The NBA Stats Thread: The 15-year chain reaction that led to the NBA's current offensive explosion

Per Diem 12/10

MVP leaders at NBA's quarter pole

Well, that first quarter blew by quickly, didn't it?

Believe it or not, we reached the NBA season's one-quarter mark Tuesday, with 309 of the season's 1,230 games (25.1 percent) in the books. With that in mind, let's take the temperature of the jam-packed MVP race, which features some usual suspects as well as some party crashers (hello, Paul George).

Here's how I'd fill out my (unofficial) ballot if we were handing out the awards Tuesday. In other words, this is not a prediction of how I think the voting will go at season's end. In reality, the MVP award usually ends up being the BPOTBT award (Best Player On The Best Team) with almost no recognition for great players with bad supporting casts. You won't find that bias here.

Let's get to it.

1. LeBron James, Miami Heat

News flash: The best player on Earth is also the Most Valuable Player. Stick this guy on any team in the league and it will instantly join the title conversation. That's how good he is. LeBron ranks first in player efficiency rating (PER), estimated wins added (EWA), win shares (WS), wins above replacement player (WARP) and just about any advanced stats acronym out there.

That's because his shot efficiency is off the charts -- even by his lofty standards. By shooting 59.4 percent from the floor, 44.4 percent on 3s and 78.7 percent from the line, he's flirting with the 60-40-80 shooting club, which has a member list that is exactly zero names long. (Sorry, Amir, 39 minutes just won't cut it). Put it all together and you'll find that James' true shooting percentage of 68.3 percent is the highest we've ever seen among players with at least 15 field goal attempts per game. James ranks No. 1 among 1,611 player-seasons on record (next highest is Charles Barkley at 66.5 percent in 1987-88).

He's not perfect, however. The knock on James' résumé is that his other per-minute numbers are down across the board: his rebounds, assists, steals and blocks have all taken a dip this season. But that's like complaining that the December weather in South Beach has been disappointing because the thermostat reads 80 degrees rather than the normal 85. Still, James is the only NBA player who is averaging at least 25 points, six rebounds and six assists this season. Though he's pacing himself on the defensive end since Dwyane Wade is missing games and his back is acting up, James' extraterrestrial efficiency gives him the inside track on my quarter-pole MVP.

2. Paul George, Indiana Pacers

Before the season, I predicted this would finally be the year that Kevin Durant wins his first MVP award. The thinking was that Durant's starring in a non-glamour market would captivate voters who could be susceptible to LeBoredom and general disenchantment with the great-but-not-all-time-great Miami Heat. It's more fun to root for the underdog and all that.

But because the Pacers have gotten off to an 18-3 start, it might be Paul George, not Durant, who ends up becoming the beneficiary of potential Heat exhaustion. In just a two-year span, George has somehow catapulted from being a starting role player to a scoring title contender. That's bonkers. You rarely see a player raise his usage rate from 19.3 percent (George's rate in 2011-12) to his current level of 29.2 percent in just two seasons. What's even more rare is that George has watched his shot efficiency skyrocket, as well. Those two metrics shouldn't soar together. But alas, George is a freak.

George doesn't rival James or Durant in sheer productivity (George ranks just eighth in PER). But George makes headway on the defensive end, which isn't covered that well in the box score. That said, get this: According to 82games.com, George has held his counterpart at small forward to a measly 9.7 PER this season, a rate that would have been the lowest in the league last season. The difficulty here is parsing between George's defensive acumen and Roy Hibbert's. Would George be this good defensively without Hibbert behind him? Perhaps a better question -- would James, if he had Hibbert?

3. Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City Thunder

In five games this month, Durant is averaging 31.4 points, 9.2 rebounds, 4.8 assists, a pair of blocks and a pair of steals along with 55.2 FG/47.4 3PT/91.4 FT shooting splits. His PER so far this month: 36.1 -- best in the NBA. Yeah, he's pretty good at this basketball thing. It seems silly to rank Durant third on an MVP list, but I'd feel worse slotting James and George this low, which says more about the competition than it does about Durant.

As someone who has finished second to James in the MVP voting three of the last four seasons, Durant has sharpened elements in his game, most notably in the passing department: He's averaging a career-high five dimes a game -- almost double his rate just three seasons ago. And this isn't a product of Durant's making the most of Westbrook's absence early in the season. Durant's assist rate has actually climbed when he's next to Westbrook on the floor compared to when Westbrook sits, according to NBA.com.

Since we're splitting hairs here, Durant's improvements on the defensive end have been impressive -- hey Scott Brooks, KD has been more than capable defending 4s, so please do that more -- but not quite enough to put him higher on this list. For what it's worth, Durant's Synergy defensive metrics (43 percentile) pale in comparison to James' (87th percentile) and George's (63 percentile). My eyes tell me that Durant has worked his way into the "above average" category defensively, but he's not yet a stopper like James and George. Hey, you have to find a tiebreaker somewhere.

4. Chris Paul, Los Angeles Clippers

The Clippers are still a work in progress. Since arriving on the scene this summer, Doc Rivers has had his hands full on the defensive end, especially with the personnel in the frontcourt. And the offense has taken a hit as Willie Green starts in sharpshooter J.J. Redick's place since the Duke product broke his hand.

But Chris Paul still is working his magic through the haze as his PER ranks in the top five (27). He remains the game's maestro in the pick-and-roll and manufactures more shots for others than anybody in the league. SportVU data informs us that Paul leads the league by far in assist opportunities per game (21.8) and creates more than double the assist opportunities his backup Darren Collison creates on a per-36 minute basis (22.4 versus 9.8). Knowing this, it's no surprise that the Clippers' high-powered offense turns to mush when he steps off the floor.

Even though Paul's assist rate is approaching all-time heights, he is struggling with his long-range jumper so far this season. He is shooting 31.2 percent from downtown, which continues a five-season percentage decline from 3-point land. However, the struggles with his shot haven't kept him from leading the league in points created (via score or assist) at 45.1 points per game. If he sharpens that 3-point shot, Paul could find his name atop the list before long.

5. Kevin Love, Minnesota Timberwolves

Take LaMarcus Aldridge's scoring, Dwight Howard's rebounding, Marc Gasol's passing and Redick's 3-point shooting, and what do you get? Kevin Love. The 25-year-old has entered his prime with these season averages: 23.7 points, 13.6 rebounds, 4.1 assists while shooting above average from downtown. Yes, the NBA's leading rebounder also makes more than two 3-pointers per game. That's absurd.

What's also absurd is that people still gripe that he's not a great defender and therefore doesn't belong in this discussion. Perfection is apparently the standard. Love is a legitimate MVP candidate even if his team hovers around .500. Want to know why? Because the Timberwolves are getting outscored by 19.1 points per 100 possessions with Love off the floor, according to NBA.com data. I reiterate: 19.1 points. That's horrible. To put that in perspective, the Utah Jazz are looking at a minus-11.9 differential right now.

The Timberwolves are paper-thin in the frontcourt, and Ricky Rubio would still look to pass in a game of one-on-one. But these factors are out of Love's control and shouldn't undermine his MVP candidacy. Rather than pointing to the Timberwolves' lukewarm record, realize that they'd be an absolute mess without Love's wide-ranging talents. That's pure value.

One-line apologies to (in alphabetical order):

LaMarcus Aldridge: Great player finally equipped with an equally good supporting cast.
Stephen Curry: Keep launching more 3s and then we can talk.
Anthony Davis: Get well soon.
Andre Drummond: Shoot better than 40 percent from the line and defend pick-and-rolls?
Dirk Nowitzki: Welcome back, big guy.
 
Beware of the midrange jumper

There is no more important concept on the front burner of basketball minds than efficiency. The rise of "Mathketball" -- basketball strategy driven by analytics -- has influenced the way the best teams execute both offense and defense, as teams seek to capitalize on scoring opportunities by attempting shots in high efficiency areas while simultaneously limiting those of their opponents.

The main scoring areas in the half court are commonly broken down into three categories: rim field goal attempts, midrange and 3-point attempts (which can be further broken down into corner versus above the break 3-pointers). The most efficient shots are layups and dunks at the rim, followed by 3-pointers, so it stands to reason that the most efficient style of offense would emphasize shots in these spaces and try to minimize the number of shots in the midrange.

The idea is that the rate of success for making rim field goal attempts is much higher than making jump shots, and if you are going to take a jump shot, you might as well take a few steps back and be awarded an extra point for the added risk. The "long 2-point attempt (from farther than 16 feet) is the worst shot in basketball" nomenclature is derived from this concept, that the shooter is assuming more risk for less reward.

The prototypes

On the offensive end, no team espouses this philosophy more dogmatically than the Houston Rockets, who have taken 100 fewer long 2-point attempts than the next closest team, with the vast majority of their field goal attempts coming at the rim or beyond the arc. Watching the Rockets on film, you can see most of their perimeter players attack hard closeouts at the arc with hard drives to the basket. If rebuffed, they'll see to kick back to the perimeter and either get an open 3-point attempt or repeat the cycle, as if the offense was on autopilot.

Defensively, the Indiana Pacers and Chicago Bulls are the standard bearers for forcing opponents to do exactly what Houston strives to avoid: take as few 3PA as possible and as many long 2PA as possible. Their perimeter defenders are instructed to close extremely hard on would-be 3-point shooters, forcing them to dribble into midrange. Meanwhile, their weakside help (usually bigs) will "load" into the paint to discourage any forays to the rim. Similarly, on pick-and-roll coverage, the perimeter defender will fight over the screen while the big will sag back rather than aggressively hedge or trap the ball handler. The plan here is clear: discourage high efficiency shots at the rim and from beyond the arc and encourage the "worst shot in basketball."

Predicted evolution

But basketball is a living and breathing organism, and offenses and defenses are in a constant flux of adaptation and reaction. The long 2PA is a bad shot because of the math, but also because there aren't many great long 2PA shooters in the league (the lost art of the midrange).
Even with the skewed reward system, at the end of the day an open shot is (usually) more efficient than a contested one. As such, it stands to reason that as more and more teams adopt the type of defensive principles practiced by the Pacers and Bulls, the greater the need for players who are able to exploit the inherent weakness in the system: the midrange jumper. I spoke about this on TrueHoop TV last week. Here are some examples:

Versus closeouts

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In the screenshot above, we see Portland's Damian Lillard receive a strong side-to-weak side pass on the wing and go into his shooting motion from beyond the arc. Indiana's George Hill reacts by closing hard (running him off the 3-point line).

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In the second screenshot, we see Lillard utilize an escape dribble to blow by Hill. Notice the next closest defender is Luis Scola, who is parked in front of the restricted area (presumably to discourage a rim assault with the threat of taking the charge). Scola is in no position to contest Lillard's shot since it is what Indiana has decided it will give up: the long 2-point attempt. It's an area of strength, however, for Lillard, who is shooting 46.7 percent from 16-to-24 feet, and he knocks down the shot with ease.

Versus sagging pick-and-roll coverage

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In this screenshot, J.J. Redick of the Clippers is getting a step-up screen from Blake Griffin, freeing him from Chicago's Tony Snell, who along with Joakim Noah executes a defensive strategy used around the league known as "ice." The object is to prevent Redick from getting back to the middle of the floor so as to use the sideline and baseline as extra defenders. Unfortunately for the Bulls, Noah is reluctant to come out too far from the paint (fearing giving up a blow-by and layup), so he sags back some.

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Redick creates space by moving parallel to the paint rather than penetrating and pulls up for the long 2-point attempt, where he's shooting 51.7 percent, and knocks it down. Again, this is the shot that Chicago's defense would prefer to give up.

The best midrange shooters

It's important to note in the above examples, the offensive players were able to create so much space in part because of the threat of their prowess. For instance, if Chuck Hayes (a career 0-for-13 from beyond the arc) were the player in our first example, it is hard to imagine Hill closing so hard that he would not be able to prevent a Hayes blow-by. In other words, there is a bare minimum 3-point shooting requirement for defenses to react to up-fakes, a basketball "Mendoza Line" if you will.

For most teams, this threshold lies at about 30 percent; anything less than that and the defense does not need to be as vigilant at discouraging the 3-point attempt. If a player were to shoot only 3s and convert 30 percent, his effective field goal percentage would be 45 percent (thus a player who shoots 30 percent from 3-point range and 45 percent from long 2-point range has the same risk/reward for either attempt). Using those two figures as baseline levels, here are the top midrange shooters this season.

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For a larger sample size, here are the best midrange shooters over the past two seasons:

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Per Diem 12/16
What's Pau Gasol's trade value?

A thriving NBA rumor mill added another big name last week when Los Angeles Lakers center Pau Gasol and coach Mike D'Antoni feuded through the media. After Gasol complained to the Los Angeles Times about not getting enough post touches and D'Antoni responded by telling reporters that Gasol needed to play harder, our Marc Stein and Ramona Shelburne reported the Lakers are considering their trade options.

But what exactly can they get for Gasol? The Lakers would hardly be selling high on Gasol, whose 15.2 player efficiency rating is the lowest of his NBA career. My wins above replacement system is even harder on Gasol, grading him as just 0.2 wins better than replacement level so far this season.

So the question is: Does Gasol have much trade value left? And perhaps more importantly, could he turn it around with the Lakers or another team? Let's take a look.

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Post touches going nowhere

Gasol's argument that he's not getting the ball where he likes isn't backed up by the numbers. In fact, according to Synergy Sports Technology, post-ups account for a larger share of Gasol's plays ending in a shot attempt, turnover or trip to the free throw line than any season since 2010-11 -- when he was an All-NBA Second Team pick in Phil Jackson's final season in L.A.

That's a change from the past two seasons, when Gasol played primarily at power forward next to Andrew Bynum and Dwight Howard and was unable to spend as much time down low. As the chart at right shows, Gasol had a valid complaint last season, when post-ups accounted for less than one-quarter of his plays and barely a larger share than spot-up opportunities. But both trends have reversed this season.

The problem, instead, is that Gasol isn't scoring when he does get the ball. As recently as last season, Gasol averaged .859 points per play in the post, according to Synergy. He was over .9 points per play the previous two years, making him an efficient option. But so far this season, Gasol has made just 33.9 percent of his shots on post-ups and averaged .682 points per play, worst of any player with at least 100 post-ups. (Howard ranks second from the bottom at .724 points per play.)

No longer generating easy opportunities

Gasol's difficulty scoring in the post explains part of his dismal 41.8 percent shooting from the field this season, although not all of it. The other culprit is Gasol's inability to create easy opportunities at the basket. Just 23.8 percent of his shot attempts have come in the restricted area, per NBA.com/stats, down from around 32 percent the previous two seasons and 38.2 percent in 2010-11. Like nearly all other NBA players, Gasol shoots more accurately right at the rim (61.0 percent so far this season) than anywhere else, so taking away those gimmes has severely hampered Gasol's efficiency.

Most scores at the basket for big men come on two Synergy play types -- cuts and offensive rebounds. As the chart at right shows, the percentages of Gasol's plays generated from both of those opportunities has dwindled this season. In particular, Gasol isn't helping himself with putbacks. He's scored just 15 points all season from offensive rebounds, per Synergy. By contrast, energetic teammate Jordan Hill has 54 points from offensive boards.

Although scheme is a factor, scores off cuts and offensive rebounds are often created by the individual player. That's surely part of what D'Antoni was implying when he told reporters in response to Gasol's complaints, "The more energy you bring to the game, the more you're going to get the ball."

How a limited Gasol can be productive

For all the talk of systems, positions and playing hard, there's a simpler explanation for why Gasol is no longer as effective as he was three years ago: age. Gasol, who turned 33 this past summer, has accumulated heavy mileage between the Lakers' long playoff runs and his work for the Spanish national team. He's battled a series of foot and leg injuries and hasn't been fully healthy at any point the past two seasons. It might be time to acknowledge that Gasol is no longer capable of being a primary option on offense.

Smaller role: So far this season, Gasol has used 25.9 percent of the Lakers' plays on offense, his highest rate since being traded to L.A. The list of 7-footers with usage rates of 25 percent or higher after age 33 is small and exclusive: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Patrick Ewing, Dirk Nowitzki, Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O'Neal. Gasol might not belong among their ranks. Of course, Kobe Bryant's return to the lineup will relieve some of the pressure on Gasol to create his own offense. Gasol hasn't shot any better during Bryant's first four games this season, but a smaller role might help Gasol be more accurate from the field.

More pick-and roll: Besides ensuring he won't need to be a featured player, the other important criterion for teams considering a Gasol trade is how effectively they can employ him in the pick-and-roll. So far this season, Gasol has been exceptionally efficient in pick-and-roll opportunities, shooting 51.4 percent and averaging 1.024 points per play.

Maintain defense: It's encouraging for potential Gasol suitors that his defensive stats haven't experienced the same kind of decline. Gasol's block rate is right in line with what he's done throughout his career in L.A., and his defensive rebounding is up slightly, which has helped him anchor small lineups alongside stretch 4s.

As he enters his mid-30s, Gasol still can offer value to a team so long as he recognizes his own limitations. In the wake of the past week's turbulence, that might be the most important question teams will have to answer about Gasol. Would he accept a smaller role that features fewer post-ups and more pick-and-rolls? The answer will determine whether Gasol will be worth it for the Lakers or whichever team comes next.
 
People seem to think Paul George is the best players on the Pacers, is he though really?

If Hibbert got hurt isn't that more devastating?This squad IS GREAT because of D, The whole defense is built around hibbert.

The lack of MVP respect for Just shows how little respect defense get, its like people who don't realize Ben Wallace was the best player on hose Piston squad.
 
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People seem to think Paul George is the best players on the Pacers, is he though really?

If Hibbert got hurt isn't that more devastating?This squad IS GREAT because of D, The whole defense is built around hibbert.

The lack of MVP respect for Just shows how little respect defense get, its like people who don't realize Ben Wallace was the best player on hose Piston squad.
to be fair not many people keep track of defensive stats and the pacers are never on tv, so people just read the box scores every night and assume that PG is carrying the team. if they got as many national tv games as the lakers did hibbert would get more recognition. most people think he's a soft center that cant rebound well and only comes to play vs miami's non existent front court.
 
Per Diem 12/10

MVP leaders at NBA's quarter pole

Can't agree with that.. IMO Durant is clearly MVP so far.

Lebron is putting up great efficiency stats. But when you watch him in games, it seems like he's kind of coasting at times, and the Heat aren't playing as well as they could be. He's still phenomenal obviously, but I think he chose to take a step back this year and not try to wear himself out too much in the reg season.

On the other hand, Durant has turned it up a notch. He's going hard every night and putting up ridiculous numbers, and he's got his team is 19-4 (against a much tougher schedule than Miami has played).

Right now Portland is killing it. But if OKC finishes #1 in the West as I expect them to, Durant is the MVP.
 
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Anyone know where I can find league wide or specific team/player (either is fine) field goal percentages for open vs. contested layups and open vs. contested jumpshots?

thanks
 
 [h1]The Durant-LeBron Arms Race Is Real—And Statistically Unprecedented[/h1]
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We mentioned this back in November, but LeBron James and Kevin Durant—the two best basketball players in this galactic quadrant—are outdoing themselves in 2013-14. Here are some per game lines:
  • James: 26.2 PPG, 6.5 AST, .578 FG%, .656 TS%, 29.8 USG%
  • Durant: 31.1 PPG, 5.3 AST, .512 FG%, .645 TS%, 32.0 USG%
There have been some other impressive numbers flying around—Durant put up a 37.1 PER in January, for example—but those last two figures, true shooting and usage percent, are the most remarkable; no other player this season has this combination of offensive centrality and scoring efficiency. In fact, they might be outpacing every season of every player in history. The chart below (which we'll explain in full in a bit) shows how Durant and LeBron have progressed in these key stats over the last four years—compared to some of the NBA's top seasons—with USG% on the x-axis and TS% on the y-axis:

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That diagonal white boundary line represents a theoretical limit on combined volume and shooting efficiency, a concept developed by Evan Zamir back in 2012. It's a mindbending thing when you realize that, for the past 30-odd years, this relationship between efficiency and usage has toed a frontier that KD and LeBron haven't just surpassed, but tomahawked clear over. Since LeBron's first year in Miami, the two stars have moved in lockstep to break past this boundary, making particularly massive gains in true shooting percentage.

To understand just how remarkable this growth has been, we need to take a step back. Below is a plot of usage vs. true shooting for all 4,105 player seasons in the three-point era, where the player qualified for the FG percentage title. It's generally accepted that more usage leads to lower efficiency, but in this sort of broad analysis there doesn't appear to be much of a direct relationship:

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11 percent of the seasons fall into that red box in the top right, where the player was in the top third in both usage rate (24 percent and higher) and true shooting percentage (.558 and higher). For obvious reasons, this square contains some pretty goddamn great offense.*

Let's zoom in on the 448 player seasons in that corner:

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This is basically the chart that Zamir made back in 2012, when he found that—in this subset of already outstanding seasons—there was a linear relationship among the furthest outlier seasons, which constitute some of the NBA's best.

This line was defined as TS= 0.9 - 0.89*USG, and it implied that there was a limit on the combined usage and efficiency at the highest level of basketball play. You could have a ridiculous .665 true shooting season like Barkley in '87-88 (26.7% usage), or you can have a ridiculous 38.7% usage season like Kobe in '05-'06 (.559 true shooting), but it looked like you couldn't have it both ways—although 1989-90 Malone got close.

Of course, that boundary line was calculated almost two years ago. As you can see in the chart at the top, LeBron James and Kevin Durant finished just south of the boundary line for 2011-12, which, as Zamir put it at the time, "gives you some idea how great those other seasons were." Both are now far beyond Zamir's boundary, in a space uncharted by even the very greatest scorers, putting together seasons with a combination of usage and efficiency that are unprecedented in modern NBA history. If these stat lines hold, or if they even just regress a bit, 2013-14 could have not one, but two of the most remarkable offensive performances the league has ever seen.

*For rule-minded readers out there, we ran the numbers, and—at the highest level of play—the usage/true shooting relationship didn't seem to be significantly affected by the introduction of the hand-check penalty in 2004-2005.
Link.
 
You guys have a way to put their shot charts together?

I still don't see LeBron's shooting at Durant's levels. I know the numbers say otherwise, but every game I watch, I still don't see the same shooting from him. And I haven't figured out why that is. :lol:

Make no mistake, I see IMPROVED shooting in areas I have always looked for, just not the sheer amount of outside shots I've seen over the years from Durant, Kobe, Wade, etc.
 
You guys have a way to put their shot charts together?

I still don't see LeBron's shooting at Durant's levels. I know the numbers say otherwise, but every game I watch, I still don't see the same shooting from him. And I haven't figured out why that is. :lol:

Make no mistake, I see IMPROVED shooting in areas I have always looked for, just not the sheer amount of outside shots I've seen over the years from Durant, Kobe, Wade, etc.

People still back off Lebron and give him space to shoot, try and turn him into a passer, he doesn't have to take and make as many tough shots like Dirk.

Lebron is still sort of like a computer, his instinct is, If they press up on me then I'm going to try penetrate and be a scorer, but if they back up, im not just going to take inefficent midrange jumpers.

They spurs almot mind tricked him into loosing the finals, by backing of like 5 feet. :lol:
 
When you think about it, they had it. He missed that 3, they were up 5, the world thought it was over, and then he got the second chance, hit this one, and then Ray Allen happened.

In game 7, he had his second chance, and didn't waste it. Changed everything at that point. :lol:
 
The fact that Durant shoots such a high percentage shooting fadeaways and contested 3's makes 0 sense. This man is putting up historically silly numbers at age 25 and getting better every 40 games, there's no ceiling for him at all.

He and Bron are players that we just have no precedent for, once in a lifetime talents. The amount of basketball IQ/skill set/athleticism between them is unbelieveable and they will make the NBA billions richer.
 
Jason Collins a no-stats All-Star

Long before he was a hero to the gay community, Jason Collins was a legend of the analytics community.

When Collins announced to Sports Illustrated that he was gay -- the first male active athlete in the four major sports to do so -- he instantly became a household name across the country and beyond. But he was not one beforehand. Actually, more often than not, you probably heard the following reaction to Monday's news:

"Wow."

Then a few seconds later.

"... who?"

Oh, stat geeks know who he is. They know him well. They have been fascinated by the Jason Collins phenomenon for about a decade now, and we'd be happy to tell his basketball story.


An unlikely career

Collins entered the league alongside his twin brother, Jarron, after four years playing at Stanford University. The Houston Rockets selected Jason 18th overall in the 2001 draft behind someone named Michael Bradley. He was a prospect only in the sense that all 7-footers who play college ball are prospects.

Twelve years later, Collins has logged more career minutes than the player who was picked No. 1 overall in that draft, Kwame Brown. Collins has made a total of $33 million playing the sport, which seems utterly ridiculous once you consider his underwhelming per-game averages over his career:

3.6 points, 3.8 rebounds, 0.5 blocks and 41 percent shooting.

Simply put, Collins is a 7-footer who isn't good at scoring, rebounding or shot-blocking. He has never been good at these things. He has never averaged more than seven points or seven rebounds per game. In fact, Collins has never ranked in the top 10 in the NBA in anything except fouls. (He led the league in 2004-05 with 322 whistles and ranked seventh in 2006-07.)

Other than that, you will not find Collins' name on any traditional leaderboard.

So why have many in the analytics community been enamored by this guy?

Because for much of his career, he was very good at basketball, particularly on defense. Good enough to start 71 games in the playoffs. But to see why, you have to look outside the confines of the box score to see it. Actually, the first place you need to look is the scoreboard.

Plus/minus All-Star

In August 2005, an economics professor at UNC Greensboro named Dan Rosenbaum, unsatisfied with the defensive measures in a box score, published a study that rocked the statistical community and changed the way we perceive player value. Posted on a seminal NBA analytics website called 82games.com, Rosenbaum outlined his work that showed players who excelled in helping to make their teams better on defense through a statistical method called adjusted plus/minus.

In layman's terms, adjusted plus/minus tells us how the scoreboard changes with a player on the floor once you account for the quality of his teammates and opponent. Collins was a monster by this advanced metric, as he ranked as the fourth-best defensive center in the league behind Ben Wallace, Dikembe Mutombo and Theo Ratliff. Wallace and Mutombo had both won multiple Defensive Player of the Year awards, and Ratliff appeared twice on the All-Defensive team. Collins, as you might have guessed, has never received a single vote on any Defensive Player of the Year ballots.

Yet this measure told us that Collins improved the New Jersey Nets' defense by 4.8 points every 40 minutes in 2004-05 compared to the average center. This is when the legend of Collins began, and after watching his boxing-out ability and physical play inside, it began to make sense why one of the least productive players in the league could have such a great impact on the scoreboard. He did all the little things that don't get picked up in the box score: flattening players on screens, boxing out and walling off the paint.

But his mythical status didn't reach its peak until 2010-11.

Superman kryptonite

In the 2010-11 playoffs, the fifth-seeded Atlanta Hawks beat the fourth-seeded Orlando Magic in six games in the first round of the playoffs even though the Magic had won eight more games in the regular season. This wasn't a shock-the-world upset, but how the Hawks pulled it off raised some eyebrows.

Collins was the star of the series. He averaged 17 minutes per game and had only one job on his to-do list: stop Dwight Howard. That was a tall task considering Howard was by far the most dominant big man in the league and finished second in the MVP voting that season. But stop him he did. Howard averaged 21.9 points and 13.5 rebounds per 36 minutes during the regular season, but with Collins on the floor in the playoffs, Howard's averages plummeted to 16.1 points and 12.2 rebounds.

More importantly, Collins' effort translated to winning. When Howard played 155 minutes without Collins on the court, he averaged 26.9 points and 13.5 rebounds per 36 minutes, and the Magic outscored the Hawks by 20. But the Hawks outscored the Magic by five points in the 103 minutes with Collins on the floor against the MVP candidate. Superman met his kryptonite, and the Hawks prevailed.

After Game 4, then-Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy called Collins' effort "the best defense on [Howard] all year."

This wasn't just a one-series blip. Going back to when the data became available in 2007-08, Collins has limited Howard to just 47.1 percent shooting and 16.5 points per 36 minutes while the two have shared the court in the regular season, according to NBA.com/stats. When Howard played with Collins on the bench? Those numbers jumped to 60.1 percent shooting and 19.5 points per 36 minutes. Similarly, Collins' teams have lost by a total of 146 points (minus-11.3 points every 48 minutes) with him on the bench and Howard on the floor. With Collins on the court, Howard's teams have lost by nine points, or about three points every 48 minutes. It's hard to stay employed in the NBA when a player can defend only one particular player better than anyone else. But when that player is the most dominant big man in the game, that's a valuable commodity. As Haralabos Voulgaris -- considered the most successful NBA gambler in the world and one who relies heavily on data -- told ESPN The Magazine earlier this year, Collins is "useless every game, except when he's guarding Howard, which he does really, really well."

Is he still an NBA player?

Look around the league and you'll find players like Collins, a savvy veteran who carries a strong reputation as a team leader in the locker room. Sometimes they're big men like Juwan Howard in Miami and Nazr Mohammed in Chicago. Sometimes they're not physically as massive as Collins but have equally large reputations in the leadership role. Derek Fisher, Chauncey Billups and Jerry Stackhouse have stuck around much longer than their depreciated games would indicate, just to name a few. Those guys will always have a place in this league.

But there's a reason that our own Marc Stein found that there's no consensus whether Collins, who is a free agent, will be employed next season. Six of the 14 surveyed teams expected he'll suit up for a team next season, while eight felt his days as an NBA player are over.

The numbers agree with the team executives: Based on his résumé, it's basically a coin flip whether he will play next season. New York Times statistician and best-selling author of "The Signal and the Noise" Nate Silver scrolled through NBA history and found that some players of Collins' age, position and role as a part-time starter have continued their careers. Some have not. In fact, 11 of the 18 comparable players ended up playing the next season. Again, the results are mixed.

Some might look at Collins' per-game averages of 1.1 points and 1.6 rebounds on 31 percent shooting and see a player who is hurting his team and needs to hang 'em up. But the amazing thing about Collins' 2012-13 season?

Despite the horrific box score contributions, Collins' teams didn't get blown out in the 384 minutes with him on the floor this past season. In fact, Collins' teams won by two.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/9226929/nba-jason-collins-no-stats-all-star
 
Stan Van on Statistical Analysis.  Some great points:

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports....al-data-at-sloan-sports-analytics-conference/

BOSTON –  Stan Van Gundy appeared as part of the basketball analytics panel at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference on Friday, and while he isn’t opposed to coaches integrating advanced statistical data into their day-to-day operations, he was concerned about the particulars of how the data is acquired, and who, exactly, is responsible for sorting it all out.

Van Gundy posed legitimate questions that would theoretically need to be addressed before the basketball purists at the NBA level take the data as gospel, and making sure that whoever is identifying certain play types and quantifying them knows basketball, and is doing that job to the specifications of a particular head coach.

“I don’t trust most of it,” Van Gundy said, beginning an exquisite rant on the topic. “I read some of the stuff that people write on ESPN.com, you know, I’ll read stats on pick and roll defense and stuff that came off Synergy or somewhere else — I don’t know who the hell is recording that information!”

“I read a thing in the playoffs last year that said that New York isolated like 17 percent of the time,” he continued. “I’m watching their games, they isolate half of the time, at least. So I don’t know who’s recording that. If there’s a pick and roll, and they throw it back to Carmelo and he holds the ball and isolates for eight seconds, that’s a pick and roll play, not an isolation? And a lot of pick and roll stuff … you know, I read a thing today from ESPN the Magazine on Paul George  being the best pick and roll defender in the league on the ball handler. Look, a lot of pick and rolls … there’s pick and rolls designed to score, and there’s pick and rolls you run to get into something else. If you’re recording it and you’re treating those two things the same, then you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Van Gundy really does like the additional available data — he just needs to be able to trust that whoever is compiling it has the same standards basketball-wise that he does. Ironically enough, I overheard a statistician type at one of the panel discussions explaining to a colleague that of course he watches games — but only to enhance his data set.

“I mean, I do watch the games,” this person said, “to to try to pick up on some things that maybe my numbers aren’t catching.”

This is obviously completely backwards, and as far as Van Gundy is concerned, there’s simply no substitution for the eye test.

“To me, I think that a lot of the analytic stuff can be very useful, but if you’re using that in place of sitting down and watching film yourself and seeing what’s going on, you’re making a big mistake,” Van Gundy said. “And I don’t want to offend anybody, but I think one of the problems with analytics — I think it’s good; I used it, I love looking at it — but one of the problems is, there are a lot of people in a lot of organizations who don’t know the game, who all they know is analytics and as a result, that’s what they rely on. And they will use that to supersede what guys like us see with our eyes. And I think that’s a major mistake. There’s no substitute for watching film over and over and over again, and the only numbers I trust are the ones that my people believe.”

Van Gundy isn’t alone in his hesitance, and it will take some time before everyone trusts the way that the bulk of the data is quantified and labeled for mass consumption.
 
 
I like Kirk Goldsberry's work in general, but

1. We're 5 games into the season.

2. Of those 5 games, Monta has had 2 good games, both against bad defensive teams.

3. Monta has had some good stretches in the past. What he's done so far this year isn't entirely unheard of for him.

4. Even if he improves offensively from the level he's been at the past 5 years, he still plays no defense.

This idea that Monta is gonna change analytics is a huge stretch to me.
I called this in the beginning of the season when Kirk Goldsberry was overreacting to Monta's hot start.

Kirk's original piece: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/courtvision-the-revenge-of-monta-ellis/

His latest piece: http://grantland.com/features/dallas-mavericks-monta-ellis-dirk-nowitzki-2014/

Well-written response to that: http://statintelligence.blogspot.ca/2014/03/analytics-monta-goldsberry-grantland.html
 
[h2]  [/h2]
[h2]Curious George: The Collapse of the Pacers Star’s Season[/h2]
NBA
APRIL 9, 2014
by  KIRK GOLDSBERRY

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pg-tri.jpg

Last Friday night, the Pacers traveled to Toronto and lost to a Raptors team that was playing without Kyle Lowry and Amir Johnson. That was bad. On Sunday, they came back home, scored just 23 points in the first half, and got torched by the Atlanta Hawks. That was terrible. It would appear the strange and rapid deterioration of the Pacers knows no bounds.

Just a few months ago they were a juggernaut; now they’re a tire fire. Check out these sample headlines from the Pacers blog 8 Points 9 Seconds: “What Secret Disease Is Plaguing the Pacers?”; “Indiana Pacers Plummet in Latest NBA Power Rankings”; “Post-Game Grades: The Rock Bottom Beneath the Rock Bottom.”

It’s hard to watch, and it’s morbidly fascinating.

On the long list of things that are currently broken in Indiana, Paul George’s offense is near the top. The Pacers are struggling to score points, and George is a shell of his former self. At the beginning of the year, he looked like he could be the top scorer on an NBA champion. Through December 31, George was making 46 percent of his midrange jumpers — better than Chris Paul. He was hitting 41 percent of his 3s — better than Kevin Durant. And he was making 60 percent of his shots inside 8 feet — better than Kevin Love and Tim Duncan. He was a machine.



Unfortunately, things have changed. Since January 25, his numbers have plummeted and George has morphed into a mediocre NBA scorer. The slumping Paul George is converting only 45 percent of his shots inside 8 feet — worse than Ricky Rubio. He’s only making 37 percent of his midrange jumpers — worse than Michael Carter-Williams. His 3-point percentage is down to 34 percent; that’s worse than Josh Smith! Ha-ha. Just kidding, it’s not that  horrendous. But it’s still worse than Jeremy Lin.

Although it’s tempting and potentially accurate to pin this decline on “off-the-court” distractions, it’s also important to remember that the Pacers’ offense has never been dominant, and NBA defenses often figure out ways to make average offensive systems look even worse.



Still, George’s downward transformation has been both drastic and disappointing. Early-season George was a triple threat that could beat you behind the arc, in the midrange, and at the rim. Late-season George dominates nowhere and nohow. During the season’s first two months, George’s go-to jumper was around the right elbow, and he was draining it at elite rates. More recently, it seems like his midrange activity has drifted to the opposite side of the court and down toward the baseline, areas where he’s been far less effective.



But perhaps the most troubling development is George’s regression near the basket; not only is that an area where superstar wings very rarely “slump,” it’s also the most important scoring area on the floor, particularly for a struggling jump-shooter. George is finding no relief there, and the entire Indiana offense is suffering as a result. Early in the season, the Pacers could rely on George to create points by himself, but as that has eroded, the team’s overall offense has been exposed as a major weakness, and potentially as the team’s fatal flaw, at the most unforgiving time on the NBA calendar.

The Pacers come limping into the playoffs with a flailing offense and some weird interpersonal psychodrama. That’s not good, and George’s demise as a scoring threat provides a striking bellwether for the downfall of the Pacers’ overall mystique. Just a few months ago, many of us were predicting wonderful things for George and his teammates; now we’re wondering if they can get out of the first or second round of the meek Eastern Conference playoffs. There is still time to turn it around, but as George goes, so go the Pacers.
 
46% in the paint :x :x :x
22% from the corner 3 :x :x :x

Honestly if they lose to Miami and Vogel gets canned it will be undeserved. The expectations for this team were lofty to say the least, and its not anyones fault that the media, the masses, and the masses bought into the hype. Their best player could arguably be Miamis 4th best player and they couldnt score that great to begin with.

Its been said several times before, but Paul Georges hot start could not have been sustained.
 
Remember this?
NBA Landscape Altered by Barrage of 3-Point Shots

View media item 383938
When Reggie Miller entered the NBA in 1987 as a skinny rookie with a high-arcing jump shot, about 1 of every 18 field-goal attempts in the league was a 3-pointer. This season, 3-pointers represented almost 1 of every 4 shots taken.

Miller broke Larry Bird’s rookie record for 3-pointers made, with 61. He laughs at that number now.

“Today, Steph Curry, he gets that in a month,” Miller said in a phone interview.

Evidence of the steadily rising influence of the 3-pointer can be seen across the basketball landscape. Teams averaged a record 20 attempts a game this season, and the trend is pushing steadily upward, or outward, really, far from the basket and beyond the line painted 23 feet 9 inches away.

Golden State’s Stephen Curry set a league record with 272 3-pointers this season. Two teams, the Knicks and the Houston Rockets, attempted more 3s than any other NBA teams in history.

All are in the playoffs, where the 3-point shot, a novelty when it began in the NBA in 1979, is the star attraction. Some see it as something like art.

“Did you see the Warriors and Denver the other night?” asked Chris Mullin, who, like Miller, began his career in the 1980s and is in the Hall of Fame. The Warriors tied their first-round series with the Nuggets on Tuesday, 1-1, while trying 25 3-pointers among 79 field-goal attempts. Golden State made 14 of them and cruised to a 131-117 win.

“That was beautiful,” Mullin said. “It was even more beautiful because they were making them. But, still, you’re playing, you’re getting up and down, you’re running and you’re passing. That’s the game, to me.”

Other parts of the postseason have been similarly punctuated by the exclamation point of the drained 3-pointer — as crowd-provoking as a dunk, but worth 50 percent more on the scoreboard. On Wednesday, the Rockets and the Oklahoma City Thunder both tried 35 3-pointers — 40 percent of the total shots — in Game 2 of their series. The Thunder made 11, the Rockets made 10, and Oklahoma City won by 3 points to take a 2-0 series lead.

The Knicks, who took more than a third of their shots in the regular season from behind the 3-point line — they established league records for made 3-pointers (891) and attempts (2,371) — took a 2-0 lead on Boston as nine Knicks attempted at least one 3-pointer. That sort of across-the-roster barrage was unheard-of only a few years ago.

“That’s pretty much what we do,” Knicks Coach Mike Woodson said this month. “They’re not bad shots. You’ve got guys who can make them. If I didn’t have players who could make them, trust me, I wouldn’t be shooting them. We’ve got a bunch of guys who can make the 3, and we’ve shot it with high percentages this year. When you’ve got them, you’ve got to take them.”

The 3-point line was borrowed from the American Basketball Association, the footloose ’70s-era rival to the staid NBA.

The league was an offense-happy one. In 1975-76, the last season before the two leagues merged, A.B.A. teams averaged 112.5 points per game. The NBA average was 104.3.

The NBA imported most of the A.B.A. stars and four of its franchises: the Denver Nuggets, the Indiana Pacers, the San Antonio Spurs and the New York (later New Jersey) Nets. Also hoping to import some of the A.B.A.’s attitude, it added the 3-point line for the 1979-80 season.

It was largely a gimmick. Even in the freewheeling A.B.A.’s final season, 3-pointers represented only about 1 of every 25 field-goal attempts. They were used in desperation, not as inspiration.

In the NBA’s first season with a 3-point line, overall scoring actually dropped slightly. The average team attempted only 2.8 3-pointers per game, or about 1 of every 33 shots from the field.

When the Philadelphia 76ers won the 1982-83 NBA championship, they shot a total of 109 3-pointers (they made 25) during the 82-game regular season.

It was not until the 1986-87 season that NBA teams averaged more than one made 3-pointer per game.

“Probably my first 10 or 12 years, the whole thing for every team was that you had to pound it inside,” said Miller, who played 18 with the Pacers. “You had to get it to your center. You had to establish the paint first. And the center position really is gone in the NBA., and in college, really. Gone are the days of a David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Rik Smits, Alonzo Mourning.”

Teams, historically built around the center, began to turn themselves inside out behind the shooting touch of big men like Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks. Slowly, power forwards within a couple of inches of 7 feet began to hover near the 3-point line, pulling defenders with them.

The rise of the “stretch 4,” as power forwards who play mostly far from the basket are called, may have propelled the proliferation of the 3-pointer more than anything. The defensive slogs of the 1990s gave way to persistent motion and more long jumpers. Defend too close, and the shooter has more room to drive past. Stay too far back, and he has room to shoot something that, in the case of Curry, he makes about 45 percent of the time.

“It’s an exciting brand of basketball,” said Mark Jackson, Golden State’s coach, who played point guard for 17 years in the NBA “ Who wants to see a point guard back down for 20 seconds? It’s a different game. It’s much more enjoyable — talking as someone who did that.”

It has helped raise scoring, which dropped to 91.6 points per game in 1998-99, to about 100 points per game — still 10 points shy of the averages in the 1980s.

A growing ratio of those points comes from 3-pointers. Making them was never the issue. While it took a few seasons to find the shooting form, success on 3-point attempts have been above 30 percent every season since 1986-87. For more than two decades, it has settled around 35 percent. This season, the field-goal percentage for 3-pointers was 35.9, typical of the past 10 years.

What has changed markedly is the number of attempts. They have risen steadily.

Coaches have found that the 3-pointer can be a more efficient way of scoring points — far more so than midrange 2-point jumpers. In the simplest terms, making one-third of your 3-point shots adds up the same as making half of your 2-point shots.

The Knicks made 37.6 percent of their 3-point shots, and 48.7 percent of their 2-point attempts. Their total output (minus free throws) would seem to rise when they shot more from behind the arc than within it.

But that can be a fickle way of scoring, undermined by streaky shooting — a potential downfall in a taut playoff series. But coaches worry about that less than ever, since rosters are filled with 3-point threats. The Rockets and the Knicks, for example, each had more than 10 players average more than one 3-point attempt a game in the regular season — and more than 10 who made more than 30 percent of them.

The two teams had a combined eight players with more 3-pointers made than what Miller had 25 years ago, when he broke the rookie record.

Miller retired in 2005 with an NBA-record 2,560 3-pointers. Ray Allen, now with Miami, has since moved into the top spot. Miller laughed when considering whether he was simply ahead of his time, now that the NBA seems to have fully adopted his long-range game.

“If I would have played in the last five years,” Miller said, “Ray would never have passed me.”
Link

I think over the next few years, we'll see the three being taken even more, like one of every three shots will be a three point attempt.
It's happening:

http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2014/07/23/more-than-ever-shooting-at-a-premium/
 
I wonder how long it's gonna be before they move the line back. I'm assuming it's only a matter of time.
 
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