- 8,485
- 1,318
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2010
Rudy Gay 3-10 for 14 points.. those 10 boards doe 
The NBA Stats Thread: The 15-year chain reaction that led to the NBA's current offensive explosion
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by pmatic,
- Start date
- 1,785
- 231
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2005
Rudy Gay 3-10 for 14 points.. those 10 boards doe
Dude's shot selection is :x at times. I hate when he settles for pull up jumpers with so much time left on the clock.
- 22,235
- 10,971
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2003
Monta 
- 7,400
- 1,679
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2007
Speaking of Monta
The ridicule has trailed him for years, in out-of-town gyms and on the NBA’s snarkiest message boards. Perhaps no player has been mocked more than Monta Ellis. He shoots too much; he has never met a jumper he didn’t like; he’s a ball hog; he’s a volume shooter with an efficiency problem. I myself have been guilty of casting such aspersions. Well, although the samples are small, and the fresh season has just begun, Ellis might be rewriting his own story and teaching basketball analysts a very important lesson in the process.
What if Ellis has a great year? Do we suddenly forget all that derision? Do we ignore all the words that writers have spilled since 2005 decrying him as a foolish player? Maybe we pat him on the back, call him the “Kia Most Improved Player,” and move on? I’m not sure, but through five games, Ellis looks like a different player, and if this keeps up — and I hope it does — I think it has the potential to present a scathing indictment on the state of NBA analytics.
One thing that supposedly separates good and bad in the NBA is shot selection; good teams and good players take good shots, bad teams and bad players take bad shots. But while that’s true, the underlying origins of those behaviors are too often overlooked. The best offenses are capable of creating open looks on a regular basis. Good “shot selection” begins with good shot creation.
During the 2013 NBA Finals it seemed like Danny Green was wide open all the time. He set the record for 3s made in the Finals by the middle of Game 5. For years, Gregg Popovich and his Spurs have done a marvelous job designing coordinated sequences of actions punctuated by an open player catching and shooting the ball from a good spot on the floor. Bad teams don't do that, and as a result, players on those teams don’t get as many wide-open looks. Remember when Cleveland released the exact same Danny Green a few years ago? I guess he just couldn’t shoot back then.
A vast majority of NBA possessions end with some kind of field goal attempt, but these shots often look differently in San Antonio and Miami than they do in Charlotte. Simply put, the league’s least-efficient offenses lose to their opponents’ defenses more frequently; these losses are commonly marked by a so-called bad or difficult shot attempt, and as a result, shooters on these teams never put up efficient numbers. Still, the bookkeepers of our beloved team sport remain happy to assign and assess things like field goal percentage, assists, and Player Efficiency Rating to individual players regardless of context.
Ellis has never really played for a good team. But he’s in Dallas now, and he suddenly finds himself playing for Rick Carlisle and alongside talented veterans like Dirk Nowitzki, Vince Carter, Shawn Marion, and Jose Calderon. His PER is the highest it has ever been, and through the first week of the season it looks like Ellis is a new player — but he’s not. The inconvenient truth for analysts is that he’s the exact same human being just splashed into an extremely different, and much more efficient, ecosystem.
[+] Enlarge
Monta Ellis Chart
KIRK GOLDSBERRY/GRANTLAND
Through five games, Ellis has numbers that would be the envy of almost any other guard in the league. He is averaging 24 points per game, while making 52 percent of his shots. He is taking more than seven free throws per game, by far the highest mark of his career, which serves as a clear sign that he is being very aggressive. Last night, the old-fashioned player trackers over at Synergy put out this bat signal:
One of two things is happening: Either Ellis is the breakout star of small-sample-size theater this year and a regression is coming, or he is in the process of demonstrating something that seems so obvious I hesitate to even write it: Playing for a good team makes individual players appear better, while playing for a bad team makes them look worse. To this point, even our most advanced stats neglect that most basic notion of basketball ecology.
I’m not saying Ellis will undoubtedly be great this year, but it will be absolutely fascinating if he is.
Until this month, Ellis, on most counts, was a laughable jump shooter with a bad volume habit — one of the league’s princes of silly jumpers. But maybe we need to consider how he became bad shot royalty. It seems clear that there are dozens of potentially productive players in the league who are currently struggling within mediocre systems and would exhibit drastic “improvements” the minute they got to play in better situations. The fact that many of these same players are maligned is troubling.
[+] Enlarge
Ebbinghaus Illo
KIRK GOLDSBERRY/GRANTLAND
A few decades ago baseball sabermetrics had its revolution in part because analysts realized the game was only technically a team sport, and that it was more aptly dissected as a sequence of outcomes that involve sovereign performers competing in one-on-one encounters. But basketball exhibits the exact opposite nature and is in desperate need of a very different kind of analytical revolution. Unlike home runs or strikeouts, almost every basket, made or missed, in the NBA is the product of teamwork — coordinated and connected actions by multiple actors behaving (or in some cases, attempting to behave) as a unit. As a result, every basketball analysis that fails to account for the natural ecology of the game is inherently flawed — and to this point, almost all “advanced” analyses make no such ecological considerations.
There’s no way to accurately characterize an individual basketball player without considering his situational habitat. Yet this is what we all do on a daily basis. We constantly cite individual basketball stats like points, field goal percentage, and assists as if they were home runs. I am as guilty as anyone. Ellis’s shot chart from last season is horrible, there’s no doubt about that — but what does that actually tell us? It tells us he was very active and his shots from the field went in at below-average rates, which is true, but that’s not the whole truth. Part of the problem is that our spreadsheets can’t handle the truth.
Don’t get me wrong, Ellis has taken hundreds of ill-advised shots during his career, but some of them are the result of his environment. When you are a quick, creative shooter on a team that lacks offensive firepower, guess who has to generate field goal attempts from scratch? Guess who they pass the ball to at the end of the shot clock?
More than any other major American sport, the NBA is all about individual players. “Jordan! Malone! It’s the NBA Finals on NBC!” As such, it is very tempting to construct an accounting framework that spews out cheap factoids, mimics that marketing blueprint, and feeds our endless fascination with individual players. However, as Ellis is threatening to tell us, that kind of approach is dangerously simple, and we should be wary of bestowing the accomplishments or failings of an entire ecosystem on one of its member species.
The ridicule has trailed him for years, in out-of-town gyms and on the NBA’s snarkiest message boards. Perhaps no player has been mocked more than Monta Ellis. He shoots too much; he has never met a jumper he didn’t like; he’s a ball hog; he’s a volume shooter with an efficiency problem. I myself have been guilty of casting such aspersions. Well, although the samples are small, and the fresh season has just begun, Ellis might be rewriting his own story and teaching basketball analysts a very important lesson in the process.
What if Ellis has a great year? Do we suddenly forget all that derision? Do we ignore all the words that writers have spilled since 2005 decrying him as a foolish player? Maybe we pat him on the back, call him the “Kia Most Improved Player,” and move on? I’m not sure, but through five games, Ellis looks like a different player, and if this keeps up — and I hope it does — I think it has the potential to present a scathing indictment on the state of NBA analytics.
One thing that supposedly separates good and bad in the NBA is shot selection; good teams and good players take good shots, bad teams and bad players take bad shots. But while that’s true, the underlying origins of those behaviors are too often overlooked. The best offenses are capable of creating open looks on a regular basis. Good “shot selection” begins with good shot creation.
During the 2013 NBA Finals it seemed like Danny Green was wide open all the time. He set the record for 3s made in the Finals by the middle of Game 5. For years, Gregg Popovich and his Spurs have done a marvelous job designing coordinated sequences of actions punctuated by an open player catching and shooting the ball from a good spot on the floor. Bad teams don't do that, and as a result, players on those teams don’t get as many wide-open looks. Remember when Cleveland released the exact same Danny Green a few years ago? I guess he just couldn’t shoot back then.
A vast majority of NBA possessions end with some kind of field goal attempt, but these shots often look differently in San Antonio and Miami than they do in Charlotte. Simply put, the league’s least-efficient offenses lose to their opponents’ defenses more frequently; these losses are commonly marked by a so-called bad or difficult shot attempt, and as a result, shooters on these teams never put up efficient numbers. Still, the bookkeepers of our beloved team sport remain happy to assign and assess things like field goal percentage, assists, and Player Efficiency Rating to individual players regardless of context.
Ellis has never really played for a good team. But he’s in Dallas now, and he suddenly finds himself playing for Rick Carlisle and alongside talented veterans like Dirk Nowitzki, Vince Carter, Shawn Marion, and Jose Calderon. His PER is the highest it has ever been, and through the first week of the season it looks like Ellis is a new player — but he’s not. The inconvenient truth for analysts is that he’s the exact same human being just splashed into an extremely different, and much more efficient, ecosystem.
[+] Enlarge
Monta Ellis Chart
KIRK GOLDSBERRY/GRANTLAND
Through five games, Ellis has numbers that would be the envy of almost any other guard in the league. He is averaging 24 points per game, while making 52 percent of his shots. He is taking more than seven free throws per game, by far the highest mark of his career, which serves as a clear sign that he is being very aggressive. Last night, the old-fashioned player trackers over at Synergy put out this bat signal:
One of two things is happening: Either Ellis is the breakout star of small-sample-size theater this year and a regression is coming, or he is in the process of demonstrating something that seems so obvious I hesitate to even write it: Playing for a good team makes individual players appear better, while playing for a bad team makes them look worse. To this point, even our most advanced stats neglect that most basic notion of basketball ecology.
I’m not saying Ellis will undoubtedly be great this year, but it will be absolutely fascinating if he is.
Until this month, Ellis, on most counts, was a laughable jump shooter with a bad volume habit — one of the league’s princes of silly jumpers. But maybe we need to consider how he became bad shot royalty. It seems clear that there are dozens of potentially productive players in the league who are currently struggling within mediocre systems and would exhibit drastic “improvements” the minute they got to play in better situations. The fact that many of these same players are maligned is troubling.
[+] Enlarge
Ebbinghaus Illo
KIRK GOLDSBERRY/GRANTLAND
A few decades ago baseball sabermetrics had its revolution in part because analysts realized the game was only technically a team sport, and that it was more aptly dissected as a sequence of outcomes that involve sovereign performers competing in one-on-one encounters. But basketball exhibits the exact opposite nature and is in desperate need of a very different kind of analytical revolution. Unlike home runs or strikeouts, almost every basket, made or missed, in the NBA is the product of teamwork — coordinated and connected actions by multiple actors behaving (or in some cases, attempting to behave) as a unit. As a result, every basketball analysis that fails to account for the natural ecology of the game is inherently flawed — and to this point, almost all “advanced” analyses make no such ecological considerations.
There’s no way to accurately characterize an individual basketball player without considering his situational habitat. Yet this is what we all do on a daily basis. We constantly cite individual basketball stats like points, field goal percentage, and assists as if they were home runs. I am as guilty as anyone. Ellis’s shot chart from last season is horrible, there’s no doubt about that — but what does that actually tell us? It tells us he was very active and his shots from the field went in at below-average rates, which is true, but that’s not the whole truth. Part of the problem is that our spreadsheets can’t handle the truth.
Don’t get me wrong, Ellis has taken hundreds of ill-advised shots during his career, but some of them are the result of his environment. When you are a quick, creative shooter on a team that lacks offensive firepower, guess who has to generate field goal attempts from scratch? Guess who they pass the ball to at the end of the shot clock?
More than any other major American sport, the NBA is all about individual players. “Jordan! Malone! It’s the NBA Finals on NBC!” As such, it is very tempting to construct an accounting framework that spews out cheap factoids, mimics that marketing blueprint, and feeds our endless fascination with individual players. However, as Ellis is threatening to tell us, that kind of approach is dangerously simple, and we should be wary of bestowing the accomplishments or failings of an entire ecosystem on one of its member species.
- 22,235
- 10,971
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2003
I was pretty anti-signing Monta Ellis in the offseason, outside of the Bucks getting washed in the playoffs I hadn't watched a game he had played in maybe two or three years.
Dude is a joy to watch.
Good situations and good coaching can change things for talented players.
I see Monta averaging 23-26 with good efficiency and assist numbers for the next two or three years. He needs to stop the turnovers but I see that as a function of not knowing his teammates yet because he isn't throwing the all to the other team.
#MontaEllishaveitall
Dude is a joy to watch.
Good situations and good coaching can change things for talented players.
I see Monta averaging 23-26 with good efficiency and assist numbers for the next two or three years. He needs to stop the turnovers but I see that as a function of not knowing his teammates yet because he isn't throwing the all to the other team.
#MontaEllishaveitall
do work son
Banned
- 17,118
- 5,186
- Joined
- May 22, 2010
What's a good point per possession average for a team?
- 53,061
- 30,574
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2002
repped, kid is gonna beast this year. i remember when he was playing with baron, monta was shooting at a ridiculously high clip. one of the best mid range in the gm
monta>wade
monta>steph (and im a big W's fan)
Last edited:
- 17,499
- 23,182
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2007
Last year the league average was 1.06. The Thunder led the league at 1.12. The Wizards were the worst at 1.00.
Last edited:
- 27,974
- 9,059
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2007
I have been arguing about Monta Ellis ad nauseam on Niketalk for years. All anyone ever said was "inefficient scorer," "ballhog," or something to that degree. I constantly have tried to remind people that early in Monta's career (when he was on the We Believe Warriors with Baron, Jrich, Jax, etc.) that he was one of the MOST efficient scorers in the NBA. He shot 60% for an entire month!!
What most people cant seem to get past is the years where Monta was the primary option on terrible teams. Of course, this is where the labels came from. That is why I was hoping Monta was going to sign with a top team. Because, based solely on how he has played on good teams, the labels he has are completely unjustified.
What most people cant seem to get past is the years where Monta was the primary option on terrible teams. Of course, this is where the labels came from. That is why I was hoping Monta was going to sign with a top team. Because, based solely on how he has played on good teams, the labels he has are completely unjustified.
- 53,061
- 30,574
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2002
no knock on rob kurz, chris hunter, anthony tolliver, but those w's roster were pretty bad after that We Believe Teams
- 17,499
- 23,182
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2007
Let's not be ridiculous.
Last edited:
- 8,485
- 1,318
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2010
John Wall is shooting 8-19 from distance through four games this season.
To put that in perspective, he shot 15-87 over the past two seasons combined
Another stat to chew on that I just found.. Ricky Rubio's FG% through 5 games = 28.6% :x
Ricky Rubio career FG% = 35.5% :x :x
To put that in perspective, he shot 15-87 over the past two seasons combined
Another stat to chew on that I just found.. Ricky Rubio's FG% through 5 games = 28.6% :x
Ricky Rubio career FG% = 35.5% :x :x
Last edited:
- 27,974
- 9,059
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2007
Yeah they were horrendous. Had no scorers, no one who could create....just terrible all around teams. The entire weight of the offense rested on Monta's shoulders. And people wonder why his turnovers were up, his shooting percentage was down, and his assist numbers were down.
If we had players who could knock down open shots, you would have seen Ellis' assist total skyrocket. And because he would have actually had competent basketball players around him and he wouldnt have to do EVERYTHING, you would have seen his shooting percentage go up, and his turnovers go down.
- 7,400
- 1,679
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2007
The Mavs were such an obvious team for progression this year, weren't too far out of the playoffs last year and added Calderon/Monta with a healthy Dirk. So obvious that team was going to be scoring at an elite clip.
- 17,499
- 23,182
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2007
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.
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.
- 85,307
- 111,267
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2010
The problem with this sentiment is that they were good, though not great offensively in the post-Baron years with Monta:
08-09: 106.6 Off Eff (10th)
09-10: 105.4 Off Eff (13th)
10-11: 105.5 Off Eff (13th)
11-12: 103.9 Off Eff (only 26 games)
- 53,061
- 30,574
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2002
im going of with that eyeball test. those w's teams werent that talented. i watched almost all those gms and always said, monta should be a number two/three option. he was basically put into a primary position and wasnt that type of guy.
- 85,307
- 111,267
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2010
I'll give you that.
- 85,307
- 111,267
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2010
Dion Waiters.
101 points. 99 field goal attempts.
101 points. 99 field goal attempts.
- 10,371
- 653
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2011
I hate Dion Waiters and everything that he stands for. The worst.
- 36,045
- 12,024
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2012
korver is shooting 63% on catch and shoot 3s this year while taking 4.5 a game
- 38,407
- 7,519
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2008
After the first game of the season dudes were saying he'll be a top 3 SG by seasons end
Guess they meant top 3 in shooting attempts
John Wall is shooting 8-19 from distance through four games this season.
To put that in perspective, he shot 15-87 over the past two seasons combined
Another stat to chew on that I just found.. Ricky Rubio's FG% through 5 games = 28.6% :x
Ricky Rubio career FG% = 35.5% :x :x
My guys both killing me with this, just work on your shooting to an obsessive level, dudes have everything else going for them. They don't see how much easier Parker scores since he developed his jumper? They don't see the things Nash in his prime was able to do with elite shooting at the pg position?
Rubio gotta go to a shooting doctor though, like its bad
- 38,407
- 7,519
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2008
Have a feeling Rudy Gay will be brought up all season in this thread