 What Is Lou Williams? This question is probably the one piece of the Sixers' puzzle that I'm having the hardest time figuring out. Last year, we saw two versions of Lou. One was a gunner who played out of control, monopolized the ball and jacked up way too many shots. When he came in, the offense frequently ground to a half. I called him Bad Lou.The other one, Good Lou, played pressure defense, orchestrated the break and used his athleticism to set up his teammates in the half court. Good Lou wasn't afraid to take an open jumper, not in the least, but every trip down the floor wasn't an excuse to force a shot up. Toward the end of last season we saw much more of Good Lou than Bad Lou. I thought it was Good Lou that the Sixers had signed to a five-year, $27M deal this summer. Unfortunately, that's not the Lou we've seen at all, and I'm not really sure it's entirely his fault. Time and time again, Lou has been quoted as saying, "I'm a scorer." We've heard from Mo that he's instant offense off the bench. The idea seems to be that he's the go-to-guy among the second string. Fine, I can live with that if he's on the court with the entire second team, I suppose. With Lou, Willie, Rush, Speights and Evans out there, Lou is probably the one who should be taking the majority of the shots. Here's the problem, though. He's almost never on the court with those guys. Lou should not be the primary option when he's on the floor with Iguodala, Brand or Thad. When he's out there with any of those guys, he absolutely must take a back seat and become a facilitator. When he's on the floor with more than one of them, it's appalling to see possession after possession go by without nary a pass. After the jump we'll take a look at some good/bad stats for Lou.
It's extremely hard to draw too much of a conclusion from any of these stats this early in the season, but again, I'm trying to give us a baseline for how to evaluate the play of certain players, in certain situations, as the season wears on. First, we're going to take a look at how the team performs with Lou at the point. I used Basketball Value to isolate units in which Lou would play the point (If Miller or Ivey was in the lineup with Lou, then I didn't consider him as the point). Below, we'll compare the team's offensive and defensive efficiency with Lou at the point as compared to Miller at the point.
(The third row we'll talk about after the table)
The third row shows Lou's stats when he's running the point with two scoring starters on the floor with him (Brand, Thad or Iguodala). For me, this is the biggest problem with Lou's game so far this season. When he's in there as the point, with viable options surrounding him, he isn't getting the job done. Every metric used above shows this. The disparity in possessions is a result of turnovers, for the most part. Lou isn't taking care of the ball, and he isn't moving the ball around. I included those stats to try to minimize the impact of garbage minutes on Lou's overall stats. When he's out there with the entire second string, he's in a more-comfortable position for a "scorer off the bench," and the offense actually works better when he's taking the bulk of the shots. The problem is, he's the nominal backup point on this team, and when he's out there with the starters he's doing a good job of running the team into the ground. Keep in mind, we're only 10 games into the season. I expect Miller to round into shape shortly, Lou, however, is a wild card at this point. If he continues to gun off the bench, he's going to wind up killing this team, especially when he's in there with Brand, Iguodala and/or Thad. Some of this has to fall on the coaching staff. It's OK to tell Lou that he's their scorer off the bench in certain circumstances, but they also have to let him know when he has to settle down and run the point. We'll revisit these stats later in the season, let's hope the gap doesn't grow wider. 
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Watching Lou play and hearing the words "instant offense" in reference to any Sixer is painful right now for me.
I'm pissed, I kept track of the # of passes on every possession w/ Lou at the point in the first half from the last game, but my daughter fed the notebook to my dog this morning. It was pitiful, something like 6/11 possession w/ zero passes.
Very poignant post, Brian. I think Mo has finally got a whiff of this resulting in the reduced minutes in the Toronto and Indiana games last week. I'm not including the OKC game b/c the starters sat out most of the fourth quarter so his minutes were probably up in that game. As you said, I would like to see the good Lou from the last 2 1/2 months of last year.
Lou Williams is not a point guard.
Lou Williams doesn't have the court vision of a point guard.
Lou Williams is a shooting guard in the mode of Allen Iverson (obviously not as good) - he's too short...
I'd still rather have him, long term, on the court than willie green
but he's not a point guard...and the sixers have fracked themselves royally - because miller seems done awfully quickly
I wouldn't count Miller out yet, he always starts slow.
I see Lou Williams as sort of like a Dave Meggett type player. Good in short spurts...but that may all he will ever be. I think (hope)Mo will help him with his decision making...maybe it wil improve in time.
It improved greatly toward the end of last season, he's just regressed somehow since then. I wish they'd stop telling him he's a scorer. He can do that anytime he wants, they should be telling him to concentrate on distributing.
Oh, no, I can't Miller out, I thought he should have been traded 2 years ago - but we had stupid GM then who thought 500 was an achievement. The lack of a second point guard option of any quality on this team is a failure of Stefanskis...Miller is NBA old (yes, NBA old folks, it's different than real old) and shoots too damn much...maybe the THunder game was the start of a trend or maybe the thunder are just one of the worst gorram teams in the league?
The sixers will most likely need a point guard sooner than later - how are they going to get one?
If they need to get a point, which is debatable, the only options they're going to have for the next couple of years are a trade (dalembert possibly, but doubtful, or young guys), the draft, which they probably won't have a high enough pick to get an impact point, or the mid-level. Beno Udrih was signed for the mid-level this season, so that's probably the type of talent you're going to get.
Trading Miller for a younger point could also be an option before this season is over, but I highly doubt that'll happen.
There are creative options out there, if you can find a taker for sams contract and are willing to take back a useless player but bad deal...I already think Speights is better than Sam (it's not really hard to be better than sam)...and the sooner he's starting the better (and we all know what happens when sam gets benched). Memphis has a glut of point guards and a dead contract that is about the same length of Sams...might be something to do there.
I've actually looked around (storyteller, very good site) and there are very few bad contracts out there that expire before sams...if itwas only one year shorter, maybe he'd have more value because of the magic 2010 free agency year.
No one is going to be 'suckered' in a deal for sam, he's been in the league long enough that even the most dense GMs know what he is and isn't.
The time to trade andre miller was before the 2007 draft, before the 2007/08 season...or at least this past off season, when he was at the peak of his career (it seems).
Hollinger might have been off by a year, but Millers start really isn't encouraging....
Plus, as others pointed out in other places, take a look at the clippers the year(s) miller/brand played together, it's not pretty.
The sixers need a PG cause Miller has nowhere to go but down and they have no other options.
I don't know. There's a lot of blame to go around for the 5-5 start, and I do think Miller was shooting way too much for a couple of games there, but his numbers aren't that bad.
Since we're talking about Hollinger, so far Miller's PER is 18.3 (it was 18.4 last year). His shooting % is down to 43%, which is too low, but his assist/turnover ratio is 4 to 1. He's looked much more lively on defense over the past week as well.
I don't think he's done, and I definitely don't think trading him for one of Memphis' young PGs is a good idea. This team is built to compete now, you can't gamble on an unproven guy at the point.
This also brings us to the question, what about next year? Do they sign Miller for another 3 years? I don't think Lou is ready, he may never be. If Miller hasn't slipped yet, you can't expect him to be effective for another 3 years, can you?
Tough questions, but as far as Stefanski was concerned, he inherited a roster with more than one glaring weakness. He took care of the biggest one in a big way this summer, now he has to work with what he's got to fill the others. PG was not one of those weaknesses, so you can't blame him for not fixing something that wasn't broken. I contend that it still isn't.
I think the Sixers are fine on all fronts as of now except Lou.(and Willie)
Miller seems fine, just sluggish and lazy. That won't last too much longer IMO. He may decline quickly. I don't think he is going to go from top 10 PG to a guy who holds back a starting line up in just 7 months, but that is just me.
Lou's approach is horrible. If it doesn't change, he is going to consistently cost this team wins. And when Willie falls back to reality, it will be easy to see.