Shannon Brown: Dribbling the Night Away

[jonathanlambert33]

Monday night, during a Suns game, a random tweet caught my eye. "Shannon Brown leads the NBA in dribbles per touch."

I wish I'd used the "favourite" button, but I didn't. I'm not sure whether this is a legitimate stat, or something conjured up by a frustrated mind as it watched his abomination of a basketball handle. Whatever it was, I'm pretty sure it's not that far away from the truth. Make no mistake, Shannon Brown made some strides since being Kobe's annoying backup. He learned some of the team game, he learned how to shoot better, and sometimes, just sometimes, he has that moment of brilliance where he slices the defence baseline and uses his trampoline-like legs to get a reverse layup.

But those are fleeting moments. The moments might come more often from Brown than the great moments from Jared Dudley or Wesley Matthews. The problem is, much like teammate Michael Beasley, Shannon Brown has a frustrating tendency to trade five disgustingly horrible moments for a single brilliant one. And nothing is more annoying than the ball going up and down in a fated isolation as time slowly trickles down, a staple of Shannon Brown's game, followed by a horrible pull-up jump shot.

My question: why does it happen? Even the folks at the weekly pickup game I wrote about last week have more awareness than that, and there's no shot-clock to respect, nothing to stop them from doing them but the purity of the game. They seem to embrace it. In a way, it's impressive that Brown -- despite all the pro experience, despite his two championship rings -- still manages to dribble the shot-clock out like that. It's impressive that his teammates and coaches still trust him enough to give him the ball. But the most magical fact of all is watching what exactly Shannon Brown does with that ball. Puts it between his legs, plays around with it, throws it behind his back, dazzles with it -- ... and ends up going absolutely nowhere. He rarely gets layups. If anything, he'll hit a lucky pull-up jumper that he'll follow with a brick or five.

But if he gets an opportunity somewhere other than isolation -- if he goes into the pick and roll, the pick and pop, charges the rim -- he can be a very dangerous, efficient player. He can finish at the rim, and sometimes he can make a brilliant pass. By that, I don't mean simple flashy passes. Steve Nash-style passes, straight out of nowhere. That's where he belongs, this is how he should be used, but he's not. Perhaps the coaches don't notice it. Perhaps they just want an ISO threat.

Or maybe Brown is simply content with dribbling the night away, bounce after bounce after bounce.

I wish dribbles per touch was an actual stat. Dribbling without a purpose.