juwan howard has been around the block

If you missed my previous post on the shift in defensive philosophy happening at both the NBA and NCAA level, you're going to want to take a look at that before proceeding since it provides the necessary context. A brief refresher:

• While recent conventional wisdom had been to suppress three-point attempts on defense, more NBA teams are packing the paint instead and forcing teams to try to beat them with jumpers.
• Both approaches can be successful but the very best defenses are mostly packing the paint.
• Those same trends held at the college level last year.

The Milwaukee Bucks under Mike Budenholzer have been at the forefront of the movement towards packing the paint the last couple years. Their approach and its success are discussed at length in the previous post and examined even deeper in a couple articles linked therein. If you prefer visual learning, there are a couple videos that clock in under ten minutes each with a great film room explainer—here's the link to part one, which mostly covers drop pick-and-roll coverage, and part two is below:

Now I want to dive into whether Michigan could be in line to change their defensive approach and whether it makes sense to do so. We start in the logical place: Miami.

What Have The Heat Done?

Howard's old team hints at a future shift in philosophy [Bryan Fuller]

Funny you should ask.

For much of Juwan Howard's time as an assistant with the Heat, Miami's defensive approach looked like Michigan's current strategy: suppress three-point attempts as much as possible. In 2016-17, they gave up the lowest opponent three-point rate in the NBA with only 27% of opponent field goal attempts coming from beyond the arc. They consistently posted top-ten defenses.

In Howard's final year as an assistant, however, Miami completely changed their approach despite returning most of the key players from the previous season's eighth-ranked defense. With threes now comprising nearly 40% of opponent attempts, the Heat moved up one spot in the NBA's defense rankings.

While the Heat defense fell out of the top ten this season while going even more extreme in their new pack-the-paint ways, injuries and personnel changes explain the dropoff. Stalwart wing defender Josh Richardson left for Philadelphia, and while adding Jimmy Butler helped cover for Richardson's absence, an injury to Justice Winslow meant 30 minutes per game of Duncan Robinson—a boon to the offense but not the defense. Meanwhile, they didn't adequately replace backup center Hassan Whiteside, who'd previously formed an excellent platoon with Bam Adebayo.

Given the seamless switchover in 2018-19 and the extenuating circumstances this season, I'd say Miami's shift to Milwaukee's general approach has been a success. Howard was on the bench for its implementation. That feels worth noting.

[Hit THE JUMP to see how Michigan already implemented a similar strategy last year and how it might fit with their personnel going forward.]

Let's dive back in to more of your questions, starting with what makes for a successful coach.

Hi Ace,

Curious on your thoughts on what the most important aspects to being a great college coach are (e.g. 40% recruiting/roster management, 30% team management, 20% PR/face of program, 10% scheme/Xs-and-Os, etc), and how you'd grade Howard's first season along those lines, as well as a prognosis going forward.

Best,
Mike

I'll preface with this: there's a lot more than one way to be a highly successful college coach. Recruiting at a high level can cover for shortcomings as a strategist. A strong player development program can make up for recruiting lesser talent than your peers. John Beilein and Larry Brown have (officially) made the same number of Final Fours. Same goes for Bill Self and Jay Wright. These coaches aren't similar in on- or off-court approach but they've fit at their respective schools, which is arguably the most important factor.

If I had to break it down into categories, they'd be: fit with school/administration, recruiting/image, roster management, player development, scheme, and game management. While an elite college coach doesn't have to be great at every one of these factors, they usually check off most of the boxes.

It's early yet to be able to judge Juwan Howard on some of these. A quick stab at grades:

Fit with school/administration: A. I'm assuming the readers of this post are familiar with Juwan Howard, former All-American at Michigan, basketball lifer, and universally regarded good dude. It's hard to overstate how fortunate the program was that such a tight fit was available despite the late timing of John Beilein's departure.

Recruiting/image: A. Howard is the face of the program, his first recruiting class ranks fourth in the country, and he could still add a second five-star to that group. This moves up to an A+ if Josh Christopher commits—it'd be difficult to imagine a better start after Howard had to hit the ground running with a 2020 class that needed more commits than usual.

Roster management: Incomplete. We'll learn more about Howard's ability to juggle a roster this offseason. He appears prepared for unexpected attrition with Michigan's pursuit of multiple grad transfer point guards even though the team is full for the moment after scratching Austin Davis and Adrien Nunez off the potential attrition list.

Beilein learned the hard way that great programs lose players at a steady rate to both the NBA and programs where even established rotation players can find more playing time; it took him a while to adjust and he still got caught off-guard by last year's early entry decisions by Jordan Poole and Iggy Brazdeikis. Howard seems to know how the game is played and his experience as both a former elite player and the father of high-level prospects should serve him well.

Player development: Incomplete. The unexpected breakout of Austin Davis indicates Howard at least should be good at getting the most out of his big men. That said, it's way too early to put a grade on his player development. This is something to revisit a year or three down the road.

Scheme: B+. I really like the framework. Howard didn't stand pat with John Beilein's offense despite having his pick-and-roll duo as seniors, instead building around the ball screen offense with plenty of NBA sets and added wrinkles. The defensive philosophy was also clear: play man defense with the occasional zone changeup (almost always after a timeout), use drop pick-and-roll coverage when possible, run shooters off the arc, and force players to beat you one-on-one.

I need to see more to move the grade any higher, especially since he could build so much off the Simpson/Teske pick-and-roll—we'll get a clearer view of how Howard wants to operate as he molds the roster to his preference instead of working with another coach's players.

Game management: B-. The area I most want to see improvement. Howard made some strange lineup decisions during the season that were usually borne of his strong adherence to the hated autobench policy. His best schematic adjustments often came either between games against the same opponent (see: hedging Cassius Winston and leaving Xavier Tillman to shoot in the second MSU game) or too late in the game to alter the outcome (see: playing Brandon Johns at center against Wisconsin).

I wouldn't say Howard was bad at game management by any stretch. He had to work within some serious limitations when Franz Wagner and Isaiah Livers were absent for significant stretches of time. He utilized timeouts well on both ends, drawing up effective plays and using that zone changeup to flummox offenses running a set to beat man. I would've loved to see him in a postseason tournament setting this year. Alas.

[Hit THE JUMP for what I'm missing most about the tournament, what next year's offense could look like, and more.]

It's about time to catch up on all those mailbag questions I asked for last week.

#mgomailbag Who has surprised you most this season?

— Matthew Duprey (@PharmDuprey) December 16, 2019

There have been enough pleasant surprises this season already that I had to double-check my preseason predictions. It's time to toot my own horn: I predicted that Zavier Simpson would add a couple more aspects to his scoring repertoire and was bullish on both Eli Brooks and David DeJulius. I didn't commit as much to calling a Brandon Johns breakout and also implied that he might play more as a small forward in enormous lineups than making any more appearances at center after last year's failed experiment there.

In that context, I'll take Johns, whose emergence as a reliable rotation player at power forward would've been enough for consideration. Playing well at center against tough competition, meanwhile, is not something I saw coming. (We have a "brandon johns is not a center" site tag.) That's been especially important in conjunction with Colin Castleton getting physically overwhelmed at times; he still looks a year away from being a plus option as a backup center against top teams, while Johns hasn't looked out of place banging bodies and blocking shots against athletes from Oregon, Louisville, and UNC.

If we expanded this answer beyond players, I'd probably go with Juwan Howard. More on that later.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the mailbag.]