We’re now one month into the NBA season, but also one month into sorting through STATS LLC’s SportVU Player Tracking system where stats from hockey assists to a player’s speed can be tracked, among other things. (Shameless promotion: I wrote about my first impressions of it here.)
And though it’s still too early to draw permanent impressions from information it’s spat out, some of it is still glaring like shooting percentages, for example. It’s easy to decipher between a pull-up jumper and a catch-and-shoot situation, making those two statistics a couple of the easiest to sort through the good, bad, and ugly that I handpicked and posted here.
For ‘the good’ and ‘the bad’, I took a handful of players from each category I thought qualified while one special player made ‘the ugly’.
I also included two other SportVU categories: Drives and Defensive Impact to go along with Pull-Up and Catch and Shoot.
Anyway, enjoy:
Pull-Up
The good:
| FGM | FGA | FG% | 3PTM | 3PTA | 3PT% | |
| Patty Mills | 21 | 37 | 56.8% | 5 | 7 | 71.4% |
| Dirk Nowitzki | 41 | 86 | 48.3% | 2 | 4 | 50% |
| O.J. Mayo | 40 | 84 | 47.6% | 9 | 15 | 60% |
| Eric Bledsoe | 36 | 77 | 46.8% | 10 | 22 | 45.5% |
| Kevin Durant | 52 | 115 | 45.2% | 11 | 21 | 52.4% |
This is all quite amazing. Bledsoe, a perceived brick thrower last year, has been hot this season. It’s one example of why I wrote some of the stats being glaring. These all may be small sample sizes right now, but they catch the eye nonetheless and make me curious if they hold up in the long run.
The bad:
| FGM | FGA | FG% | 3PTM | 3PTA | 3PT% | |
| Steve Nash | 9 | 38 | 23.7% | 2 | 6 | 33.3% |
| Luke Ridnour | 9 | 46 | 19.6% | 1 | 9 | 11.1% |
| Lance Stephenson | 5 | 30 | 16.7% | 0 | 4 | 0% |
| Tyreke Evans | 7 | 43 | 16.3% | 0 | 7 | 0% |
| J.R. Smith | 10 | 62 | 16.1% | 1 | 17 | 5.9% |
Even with his improvements across the board, I still think Lance Stephenson shoots with his eyes closed.
The ugly:
| FGM | FGA | FG% | 3PTM | 3PTA | 3PT% | |
| Corey Brewer | 0 | 30 | 0% | 0 | 8 | 0% |
Kevin Love‘s outlet passes make up for this.
Catch and Shoot
The good:
| FGM | FGA | FG% | 3PTM | 3PTA | 3PT% | |
| Harrison Barnes | 18 | 27 | 66.7% | 12 | 20 | 60% |
| Andre Iguodala | 24 | 39 | 61.5% | 21 | 34 | 61.8% |
| LeBron James | 21 | 36 | 58.3% | 18 | 30 | 60% |
| Anderson Varejao | 27 | 48 | 56.3% | 0 | 4 | 0% |
| Ryan Anderson | 28 | 52 | 53.8% | 26 | 46 | 56.5% |
Could someone make this a 5-man lineup and see if anyone dribbles?
The ugly:
| FGM | FGA | FG% | 3PTM | 3PTA | 3PT% | |
| Jeff Teague | 8 | 35 | 22.9% | 8 | 31 | 23.3% |
| Trey Burke | 4 | 20 | 20% | 4 | 14 | 28.6% |
| Reggie Bullock | 4 | 22 | 18.2% | 4 | 21 | 19% |
| Eric Bledsoe | 3 | 17 | 17.6% | 2 | 15 | 13.3% |
| Alexey Shved | 3 | 18 | 16.7% | 3 | 15 | 20% |
There’s Eric Bledsoe again. Another notable is Reggie Bullock, who has the potential to carve out a career as a three-and-D wing, one the Clippers could use right now but he hasn’t provided much so far.
The ugly:
| FGM | FGA | FG% | 3PTM | 3PTA | 3PT% | |
| Jamaal Tinsley | 0 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 0 |
Who knows if Tinsley can revive these numbers. He was waived three weeks ago by the Jazz.
Defensive Impact
The good:
| OPP FGM at rim per game | OPP FGA at rim per game | OPP FG% at rim | |
| Brook Lopez | 3.0 | 8.8 | 34.1% |
| Roy Hibbert | 3.6 | 9.9 | 36.9% |
| Chris Kaman | 2.2 | 5.8 | 37.7% |
| John Henson | 2.3 | 5.7 | 40.0% |
| Bismack Biyombo | 2.1 | 5.3 | 40.5% |
Chris Kaman making a list like this is so much better than one about centers who take wayyy too many jumpers. Also worth noting is John Henson, who in time can form a nice rim-protecting duo with Larry Sanders (whenever the latter plays again).
The bad:
| OPP FGM at rim per game | OPP FGA at rim per game | OPP FG% at rim | |
| DeAndre Jordan | 5 | 8.4 | 59.2% |
| J.J. Hickson | 3.3 | 5.4 | 59.8% |
| Gustavo Ayon | 3.3 | 5.4 | 60.5% |
| Al Jefferson | 3.8 | 6.1 | 61.8% |
| Anderson Varejao | 4.1 | 6.4 | 63.3% |
Before the season, it sounded like DeAndre Jordan was going to be Defensive Player of the Year, so this disappoints me intensely.
The ugly:
| OPP FGM at rim per game | OPP FGA at rim per game | OPP FG% at rim | |
| Udonis Haslem | 1.8 | 2.4 | 72.7% |
Who knows just how much of an impact Haslem will be going forward since Michael Beasley is logging consistent (AND PRODUCTIVE!!!) minutes off the bench.
Drives
The good:
| FG% on drives | Total Drives | Player PTS on Drives | Drives per game | PPG on Drives | Team PPG on drives | |
| Manu Ginobili | 75.0% | 53 | 42 | 3.1 | 2.5 | 4.1 |
| LeBron James | 68.4% | 92 | 72 | 5.4 | 4.2 | 6.6 |
| Andre Iguodala | 66.7% | 32 | 15 | 2.5 | 1.2 | 3.3 |
| Jeremy Lin | 65.4% | 137 | 96 | 8.6 | 6 | 10.6 |
| Tony Parker | 64.5% | 154 | 111 | 9.6 | 6.9 | 11.3 |
You can pick and choose which player is more meaningful when driving to the rim, with LeBron likely being a favorite.
The bad:
| FG% on drives | Total Drives | Player PTS on Drives | Drives per game | PPG on Drives | Team PPG on drives | |
| Vince Carter | 33.3% | 50 | 34 | 2.9 | 2 | 3.1 |
| Deron Williams | 33.3% | 39 | 10 | 4.3 | 1.1 | 4.1 |
| Corey Brewer | 33.3% | 37 | 20 | 1.9 | 1.1 | 2.3 |
| O.J. Mayo | 27.6% | 47 | 22 | 3.1 | 1.5 | 2.9 |
| Russell Westbrook | 21.7% | 90 | 35 | 7.5 | 2.9 | 7.1 |
Surely Russell Westbrook’s percentages will bounce back. I worry about Corey Brewer’s though. He’s like a paper airplane: once you let him fly, you have no idea where he’ll land. It’s made for several “noooo…yes!” moments and vice versa.
The ugly:
| FG% on drives | Total Drives | Player PTS on Drives | Drives per game | PPG on Drives | Team PPG on drives | |
| Jose Calderon | 0% | 30 | 2 | 1.8 | 0.1 | 1.7 |
This isn’t really terrible since Jose Calderon is in the top 50 in hockey assists at least. He rarely gets into the paint anyway compared to the rest of the league’s guards, though the points he generates per drive is more similar to those in ‘the bad’ category than ‘the good’.
Through 17 games, Calderon’s stats when driving to the rim are more perplexing than ugly.
All statistics are from NBA.com.
Chicken Noodle Hoop 
[…] a few plays he’s made have led to “noooo…YES!” moments like what I wrote about Corey Brewer recently. And ever since Stephenson brushed off his teammates multiple times in the Eastern Conference […]