The D.E.N.N.I.S. System — How Dennis Schroder Will Win Over Boston

I used to fucking hate Dennis Schroder. I mean he didn’t exactly make it easy to like him. Not to mention he was an active contributor to that Atlanta team that beat the upstart Celtics in 6 games in Brad’s 3rd season. Add that to his stupid dyed patch of hair (which I don’t mind much anymore for some reason), and there was a lot to dislike.

Well, Dennis is winning me over very quickly, you might even say he’s employing the D.E.N.N.I.S System. If you aren’t familiar, The D.E.N.N.I.S System is an episode of the show Always Sunny in [REDACTED] (we don’t acknowledge that place here). Dennis is one of the main characters. Arrogance is his primary personality trait, so it shouldn’t be surprising that he named his psychotic method of wooing women after himself. You can see the core tenants in that photo, but they are in very specific order the following: Demonstrate Value, Engage Physically, Nurture Dependence, Neglect Emotionally, Inspire Hope, and Separate Entirely. You see, Dennis isn’t around for a long time, he’s around for a good time. Given Schroder’s contract situation, which I’ll discuss below, the Celtics’ Dennis is in a similar situation (probably with less intercourse or emotional manipulation, but you never know).

Demonstrate Value

The episode that this method appears in centers around Dennis demonstrating the efficacy of his D.E.N.N.I.S System by wooing a pharmacist named Caylee. To check off the box for his first objective, demonstrate value, he pretends to purchase medication for his ill grandmother. Thus, proving to Caylee that he’s an upstanding and good man (spoiler: he’s not).

Schroder is going to provide quite a bit of value to the Celtics this year, even if it’s far from perfect. Unlike ASIP Dennis, at least his value is not totally fictional. Schroder averaged a very solid 13.3 drives per game last year, which would have led the Celtics. The foundation of Schroder’s value as a player is his ability to get into the paint and pressure defenses. He’s a fairly willing passer when he does get into the paint, passing on 42.9% of his drives, almost an identical percentage to Kemba last year. I’d actually like that number to be higher, but from the eye test, he has been making an effort to find shooters this preseason. The first two plays of this video are a good example. He doesn’t get an assist on either of these passes, but in both clips he’s generating wide open corner threes for good shooters out of basically nothing.

Last year he averaged 10.9 potential assists, which like drives per game, would have easily led the team (Smart led the Cs with 8.6, followed by Tatum and Kemba at 8.5) The bench, and at times the team, didn’t have a guy that could constantly pressure defenses and get into the paint like that last year. It will be an extremely welcome change.

Here’s the “fake ill grandmother” portion of this though. It’s great he gets into the paint often, but he’s a pretty poor finisher when he gets there. He shot 56% in the restricted area last year, and while he shot 62.8% in the RA in his crazy efficient 19–20 season, that year was an outlier. He was at a dreadful 51.5% the year prior. Nevertheless, there’s value in a guy that lives in the paint, even if he’s not the most efficient play finisher once he’s there.

Engage Physically

Part 2 is an extremely important step in the System. Dennis intentionally takes Caylee to a closed restaurant so they have no choice but to head back to his place for a dinner and a movie. Mac (his roommate) “sees a spider” and Dennis coaxes poor Caylee into his bedroom where they proceed to Netflix and Chill. Smoke and mirrors, but ultimately he achieves his goal.

Schroder is an absolute menace on defense and loves to leverage his crazy physical gifts against opposing teams (see the first news article I linked). He’s not the most sound defensive player, but he regularly uses his athleticism to compensate for his mistakes. Many times it seems like Schroder is beat, only to have the offensive player get bamboozled into a block or a steal. Smoke and mirrors, albeit not quite as intentionally as ASIP’s Dennis. This Dennis dichotomy was never more obvious than on this play. Schroder completely loses Lowry in a very basic action, but still somehow scrambles back to get the block. In our first preseason game he was regularly hounding ball handlers and [making things difficult](https://imgur.com/hxOdk3W]. One minute you think you’re on your way to a nice dinner, the next you’re undressing in a strangers bedroom. Life comes at you fast, and so does Schroder.

Nurture Dependence

At this point in the System, we are at a critical juncture. This is when things start to turn a bit. ASIP Dennis prank calls Caylee as an angry neighbor and threatens to kill her. She grows to need him in an unhealthy way as he shows up to help her in her time of need, to an unhealthy level perhaps?

I have some concern that the Celtics bench is going to need Schroder to a similarly unhealthy level. Here are the good parts. German Dennis is actually good enough to exploit mismatches or just straight beat his man in isolation, he did both regularly in the game against Miami. Here he is just blowing by Kyle Lowry, a very good PG defender. There isn’t a lot of magic to this play, but Dennis does a nice job of using Tatum’s gravity to get a bucket. You can see Bam far more worried about Tatum heading to the corner than he is about protecting the rim. Pretty dynamic attack and finish saving a possession that was stagnant.

On this play, he sees that he’s got Bam in a mismatch and just absolutely sauces one of the best defensive players in the league with the Rondo fake. Again, not a ton of creativity to this set, but Schroder is talented enough that it doesn’t really matter.

He’s far from perfect offensively though, and the numbers don’t love his “primary ball handler” plays. Take a look of this chart with his Iso and PnR Ballhandler efficiency from the last three years.

Not bad, but not amazing either. Admittedly, there are very few teams that can turn to the bench and sub in a guy who is capable of creating offense for himself and others consistently, and Dennis can do that for you. With that said, it’s not like he’s generating super efficient offense either. I have some fear that the bench offense will turn into 4 guys prodding Schroder with a stick telling him to do something. There are already shades of this over dependence with Dennis on the court. It’s a fine line between exploiting a mismatch and grounding the offense down in constant isolation. I’ll be watching that balance closely this year.

Neglect Emotionally

This is where things really turn for the worse, and abusive, and horrible really. The characters of ASIP are horrible, horrible people. Hilarious, but horrible. Dennis keeps on pranking Caylee, but intentionally ignoring her cries for help.

I’ll just be honest, the ball sticks in Schroder’s hands. You think Tatum was bad last year, take a look at this side by side comparison.

Schroder holds the ball a ton, like, a shitload more than Tatum even. That scares me, especially when you have two guys that will run with the bench unit, Al and PP, that are super efficient and great ball movers. So far during the preseason, I think Dennis has done a good job of moving the ball and getting guys involved. We just had Barstool’s Greenie on the Celtics Reddit Pod and he agreed that was the case, but expressed some serious doubt that would still be true in game 30. So far in his career, Greenie has been right about Schroder’s play.

Couple this with the fact the Celtics have a lot invested in his bench running mate Payton Pritchard. I’ll get to it a little further down, but Schroder isn’t gonna be here long term. PP will. Is it worth rolling the ball out for Schroder to dominate at the expense of reps for Pritchard? Or will we see a new rejuvenated Schroder ready to make his teammates better? For the long-term health of the team, it’s a hell of a lot better for Dennis not to neglect PP and get him consistently involved in running the bench as a secondary creator. How he decides to play alongside some of these younger guys that the Cs have significant organization capital invested in may dictate how much run he even gets. Don’t neglect the young fellas Dennis!

Inspire Hope

Ah yes, the last gasp of the D.E.N.N.I.S System. Dennis “admits” that he was afraid of love, and Caylee cured him of that fear. They have one last emotional “Netflix and Chill” after which he sneaks away in the cover of darkness.

Schroder is good enough that there will be times that he lulls us all into thinking he should take the starting job. He has a natural feel in the pick and roll, and there’s going to be games where the opposing team just cannot stay in front of him. If his shot is falling for a few games, he becomes really, really hard to guard. You may start to wonder, is this guy our third best player?

But ultimately, Schroder is a pretty flawed player and isn’t an optimal fit due to his lack of shooting. Take a look at this still shot of Tatum catching the ball for a post up 20 feet from the basket. Lowry is in the paint, 10 feet away from Schroder. It’s not like Schroder is two passes away, he’s by far the easiest pass for Tatum to make. Hell, he can’t even really pass to anyone else at all! Tatum hasn’t made a move yet, he hasn’t put any pressure on the defense, and Lowry doesn’t care, he’s more concerned about Tatum maybe making a move than Schroder shooting a semi contested 3. So a word of warning, sit back and enjoy the nights Schroder makes you feel like you’ve fallen in love again for the first time, but don’t be surprised if he slips out the bedroom window before dawn breaks.

Separate Entirely

Ultimately, as I touched on earlier, Schroder simply isn’t in the long term plans of this team. Since he only signed a 1 year deal, we won’t have his bird rights this offseason so the max we can offer him is some version of the MLE. Given that he gave up 80+ mil a few months ago, my guess is he won’t be down for another go at a discounted rate. Schroder will be fun to watch this season, not always for the right reasons, but he makes the team better, and for now, that’s good enough.

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