Amare Stoudemire--The best offensive player in the NBA?

by RealTangiblesGuy on Jul 18, 2008 9:27 AM MDT Comment 23 comments

Alright guys, I had been meaning to make something like this for a long time, but there's a ton of inertia with this kind of thing. You just can't start, and when you do start, it becomes an obsession.

We spend a lot of time talking about defensive capabilities and intangibles and the like, but rarely have I seen a full on discussion about who the best offensive player in the NBA is. Let that discussion begin. This graph is a eFG% vs. PPG graph for prolific scorers in the NBA. Average values are denoted by the red lines. The data was pulled from Basketball-Reference and the players to appear were selected by me (there is selection bias). I tried to pick a balance of players from teams. I picked only players with PPG over 17 (with one exception, Steve Nash). For most of these players, it cannot be argued that they do not have the ability to create their own shot. Teams rely on each of these players for major offensive production.

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I feel that an offensive player should be able to produce big time points but should do it effectively. Although eFG% is an excellent way to measure a player's offensive efficiency, it is not perfect. One problem is that it misrepresents players who are intentionally fouled due to low FT %. For example, Dwight Howard's eFG% would probably be a heck of a lot higher if he could hit 85% from the line as teams would be more willing to let him get a shot close to the basket. Currently, teams do anything in their power to foul him before his extremely high % shots. Same thing with Shaq throughout his career. Many Shaq dunks were avoided by fouling. eFG% does not do favor to these guys. However, one can argue that poor FT% should also be included in any measure of offensive efficiency, and so I have tried to include that in the concept of "Posessions" (as you'll see). Another problem with eFG% is that players who turn the ball over a ton on the way to effective offensive production (step forward, D. Wade) are overrated.

To rectify this and other similar problems, I pulled something out of my ass that I like to call "Possessions." This is basically FGA + FTA/2 + TOV (all numbers per game). In my mind, it represents possessions used by each player in order to generate his production. I know there are some problems with this. First, point guards (and others) who have as a major part of their duty distributing the ball will have higher TOV. Second, players who get many And-1's will actually be using fewer possessions than this number indicates. Furthermore, players shooting many technical freethrows will not be rated appropriately. However, it does provide some interesting information (ex. although Jefferson/Yao seem to be more effective in the post than Duncan, they also use more possessions to get their work done).

via img2.freeimagehosting.net

Alright, so here's what I think I learned after making this:

Using this, I believe a stronger case can be made for Amare as the premier offensive player in the NBA than for any other player. Amare's possessions were exactly on the border of yellow/red but I put the cutoff after him due to the And-1 bias I discussed earlier.

In the case of Iverson/Anthony, it seems very obvious that shots should be transferred to Anthony--he has a much higher eFG% than Iverson and can create his own shot.

Despite all the talk about how Al Jefferson was not enough to be the centerpiece of a trade for Garnett, his offensive production seems to be almost exactly the same as that of Yao. I don't know how far apart they are defensively but do know that both have a reputation for poor defense. Given that, would anyone protest if Yao was the focal point of a trade platter for KG?? So why do people argue about Big Al?

This graph makes Mike Dunleavy look great. It seems he may be severely underrated with respect to his offensive abilities.

Steve Nash is absolutely ridiculously amazing. Despite his reputation as a high-turnover PG, he is extremely effective offensively. I was so shocked by this that I looked up his career eFG%. Guess what? This is not an outlier. I think the Sixers may have been much better off making him the first pick of the 96 draft.

Kobe is below average with respect to eFG% (no excuses this year for poor teammates, please). He also used a high number of possessions, for what its worth.

Bosh is a yellow dot among a sea of red ones. If you subscribe to "Possessions," this means he is much more effective at scoring than his eFG% would have us believe.

Gordon seems better than Deng offensively, despite accusations that he's just another undependable jump shooter.

Both Deng and Josh Smith (highly touted RFA) are poor in terms of offensive production.

This adds another exhibit to the "Kevin Durant Sucks" stack of evidence. I was quite tempted to promptly break all the above guidelines of player selection in order to add Al Horford.

Another interesting tidbit: Mr. Vinsanity and R-Jeff had nearly the same eFG%. Now I'm pretty sure this wasn't due to planning, but it seems that major offensive players on the same team should reallocate shots until they have the same eFG% in order to gain maximum effectiveness (you listening, George Karl? How about you, SVG?)

Alright, one last note: I'm very open to criticism and promise I'll try my best to not get defensive unnecessarily. Let me know if you have any suggestions, questions, would like to see the raw numbers, want me to add a player or think I should remove a player, etc. Also I enjoy doing stuff like this so let me know if there's some other data you'd like to see. Right now, I'm thinking of doing something with the idea of consistency (which players vary the most from game to game and which are more dependable) and would appreciate any ideas or thoughts with regard to this.

Ed Note from P-Stan: Wow, is this a solid bit of analysis or what? Great work!

Towards the end of the season I some charting of Amare's season myself with grand plans to do an end of season recap show in partnership with Black Jesus Disciples

That never happened but I still have this little graph to share on the topic of Amare's dominance.

You will note the slow start which was well documented around here and that his rise started before Shaq came. This is something Amare was saying last year if anyone bothered to listen beyond the sound of Shaq's big mouth claiming how he would make Amare great.

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Comments

STAT's the man!

I’ve said for years that STAT is the best. I have never seen anyone stop him. The nearest I’ve seen is Rasheed Walace, and I think Rasheed has him psyched out. remember the blocked shot in Detroit?

Kobe is close, but he can shoot his team out of a game, And LeBron is in the mix, too, but his free throw shooting has killed the Cavs in the past.

Let me put it this way. I looked at the top FG percentage leaders. Dwight Howard shoots 87% of his shots under the basket. Amare only shoots 47% of is attempts from close in. That’s why Orlando needs a second power player to diversify their inside game. The Suns have no such problem with Amare, who shoots nearly 50% on JUMP SHOTS. How many big men do that? He is much more difficult to defend. The improvement in his FT shooting seals it.

Amare is why we are a threat to win a title. I read where someone said that we are past our prime, and no longer a title threat. Not true. All we need is for Amare to continue to improve, maybe add a baby hook, and an up-and-under move. The other thing we need is a coach to design the offense around him, like Utah did with Karl Malone. In fact, if their careers overlapped better, I would put Nash-Amare right up there with Stockton-Malone.

If Porter is able to design the offense around Amare, he can get open shots like Hakeem did for his buddies, and if Lopez can be a solid banger, a la Laimbeer without the three (or Rick Mahorn), and DJ and Tucker contribute off the bench, we will be a difficult team to defense. Remember, not only do we have one unguardable player, but we have three, since I have never seen anyone stop Boris or LB. They only stop themselves.

But it all starts with Amare.

April 29, 2008 Total Eclipse of the Sun. Is the sky falling?

by Hawk42 on Jul 17, 2008 9:56 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

More Shots

Amare is currently putting up 15.3 FGA. If he put up 5.3 more FGA like Kobe, he’ll probably gain a point off of foul shots alone. Another 5 points will likely result from the increase in FGA’s. So if he maintains his efficiency and shoots about 20.6 FGA and manages to earn 10 FTA, he would be breaking 30 PPG no problem. I would have a hard time believing that another 5 shots a game can’t be worked into the game with Amare.

Personally, I’d set up the Suns offense like this: begin by dumping the ball in to Shaq and let him bang around. He shoots a very high percentage and hits 50% on foul shots meaning you’re very likely to average around 1 point per possession while he’s at work. Hopefully, he’ll put at least one of the opposing team’s big men in trouble. Then you let Amare loose and let him devastate the foul-depleted front line of the opponent. Nash can act as a spot-up shooter of sorts during this time (he would do this ridiculously well, IMO). He could still run the fast break at the right opportunities too. Obviously, this isn’t very sophisticated since I’m not qualified to coach or develop an offensive plan but it’s fun imagining this stuff!

Also, I wouldn’t be opposed at all to moving to a much slower paced game. Having a low scoring game, in my opinion, works to the advantage of the team with the most efficient scorer since the value of each point has been increased. Since we have two of the most efficient scorers on the planet (and likely, in history) we would benefit by slowing the game down. This would also play to Shaq’s strengths.

by RealTangiblesGuy on Jul 18, 2008 1:32 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

We have two of the top five most efficient scorers...

Wow, a well-thought-out inside game plan. I don’t think we’ve ever seen that in the D’Antoni years. What a concept.

The reason Amare doesn’t get more shots is of the foul problems. He is up at the top in points per 40 minutes. That is what we hope Lopez will help with. People can criticize the Lopez pick until the cows come home, but if he can give us 20-22 minutes of solid D on the opposing scoring PF/C, Amare will stay on the court more. I actually think we may see a Lopez-Amare-Shaq front line at times, with Stevie and Grant playing the backcourt. Then when the other team is completely befuddled, we can come in with DJ, Boris, Raja, Skinner, and LB, and harass their perimeter guys with a kind of defensive small ball type of attack with Boris in his 2006 mode..

MikeD never thought in those terms. The only year the Suns caught the league off balance was 04-05. The last three years were spent trying to duplicate it, and the league caught on to what the suns were trying to do. We need to keep the other team off balance, and I think we have the personnell to do it now.

April 29, 2008 Total Eclipse of the Sun. Is the sky falling?

by Hawk42 on Jul 18, 2008 7:32 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

This is genius, RTG

I definitely expect that we see more of this, this year. D’Antoni was all about offensive balance, but the current regime may see it differently and give stat the ball more.

The question, however, is always the dynamics, which you already know of course. Can STAT do that without Nash? Can he do that and motivate the team the way KG does? Can he defend better than Bron?

But those are questions for another day! Nice work, man.

Wondering what the skip-2-my-loo to do next with my empty summer

by ZonaFlash on Jul 21, 2008 10:00 AM MDT reply actions 0 recs

STAT all the way!

He has two more years to prepare for life without Nash. And, hey, there is no guarantee Steve won’t re-up a la Stockton. Put it this way. If the 09-10 Nash averages 16 and 11, and we don’t have a replacement, we’d be fools not to try to get him for a couple more years. Now that CP3 and Deron are locked up, who else is on the FA horizon?

ZF, your other questions are indeed big. I believe he can become a great defender. We saw it against Boston. The leadership thing is a question mark.

April 29, 2008 Total Eclipse of the Sun. Is the sky falling?

by Hawk42 on Jul 21, 2008 10:39 AM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Dude, awesome work.

STAT the Man!
He just needs to get his head straight!

"Basketball doesn't build character. It reveals it"

by PanamaSun on Jul 21, 2008 1:28 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

A couple of things

Well, first, I’m sorry I missed this post. I was on vacation and have just now seen it. It’s interesting, but I think there’s some flaws here.

1) The largest flaw is that you’re calling this a measurement of “the best offensive players” but you don’t include assists, and thus you underrate all perimeter players, especially PGs. What you’re really doing is trying to create a metric for most efficient scorer, which is fine, but not the same thing as best offensive player.

2) There needs to be a positional adjustment. I have a little under 7,000,000 problems with Dave Berri, but one thing he kind of gets right is that you need a positional adjustment. Big men and perimeter players are doing very different things, get shots in different ways, and have different turnover ratios. I think it general trying to do a five position breakdown is a little much since SF/SG and PF/C generally blend together, but adjusting, in the least, for perimeter players vs. interior players is something that you need to do here. Otherwise, your chart is telling us that Dwight Howard, Carlos Boozer, Al Jefferson, Yao, and Amare would make a better offensive squad than Luol Deng, Andre Miller, Brandon Roy, Josh Smith, and Lamarcus Aldridge, which is obviously not true since Squad A (the efficient squad) has no one who can pass/dribble.

Also your commentary reflects this problem, since Kobe is likely far above average in terms of eFG% for SGs and generally every year competes with Ginobili for the most productive per minute SG in the NBA. Most statistical analysis of Kobe will show that he is overrated (he is not MJ), but we’re not talking about an Iverson situation. Instead, he still comes up as one of the best players in the NBA and the most productive at his position.

3) You should be using Per minute statistics. There’s really no reason not to be.

4) In general, I’m a little confused by the “Kevin Durant Sucks” movement since we’re still talking about a 19 year old No.1 option on a terrible team who has only played one year, but if you insist on jumping on that bandwagon, have at it. I don’t think Sam Presti is worried.

5) You are probably underrating all of these players (and some much more than others) by not adjusting for offensive rebounds which in traditional possession measurements are typically subtracted from FGAs, since they, in essence, create new possessions without the loss of a possession i.e. they’re free possessions. There’s plenty of debate about whether or not the whole of ORebs should be subtracted or just a ratio (to make up for Orebounders who just pass out and do not shoot), but not to include them doesn’t make a lot of sense in a metric of offensive efficiency.

So overall, in an interesting little study that at least makes clear what people should have known any way (at least if they’ve ever played fantasy basketball) that Amare is the most efficient offensive big man in the league. Now how much of that is attributable to the Suns system, we’ll probably never know, but, nevertheless, you can’t deny that Amare is in a small class of elite players (offensively, at least).

Purchasing my Dragic jersey

by rosewood on Jul 22, 2008 5:06 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

I'm just glad

you guys aren’t analyzing my per minute productivity ratings….

Blogging Suns Basketball

by Phoenix Stan on Jul 22, 2008 5:53 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

imaginary numbers

have not yet been incorporated into box scores. The stat wonks are working in their labs right now as I reply.

Wondering what the skip-2-my-loo to do next with my empty summer

by ZonaFlash on Jul 23, 2008 2:21 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Good points

But we have to give points for a player that at least from some viewpoint could be considered the best.

Stat, please don;t be the second coming of dominique wilkins…I just couldn’t live for that…

Wondering what the skip-2-my-loo to do next with my empty summer

by ZonaFlash on Jul 23, 2008 2:22 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

About the stats

Rosewood,

1) I agree with you here, the post is mistitled. What I mean is “best scorer” which I think is the same as “most efficient + productive scorer” (i.e. its important to be efficient but also important to be able to score a lot…2 PPG at 100% eFG is only so helpful).

2) I agree with you again and think this is a great idea. I will do a perimeter vs. interior breakdown of this and will post it on BSoTS. I’m sure there will be more debate about which category some of the players belong in but a breakdown will definitely be an improvement. Thanks. Also, I’m gonna remove that “Possessions” garbage. After a fresh read, that just sounds dumb.

3) Right. I think I was just trying to find prolific scorers and used PPG to find them and never changed it. But I won’t be using per-minute; intead, I think I’ll use per-36 minutes since that’s easier to understand.

4) I’ll respond to this separately so that this reply is just about the scoring efficiency thing.

5) I’ve decided to dump the whole possessions thing entirely because I feel I don’t know enough about it at this point. However, I am a bit confused by this practice you mention. It seems to me like offensive rebounding is part of rebounding skill and has little to do with how efficiently you use your team’s possessions (which is what I Was trying to measure).

by RealTangiblesGuy on Jul 24, 2008 4:35 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Offensive rebounds

When you’re doing a full possession analysis, you wouldn’t separate offensive rebounds from defensive rebounds, since all rebounds just fall in the possessions gained side of the T-chart along with steals while FGA, FTA/~2, and TOs would fall on the possessions spent side.

But if you wanted to break it down on the offensive side only (which really is a hard way to do possessions), then you have to add positive credit back for offensive rebounds only (defensive don’t count if you’re only talking about offense). Offensive rebounds create new possessions, so the player betters his possession tally.

The problem here though is when people are trying to figure out PPP (points per possession), they subtract the whole number of offensive rebounds from FGA attempts since the shots created through offensive rebounds actually create more possessions thus are a plus. But many people argue, myself included, that you should be subtracting only a ratio of the offensive rebounds because not every OReb leads to a shot much less a shot by the rebounding player.

Your possession analysis seemed to want to analyze just gross possessions, which is a bit strange, but fine I guess since you just wanted to figure out who took the most shots and the most efficient rates. But then it doesn’t make a lot of sense to include TOs, because many, many TOs come as a result of non-shooting offensive plays (passing, dribbling). Thus the whole number of turnovers will likely be far from the whole number turnovers caused by shot/drive attempts, making a large number of shot relevant possessions irrelevant to your metric.

But if you wanted to look at general offensive efficiency, which is really the best way to do it, you would include TOs (since those are possessions lost) and ORebs (since those are possessions gained). Or if you want to just stick with scoring then you should at least reduce your TOs by a ratio, though that ratio would likely be entirely made up.

Purchasing my Dragic jersey

by rosewood on Jul 24, 2008 5:16 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

About Durant

Excuse my bitterness in my earlier post about Durant. My anger is not related to Durant’s actions but is more a result of the way the media evaluated the ROY race. This season may not be representative of his future career and may be more a result of his offensive responsibilities, his team, and his age. However, in my opinion, the Rookie of the Year award lost all credibility this year. I will no longer look back at past ROY’s and think “He had a better season than most rookies that year” or “He had the best season of all rookies” or even “He was a good rookie.” For once in my life, I found myself agreeing with Woodson: the result of the ROY race was a travesty.

By any measure I’ve seen (except PPG), Horford was the better player this year. If you have seen any objective (statistical) measure that says Durant was better, I would love to see it. However, he was still selected as the ROY.

One of the reasons I feel he was selected was that observers felt that although he didn’t seem to be a good player, his showed a lot of talent and potential. But there already is an award for showing talent and potential: being drafted high!! Durant was drafted before Horford and this fact already confirms that Durant is considered to have more talent and potential.

Another reason was the whole “his offense has improved and he’s stopped taking 3’s” movement that happened in March. This happened right around the time that media members finally seemed to be wrapping their heads around the idea that Horford with his measly 10 PPG might have been having the best rookie season. However, as soon as Durant stopped jacking up so many 3’s he was widely applauded for “getting it.” There was even a TrueHoop post about it. You know how many months it took Horford to understand that he shouldn’t take (unnecessary) shots outside his range? Zero! But it seems that instead of realizing that Horford had “gotten it” all along, the media instead rewarded Durant for “getting it”.

A third reason (that I know of) was the whole Bill Simmons Kevin Durant Pity Party mentality. Before the year, Simmons argued that Durant would be the best rookie and by March, would be excellent. Once this didn’t happen, Bill Simmons (predictably) coughed up an excuse: No other rookie had ever been put in a worse position. Given his ridiculously wide readership and the way ESPN front-pages his articles, this idea found many ears. However, I believe that Horford was in a worse position than Durant. Durant played for a franchise facing turbulent times, to be sure. There was much mud slinging and emotional upheaval involved. The team was not expected to succeed. It has been suggested the owners didn’t want the team to succeed. On the other hand, Horford played for a franchise that wasn’t just facing 2-3 years of futility but was instead staring at the back-end of a decade of futility. The 37 win season the Hawks just had was their best in a decade. The coach has been widely documented to be so bad that two of his best players (Childress and Smith) are considering not signing a long term contract to avoid him. In fact, one of the reasons Childress went to Europe was to get out of the franchise! Ownerships various blunders with respect to signing their own players are also well chronicled. In fact, we’ll probably have another example of their folly by the time summer is over (I’m sure they’ll mess up the Josh Smith signing somehow). So tell me, which franchise would you rather play for? One facing a few tough years or one with a decade-long history of failure and no sign of hope?

Once again, my problem really isn’t with Durant. It’s with him winning the ROY award. I feel the ROY award should be an award for the rookie with the best performance through the regular season. Horford was that rookie. Shame on the voters.

by RealTangiblesGuy on Jul 24, 2008 4:58 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Bout KD

1) I just don’t really pay attention to mainstream awards since they’re generally pretty stupid and wrong. There hasn’t been a statistically correct MVP since KG and before that since Shaq. Nash’s MVPs, for instance, are almost impossible to justify without turning to “pity’ or other kinds of soft-side analysis. He simply was not the best statistical player in either of those years. That would be KG by a more than small margin. And Shaq should have several MVPs as his statistical dominance in his prime is simply outlandish.

So, in general, I think there’s an excellent and correct case that Horford was a better player this year, but I’ve never assumed that seasonal awards are anything more than the dumbass products of dumbass sportswriters.

2) That said, I think you dismiss the “pity” argument. The Hawks are a lousy organization, but at least they have a talented squad. I couldn’t care less about the organizational situations. That’s not really what the “pity” argument should be. The “context” argument (as I would call it) would point out the following:

a. Al Horford was playing with much better players than Kevin Durant
b. Al Horford was asked to do less than Kevin Durant. Horford was Atlanta’s fifth option. KD was the first.
c. Al Horford was playing center, a position that suits him. Kevin Durant was playing SG, which is entirely wrong for him and a position he had never played. But Carlesimo was worried that his thin frame would not hold up on the front-line.
d. Al Horford is two years older than Durant.

Now none of these factors can start to prove that Durant was more productive/efficient than Horford in 07-08, because that’s just not true. But they can put into context why his “disappointing” numbers compared to Al Horford’s should be taken optimistically. And I really believe that Durant can become a productive star in this league with more upside than Horford once his team gets better, he can get back into position, and his body matures. Though I do love Horford. I use to have steamy dreams about him on the Suns back when we though we would get the Hawks’ pick (such better days).

But sure. KD is definitely overrated in the mainstream as evidenced by the ROY. But the mainstream sports media is just stupid, so I don’t expect much different.

I do think though that savvy bloggers have jumped a little too much on the KD is a “bust” or “sucks” bandwagon, however, so that now in better circles he’s becoming underrated. It’s not that they’re underrating his production; rather it’s that they’re underrating the basketball factors that could properly put his production into context.

Purchasing my Dragic jersey

by rosewood on Jul 24, 2008 5:49 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

1) Yeah, I guess I’m beginning to learn the same lesson. This really does make it tough to know who was good more than a few years ago for someone like me who hasn’t been watching basketball all that long.

2) a. Yes, you’re right.
b. Al Horford was asked to do less than Durant in terms of scoring, sure. But Horford was asked to be his team’s primary rebounder as a rookie. In addition, he was asked to be the primary post defender in a division which, at the start of the season, included these 3 starting C’s: Shaq, Dwight Howard, Emeka Okafur. In a discussion about responsibilities as a rookie, these facts should also be mentioned.
c. Isn’t player conditioning part of who the better player was, though? If Kevin Durant is not bulky enough to play as a PF (his natural position) while Horford can hold his own against most C’s, shouldn’t Horford be given extra credit? If you are saying Durant played the wrong position because of a lack of intelligent on the part of his coach, I sympathize with him. If he had to do it mostly because of his lack of bulk, I would say this is a strike against Durant the player.
d. Horford is older and spent 3 more years in college preparing himself for the NBA. Those facts, IMO, should be considered heavily in terms of draft position. However, in a race for ROY, I don’t see why age should matter. I’d be fine giving it to anyone who is playing professionally for the first time in his life (this would, of course, disqualify O.J. Mayo for next year’s award, jk). For my money, I don’t think age should matter with respect to any of the awards (including MVP, all-star selection, DPOY, etc.) However, this may be something where we have to agree to disagree.

I agree, though, that KD was in a tough position (as most rookies drafted at the top usually are). He’s not guaranteed to be a bust, or suck, or shoot that badly forever, or be unable to rebound. I actually hope he can eventually do all the things that were promised when he came in because then we’d have another awesome player to watch.

by RealTangiblesGuy on Jul 26, 2008 5:20 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Rebounding vs. Scoring

The problem with rebounding statistics and post defender statistics is that there is no evidence of negative production in rebounding or defense i.e. no way we can know that a player wasn’t rebounding or defending poorly. In other words, if Al Horford is getting 10 rebounds but botching six others we have no evidence of the botched rebounds. Similarly, there’s no negative evidence of people scoring on him. We only have positive statistics like blocks and steals. So although we can see the positive results of Al Horford’s primary contributions, we can’t see whatever negative contributions he made. The closest estimations we have are +/- numbers, and those don’t speak particularly well for Horford, since the Hawks’ rebounding and defensive numbers were the same when he was in and out of the game.

Compare this to a scorer’s burden. As has been pointed out by too many critics, scoring a lot of points doesn’t mean much if it costs a lot of possessions i.e. it’s inefficient. The difference between scoring and rebounding/defense is that we have evidence of the scorer’s inefficiency. We can see when he was wasteful and count this against him. Thus, the statistical burden here is greater because attempting to score has a statistical downside while attempting to rebound or defend has no statistical downside i.e. no risk.

So when you speak about the “burden” or being the primary rebounder or post defender from a statisical point of view there is no burden, since there are no statistical downsides to rebounding or defending. Everything you do is positive, because no one keeps track of all the times you didn’t box out well or let your man shot fake you and get a three point play.

This is why I think it’s pretty silly to talk about rebounding or defense as a “responsibility” from a statistical point of view. Instead, it’s a huge benefit. And, of course, this is one of the great problems with most basketball analysis is that no one has yet come up with a way to measure effective rebounding or defense. We just have gross numbers, which, as we’ve learned from gross scoring numbers (PPG), don’t tell us very much.

Purchasing my Dragic jersey

by rosewood on Jul 26, 2008 5:48 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Statistical Burden vs. Real Burden

You’re correct in saying that it is harder to scrutinize poor rebounders than poor scorers. So I agree that information is lacking with respect to Horford’s (and everyone else’s) ability to rebound efficiently. There is, however, some information. I know you don’t like Berri’s approach much but here are some numbers (not concocted by him, just collected by him) that show Durant average more Rebs/48 than the average center: Link

Furthermore, here is the TRB% of all rookies in the last twenty years who played more than 500 minutes in their rookie season: Link
. You’ll note that Horford ranks 15th on this ahead of notable (and young) players like Okafur, Dwight Howard, Al Jefferson, and Boozer. Of course, both of the above numbers are skewed by his team’s overall rebounding ability. If everyone else in his team sucks at rebounding, it’s easier for him to lap ‘em up. However, it seems to me that even if his team was absolutely atrocious at rebounding (I don’t know where to find trb% for teams), he would have to be at least mediocre in order to appear to be such an excellent rebounder. I’m not sure but if I’m using this page correctly, the Hawks were 25th in DReb% and 5th in OReb% (so they were pretty atrocious).

As far as his defense, you’re right in saying the only stat available (as far as the two of us know, I guess) is def +/. His team has almost the same def +/ w/ or w/o him (given the likely error of the method). In my opinion, this shows that he shouldered his burden very well: he held down the fort on the 18th best (pretty closer to average there) defensive team in the league as a rookie starting center playing out of position. Wouldn’t you say that’s pretty solid?

In my opinion, given the stats we have, he is at least a mediocre rebounder and holds down the fort defensively on a near-average defensive team. He wasn’t rookie Duncan, but he got his job done. Even if you don’t agree with any of the above, what I really meant by responsibility was that he also had a job to get done. He may have been 5th in terms of scoring responsibility, but was first in terms of rebounding/post defending responsibility. Mike Woodson didn’t just give him an encouraging buttslap before games and tell him to “just go have some fun” (actually, who am I kidding? Woody probably did.) He had work to do, just like Durant.

by RealTangiblesGuy on Jul 26, 2008 8:23 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Correction

when I said “Durant average more rebs/48…” I meant Horford. Otherwise we would probably both be freaking out about how awesome Durant is.

by RealTangiblesGuy on Jul 26, 2008 8:24 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Nice analysis

But I think if LeBron were catching passes from Nash off the pick and roll, he would average 50 ppg and shoot 70% from the field. He would be absolutely unstoppable taking the shots Amare gets. Without accounting for context, though, Amare’s the most efficient scorer in the league.

As for KD, here’s an interesting stat, and I would be curious about any anecdotal explanations people might have. The Sonics had the same offensive efficiency with KD on or off the court. However, on D, their offensive efficiency (per 100 possessions) was 10 points worse. That’s a ton. If there’s another player in the league who plays significant minutes and has a wider gap, I’m not aware of him. Obviously KD is young, playing out of position, whatever, but even so isn’t that a pretty bad sign going forward? Inefficient offensively, a liability defensively = a lot of stats, not a lot of wins.

Bayless isn't the second coming of Jordan.
Jordan was the first coming of Bayless.

by KP Corleone on Jul 26, 2008 2:46 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

Not a fair comparison

To be fair, how many points do you think Amare would average if he was trhe first, second, and third option? He already almost averages the same as LBJ with the other weapons the Suns have.

April 29, 2008 Total Eclipse of the Sun. Is the sky falling?

by Hawk42 on Jul 26, 2008 4:00 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Lebron

I don’t think he would score 50 ppg at a 70% clip, although I do agree that his efficiency would likely improve. I don’t think, though, that Lebron will be on mediocre teams his whole life. Sooner or later we’ll see him play with more effective players and we’ll see how much damage he can do in that situation.

I do want to make one point, though. His team plays very solid defense and is also very good at rebounding. If his team was not as good defensively, his offensive prowess would not be able to win him as many games (as he would need to score even more points). I’m not accusing you of doing this, but I think sometimes people view his team as “a group of 12 nothings” simply because not many of them score a lot.

by RealTangiblesGuy on Jul 26, 2008 5:01 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well

You said the number one reason why this is probably so. He was playing out of position. As much as his offense suffered with him playing SG on offense, his defense took an even larger hit, since KD has absolutely no business guarding NBA 2’s. But when you have a lineup of Earl Watson, Jeff Green, KD, Collison/Wilcox, and Petro, who is going to guard the 2? Then you must remember that when Durant came out, Damien Wilkins would come in and he actually is a good defensive 2 guard.

So what you have here is more than anything a too young of a player, playing out of position because of a lousy coaching strategy.

There’s your poor defense. Get at SF/PF where he belongs, give him two years, and the results will improve, though Durant will likely never be dominant defensive player, but that doesn’t keep players like Chris Paul, Amare, and Carlos Boozer from being very effective superstars.

Purchasing my Dragic jersey

by rosewood on Jul 26, 2008 5:35 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs