Upchurch
Previously: Zak Irvin, Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, Duncan Robinson, Mark Donnal, The Departed
As Michigan moves into the fourth year of the Derrick Walton / Zak Irvin partnership, we have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the two. They were both high-priority and well-regarded recruits (Irvin was slightly higher in the rankings) and were key rotation pieces as freshmen – Walton started and played more, Irvin was a deadly shooter off the bench – on an elite team. Derrick’s sophomore season was ruined by injury, and Zak eventually recovered from early-season struggles to show signs of a developing all-around game as he became the focal point for Michigan’s offense. Irvin was the injured one during the beginning of his junior year (and it wrecked his jumper for a time) but continued to show the same pick-and-roll gravitas of other former Michigan wings, and Walton improved his offensive rating by 10 from his sophomore to junior years on the same level of usage.
After the LeVert injury, we saw what it was like with Zak and Derrick as 1A and 1B for Michigan, a role that they were always destined to have as upperclassmen at Michigan. Though each player’s development tracks took some sideways turns, they were ready enough, as their 22 games in charge went okay: 12-10, kept their heads above water enough in conference play to get a huge upset over Indiana in the Big Ten Tournament to make it into the NCAA’s by the skin of their teeth after a lackluster non-conference season. Sure, it was a largely disappointing season that was marred by the losses of Caris and Spike (and several home blowout losses), but ultimately Michigan did avoid the dishonor of the NIT.
Walton was critical in making that happen. He’s a unique player, the rare 3-and-D point guard. His two-point shooting has been very poor over the last two seasons, but he makes up for it by shooting well from the free throw line and taking half of his shot attempts from behind the arc, where he hits a very respectable 39%. Derrick’s good in the pick-and-roll, but is best when he’s kicking it to shooters, as he doesn’t have the size to get great angles for dump-offs to the big man or to finish at the rim himself.
Defensively, he’s the best on a bad team – in some games locking up offensively potent guards, in some getting blown by routinely by lesser players. Walton’s steal rate was the best on the team by a sizable margin. His defensive rebounding (a unique skill, the basketball thing he’s probably best at, despite his size) propped up Michigan’s defense in ways poorly understood by the box score, and his defensive impact is probably underrated in that regard.
[More after the JUMP]
Sometimes statistical outliers are best explained through data. Walton is one of those types of players, the ones who are dissimilar from most.
There’s a misconception that perimeter-oriented players on offense are adversely affected on the defensive end, especially in defensive rebounding. These were the most above-average player-seasons in terms of DR % and 3-Point % for players who took at least half of their shots from three; Walton checks in at fifth and is the only true point guard on the leaderboard. Admittedly, they’re two unrelated statistical categories, but it’s a good way of separating the more traditional big men from the outside shooters. The players surrounding Derrick on the ranking of all Big Ten players by defensive rebounding are a list of giants: Frank Kaminsky, Melsahn Basabe, Isaac Haas, Luka Mirkovic, Ralph Sampson III. That he makes an equivalent impact on the defensive glass due to his timing and leaping ability – not his height – is remarkable.
WARNING: MATH
Defining uniqueness is difficult. Walton’s statistical profile as a junior doesn’t have many close comparables in my Big Ten player database: the closest is his sophomore profile. Caris LeVert’s junior and sophomore seasons are the 2nd- and 4th-most comparable, respectively. But, in relation to the many comparison tests I’ve run, Walton’s numbers stand out as statistically distinct – guys like Mitch McGary and OG Anunoby (who has Mark Donnal as his second-most comparable player, believe it or not) are the most extreme outliers I’ve seen, but Walton’s closer than most. So, in order to determine what makes Walton such an outlier, 
I took the average of the 15 most analogous profiles* (except for Walton’s sophomore year) and compared Derrick’s junior numbers to theirs.
*Caris LeVert (x2), Trevon Hughes, Myles Mack, Shep Garner, Roy Devyn Marble, Lawrence Westbrook, Andre Hollins, Aaron Craft (lol), Traevon Jackson, Matt Gatens, Kendrick Nunn, JerShon Cobb, William Buford, Devoe Joseph.
The way that the algorithm works is that it compares the sum of z-scores ((value – average) / standard deviation) for a bunch of statistical categories. The z-score method normalizes the differences between those categories – for example, the difference between an ORtg of 104.2 and 117.0 (one standard deviation, for a z-score of 1) is the equivalent of the difference between a DR% of 13.0 and 17.4.
The chart to the right is the difference between the z-score of Walton’s stats and the average z-score of the players who were generally close to him (based on the sum of their z-score differences). I sorted by the categories Walton was better than the field in: unsurprisingly, defensive rebounding rate checks in first, but Derrick’s DR% was well over a standard deviation better than his peers’. In fact, his DR% was a half-standard deviation better than the next-closest player’s (Caris’s junior season).
Derrick was also well ahead of the pack in steal rate (recall his six-steal game against Notre Dame in the NCAA Tournament) and total rebounding rate, which takes a hit because Beilein actively has his guards ignore the offensive glass in favor of transition defense – perhaps he should consider letting Walton use his prodigious skills on that end as well, but for now, his offensive rebounding rate is actually worse than those other players’. Total rebounding is still really high on the list because of how good his defensive rebounding is. Derrick’s ratio of 3-Point attempts to 2-Point attempts, assist rate, and offensive rating are also moderately higher than average.
On the flip side of the coin, his 2-Point shooting (36%) is almost a full standard deviation below average. That’s the elephant in the room with regards to Walton – he takes few two-point attempts (83 fewer than Zak Irvin, who only played 39 more minutes) and doesn’t shoot well from two. The shot chart isn’t pretty:
By comparison, Michigan’s other guards and wings shot 63% at the rim on average. Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman and Zak Irvin, each of whom had more attempts at the rim than Walton did, shot 60% and 62% from there, respectively. Walton’s mid-range game, where he shoots just 27%, is also a liability – possessions that, I’m guessing, were once desperation began to kick in for the offense. Mid-range shots aren’t completely avoidable, but a player shooting so poorly from two shouldn’t be tasked with late-clock creation.
For the second consecutive year, Walton had an injury early on in the season – how much that affected him is anyone’s guess. In any case, at least Derrick shoots more threes than twos, which he actually hits at a better percentage (39% to 36%) and that reliance on the outside shot improved his offensive rating quite a bit. Still, having a point guard who can’t attack effectively inside the arc without passing the ball to someone else necessitates a second creator alongside Irvin – who’s far more aggressive than Walton – so Derrick can spot-up off the ball more frequently, space the floor, and create on hard closeouts. Whether MAAR continues to develop his passing vision (something that Walton has already) or Xavier Simpson is as precocious as we all hope, there are options that could enable Derrick to take on an even more three-point reliant role.
* * *
Walton seems to be a player who’d thrive best in particular sets of circumstances. When he was a freshman, he was allowed to be mostly a spot-up role player as Nik Stauskas and Caris LeVert handled primary ballhandling duties. It might not be possible for him to fit neatly into that role again as he’s taken on the leadership of being one of two four-year contributor seniors on the team, but Derrick is a player with very specific strengths – namely rebounding and passing (he did get a triple-double last year) as well as shooting from distance – and one tricky weakness, an inability to shoot well within the arc. That’s disappointing after a freshman year in which he shot twos well, but Walton’s still a very good player despite it. A year of proper appreciation of his defensive efforts beckons, and if he sees another jump in efficiency (like he did from his sophomore to junior season), he might be the best point guard in the Big Ten.