ABC's Sunday Matinee Showcases The New Breed of "Do-It-All" Point Guard

As the team’s second leading scorer, Bird has taken on the brunt of the scoring burden for the Storm. However, has the need to score changed the way Bird plays? She doesn’t seem to think so.

“I’m just taking what comes my way,” Bird says. “I don’t think I played any different tonight than I have all season. When the shots are there, you gotta take them. I’m just trying to stay aggressive.”

However, the statistics tell a different story – the need to score more might have actually changed the way she’s playing point guard. The shift in style simultaneously says a lot about Bird’s versatility as a point guard and the importance of having a point guard that fits the combination of players in a team’s lineup.

So has Sue Bird changed her style of play?

The Storm played five games before taking the break for the Olympics without Jackson in addition to the one game against Houston on Thursday night when play resumed. I first wondered about whether Bird had changed because when I looked at their synergy score in the five games before the break.

The Storm’s synergy score had dropped to 64.19 during that five game period from 70.47 over the entire season. Since synergy is a measure of ball movement, a logical explanation for such a change would be the point guard’s play.

In the six total games that Jackson has missed, the biggest statistical change for Bird has been in her assists – she’s averaged about half as many assists (2.8) as she’s averaged for the season (5.4) in those six games. The reason might be that she has needed to take more shots in order for the Storm to win in Jackson’s absence – in their four wins she’s averaged 14.75 shots per game whereas she’s had 8 shots per game in their two losses.

But assists alone are not the best measure of a point guard. For that we have other metrics.

How Bird’s playing style has shifted from combo guard to scoring guard

I’ve found that the best single measure of point guard quality is John Hollinger’s pure point rating. The formula essentially measures the true value of each assist (2/3) minus turnovers per minute, in other words evaluating how productive a point guard is per minute by looking at their net value to the team as a play-maker.

Although Bird has scored more during this stretch of six games, her pure point rating has dropped considerably indicating that she has been less of a play-maker. For the season as a whole, her pure point rating is 2.61. In the last five games in which Jackson has been out, Bird’s PPR has been -3.96 meaning that she’s not spending as much of her court time distributing the ball and making her team better.

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