The loss of Tony Allen kinda hurt the C's in the sense that we don't have a defensive stopper coming off the bench anymore. Tony ran off to Memphis to make about $3 million a year for 3 years… which is completely understandable. Tony hasn't made a ton of cash over the course of his career so good for him for cashing in.
But, of course, some people look at our second unit struggling a bit right now and say "if only we had Tony Allen." It's a bit short-sighted because we only remember TA the guy who stepped up in the playoffs… not TA the guy who drove us completely insane over the course of his entire career here.
So we figured it'd be nice to check in and see what TA is doing now that he's escaped the shadows of the Celtics starters.
He hasn't done much:
Tony Allen is playing 13 minutes per game, with a stat line of 5.3 ppg, 1.2 apg, 1.5 rpg, 0.8 spg, and 1.7 TO. Not very good.
Taking a dive into some of the advanced stats (with some trepidation… since it's not really my thing, but I'm trying)… it looks a little worse.
His usage rate, which is defined by basketball-reference.com as "an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor", is 24.86… the highest on the team. The league average for guards is 19.41. That shows he is dominating the ball when he's out there.
His turnover rate… or the percentage of possessions that end in a turnover… is 18.49. That's the worst of all the Memphis guards. The league average for guards is 11.55.
His PER… John Hollinger's stat that, in his words (again from basketball-reference) "sums up all a player's positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player's performance" is 6.75. The league average for guards is 13.49. TA's puts him near the bottom of the league's guards.
He's playing so well, he was a DNP in last night's win over Sacramento. Even a game that seems to be a good one, like a 10 point, 4 rebound, 2 assist, 2 steal in 22 minutes performance against Minnesota also included 3 turnovers and 3 fouls.
So basically… it's the same old Tony Allen that caused so many strokes around here. Some good, a lot of bad, and a realization that relying on him to do more than play defense is going to burn you.
Congrats Memphis. Another quality signing by Chris Wallace.
(Advanced stats via Hoopdata.com. Thanks Matt Moore for the help on the advanced stats)
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