The Mavericks opponent tonight got me into a nice little research about shot distribution in the NBA. Taking more shots than you should is a hot topic since Kobe decided he should go for 40 on every night. Against the Clippers on Saturday several guys went berserk over his shot selection on twitter as always and blamed him for the loss. But not so fast: Kobe had once again a gigantic USG% of 38.7%, but also scored a starter-best 1.18 Points Per Shot. So what? My numbers say, that if he indeed would have taken all the shots for the Lakers, they would have reached at least OT, if not more. OK, so this is according to PPS, but everybody easily understands that Kobe taking all shots wouldn't have resulted in Points = PPS*Team_Shots, because the defense would have quintuple-teamed him at some point. But it raised the question whether Kobe is really taking too many shot or if, adjusting to PPS in relation to the teammates PPS, he's not as selfish as suggested. Here's the data:
Rank |
Team |
Player |
USG% |
PPS |
T_PPS |
Skip% |
1 |
DET |
Austin Daye |
25.06% |
0.418 |
0.870 |
44.77% |
2 |
POR |
Marcus Camby |
11.72% |
0.573 |
0.968 |
37.83% |
3 |
SAC |
Travis Outlaw |
17.36% |
0.578 |
0.959 |
35.28% |
4 |
BOS |
Marquis Daniels |
18.03% |
0.561 |
0.930 |
35.04% |
5 |
LAL |
Derek Fisher |
12.50% |
0.633 |
0.975 |
32.08% |
6 |
UTA |
Earl Watson |
12.87% |
0.632 |
0.957 |
30.94% |
7 |
NJN |
Shawne Williams |
16.41% |
0.584 |
0.884 |
30.04% |
8 |
OKC |
Eric Maynor |
18.38% |
0.734 |
1.117 |
29.86% |
9 |
TOR |
James Johnson |
15.33% |
0.621 |
0.926 |
29.36% |
10 |
TOR |
Rasual Butler |
15.47% |
0.609 |
0.880 |
27.34% |
11 |
DAL |
Lamar Odom |
22.70% |
0.704 |
1.029 |
26.29% |
12 |
MIN |
Wesley Johnson |
17.22% |
0.614 |
0.877 |
26.17% |
13 |
SAS |
T.J. Ford |
17.29% |
0.722 |
1.027 |
25.89% |
14 |
NYK |
Toney Douglas |
25.58% |
0.690 |
1.009 |
25.60% |
15 |
ORL |
Jameer Nelson |
16.51% |
0.754 |
1.048 |
24.54% |
16 |
GSW |
Ekpe Udoh |
16.61% |
0.714 |
0.965 |
22.66% |
17 |
POR |
Raymond Felton |
20.46% |
0.721 |
0.985 |
22.57% |
18 |
PHX |
Grant Hill |
20.04% |
0.734 |
0.967 |
20.24% |
19 |
OKC |
Nazr Mohammed |
15.42% |
0.822 |
1.065 |
19.98% |
20 |
SAS |
James Anderson |
19.99% |
0.793 |
1.034 |
19.56% |
21 |
NYK |
Landry Fields |
14.95% |
0.746 |
0.958 |
19.48% |
22 |
LAL |
Metta World Peace |
18.60% |
0.694 |
0.899 |
19.39% |
23 |
CHI |
Omer Asik |
12.00% |
0.688 |
0.859 |
17.93% |
24 |
MIN |
Michael Beasley |
24.65% |
0.711 |
0.917 |
17.92% |
25 |
CHI |
Joakim Noah |
16.04% |
0.767 |
0.966 |
17.86% |
26 |
NJN |
Damion James |
14.13% |
0.644 |
0.807 |
17.84% |
27 |
PHX |
Ronnie Price |
19.67% |
0.775 |
0.970 |
16.83% |
28 |
BOS |
Jermaine O'Neal |
14.08% |
0.779 |
0.960 |
16.65% |
29 |
NOH |
Al-Farouq Aminu |
14.66% |
0.709 |
0.872 |
16.38% |
30 |
NJN |
Shelden Williams |
13.34% |
0.724 |
0.887 |
16.35% |
31 |
SAC |
J.J. Hickson |
17.49% |
0.713 |
0.876 |
15.85% |
32 |
CHA |
Corey Maggette |
23.66% |
0.749 |
0.933 |
15.78% |
33 |
NYK |
Iman Shumpert |
23.40% |
0.720 |
0.891 |
15.41% |
34 |
WAS |
John Wall |
23.71% |
0.666 |
0.822 |
15.18% |
35 |
SAS |
Gary Neal |
25.76% |
0.843 |
1.046 |
15.17% |
36 |
GSW |
Klay Thompson |
18.92% |
0.775 |
0.945 |
15.08% |
37 |
DAL |
Jason Kidd |
10.31% |
0.753 |
0.900 |
14.89% |
38 |
MIA |
Norris Cole |
24.68% |
0.784 |
0.966 |
14.88% |
39 |
DEN |
Andre Miller |
17.89% |
0.857 |
1.039 |
14.85% |
40 |
MEM |
Mike Conley |
19.31% |
0.831 |
0.996 |
13.79% |
41 |
DAL |
Rodrigue Beaubois |
23.21% |
0.771 |
0.925 |
13.30% |
42 |
MIN |
Darko Milicic |
17.32% |
0.729 |
0.855 |
12.51% |
43 |
ORL |
Glen Davis |
22.47% |
0.755 |
0.894 |
12.47% |
44 |
HOU |
Luis Scola |
27.65% |
0.829 |
0.989 |
12.25% |
45 |
MIA |
Shane Battier |
9.31% |
0.786 |
0.903 |
11.94% |
46 |
CHA |
Tyrus Thomas |
16.12% |
0.825 |
0.958 |
11.91% |
47 |
SAC |
John Salmons |
15.69% |
0.728 |
0.841 |
11.56% |
48 |
OKC |
Russell Westbrook |
31.32% |
0.854 |
1.016 |
11.53% |
49 |
CHA |
Boris Diaw |
17.12% |
0.771 |
0.889 |
11.24% |
50 |
BOS |
Rajon Rondo |
22.84% |
0.840 |
0.976 |
11.11% |
|
Glossary & Comments
|
-
USG%: The percentage of the teams shots the player has taken
-
PPS: Points-Per-Shot
-
T_PPS: The teammates PPS while the player is on the floor
-
Skip%: My estimated percentage of shots the player should have skipped, because his teammates are so much better.
No Kobe? No Kobe!
That's because Kobe Bryant scores 0.980 PPS while his teammates combine for only 0.913. But here's room for improvement in my calculation. Of course the average of the teammates PPS can actually be lower than the players PPS, but nonetheless there could be another player with a better PPS out there, like Pau Gasol. This calculation suggests that Kobe should take 4.31% more shots, because he's better than the teammates average. But Pau Gasol should take 11.10% more shots, so when Kobe is teamed up with the Spaniard, #24 of course should give up shots to him. I might redo the calculation based on my lineup data and come up with something more specific in the future.
For Dallas we got Lamar, Kidd and Roddy in the list, which is not surprising. All of them have been subpar so far in shooting percentages and/or earning free throws and are surrounded by quality players in that regard.
Other intriguing names include Rookies Iman Shumpert and Cole, which take away shots from guys named LeBron, Wade, Melo and Amare.
Also Westbrook (takes away shots from Durant), Darko and Beasley (Love, Rubio) and so on.
After the jump we'll have a list for all teams and how much they would benefit from a better shot distribution: Take away shots from players that doesn't score that much and give them to players with a better PPS value. This is done by adjusting the USG% for PPS related to teammates PPS, then recalculate the new point-outcome and improvement for each team.
Have fun with it!
|
|
Team | PPS | AdjPPS | Improvement |
NYK |
0.886 |
0.919 |
3.77% |
TOR |
0.864 |
0.886 |
2.58% |
WAS |
0.796 |
0.817 |
2.57% |
POR |
0.923 |
0.945 |
2.35% |
DET |
0.846 |
0.866 |
2.31% |
MIN |
0.882 |
0.902 |
2.25% |
SAS |
0.957 |
0.979 |
2.25% |
BOS |
0.919 |
0.940 |
2.22% |
OKC |
0.978 |
0.997 |
1.94% |
CHI |
0.904 |
0.920 |
1.86% |
SAC |
0.825 |
0.840 |
1.80% |
PHX |
0.917 |
0.933 |
1.74% |
IND |
0.876 |
0.891 |
1.72% |
ORL |
0.966 |
0.982 |
1.69% |
DAL |
0.910 |
0.925 |
1.63% |
UTA |
0.907 |
0.921 |
1.54% |
HOU |
0.902 |
0.916 |
1.51% |
NJN |
0.884 |
0.895 |
1.30% |
MIL |
0.872 |
0.883 |
1.24% |
DEN |
0.982 |
0.993 |
1.16% |
CHA |
0.858 |
0.868 |
1.15% |
LAC |
0.959 |
0.969 |
1.11% |
GSW |
0.907 |
0.915 |
0.98% |
MIA |
0.954 |
0.962 |
0.91% |
MEM |
0.871 |
0.878 |
0.78% |
LAL |
0.906 |
0.913 |
0.73% |
ATL |
0.925 |
0.932 |
0.68% |
CLE |
0.887 |
0.893 |
0.67% |
PHI |
0.977 |
0.983 |
0.61% |
NOH |
0.851 |
0.856 |
0.58% |