How Kelsey Plum Is Playing Fast And Free in 2022 | WNBA Film Room
Under Becky Hammon, Kelsey Plum is playing fast and free for the first time with the Las Vegas Aces.
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During the Women’s Final Four in Minneapolis, Kelsey Plum chatted with Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird on ESPN as South Carolina beatdown Louisville. After Bird called her “grimey” in a complimentary way, Plum stated her goal of being the best two-way guard in the WNBA and talked about how her Olympic 3x3 experience changed her mentality.
“It trains your brain to not care about anything,” said Plum.
To start the 2022 season, it certainly seems like Kelsey Plum is playing like she doesn’t care about anything but getting buckets. She has been unleashed in Becky Hammon’s offense and is playing more freely than she ever has in the WNBA.
Plum is putting up a career-high 18.1 points per game, which lands her in the top 10 of scorers in the league. She is hitting an absurd 47.3% of her 6.9 three point attempts per game. Both marks are in the top 10 of the WNBA. Her assists, free throw attempts, and rebounds are also at career-high levels. She has been on the path towards offensive stardom since the 2019 playoffs, but an Achilles injury in 2020 and being limited to a bench role in 2021 has delayed the process.
The most obvious explanation for why 2022 has been so fruitful is more opportunity with better players. She's playing 30+ minutes for the first time in her career. Her usage rate has ticked up to 26.1% in 2022. Her offensive possessions are also up from 14 per game in 2021 to 17.7 per game in 2022, according to Synergy Sports.
With Hammon replacing Bill Laimbeer as head coach and Liz Cambage’s exit, the Aces are finally starting a lineup with spacing and speed. Plum has played 151 minutes with Gray, Jackie Young, Dearica Hamby, and A'ja Wilson. Unsurprisingly, this group is killing teams with a 24.7 net rating. Jackie Young's offensive leap and her chemistry with Plum since their 3x3 run in Tokyo has greatly benefited the pair. Hammon has played them together in most non-starter minutes and they have the best offensive rating of any Aces duo in 2022.
Another crucial change in Plum's game is her freedom in Hammon's sped-up offense. The Aces are actually actually averaging the same number of possessions in 2022 as they did in 2021. However, they do feel faster. Plum’s speed and opportunistic attitude is a big part of it. She’s flying off not only opponents’ misses, but also their makes.
Even though she couldn’t finish the second possession, pushing the ball directly led to Vegas points on both plays. That’s how Plum’s 3x3 mentality is showing up this year. She is making decisions faster than ever and at full speed, whether in the half court or in transition. She’s just firing from anywhere with even the slightest amount of space. With the defense just getting settled here, Plum sends Sophie Cunningham (a pretty good perimeter defender) into a moment of panic with a hesitation dribble. Cunningham recovers quickly, but it’s too late.
In addition to her quick decision-making, Plum has mastered the art of “toggling” between on-ball and off-ball duties (to steal a term from Mark Schindler’s WNBA power rankings). In college, Plum was one of the greatest on-ball creators in NCAA history. In her first four season in Vegas, she learned how to produce as an off-ball threat and secondary ball handler. Now, she has seemingly found the right balance between the two roles and is putting that all together with possessions like these.
This action, which is a variation of the famous elevator doors screens, takes full advantage of Plum’s skills. On the first one, the Mercury concern themselves with the ball screen, fall under the screens, and Plum pops out for an easy three. On the second, Shey Peddy tries to deny the screens by getting on top of Plum. So, Plum navigates her way to the hand off and explodes to the rim to get a clean look from the elbow. Her ability to flow between roles has allowed Vegas to take whatever opportunity presents itself, especially when she’s playing with Chelsea Gray’s meticulous half-court skill set.
Plum isn’t just scoring either. As mentioned above, her assists are at an elite level and Hammon has harped on Plum’s passing as the thing that will separate her from other guards. Plum is still not making every correct decision, as evidenced by her 17% turnover rate. But she’s making enough good decisions at top speed that she’s still very effective.
Plum’s ability to get the offense going early and make moves at top speed made this early offense pocket pass to A’ja Wilson possible. Chennedy Carter is all out of sorts from the in-and-out dribble followed by a crossover followed by a screen in the first four seconds of the offensive possession. Olivia Nelson-Ododa is not equipped to clean up the resulting mess, so Wilson drives for the and-one. Again, it took basically six seconds for that whole sequence. Going fast is great, but getting into the offense early is even better as we see with the best point guards across the sport. Plum has been freed to do just that and is excelling.
She still has plenty of areas to clean up. The aforementioned turnovers need to decrease. A lot of the turnovers stem from the pace with which she is playing, so they may get better with more experience in the offense. Plum shooting from within the arc is concerning. She is shooting just 37.7% on twos this year. She’s a small guard, which makes finishing in traffic difficult to begin with. A possible solution lies in just applying her IDGAF mentality toward going downhill like she does on this possession.
Plum has an explosive first step and opponents will be more concerned with her shooting as the season progresses. On that play, she darted into the lane like a running back hitting a hole in the offensive line. She needs to do that more often instead of settling for on-the-move jumpers.
On the defensive side of the ball, Plum has a long way to go to be “the best two-way guard in the league.” Clearly, her size will limit her in that regard. But she works her butt off and has good footwork to be a solid defender. One area that she needs to improve is screen navigation. She’s good enough getting through off-ball screens, but she wilts a bit on-ball and opponents can get easy shots by involving her.
After a longer and more arduous path than expected, Kelsey Plum is finally on a direct line to being a star player. She’s playing free, fast and fun for the first time in her WNBA career. It’s only a matter of time before we see her in an All-Star game and on All-WNBA teams.