We’ve reached a bit of a lull in the offseason. The summer leagues are over, just about all of the free agents are signed, and the Olympics haven’t even started yet. Rather than wallowing in the lack of competitive basketball games and breaking news, I’d like to take this opportunity to reflect on a few of my articles that pre-date Roundball Reasons, through a series of weekly posts that I’ll call Throwback Jersey Thursday.
This first installment relates to the value of outside shooting. You may have noticed that some fairly limited players have signed big contracts this summer based on their 3-point shooting ability. A couple notable examples are Mirza Teletovic and Meyers Leonard [see my scouting report on Leonard here], each of whom signed for more than $10 million a year for several years.
At a glance these contracts can be tough to justify. Especially after seeing Steph Curry look mortal again in the playoffs, I think there’s a tendency to view outside shooting as an overvalued specialty, at least as it relates to postseason success. In the playoffs defenses are more focused and better able to deny good looks from the best opposing shooters, resulting in fewer 3s and lower shooting percentages as a general rule. As a Bulls fan I distinctly recall Kyle Korver having trouble generating good looks in the playoffs, and if an outside shooting specialist isn’t making 3s, what value does he provide?
To answer my own question, an outside shooting specialist provides value beyond scoring in the form of improved spacing. In retrospect what I notice about Korver is that even though his 3-point makes and percentages drop off somewhat in the playoffs, he’s still provided just as much of a positive impact to his teams in terms of plus/minus, or on-court/off-court ratings. In other words, in the playoffs his teams continue to be substantially better with him on the court even though his individual stats decline. Just by virtue of being such a threat and drawing a defender to him at all times, Korver opens up opportunities for his teammates, unlike a lesser shooter who can be left alone or sagged off of beyond the arc. [And outside shooters can ratchet up their intensity in the playoffs too. Nene learned that the hard way.]
It’s a common trend for prolific outside shooters to have worse individual stats but the same or better on/off ratings in the playoffs. The following chart compares regular season and playoff 3-point shooting by the players with the most career playoff 3s and a minimum of 35% efficiency and 1.5 3s per 36 in the regular season (plus Mike Conley based on “gravity score” in the 2015 article below). On/off stats are only available since 2000, so this excludes anyone who played primarily before then, most notably Reggie Miller. As the chart shows, only 3 of 25 players shot a higher 3-point percentage in the playoffs, though 16 of 25 had a higher playoff on/off rating.
The trend of having worse shooting percentages but equivalent or better on/off ratings holds true for James Harden, Steph Curry, Manu Ginobili, Mike Conley, and Kyle Korver, each of whom appears in the article below on the value of spacing. If the chart had been sorted by total 3s made in the playoffs, Ray Allen would rank first by a wide margin. Allen stands out on the list anyway as a rare example of a sharpshooter who maintains his 3-point efficiency and volume in the playoffs. He’s also remarkable for the fact that his teams are 9.2 points better with him on the court than off in the postseason, despite him being on the downside of his career, in his mid- to late 30s, for the bulk of those playoff minutes. For more on Ray Allen’s early career and throwback jersey, scroll to the bottom of the page.
August 22, 2015
Gravity, Distraction, and Respect
Good spacing is vital to maintaining a well-functioning offense. Along with ball movement and player movement, space is what enables a ball-handler to generate more open and efficient shots. When a single defender is able to effectively guard two players—either because those players are too close to each other or because one may be ignored as a non-threat—spacing breaks down, the ball-handler’s ability to create efficient scoring opportunities is diminished, and the offense suffers as a result.
Recently-developed statistics labeled “gravity score,” “distraction score,” and “respect rating” attempt to quantify an individual player’s effect on his team’s overall spacing. According to ESPN’s Kevin Pelton, STATS Inc. utilizes SportVU player tracking data to calculate a player’s “gravity score,” which measures how closely the player’s primary defender guards him off the ball at any given time, and “distraction score,” which measures the distance between his defender and the ball-handler. Tom Haberstroh, also of ESPN.com, combines these scores to form a “respect rating,” which serves as a proxy for the player’s overall contribution to team spacing when playing off the ball.
Though these statistics are not publicly available, on December 31, 2014, Haberstroh posted the top 10 players by “respect” over the course of the season to that point, along with their ranking for the full 2013-14 season. Here are the players that ranked among the top 10 on average for both periods: Steph Curry (#1, 1), Kyle Korver (2, 2), James Harden (5, 6), Manu Ginobili (7, 9), Klay Thompson (8, 3), and Mike Conley (12, 4). Each of these players is a high-volume, relatively high-efficiency 3-point shooter, which is not surprising considering that outside shooting ability is recognized as the leading contributor to spacing.
More notably, each of these players rates very well offensively by Real Plus-Minus (RPM), the most publicly available adjusted plus-minus stat. Each player has ranked in the top 15 by Offensive RPM in at least one of the past two seasons, including Curry and Harden ranking in the top 5 both seasons.
These players generally do not rank quite so highly by more conventional advanced stats like PER and Offensive Rating, suggesting that such stats, and perhaps common wisdom, underrate outside shooting in the evaluation of player performance. This is consistent with Justin Willard’s study finding that 3-point attempts have a substantial positive effect on team offense even after accounting for shooting efficiency.
Such findings also call into question Dean Oliver’s assessment of three-point shooting specialists, about whom he states the following: “Three-point bombers generally are pretty high-risk guys. When they make their shots, they are valuable. When they don’t, they get yanked. . . . Though three-point shooters get you a lot of points when they hit one, if they score infrequently, that inconsistency hurts.” Basketball on Paper, pp. 166-67 [This book was required reading for my course at the time; it’s available here]. Oliver’s characterization of outside shooting specialists as boom-or-bust players depending on whether they make the shot fundamentally ignores the value of the spacing that they bring just by virtue of being on the court.
The Jersey
The Milwaukee Bucks wore a version of this green alternate jersey in the 1995-96 through 1998-99 seasons. This particular jersey is distinctive to the 1996-97 season based on its gold NBA logo in celebration of the league’s 50th anniversary.
1996-97 was Ray Allen’s rookie year. He averaged 13.4 points a game, predictably leading the team in 3s and 3-point field goal percentage. Has there ever been a more consistent outside shooter in league history? But Ray Allen was much more than just an outside shooter, especially as a young Buck. Only 1/3 of his field goal attempts in Milwaukee were 3s, as he drove to the rim off the dribble with surprising effectiveness. Check out these explosive finishes (no doubt aided by his stylish green jersey):
If you’d like even more specific info on the jersey, take a look at the first half of this youtube video from ThrowBacKing. You can buy it officially-licensed at the NBA store or direct from Mitchell & Ness, and there are also listings on eBay. Or you might be interested in this Ray Allen rookie card featuring the jersey.
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