Breaking down the Wolves individually at the (sorta) halfway point

When I posted about the Wolves' individual numbers at the 20-game mark, I simply looked at the % of playing time and the PER and DPER of the players.  This time, I decided to look closer at the individual breakdowns leading to the PER and DPER for each player at each position.  The numbers I am using are a couple of weeks old and don't include any recent games; I saved the info from 82games.com a couple of weeks ago a little after the halfway mark of the season, but haven't had time to study them and write anything up until now.  Again, my standard caveat of this being just an analysis of the numbers still applies; I'll let you guys determine how the numbers coincide to what you see on the court.

One thing to note (that for some reason I didn't notice until recently), is that the individual PER info on 82games is per 48 minutes, and this makes the numbers look a little bigger than the per 36 minute numbers on basketball-reference.  

Starting from the PG position and working our way down:

Flynn's PER comes in around average, which is pretty good for a rookie PG.  His DPER is higher than we might like, but take into account that a) he is a rookie, and b) a large portion of that DPER stems from the ridiculously high assists his opponents get.  I'm sure part of that assist total is due to Jonny's defense, but I imagine an awful lot of it comes from the lack of defense from his teammates allowing a high number of open looks and easy buckets (the Wolves are 27th in opp FG% and 28th in opp eFG).

I'm at a bit of a loss to explain Sessions' numbers.  He's really not seeing significantly less playing time at the point over last year (41%), but his shots, FT's and assists are all way down resulting in a much lower PER at the point (20.6 last year).  His PG DPER is also a little worse, mostly due to a much higher opp eFG.  The Wolves have wisely limited his numbers at SG; his numbers there have always been worse than his PG numbers.

Assuming Ellington has been playing primarily against reserves, his PER is poor even for a rookie SG.  He needs to seriously increase that eFG to make up for the fact that he is bringing nothing else to the table.

I know this has been discussed previously including the post I did after 20 games, but Corey's overwhelming problem is that defensive eFG.  I think the problem is a combo of the things that have been theorized beforehand: the eFG is so high that there is obviously some fundamental problem (or problems) that Corey is having on defense this year; but since his opponent's eFG's in past seasons have not been nearly this bad, something else such as poor teammate play or the coaching scheme is having some sort of effect his defense.

That PER at SG is not a misprint.  It's kinda interesting to see how skewed his numbers are, especially looking at PF and FTA stats.  And that's one hellacious eFG he sports while at SG.

Both of Wilkins' PER numbers are a little higher than I thought they might be.  If you don't look at the Pts or FG stats his lines look pretty respectable, but you could say that about a number of Wolves.

Both last season and so far this season Gomes has been better overall as an inside player than on the wing.  I originally thought this might be linked to his 3-pt shooting, but he's got a fairly good percentage beyond the arc, so unless he's actually taking more quality 3's at PF I'm not sure why he's so much better offensively there.  I'd be interested to know what differences you guys see on the court between the two positions for him.

The only stat you need to know: he's barely out-rebounding Jonny Flynn.  On the other hand, his assists aren't too far behind Jonny's, so if Sessions gets traded we don't need to look far for a backup PG.

Stop-n-Pop has already put out a lot of info on Love's numbers this year, so I'll just add that I'm very impressed with his PF & FTA disparities in just his second season.  Imagine how good he might be in a couple of years.

Jefferson's numbers at center have improved significantly both offensively and defensively since the 20-game mark; I'm not sure how much of it is due to his improving health and stamina and how much is due to Love returning.  Compare his stats at center versus Love's stats; the only real difference is Love's crazy rebounding numbers.  Now imagine Love's numbers if he took an extra 5-7 shots per 48 minutes.

Judging by Hollins' PF and FTA stats at power forward, I'm thinking he might be a little overmatched at that position.  He's been shooting well, so his PER at center would look better if he took more shots, but he's still be undermined by his lousy rebounding.

I kind of like Jawai, but I think he needs minutes at PF to have any chance of being a contributor, and that's not happening on this team.

Pecherov can contribute a little on the offensive half of the floor, but considering the reserves he's playing against he's got to be one of the worst defensive players in the league.  What frightens you more:  Pavlovic with the ball or Pecherov trying to defend?

One last thing I noticed that I would like to point out:  Flynn's defensive eFG is considerably better than the other three guards on the team.  For those of you who watch the games on a regular basis, is this truly indicative of his defense, or is there a lot of switching going on where the opposing PG ends up being shut down more by a bigger player and Jonny's numbers look the better for it?  If it's the former, then Flynn has a bright future ahead of him as his defense is better than anticipated.  If it's the latter, however, then that might explain some of the other Wolves' poor eFG numbers, especially perhaps Brewer's.  I'd love to hear any observations that might explain this.