How many players can one team carry who all expect to finish possessions?
Sheffield’s offence this season is built around that question. Rather than spreading responsibility across contrasting roles, they have brought together several players whose value comes from finishing possessions. The issue isn’t how often the offence runs through them, but how often it ends in the same way.
Last Season’s Hierarchy
Usage rate measures how often a player finishes a possession — by shooting, drawing a foul, or turning the ball over — showing whose hands the ball ends up in when a play has to finish.
For a player, high usage means being the one trusted to make a decision when a possession runs out of options.
Last season, Sheffield went further than anyone else. Rodney Chatman finished the year as the league leader in usage rate. Prentiss Nixon ranked second.
| Player | Usage Rate |
|---|---|
| Rodney Chatman III | 28.9% |
| Prentiss Nixon | 28.9% |
| Nick Timberlake | 28.1% |
| Mervin James | 27.7% |
| Mike Okauru | 26.8% |
*Only players who played more than 500 minutes last season are included.
With Chatman on the floor, the offence had a clear shape. The ball found him first. Nixon’s usage was still high, but his responsibility was to score rather than to run the offence.
When Chatman was injured in the back half of the season, that balance shifted. Nixon’s usage jumped above 31 percent and his assist rate rose with it. Even with Rickey McGill’s scoring and playmaking impact, it was Nixon who finished more possessions.
That adaptability was a strength. Sheffield could change who carried the offence without changing how it functioned.
Adding Another Finisher
Over the summer, Sheffield added another player who thrives with the ball in his hands. Mervin James arrived from Surrey, where he had ranked fourth league-wide in usage, joining a team largely carried over from last season with responsibilities already defined.
James missed the opening stretch of the season and returned in early December. Until then, Sheffield were able to play without having to confront how everything would fit together.
Mervin James’ Return
If adding another finisher made life easier for everyone else, it would show up in efficiency. Instead, once James returned from injury this season, the opposite has happened.
| Player | eFG% without Mervin James | eFG% with Mervin James |
|---|---|---|
| Rodney Chatman III | 52.5% | 40.9% |
| Prentiss Nixon | 46.2% | 38.2% |
James himself is also finishing possessions less efficiently than he did last season. At Surrey, he posted a 52.5 percent effective field goal rate. This season in Sheffield, that figure sits at 45.4 percent.
Some of that will reflect the challenge of a player returning from injury, but it also points to how opportunity is being shared. This season, James, Chatman, and Nixon are Sheffield’s three highest-usage players. Rather than stepping into space created for him, James is entering possessions that are already being negotiated.
The Cost of Overlap
Possessions don’t multiply with talent. Someone has to give something up. That is the tension inside Sheffield’s offence for the rest of this season — not whether these players can score, but whether one of them is willing to change how they play.
That change doesn’t have to mean taking fewer shots. It can mean moving earlier, cutting harder, screening more often, or staying engaged once the ball leaves their hands so someone else can finish a possession in rhythm.
There is only one ball. Over the rest of the season, Sheffield will find out who gets to finish with it.
