist and turnover rates, just for the curiosity value, but it's too late for that now. In his natural SG/wing role he performed substantially better.

Every single one of the above stats is a percentage.

Rim attempts: Percentage of FG attempts taken from 0-3 feet. Layups, dunks etc

Mid %: Shooting percentage on mid-range FGAs

3pt assisted : Percentage of his 3pt makes that were assisted.

Point-Nik took a lot of mid-range jumpers and almost none from the corners. Understandable due to the lack of another playmaker to get him the ball. He also struggled getting to the rim.

When he played with a PG he cut down on mid-range attempts and spotted up from the corners a bit more. What caught my eye was that with Sergio he sought to attack the rim more (higher FT rate and rim attempts) and create his own shot more frequently (more ''Shots created'', lower mid-range FGs assisted). Additionally he shot more from the corners with Sergio, despite shooting more 3s overall with TJ.

That last observation is what lead me to believe that while TJ does seem to generate more 3-point looks for his teammates (see Part 2 in a bit), Sergio got them better looks. He set people up at the rim and from the corners, the two most important shots in the current NBA. I think this could be reflected in Nik's substantially higher TS% under Sergio.

Part two: TJ's influence

Picking up where I left off in Part one, I began noticing how everybody under TJ had increased 3pt shot attempts, something I initially thought of very favorably.

Richaun for example, doubled his attempts with TJ in and Ersan was having field days from behind the arc. Not only that, but most players saw their 3pt percentages get a boost.

Looking a bit deeper, I tried to see if he had the same effect on big guys as he had on wings.

And the answer is no. While wing players like RoCo and Anderson ought to wash TJ's car daily, our two best PnR bigs and lob targets saw their efficiency drop dramatically. Naturally Embiid's quality prevented him from facing many fluctuations due to personnel changes(we truly are blessed with him) - a trend that is also apparent in a few other graphs I produced. Oak one the other hand, being the complete yin to Noel's yang that he is, actually displayed some offensive chemistry with TJ.

Notice that Okafor is the only tradiotinal big guy that saw his attempts go up with TJ, while Noel and Holmes suffered the most.

I have enough to make my point in part 3, but I made some more graphs, so here they are, if anyone wants to take a look.

Part three: Conclusions

When Nik played in his nominal role of shooter he was decent offensively. He sported average to above average TS% numbers, and was a beast in the corners as King Jay already pointed out. Additionally, when called to create his own shot he somehow posted great numbers when shooting jumpers. I think it generally bodes well for his potential... offensively. Because defensively '' he leads the league in fly-bys per game'' as another poster noted somewhere.

Regarding TJ, I think it's safe to say that he can't properly utilize rim-rolling bigs. (un)Luckily, we only have one left so that doesn't seem to be too much of a problem. Plus our bench will soon be filled with players like Anderson and Saric that seem to benefit from sharing the court with TJ. Here's to hoping for a new Night Shift.

I'd also like to point out that TJ lead the team at a faster pace than the other point guards, about 4-5 points higher. So keep in mind that if those graphs were pace adjusted, some of the red bars would be a bit shorter. I'm not saying that to take anything away from him - after all more shots is more shots. What I'm trying to say is that he probably needs a lot of shooters around him to be effective (you hear that a lot lately, don't you).

And I do believe he can be effective under Coach Brown and his ultimate share-the-ball offense. We lead the league in passes, touches and time per touch last year for a reason and part of that reason is we have a PG whose first, second and third thought is to pass the ball and make others better. He just has to find the right ways to make others better.

Part four: A completely unrelated poll

A fanpost is not a true fanpost without a poll, so...

Bumps! I hate them, they're stupid and unnecessary and they get everywhere.

I hereby move that we eliminate them from fanposts.