After the 2006/2007 season, I sat down with the Basketball-Reference player season finder to look for players that had similar rookie seasons to Tyrus Thomas in order to understand how he might develop.  Only one other player of any age had such an extreme rookie season in terms of both good things like blocks, steals, rebounds, freethrow attempts, and bad things like turnovers and personnel fouls with at least 800 minutes played.  That other player was Shawn Kemp.  Kemp was also the most similar player to Tyrus according to John Hollinger's similarity score system, he'd have to be given how rare their combination of statistics and attributes were.  That they both entered the league as raw super athletic 20 year old PFs made the comparison only more intriguing.  I discussed this similarity a year ago in a review of Tyrus's rookie season, and thought it was time to reflect on Tyrus's season and check back in with the Kemp comparison.   I had hoped to see Tyrus get something close to the 30 minutes per game and 66 starts that Kemp received in his 2nd season.  Seattle made the decision to trade Xavier McDaniel 15 games into Kemp's 2nd season to open up playing time for him.  The Bulls management failed to make a similar decision.  I was against the Joe Smith signing simply because it was an easy excuse for Skiles to not play Tyrus, and unfortunately my fears were realized and and Tyrus only received 27 starts and played 1100 fewer minutes than Kemp did in his 2nd season.

Kemp and Thomas

I still think Thomas is capable of having a similar impact to Kemp.   They're similar players, not exact copies of each other.  And it's probably important to highlight the differences now,  especially for the sake of Tyrus doubters.  As this biography piece with some great links details, Shawn Kemp was a McDonald's All-American and was recruited by the power house schools including home state Indiana.  Kemp had his big growth spurt during his 1st three years of HS and was done growing after his junior year, and played the post in HS.  Kemp accepted a scholarship to Kentucky, but failed to score high enough on his SATs to play as a freshman.  At Kentucky he was put on probation for pawning necklaces belong to Sean Sutton a teammate and coach Eddie Sutton's son.  According to Kemp he pawned them as a favor for a fellow teammate, but refused to finger that player since he was leaving school anyway.  After transferring to a community college, Kemp declared for the NBA without playing any college ball.   The story was different for Tyrus according to Draft Express.

In high school, Thomas was only 5-11 as a freshman. He only played organized basketball in his junior and senior years and never really built up enough recruiting hype to be considered a top 100 prospect. As a junior he was a mere 6-6 and 190 pounds, and when he officially committed to LSU they did not initially even have a scholarship for him. One later opened up when a JUCO recruit was kicked off his team and his scholarship offer was rescinded. Thomas grew to 6-7 ½, 200 pounds as a high school senior, and averaged 16 points, 12 rebounds and six blocks per game, good enough only for the all-second team in Louisiana. He was forced to redshirt his freshman year at LSU after injuring his neck, and grew to 6-9, 215 pounds over that year.

Tyrus was clearly more of a late bloomer than Kemp.   Kemp was 6'8.75" barefoot when he was drafted and Tyrus was 6'7.25", although it seems likely that Tyrus has made up some of that gap. 

But, I obviously don't expect Tyrus to become a 256 lb. PF/C like Kemp.  I don't expect Tyrus to ever play with the power that Kemp did.  Statistically, I don't expect Tyrus to score as much as Kemp did or as efficiently.  Tyrus won't be the offensive rebounding force that Kemp was.  I do believe that Tyrus has a chance to make up for some of that the offensive gap on the defensive end.  Tyrus has more natural defensive instincts, superior timing as a shot blocker, and a better feel for playing the passing lanes.  He's also a better passer offensively.  I believe in the end Tyrus has a chance to have a similar overall impact to Kemp, but the bigger point that I'm making is that Tyrus will likely continue to develop similarly to Kemp.  Kemp provides an entry point for discussing Tyrus present and future.

I was drawn to this comparison because of statistics.  But, it became clear after doing research that the similarities extend beyond the statistics and their games to their personalities both on and off the court.  On the court there is the emotional demonstrative style of play.  Sam Smith has often compared Tyrus to Kemp.  And a lot of what Sam wrote and said about Tyrus shows up in Kemp as well.  Players that didn't trust easily, that didn't interact well with the media, and that seemed to have a sense of entitlement to go with some clear immaturity, but also someone that teammates would defend.  A player that interacts incredibly well with children.

Starting with his Seattle Sonics tenure in 1989, Shawn dressed like Santa and gave out food and toys to children of the poor. Crowds of adoring kids came out to see Santa Kemp; he returned their affection with a priceless gift. Shawn took these kids seriously; he helped them, he joked with them, he even played ball with them.

As I read quotes from a young Kemp, it struck me how easily I could envision Tyrus saying similar things.  And the descriptions of behavior fit as well.  There's clearly a similarity in personality as well as ability.

Comparing Their Games

There are some similarities in there games as well.  Probably the biggest similarity is that they both want to grab the rebound and dribble up the court themselves and make something happen with the ball.  When I put in game tape of the 96' finals to refresh my memories of Kemp for this post, I was surprised how many times Kemp would grab the rebound and push the ball himself.  And just like Tyrus, he would always want to dribble at least once before passing the ball to a guard after a rebound.  Any of the Kemp highlight clips will show him taking the ball coast to coast.  Both have been effective doing it even though it drives coaches and Johnny Red crazy because it always has the potential to end ugly.   They share a fondness for spin moves.  Kemp also had a Tyrus like tendency to not run the floor hard and would be the last one up the court on offense.  Kemp like Tyrus so far always struggled with mistakes, especially turnovers and fouls.  The fouls prevented him from ever playing 34+ minutes per game in his prime.  Kemp didn't need a lot of moves to be effective.  He didn't do much with his left hand inside.  He pretty much would turn over his left shoulder and jump over his defender in the post and shoot with his right hand or dunk it if he could.  And he would face up around the FT line and either take the open jumper, pull up of the dribble for a very short jumper, or get all the way to the basket or to the FT line.  Tyrus has shown potential with his jumpshot and right handed jump hook.  He has the ability to master those simple things enough to eventually average an efficient 15-17 points per game.  He could average 15 points on just his current shot attempts if he had a 50% FG and played 35 min/g.

The Statistical Comparison

If you look at their rookie seasons, you can see the unique similarities and the key differences statistically.  The same defensive rebound rate and the same extremely high foul rate.  Both had high rates of steal and blocks with Tyrus out performing Kemp in those areas.  And then Kemp slightly out performing Tyrus all offensive areas, in TS%, in offensive rebound rate, and in turnover rate with a slightly higher usage rate.  Given there similarities, I thought it was likely that Tyrus would improve in the same ways that Kemp did in his 2nd season.  When I began to do my research, I expected that Tyrus's lack of playing time and poor FG% had killed the comparison between the players.  However when I looked at their 2nd seasons, I found that their rate statistics changed from year one to year two similarly in nearly every category.

Look at the similar changes across the board.  Their ORB% rates both declined by about 2%.  Their DRB% both stayed about the same.  Their AST% both went up about 5%.  Their STL% and BLK% both declined.  Their TO% rates declined with a huge decline for Tyrus, which is probably an indication that Tyrus was too passive offensively last season.  And their USG% stayed about the same with both producing six more points per 100 possessions than they did the year before even with Tyrus's decline in FG%.  And finally their PF/36 min decreased significantly.  That's similar changes in nearly every category, except for FG%.  So the similarity between the two players held together pretty well.  Now that Kemp's 1st NBA coach, Bernie Bickerstaff, has joined the Bulls coaching staff, I'd be interested in his thoughts on this comparison.

Now let's address the elephant in the room, Tyrus's FG% last season.  Tyrus FG% decline wasn't quite the disaster that it looks like.  Almost all of Tyrus's decline in FG% is due to decreased dunk opportunities.  He had 82 dunks as a rookie and only 58 last season, while playing more than an additional 350 minutes.  Dunks made up 29% of his FGA as a rookie, but only 14% of his FGA last season.  A decline in dunk% should have been expected, but not one of this magnitude.  For one thing the lobs to Thomas for easy dunks pretty much disappeared last season.  In a decent offense around 20% of Tyrus's FGA should be dunks.  I should also note that Kemp was playing on a team with a top ten offense.  His FG% on non-dunk inside shots didn't improve from 33%, but he took fewer assisted shots (58% to 44%).  That implies that in order for him to maintain the same FG%, he had to improve his skills some.  The average FG% on assisted close shots has been found to be 12% higher than unassisted close shots, this would be especially true in Tyrus's case.  And he did improve very specific skills.  His right handed jump hook from the right block was particularly consistent, probably because it was his one move post move in college.  He made shots around the basket that he wouldn't of made as a rookie.  But, obviously his biggest improvement was as a jump shooter.  As has been said before, he went from making 20% of his jump shots to making 35% of his jump shots.  I think the hotzones charts show this even better.  Rookie year and 2nd year.  He was particularly consistent all year from the 3 zones at the top of the key where he shot 43%, the same % as Joe Smith last season.  So his significant drop in FG% wasn't a failure to improve.  If the % of his FGA that were dunk attempts fell from 29% to just 22%, instead of 14% then Tyrus would have had a similar FG% to his rookie season, despite taking 40% more jump shots.  If the team is better offensively as expected and his FG% doesn't return to at least close to his rookie year 47.5% next season then I'll start to be be worried.

This is a big year for Thomas, especially if the team finally commits to letting him play through some mistakes and gives him a consistent 26+ min/g.  Many NBA players really improve in their 3rd year.  Despite the clear flaws in his game, Thomas has still managed to be an effective player as is.  He managed to post consecutive 14 PERs, despite his TOs as a rookie and his FG% as a 2nd year player.  He had the 2nd best adjusted and unadjusted plus minus on the team.  He had the 3rd best Roland rating last season, and was 4th as a rookie.  On offense with Tyrus on the court has been just as good as when he's off the court, and the team has been significantly better on defense in both of Tyrus's seasons with him on the court.  It may not be pretty, but he gets the job done right now as is.   Consider what he can do offensively as his shot improves, he develops consistency with his post moves,  and he's actually put in positions to succeed offensively. 

If we stay with Kemp as a developmental model then there are few things to look for.  Some of the key trends in Kemp's development were rises in ORB%, STL%, and BLK% from the 2nd to the 3rd year.  A slight increase in USG% and a big jump in DRB%, which is probably an indicator of gaining strength and bulk.  With TO% and the fouling rate holding steady.  Kemp also broke the 20 PER barrier.  Given the limited minutes he played last season I'm not incredibly confident that we'll see the same improvements in Tyrus's statistics next season and at this point I'll believe Tyrus is going to get consistent minutes when I finally see it, but I wouldn't be surprised to see significant improvement.  And if it happens it's likely to be in the same areas as Kemp, along with at least a restoration of Tyrus's FG%.

Josh Smith Enters the Picture

After Tyrus's 2nd season it's worth talking about a 2nd comparison.  Tyrus often gets compared to Josh Smith because of their very similar size and athletic ability.  That comparison didn't make much sense based on Tyrus's rookie season.  Tyrus was a much better rebounder, and had a much higher rate of steals, turnovers, and fouls.  After Tyrus's 2nd season, Smith at least enters the picture.  Here's Josh Smith's statistics.

The obvious similarities are steal and block rates matched by very few players and a poor FG% for a player getting half his shots in the paint.  Smith looked more similar to Tyrus once I took into account that Smith didn't play significant minutes at PF until his 3rd year when he was 21.  That changes how Smith's statistics for his first two seasons should be looked at in comparison to Tyrus's.  If Smith was playing PF from the start it's possible his defensive rebound rate would have been around 20% like Tyrus.  His STL% also would likely have been at least closer to 2% from the start.  The key differences are a steady turnover rate for Smith and a lack of foul trouble that separates Tyrus and Kemp from Smith along with better offensive rebounding.

Tyrus's Future

I have come to see Tyrus's likely future as something between Smith and Kemp offensively.  He's not going to be the perimeter player Smith is offensively or the post player that Kemp was.  This is another example where I'm glad Tyrus is a player that didn't come into the league shooting jump shots.  That would have led him down the Josh Smith path of launching 3s at a 25% clip.  Tyrus's passing role should be closer to Smith's AST% somewhere between 14-18%.  He really is good at making the post entry pass and finding players for easy baskets.  He's a better offensive rebounder than Smith, but he'll never approach Kemp.  Defensively he's closer to Smith as a shot blocker, but more like Kemp in terms of being able to defend his man in the post and stopping penetration in help defense, which is part of the reason for the higher foul rate for Thomas and Kemp.  I think most people would be satisfied if Tyrus turned out to be something between Josh Smith and Shawn Kemp.  Obviously the closer he gets to Kemp in terms of impact the better, and this next season should be telling.  Smith has barely improved as a player over four seasons.  He still only shot 29% on 2P jump shots last season.  His TO%  and his shot selection haven't improved either.  Next season we should have a better idea of which path Thomas is following, but for right now it looks more like Kemp's.

Vinny has talked about putting players in a position to succeed.  For Tyrus that means being kept close to the basket on defensive the majority of the time.  Despite all the defensive mistakes, the defense has been objectively better with Tyrus on the floor.  4.0 and 3.7 points per 100 possessions better with him on the floor in his two seasons.  On offense he needs to be involved in the play, either by playing in the pick and roll with Rose or with the ball in his hands creating on his own.  Tyrus is never going to be great off the ball on offense. That means taking the risk of letting him create on offense.  Getting him the ball on the right block or isolated at the left elbow when he has a mismatch.  It means giving him the freedom to pull down a rebound and push the ball up the floor himself occasionally.  And if the other players actually run the floor with him then more good than bad will happen.   Eventually running some pick and rolls with Tyrus handling the ball with Deng as the screener.  I watched Seattle runnng pick and rolls with Kemp handling and Schrempf as the screener in the 96' Finals.  And if you've watched summer league last summer, you should have seen some of this from Tyrus in his three games.  There's actually no other player on the roster that I'd rather isolate inside of 15 feet.  I know he'll drive people crazy that are more focused on the mistakes than the good he can create with the ball.   What's the good?  1st, Tyrus gets to the FT line on a team that doesn't and he shoots a sold FT% now.  2nd, Tyrus is the kind of passer that gets other players easy baskets inside.  Over 50% of his assists were on inside shots by far the highest% on the team as well as the highest % of assists that resulted in dunks.  It's a statistic that for the most part separates the guys making the routine pass for a jump shot like Kirk Hinrich from the guys who are drawing help defenders and making plays with their passing.  Aaron Gray owes a lot of his best offensive performances to Tyrus getting him the ball. 

I'm not suggesting that giving Tyrus the ball should be an every time down the court thing, but it should be part of the mix.  With opportunities, I'm confident Tyrus will eventually improve as a finisher as he improves his skill level and more importantly understands what he can and can't do.  And knowing that he'll get the ball back if he passes out of the post would help too.  I don't expect everyone to share my optimism when it comes to Tyrus.  But, know that my optimism comes from watching him as closely as any fan and taking a very extensive look at the numbers.  If the new Bulls coaching staff actually trust and put faith in Tyrus in this way, I believe both they and the Bulls coaching staff will be rewarded.

(EDIT: I thought it might be helpful to post Hollnger's projections for Tyrus's 07/08 season to give you a better of the degree to which Tyrus was expected to improve)