Posts tagged ‘stats’

In contrast to John Wall dropping a Rookie-Sophomore game record 22 assists on Friday night, an NBA team achieving single digits in assists over the course of a regular season game is a pretty rare feat. According to the Basketball-Reference.com database, it’s occurred just 194 times since the 1986-87 season (the extent of BBR’s game box score database). So in roughly 0.3-percent of NBA games over the last 25 seasons. And of course, your Washington Wizards did just that on Wednesday night in Orlando, tallying a mere eight dimes divided up amongst Kirk Hinrich, who had three, along with one each from and John Wall, Kevin Seraphin, Josh Howard, Andray Blatche and Hilton Armstrong.

Teams have now put up a single-digit assist total five times this season. The Orlando Magic dropped  five assists in a 26 point loss to the Miami Heat in just their second game on the 2010-11 season (the day after Orlando blew out the Wizards by 29 points in their season home opener). The Magic also had just nine team assists in a 80-74 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on December 6, 2010. The Portland Trailblazers had eight assists in a 100-86 loss to the New York Knicks on January 11, 2011. And surprisingly enough, Chris Paul’s New Orleans Hornets put up a league season low four assists for a team in a 88-70 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on December 12, 2010.

The Wizards last achieved the single-digit assist mark with nine on December 23, 2008 against the Charlotte Bobcats. That game, Mike James started at the point and went 4-16 from the field with one assist. DeShawn Stevenson and Nick Young were the only guards off the bench and Caron Butler led the team with four assists.

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[Looking above for help in the clutch]

The Washington Wizards have been involved in 12 games out of 50 which have been decided by five points or less. Their record in those games is 7-5, with wins coming against Philadelphia (twice), Boston, Memphis, Sacramento, Toronto and Portland; the losses have come against Cleveland, Detroit, Atlanta, Orlando and Miami. Only two of the games have come on the road, the losses to the Pistons and the Hawks.

So, Washington has fared better in close games in comparison to their 13-37 record on the season overall. But the glaring problem, especially in the midst of an 0-25 road record, is that Flip Saunders does not have a player with the ability to step up as a clutch performer and truly put the team on their back when big buckets need to be scored, or when a defensive stop needs to be made.

Well, some players have the ability, it’s just that they either shy away from that role in crunch time or they become a magnified epitome of their usual inefficiencies. Whatever the case may be, no one is getting it done, especially franchise savior and No. 1 NBA Draft pick John Wall. And that’s okay. Wall will learn and develop, and hopefully the team will with him. But for now, let’s take a quick look at how some individual Wizards have fared in clutch time.

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“Synergy” is an over-used buzzword, but it’s also a damn fine NBA statistics web site. So let’s use Synergy Sports Technology to take a quick snap-shot of some Wizards numbers to date.

This season, the Wizards’ defense has often been better than the offense. With the ball, on plays that have ended in a FGA, TO or FTs, Washington has tallied 0.89 points per possession (PPP), ranked 27th out of 30 NBA teams. They score 42.9-percent of the time and turn the ball over 13.7-percent of the time in these situations.

Washington’s overall offensive rating (ORtg – points produced per 100 possessions, which is calculated differently and likely includes other factors outside of plays that end in a FGA, TO or FTs) sits in line with these focused numbers; their 102.6 ORtg also ranks 27th.

The Wizards are particularly bad at scoring on post ups — which comes as no surprise considering the roster construction — chalking up a measly 0.70 PPP over 318 opportunities, a rate that’s ranked dead last in the league. Andray Blatche has produced 0.64 PPP on 121 post up opportunities, JaVale McGee has produced 0.66 PPP on 64 post ups, Yi Jianlian 0.50 PPP on 28 post ups … you get the point, the cupboards are bare, the well is dry and the children are starving.

In contrast,  the Wizards fare above average (at least in ranking comparison) on Pick-and-Roll ball handler plays on offense, producing 0.82 PPP over 567 possessions, which is ranked 12th in the NBA. John Wall clearly needs some work in this area, producing just 0.69 PPP as the offensive P&R ball handler, which ranks 106 in the league. Kirk Hinrich, on the other hand, produces 0.95 PPP as the P&R ball handler, ranked 17th. This is simply a difference in seasoned decision-making that will eventually come for Wall.

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Commentary and links …

You’ll often hear NBA coaches, especially Flip Saunders, exclaim (perhaps complain) about two things in explanation of their team’s faults: injuries and lack of practice time. Well, with three days off since their last game, along with the report that all 15 Wizards practiced for the first time this season yesterday, there will be little room for excuses as the team travels to Philadelphia tonight to seek their first road win of the season against the 76ers. Stay tuned …

Playing Down Defense?

On Monday the Washington Post’s Michael Lee had a good story about the Wizards’ improved defense since the Gilbert Arenas trade. Now, I’ll take a look at an additional level of defensive statistics.

As Lee wrote, before the trade the Wizards were giving up 105.8 points per game and after, 91 points per game. Since different opponents play at a different pace, thus the possessions in a game will fluctuate, we’ll look at points scored per 100 possessions* as a more balanced factor. Before the trade, the Wizards gave up 109.8 points per 100 possessions, and 96.7 after. So, the difference in pre- and post-trade points per game is 14.8; the difference in points given up per 100 possessions is 13.0.

Interestingly enough, before the trade, the current cumulative winning percentage of Washington’s opponents is an even .500; post trade opponents now have a .579 winning percentage.

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“Hopefully I can get back to my old self of when I was in Seattle when I made the All-Star team, when I was playing the three position…”

-Rashard Lewis

“We’re going to try to use him a little bit how he was used in Seattle, move him around, let him play a couple different positions, run plays for him where he doesn’t become such a one-dimensional type player.”

-said Flip Saunders, who went on to express that Lewis could play the three or four positions, throwing out several obvious lineup combinations.

Let’s get a couple facts about Lewis out of the way. He was drafted out of high school and this is his 13th year in the league — lot of tread on those tires, 847 games worth, plus 64 playoff games. He also has experienced bouts of knee tendinitis at various points in his career.

Looking at PER (Player Efficiency Rating by ESPN’s John Hollinger — league average is 15), Lewis’ best career seasons came in Seattle in 2005-06 (20.0) and 2006-07 (20.7). He made the All-Star team in 2004-05 with a PER of 19.9.

In those three successive seasons of Seattle’s best, Lewis shot field-goal percentages of .462, .467, .461; three-point percentages of .400, .384, .390; and averaged 20.5, 20.1 and 22.4 points per game, respectively.

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[Gilbert Arenas takes a bow after his 60 point game vs. the LA Lakers on December 17, 2006.]

Twenty-two down with game 23 coming tonight in D.C. against jersey No. 24 and his LA Lakers. 60 games to go on the season for the Wizards? Seems like a lot … until it isn’t. What also seems like a lot is the fact that a Los Angeles purple and gold team will be gunning to avenge the moral victory Washington recently achieved on their court … while gaining an Andrew Bynum back against a Wizards team likely to be without Andray Blatche, perhaps without John Wall, and with Gilbert Arenas “generally sore” … whatever that means.

So do you want to see the Wizards take on the Lakers tonight for free anyway? Sure you do. Because guys like Trevor Booker and Kevin Seraphin, a duo who helped fuel Washington’s valiant attempts in LA, are expected to see their fair share of time on the court with the swollen knee of 7-Course-Meal-Dray expected to keep him inactive. The Nick Young-Kobe Bryant Show Part II could be fun to watch as well.

Hence, TAI is giving away more free tickets courtesy of StubHub … this time, three tickets to an upper level suite (I know, three tickets is an odd number, but three is also company.)

How can you score these free Wizards-Lakers tickets? At around 3 PM EST this afternoon, Tuesday, December 14, I will be posting a Wizards-related trivia question on the TAI Twitter account: @Truth_About_It. The first person to email, NOT Tweet, the correct answer to truthaboutit@gmail.com will have three (3) suite tickets waiting for them at the Verizon Center Will Call for tonight’s game. Seems easy enough.

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What do you write after a team shoots 65.8% (50-76 field-goals) on their way to a 114-83 win over the Wizards?

Chalk it up to the Boston Celtics being a great-passing veteran team at home and the Wizards being a non-passing, relatively inexperienced team on the road and move on, I suppose.

Oh, lest I forget a stat fact that you’ll surely be made aware of by others: the Boston Celtics had 32 assists, the Washington Wizards had 31 made field-goals.

But let’s go back to this field-goal percentage thing. It’s kind of like winning in overtime when you didn’t deserve it … a win is a win.

Sure, the Celtics were pretty hot and likely would have been scorching the nets against most teams on this very night on their own parquet floor. But 65% is 65% … this game won’t be exempt from the Wizards’ defensive statistical record no matter how in the zone the Celtics were.

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[Yi Jianlian procures an easy defensive rebound against the Charlotte Bobcats - K. Weidie]

It’s simplistic to look at average team rebounds per game and say the Washington Wizards are the worst in the NBA, but it wouldn’t represent the full story.

The Wizards average a league-low 38 rebounds per game. On the defensive boards they average 27.25, which ranks 28 out of 30; and on the offensive boards they average 10.75, which is tied with the San Antonio Spurs to rank 20 out of 30 NBA teams.

But as you know, rebounds are not soley a factor of the time it takes to play a game. They are also a factor of pace (how fast a team plays and thus how many possessions they are producing, the more possessions, the more available boards), and field-goal percentage (the more missed shots, the more rebounds).

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Not too long ago we took a look at some of the worst shooters in Bullets/Wizards franchise history. Now, especially since shooting is such a concern, we’ll take a look at some the best shooters in team history, specifically from the three-point distance.

[Basketball Court - Georgia Avenue/Howard University - photo: K. Weidie]

Last season was the 31th anniversary of the three-point shot in the NBA. Well, sorta. The three-point line was implemented on a trial basis for the 1979-80 season and set into permanent rule for the 1980-81 season. So, perhaps technically this season is the 31th anniversary of the three-point shot in the NBA. Nonetheless, stats on the shot have been kept for the previous 31 seasons and are available thanks to Basketball-Reference.com.

Kevin Grevey of the Washington Bullets hit the first three-point bucket in franchise history, on opening night against the Philadelphia 76ers at home on October 12, 1979. Evidently there is some dispute as to whether Grevey hit the first three in NBA history; Chris Ford of the Boston Celtics is usually credited with accomplishing this feat, which occurred on the same night.

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[Shaw Rec. Center - Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

In mid-September, ESPN.com contributor Tom Haberstroh made an attempt to determine the five worst players in the franchise history of each NBA team [ESPN Insider]. The requirements, along with the implementation of John Hollinger’s PER, were:

“… a player needed to have played at least 10 minutes per contest over the course of at least 100 career games with the franchise. Furthermore, we’ve added the “Bruce Bowen Corollary” to exempt players who started for championship teams.”

And the list of distinguished gentlemen for the Bullets/Wizards franchise:

And while a standard qualification is necessary to measure across all teams, it’s still subjective. Any of us could find other players just as bad, or worse, using the database of Basketball-Reference.com. Today, I’ll focus on bad shooting players in franchise history.

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Click here for part one of the TAI Basketball-Reference.com statistical research assignment, featuring a search for what opposing player has scored the most off the bench against the Wizards/Bullets since ’86-87 and the observations of Arish Narayen and Adam McGinnis. Part two, with my second search example and the findings of John Townsend and Rashad Mobley, is below.

[The Number Cruncher - Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

For my second quick example using BBR’s database, I selected the “Team Season Finder” and ran a simple search to see which Bullets/Wizards team averaged the most assists per game in the shot clock era (starting in 1954-55). (Click here for the full results.)

The ’89-90 Bullets averaged 27 assists per game. Darrell Walker led the team with 8.0 per game, John “Hot Plate” Williams was second with 4.7 per, and Bernard King was third with 4.6 assists per game. That year, the Bullets finished fourth in the NBA in total assists, and they were the only team in the top 11 in total assists that did not make the playoffs. The ’89-90 Bullets finished 31-51.

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[A John Wall t-shirt seen at the 2010 Columbia Heights Day Festival.]

There’s a reason the Sports-Reference.com family of sites was named one of Time Magazine’s 50 Best Websites for 2010. They have just about everything you’d want, sports fact and statistically speaking, and their search capabilities are always growing … well, if they only had NBA game logs that pre-dated the 1986-87 season.

Nevertheless, I recently gave an assignment to the staff of Truth About It.net, (Rashad Mobley, John Townsend, Arish Narayen and Adam McGinnis). I asked them to go to the Basketball-Reference.com database search page, come up with a creative query, and write something quick about it. I also came up with some quick example searches myself.

For instance, I went to the “Player Game Finder” and ran a simple search selecting ‘Wizards/Bullets’ as the opponent, ‘did not start’ as the role, and sorted by points. (Click here for the full results.)

Did you know … (from the ’86-87 season to current, the extent of BBR’s game log database), the 37 points Al Harrington scored for the New York Knicks against the Wizards on February 26 of this year was the most points scored on Washington by a player off the opposing team’s bench?

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[a basketball hoop somewhere in Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

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Excuse the comparison to the men’s game and think of the following more as context to what the Washington Mystics have accomplished this season. Through their run, a prevailing storyline has been about someone who hasn’t played at all, all-star Alana Beard. No one expected Washington to do anything after Beard had season-ending surgery on an injured left ankle tendon in April. Instead, the Mystics finished as the first overall seed in the East.

Unfortunately for the growing Mystics fan base, their team lost its opening playoff game against the Atlanta Dream in D.C. on Wednesday night. They’ve long moved past the ‘what if we had Alana’ stage, but for context, perspective, and for the hell of it, let’s find the NBA equivalent of Beard’s statistical production for a better idea of her impact, or lack thereof.

I chose three advanced stat categories to put in the Basketball-Reference.com historical NBA database (and please excuse the refresher course via the Basketball-Reference glossary):

• PER (Player Efficiency Rating): “The PER sums up all a player’s positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player’s performance.” *Note: developed by ESPN’s John Hollinger.
• Usg% (Usage Percentage): “Usage percentage is an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor.”
• WS/48 (Win Shares Per 48 Minutes): “An estimate of the number of wins contributed by the player per 48 minutes (league average is approximately 0.100).”

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The return of Josh Howard is unexpected, surprising and baffling. It’s also smart. And it’s the topping on a dessert of questions … I’ll get to that in a bit. First, let’s go through some reasons why it’s an agreeable move, without protest.

First, Howard comes relatively cheap — $4 million for a year with incentives, as reported by the Washington Post’s Michael Lee. He’s a player with the potential to show above average skill in a wide range of categories. In 2006-07 he had a PER of 20.0 and the tenth lowest turnover percentage in the NBA.

Second, he needs to get his knee healthy. The team doesn’t expect him to be ready by the start of the season. Howard’s camp says he’ll be full speed in October and that he is “ahead of schedule” — of course, Howard has been saying that he’s ahead of schedule since before last season was over (Good to know he’s still on track). Nevertheless, the knee, in a sense, was a blessing … selfishly for the Wizards.

Sure, it was essentially inevitable that the team would decline to pick up Howard’s $11.8 million option for 2010-11. But was it inevitable that he would re-sign with the same team for $7.8 million less (minus incentives)? Maybe, maybe not. In speaking with him before the end of last season, it was clear Howard understood that his option would not be picked up and that he’d be willing to come back to the Wizards. Still, that’s a lot of change to swallow and to re-sign for just a single season with the team that just forced you to chew.

Perhaps Howard felt the Wizards wanted him, as he said after the trade that brought him to D.C., and thus decided the best course of action is to stay put for a bit — to follow through with loyalty to the team that acquired him and to stick it to the team that traded him away. OR, maybe offers from the Bulls, Celtics and Cavaliers, franchises reportedly interested in Howard, just weren’t up to monetary snuff heading into a potential lockout.

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[Editor's note: Below is third piece Arish Narayen has written for TAI. He first broke down the Wizards' small forward situation in early July, and then wrote about the Wizards' third summer league game against the Mavericks. -Kyle]

If you haven’t had a chance to read this study linked on TrueHoop Monday, check it out. In the piece, Neil Paine of Basketball-Reference.com analyzes how NBA players performed against above and below average defenses in 2009-10.

Paine begins by ranking each team’s defense by using a defensive version of the Simple Rating System, taking into account margin of victory, strength of schedule, and home-court effects. Taken from the article, here are the relevant bits about the Wizards:

First, the good news. Last season, the Washington Wizards’ defense ranked 20th in the NBA using Paine’s DSRS metric. Take that, New Orleans and Phoenix. Read more »