How can UofL get more from Samuell Williamson?
Louisville could really use Williamson to take a leap forward offensively. What is holding him back?
The legendary college basketball coach Al McGuire once said “the best thing about freshmen is that they become sophomores”. Coming into this season, Louisville fans had to be cautiously optimistic that sophomores David Johnson and Samuell Williamson would step up to become major cogs for the team. While Johnson has made a leap and is projected as a first round NBA draft pick, Williamson has been inconsistent. How can Louisville get more from him? I look at what is happening and offer up an idea in this edition of Hoops Insight.
Williamson is largely meeting my expectations
Before the season, I wrote an article trying to project what Johnson and Williamson might do this season based on the progression of similar players under Mack at Xavier. For Williamson, my conclusion was as follows:
So far this season, Williamson has met or fallen short of my expectations. His 2 point shooting has improved from 51% to 56% as he’s improved his finishing at the rim and accuracy from midrange, while his 3 point shooting has actually fallen from 33% to 29%. His turnover rate is almost identical to last season, and his usage has increased only a bit from 18% to 20%. I expected his assist rate to improve and his fouling to decline, but both are virtually identical to last season.
Carlik Jones and David Johnson have become the fulcrum of the offense, with Williamson being lost a bit in the shuffle. Jones and Johnson have been much more consistent than Williamson, frankly, as seen in the individual player offensive ratings for each game that Ken Pomeroy has on his site. Offensive rating is a complicated formula developed by Dean Oliver to express a player’s offensive impact.
Carlik Jones has posted an offensive rating of 99 or better in every game this season, and is at 110 for the season
David Johnson has posted an offensive rating of 105 or better in 7 of 12 games, and 76 or worse in 3 games, and is at 102 for the season
Samuell Williamson has posted an offensive rating of 105 or better in 5 of 10 games, and 68 or worse in 4 of 10, and is at 96 for the season
Carlik Jones’ worst game this year on offense was more effective that Williamson has been on average. All three players have been able to post games with offensive ratings of 120 or more, but Williamson has had many more poor games than the other two. So, what’s the cause?
Williamson is the walking definition of streaky
The offensive ratings themselves tell a story of a streaky player, but it goes even deeper than that. I like to track what a player does on offense after making or missing shots to see if there are changes in behavior or effectiveness.
Whether Williamson makes or misses shots doesn’t have much impact on how likely he is to shoot within the next 5 possessions:
What does happen, however, is that Williamson is much more likely to hit his shots after he’s made one.
This is the classic idea of the “hot hand” that has been debated among statisticians and analysts for years…does making a shot increase your chance of making the next one? There’s very little evidence that this happens on a widespread level, but it seems feasible that certain players do have this tendency…and Samuell Williamson is one of those. Combining the two charts above, we can see that Williamson is much more likely to score after he’s made a shot, and is therefore likely to score in streaks.
This can be seen with a simple examination of his scoring per game. Williamson has 5 games where he’s scored 12 or more points, and 5 with 7 or fewer. In every game where he scored 12 points or more, he hit at least 44% of his shots; he did so in only 1 of the games where he scored fewer point (Seton Hall). Williamson needs to be hitting shots from the field because he does not draw free throws at a high rate; he only has 2 games with >2 FTAs and only 1 with >2 FTM. Contrast this with Carlik Jones who has had multiple games scoring well despite poor accuracy from the field (15 pts on 3-13 FGAs, 18 pts on 6-17).
Neither Carlik Jones nor David Johnson shows a similar pattern, as they actually score a bit more often after they have missed shots, indicating a willingness to keep firing and the ability to regain scoring form.
So, Samuell Williamson needs to hit shots in order to get going. What can Louisville do to help?
One idea would be to put him in offensive situations early in the game where he’s more likely to score, in order to get his confidence up. What types of situations are those?
Per Synergy, Williamson is most likely to score in the following actions:
Transition (67%)
Offensive rebounds (67%)
Cuts (53%)
It’s a bit difficult to create good transition actions or offensive rebounds, but Louisville could “script” early offense to feature cuts by Williamson off of penetration by Johnson or Jones. These early baskets could get him going.
On the flip side, Louisville should probably avoid using Williamson in spot-up situations from three early in the game. Williamson only scores on 28% of these, per Synergy. While three pointers are worth an extra point (trust me, I did the math), they go in less often, and the mental burden of seeing these shots miss may be hurting Williamson’s offensive focus. I think it’s worth trying to get him going on other types of action early in the game.
In the 5 games where Williamson has scored 12 or more points, he is doing very well in the opening 10 minutes of the game:
17 points per 40 minutes on 80% eFG% (63% from two, 100% from three)
20% of his shots as threes
In the other 5 games he’s played, Williamson has struggled in the opening 10 minutes as he’s been used more as an outside shooter
5 pts per 40 minutes on 30% eFG% (50% from two, 0% from three)
40% of his shots as threes
It seems like the more Williamson is used as an outside shooter, the worse his offensive game gets. If Louisville can tweak his role on offense, they may be able to avoid the poor starts that have plagued them and develop a strong 3rd scorer.