Are the Chicago Bulls Better with Derrick Rose Shooting Less and Passing More?

Derrick Rose is often described as a "scoring" point guard, and normally that comes with a sneer from a stat snob. You can't win a championship with a scoring point guard, they snot. You have to really put the right emphasis on "scoring" there. Elongate the "o" sound. Hold it for a whole note so you can get the right amount of scorn in your voice.

So it's got to make you wonder, are they going to be happy with Derrick Rose's start to the season? Rose's scoring is down from 25.0 points last year to 20.9 this year. More importantly, those 4.1 fewer points are coming on 4.7 fewer attempts per game.

Rose is scoring less but he's scoring much more efficiently, elevating his average of 1.27 points per field goal attempt to 1.39 points per field goal attempt. Part of this is shooting slightly better, by about .3 percent. Partly it's because he's getting to line at a greater rate, once for every 2.72 shots compared to last year's once for every 2.85 shots. 

That doesn't mean he's not producing less offense, though. His assists are up by a full assist per 36 minutes and Rose is assisting on 39.9 percent of the Bulls field goals compared to 38.8 percent last year. 

More importantly, his usage percentage has dropped from 32.2 percent last year to just 26.6 percent this year. 

Does that mean that the Bulls are better off, though?

It would appear that yes, they are, and for a couple of reasons. First, the offense is just better. Last year the Bulls were 20th in the NBA in scoring and were just 11th in offensive rating. This year they are ninth in scoring and seventh in offensive rating. 

That's some pretty dramatic improvement, and it shows there's a direct correlation between Rose using possessions more efficiently and Chicago being more efficiently offensively.

However, lest we fall into the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (or "after this therefore because of this"), let's take something else into consideration. 

Rose has another option he didn't have last year. 

This doesn't mean Rose was not a "true" point guard last year or that he was a ball hog, or that he didn't deserve the MVP. More to the contrary, it means the opposite. 

The Bulls added Richard Hamilton in the offseason, and that addition gives the Bulls a real shooting guard. Last year Rose essentially had to play both the point guard and the shooting guard. He didn't take so many shots because he wanted to. He did it because he had to. 

The sudden decline in attempts may show he is much happier passing than scoring. The sudden jump in assists shows he can. 

When Hamilton was out against Atlanta, the Bulls reverted to their formula for last year: Play really hard defense and let Rose score. He did just enough in the fourth quarter. It was by far the worst offensive game the Bulls had this year. 

In games Hamilton played this year, the Bulls offensive rating is 110.37. In games he has missed, it's 101.17. It's not that he adds a huge amount—just 12.4 points and 3.0 assists—but he ties off the circle. He gives the Bulls a complete offense. When Rose has more he does less because less is needed. 

I don't mean that in the sense the Bulls require less of him. I mean it in the sense the Bulls actually require him to really do less. It becomes a case of "less is more." The Bulls offense becomes balanced and much more lethal. Rose will accommodate. 

It also proves that given reasonable weapons Rose is more than capable of being a prototypical point guard who can beat you with his passing. Never was that more clear than when he went against the player with whom he is so negatively compared to: Chris Paul. 

In that game Rose not only had more points and scored more efficiently, he also had more assists.

Yes, the Bulls are a better team when Rose is shooting less and passing more, but that's only because Rose is shooting less and passing more because the Bulls are a better team. And I'll leave you with that little logical palindrome.