Possession Advantage and Efficiency - 2016-2017 Season

[pacers]

Possession Advantage and Efficiency - 2016-2017 Season

As a follow up to yesterday’s Diversity Pod and a precursor to whenever we do the analytics pod, I wanted to share a deeper dive on some of the metrics that I look at to evaluate players. I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m not an “expert” on anything and others in the league know a lot more than me - this is just meant to share different metrics that might be interesting or useful to the league.

Generally, I think the two most important things in FBB are:

• Winning possession: You want to have as many possessions (chances to score) as possible.

• Scoring efficiently: You want your possessions to lead to points in the most efficient way.

I don’t think any of this is novel. We all look at a variety of stats to gauge the above - rebounds per game, STOCK:TO ratio, FG%, points per game, etc. I’d propose a few extensions to the above:

• Turnovers can be offset by being a plus rebounder or stock machine - stated otherwise, I’m OK with a player turning it over if they get the ball back. The core assumption here is that an additional rebound, an additional steal, additional stock, and one fewer turnover are all equivalent.

• Low FG% can be offset by shooting a lot of threes or getting to the line - stated otherwise, I’m OK with a player missing a lot of shots if they still end up with points in an efficient way.

With the above context set, I’ll go through 2 metrics, one for each of the above: possession advantage, and possession efficiency. These metrics are similar to other advanced metrics already discussed by the league (h/t Mervalytics) and in the real life NBA, e.g. TS%, REB %, etc. The reason I refer to the below metrics is because:
- They encompass the broad range of player behaviors that make up the two above dimensions (winning possession and scoring efficiently).
- They’re intuitive: To me, these metrics are straightforward to understand and apply in the context of a box score - for instance, starting Lebron at PG should get you an additional ~4 possessions per game vs starting a league average point guard.
- They form a consistent comparison point for players who impact the game in different ways - for instance, better rebounders who are less stocky (e.g. Kevin Love), or more stocky players who are worse rebounders (e.g. John Henson).

The obvious downside to both these metrics is that they don’t take volume into account, which is a huge component of player value. I use some other composite metrics to incorporate volume, but they’re much less intuitive. I’m happy to share those metrics in a follow up article/pod.

Quick notes on dataset construction:
- All metrics are calculated per 36
- Players with <1000 total minutes in the season are excluded
- I tried to take out retired players (apologies if I missed any)
- I split up PG/SG/SF vs PF/C, as the behaviors are very different

I’d love your feedback! Some of this may be novel, some of it won’t be - regardless, please tell me where you think this does or doesn’t make sense.

Possession Advantage
This metric is meant to answer: how many possessions is a player gaining or losing the team per 36 minutes, regardless of how much they shoot?

The formula is: STOCK per 36 + Rebounding Advantage per 36 - TO per 36.
Rebounding advantage is calculated versus how many rebounds the league average player of that position gets. Generally, with at-times wide variation across seasons, you can expect a PG to get ~4.75 reb/36, SG to get ~5.5, SF to get ~7.5, and a PF/C to get ~11.5. Importantly, where a player actually plays also impacts their rebounding - e.g. a PF/C playing SF will naturally get less rebounds than they would if they were to start at PF/C, which you can see in Aldridge’s numbers below.

Possession Advantage - PG/SG/SF - Best
1. LeBron James (PG): 4.38
2. Gerald Wallace (SF): 3.3
3. Monta Ellis (SG): 2.79
4. Russell Westbrook (PG): 2.61
5. Andre Roberson (SF): 2.6
6. Paul Pierce (SF): 2.55
7. Dwyane Wade (SG): 2.32
8. Eric Bledsoe (PG): 2.21
9. Tony Allen (SG): 2.16
10. Robert Covington (SF): 2.1
11. Victor Oladipo (SG): 2.1
12. Paul Millsap (SF): 2.09
13. Ersan Ilyasova (SF): 2.06
14. Michael Beasley (SF): 1.86
15. LeBron James (SF): 1.76
16. Paul George (SG): 1.73
17. Luol Deng (SF): 1.65
18. Ricky Rubio (PG): 1.55
19. Jonas Jerebko (SF): 1.53
20. Kevin Durant (SF): 1.48

Note: I listed LeBron's possession advantage at each of PG/SF as a follow up to the discussion on the pod. Yes, starting LeBron at PG is massively advantageous.

Possession Advantage - PG/SG/SF - Worst
1. Mo Williams (PG): -3.28
2. Phil Pressey (PG): -2.85
3. George Hill (PG): -2.82
4. Andrew Wiggins (SF): -2.78
5. Damian Lillard (PG): -2.55
6. Nick Young (SG): -2.35
7. OJ Mayo (SG): -2.31
8. Trey Burke (PG): -2.29
9. Steve Blake (PG): -2.22
10. Jeff Teague (PG): -2.17
11. Jamal Crawford (PG): -2.07
12. Dahntay Jones (SG): -2.05
13. JR Smith (SG): -2.05
14. Willie Green (SG): -1.96
15. Matthew Dellavedova (PG): -1.95
16. Brandon Roy (SF): -1.94
17. Goran Dragic (PG): -1.86
18. Pascal Siakam (SF): -1.83
19. Taurean Green (PG): -1.74
20. Jordan Clarkson (SG): -1.63

Possession Advantage - PF/C - Best
1. Greg Oden: 5.9
2. Andre Drummond: 5.67
3. Kendrick Perkins: 5.62
4. DeAndre Jordan: 5.33
5. Hassan Whiteside: 5.03
6. Emeka Okafor: 4.46
7. Kris Humphries: 3.82
8. Anthony Davis: 3.77
9. Andrew Bogut: 3.51
10. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist: 3.46
11. Marcin Gortat: 3.24
12. Dwight Howard: 3.21
13. Andrew Bynum: 3.04
14. Eddie Griffin: 3
15. Greg Monroe: 2.92
16. Brook Lopez: 2.87
17. Eddy Curry: 2.84
18. Rudy Gobert: 2.83
19. Larry Sanders: 2.61
20. Johan Petro: 2.58

Possession Advantage - PF/C - Worst
1. Nikola Mirotic: -3.75
2. Kelly Olynyk: -3.15
3. Blake Griffin: -2.98
4. Georges Niang: -2.85
5. Nikola Jokic: -2.77
6. Mike Sweetney: -2.27
7. Domantas Sabonis: -1.99
8. LaMarcus Aldridge: -1.8
9. Kevin Seraphin: -1.38
10. Serge Ibaka: -1.35
11. Mike Muscala: -1.06
12. Yao Ming: -0.82
13. Yi Jianlian: -0.8
14. Jakob Poeltl: -0.79
15. Myles Turner: -0.72
16. Draymond Green: -0.71
17. Jahlil Okafor: -0.67
18. DeMarcus Cousins: -0.61
19. JaVale McGee: -0.47
20. Larry Nance Jr: -0.38

Possession Efficiency
This metric is meant to answer: how many points can I expect when a player uses a possession?

The formula is: points per 36 / (FGA per 36 + TO per 36)
What I like about this metric is it’s intuitive and incorporates how the player plays - how many threes they take, how often they get to the line, etc. Backing out of playing a fast / very fast offense, which generally gets you 100-110 possessions/game, and a strong scoring clip, about 120 ppg, a great mark on this metric is 1.20+.

Possession Efficiency - PG/SG/SF - Best
1. Kyrie Irving (PG): 1.25
2. CJ Miles (SF): 1.24
3. Kevin Durant (SF): 1.23
4. Carmelo Anthony (SF): 1.22
5. Marvin Williams (SF): 1.22
6. Rudy Fernandez (SG): 1.2
7. Michael Beasley (SF): 1.2
8. Ben Gordon (SG): 1.19
9. Thaddeus Young (SF): 1.18
10. Lou Williams (SG): 1.18
11. Thabo Sefolosha (SG): 1.18
12. Steph Curry (PG): 1.18
13. Dwyane Wade (SG): 1.18
14. Tyreke Evans (SG): 1.17
15. Yaroslav Korolev (SF): 1.17
16. Jordan Hamilton (SF): 1.16
17. Rudy Gay (SF): 1.14
18. Klay Thompson (SG): 1.14
19. Ryan Anderson (SF): 1.14
20. Monta Ellis (SG): 1.14

Possession Efficiency - PG/SG/SF - Worst
1. Phil Pressey (PG): 0.82
2. Michael Carter-Williams (PG): 0.82
3. Ben Simmons (SF): 0.87
4. Nick Young (SG): 0.88
5. Alex Caruso (PG): 0.89
6. Julian Wright (SF): 0.9
7. Pascal Siakam (SF): 0.9
8. Marcus Smart (PG): 0.91
9. Spencer Dinwiddie (PG): 0.93
10. Eric Gordon (SG): 0.95
11. Patrick Beverley (PG): 0.95
12. Mo Williams (PG): 0.95
13. Patty Mills (PG): 0.95
14. Russell Westbrook (PG): 0.95
15. Malcolm Brogdon (PG): 0.96
16. Sasha Pavlovic (SG): 0.96
17. Jeff Teague (PG): 0.96
18. Joe Ingles (SF): 0.96
19. JR Smith (SG): 0.97
20. Taurean Green (PG): 0.97

Possession Efficiency - PF/C - Best
1. Boban Marjanovic: 1.33
2. Kevin Love: 1.24
3. LaMarcus Aldridge: 1.23
4. Yao Ming: 1.19
5. Chris Bosh: 1.19
6. Greg Oden: 1.18
7. Joel Embiid: 1.17
8. Al Jefferson: 1.17
9. Nikola Jokic: 1.16
10. Myles Turner: 1.15
11. Mike Muscala: 1.14
12. Anthony Randolph: 1.14
13. Nikola Vucevic: 1.14
14. Blake Griffin: 1.14
15. Anthony Davis: 1.14
16. Eddy Curry: 1.12
17. Dwight Howard: 1.12
18. DeMarcus Cousins: 1.11
19. Giannis Antetokounmpo: 1.11
20. Spencer Hawes: 1.11

Possession Efficiency - PF/C - Worst
1. Amir Johnson: 0.71
2. John Henson: 0.75
3. Lucas Nogueira: 0.78
4. Bismack Biyombo: 0.78
5. Olumide Oyedeji: 0.78
6. Ian Mahinmi: 0.79
7. Jakob Poeltl: 0.81
8. Earl Clark: 0.82
9. Cody Zeller: 0.82
10. Joakim Noah: 0.83
11. Nerlens Noel: 0.83
12. Andris Biedrins: 0.84
13. Travis Outlaw: 0.85
14. DeJuan Blair: 0.85
15. Darko Milicic: 0.87
16. Kelly Olynyk: 0.87
17. Nenę: 0.87
18. Nikola Mirotic: 0.87
19. Mike Sweetney: 0.88
20. Carlos Boozer: 0.88

Correlation:
There's basically zero correlation between these two numbers - ergo, it's incredibly difficult to find players who are good at both getting you possessions and using them efficiently. Those players are:
- Chris Bosh
- Greg Oden
- Anthony Davis
- Dwight Howard
- Eddy Curry
- Monta Ellis
- Al Jefferson
- Dwyane Wade
- Kevin Love
- Michael Beasley
- LeBron James
- Joel Embiid
- Luol Deng
- Kevin Durant
- Thabo Sefolosha
- Kyrie Irving




UPDATE: I shortened the lists to the top 20 in each to make the article more readable.

[GrundleSauce]

Great stuff! Want to see this weighted for volume!!!

[Matt]

I don’t think any of this is novel. We all look at a variety of stats to gauge the above - rebounds per game, STOCK:TO ratio, FG%, points per game, etc. I’d propose a few extensions to the above:

• Turnovers can be offset by being a plus rebounder or stock machine - stated otherwise, I’m OK with a player turning it over if they get the ball back. The core assumption here is that an additional rebound, an additional steal, additional stock, and one fewer turnover are all equivalent.

The formula is: STOCK per 36 + Rebounding Advantage per 36 - TO per 36.

My guess is that this analysis heavily overweights rebounding, as the assumption is that every one rebound is equivalent to every one steal or block, but in reality an individual rebound may not actually change the game meaningfully (these is some sizeable probability that another teammate would have grabbed that rebound), whereas blocks and steals are actually unique in that they guarantee an opposing FGA is a miss (block) or guarantee an opposing TO (steal). Would be curious to see the ratings with weights included for steals (heaviest weight) and blocks (medium weight) compared to rebounds (lightest weight)

[Merv]

The one thing I’ve always wondered about LeBron at PG, or really any outsized rebounder at a position, how much of an advantage does it really create because you’re assuming all else is even. In reality, LeBron is probably siphoning off rebounds that the SG/SF/PF were getting. This probably nets to a +1-2 advantage for Philly but probably doesn’t mean LeBron adds 5 rebounds over Trey Burke by default.

As with anything else, because we don’t actually have real data, much less play by play data, a lot of this will be really noisy. But I am surprised to see Dwight Howard on a list about using possessions efficiently given his narrative as a player in SLN

[Jesse]

tonger you beast

[Jesse]

an expansion of the big butt

[quady]

missing FTs in the scoring efficiency calculation, which I think duffs most of the bigs

[Tyler]

Here I am defending Jokers comp to Muscala… little did I know Muscala is a rich mans Blake Griffin!!

[Clinton]

Every Big of mine is on the Worst list…GGs lmao

[Clinton]

Beautiful that there was a time where i had Monta and Luol and i shit the bed