Michael Olowokandi never attempted a three-pointer, which was weird

2016 off-season August 4, 2016 Leave a comment

The three-point line has been a part of the NBA for 37 seasons. Since its introduction, 2,773 players and logged at least one minute in the NBA and 1,120 tallied at least 5,000 minutes.

Only seven of those players did not attempt a three-pointer, difficult to accomplish given that last-second heaves count as legit field goal attempts even if a miss flies several rows into the bleachers. Shaquille O’Neal went 1-for-22 from three over his career. The amazing Manute Bol attempted a few of them from 1986 to 1988 before going 20-for-91 in 1989. Bismack Biyombo, stone hands and all, hoisted one last season.

Michael Olowokandi played 13,129 minutes, technically the second-highest total among all players whose careers started after the 1978-79 season and finished without a single shot from beyond the arc. James Donaldson nearly doubles Olowokandi’s minute total at 26,222 without a three-point attempt, but his career lasted from 1981 to 1995, his last season when NBA teams finally surpassed 10 attempted threes per game in part because the league shortened the distance of the above the break three-point shots from 23 feet and nine inches to 22 feet. The league was slow in their transition to today’s pace-and-space era, but it was even slower to get teams comfortable with, like, shooting a three-pointer once in a while.

Below is a look at Donaldson, Olowokandi, the other five players with no attempted three in over 5,000 minutes, and a variety of stats to help get a feel for the typical skill set involved (click to enlarge):

donaldson

These players are typically low-usage players who score around the rim, possibly a good chunk of those opportunities from their own offensive rebounds given their above-average offensive rebounding (five percent is about average) and below-average assist percentages (12 percent is about average given AST/FGM/5). They also make up for their lack of spacing on offense with their rim protection on defense.

Nikola Pekovic is an exception, a career that is or nearly is done at this point, but at his best he was an absolute load to handle in the post and a wonderful compliment on offense to Kevin Love’s shooting. The tradeoff was his defense because of his flat feet and lumberjack body, but he made up for it somewhat by not fouling.

By multiple measures, Olowokandi was the worst player of the seven, the largest liability on offense by Offensive Box Plus/Minus (OBPM) and racking up not just the worst Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) of the bunch, but the worst VORP dating back to 1974. He was a very fitting center to play with prime Kevin Garnett , who I wrote about yesterday.

Going forward, both Joel Anthony and Pekovic won’t add on too much to their minute totals, if at all. Below is a look at other high minute totals from active players who have yet to an attempt a three, or heave:

boban

All of the players below Anthony and Pekovic seem to have multiple seasons ahead of them, allowing them to surpass those top two players. Boban Marjanovic, a backup center with over 6,000 minutes to go, probably won’t get there, though.

The player I would most watch out for is Hassan Whiteside, 27 years old and a lock for major minutes next season, but also a player obviously conscious of his statistics. Sure, that means he’ll have plenty of opportunities to get a defensive rebound in the final seconds of a quarter, but taking a slight hit to his field goal percentage to attempt a full-court heave doesn’t seem like something he would do.

An Andrew Bynum-like three is a different story, however:

For now, Olowokandi’s minute total without a casual three or half-court heave looks untouchable, and then there’s James Donaldson’s 26,000+ minutes. Whiteside would have to play five, maybe four full seasons to reach Olowokandi, but he would need over 10 to reach Donaldson. By that time, the NBA will have a four-pointer, probably.

This record might be unbreakable until a rule change allows for only tallying half-court heaves that are made.

All stats are from Basketball-Reference. I love you.

When Did Kevin Garnett Play Center For Minnesota?

2016 off-season, Minnesota Timberwolves August 3, 2016 1 Comment

I’m going to note right away that I loved Jonathan Tjarks’ article published two days ago about Kevin Garnett. Once in a while, I tweet that Chris Webber’s best years came in the early-2000s, the most boring era possible for a player like him. It’s a shame, but Garnett is another player who would’ve been even better had his career started 10 years later. Tjarks’ article (you can follow him on Twitter here) covers Garnett and his versatile skill set, a seven-footer who could guard every position and thanks to his shooting, handles, speed, and passing, he could use up offensive possessions from any position if his team was decimated at one.

Unfortunately, the prime of Garnett’s career was often spent playing alongside disappointing centers such as Rasho Nesterovic, Michael Olowokandi, or Mark Blount. This also happened in Boston as he started with a solid, pre-injury Kendrick Perkins but also the final days of Rasheed Wallace and Shaquille O’Neal. The Celtics’ core was strong enough and the NBA was slow enough with their transition to the pace-and-space era that it was fine. Damning because Garnett never played with a Lamar Odom-type player like Tjarks noted, but it was fine.

Garnett’s positional versatility after his first stint in Minnesota narrowed. It’s debatable, but by the time he came back to Minnesota he was (or still is?) playing like a full-time center. In his first 12 seasons, he played small forward through center, though the ranking in memories of each probably goes:

  1. Power Forward: Where he mostly played from 2004 to 2007 with a space-eating big.
  2. Small Forward: Paired with Tom Gugliotta and a space-eating big from 1996 to 1998, then with Joe Smith and a space-eating big from 1999 to 2003.
  3. Point Guard: Because of the 2003-04 playoffs when Minnesota held on for dear life as the backcourt dropped like flies.
  4. Center: This happened in moments spread out across all 12 seasons, but still happened nonetheless.

In this post, I listed some notable times when Garnett played at center during his youth and prime. It isn’t meant to #WellActually Tjarks. I’m all for any column that goes over how Garnett’s career, while amazing, should’ve been so much more enjoyable for so many reasons. I also appreciate any column that helps remember his peak since it’s been so long since it happened. Garnett’s been in the league since 1995. His prime happened when over 10 years ago. In one game during his rookie season, he played against Magic Johnson.

This post was just out of curiosity, a long time in the making, but Tjarks reminded me to get that done while it’s still the off-season. The moments with Garnett at center were fascinating upon discovering them because it had been so long since they happened. For other fans of Garnett’s career, maybe this will refresh their memories, too.

All lineup statistics were from Basketball-Reference.com. I love you (or them, or it) but this also went against your (or their, or its) positional estimates that don’t make a ton of sense for several players. All I’ve heard is that there’s a preference to height when determining positions. Garnett played 99 percent of his minutes at power forward last season, according to those estimates, but that doesn’t seem true when watching who he’s guarding and his overall skill set.

The 1998 Playoffs (available on YouTube) 

I noted earlier that at Garnett’s best, he could play any position if his team was decimated at one. This is remembered best in the 2003-04 postseason, when the Wolves’ point guards turned to dust as they were eliminated in the Conference Finals to the Los Angeles Lakers.

The first-round series of the 1997-98 playoffs against the Seattle SuperSonics was another example, this one being the postseason Garnett played primarily center. The Wolves were without Tom Gugliotta, Dean Garrett, Cherokee Parks, and Stanley Roberts. Tom Hammonds was the only other option left, and during that season Minnesota went as far to keep Garnett from guarding centers as to start Hammonds and Roberts alongside him. Against Seattle, Flip Saunders instead rolled a starting lineup of Garnett-Sam Mitchell-Anthony Peeler-Terry Porter-Stephon Marbury. 

The results were unfamiliar with even today’s Wolves. During the 1997-98 season, they took 12.8 percent of their field goal attempts from three-point range, but that jumped to 24.6 in the five games against Seattle. The 2015-16 Wolves finished the season with a three-point rate of 20.2 percent. Sam Mitchell, the coach of last season’s squad, recorded 43 three-point attempts in 81 games during the 1997-98 season. In the five playoff games, he attempted 14.

Most shooters for Minnesota saw increases in their shots from beyond the arc.

gaph

Possibly because of injuries, possibly because the SuperSonics were one of the stretchiest teams in the regular season with shooting bigs like Detlef Schrempf and Sam Perkins, the Wolves rolled with only a seven-player rotation. They also routinely doubled off the strong side shooter and gave up open threes, though that may have been because of the illegal defense rules. Double-teaming was pretty straight-forward. Going to double-team, then stopping halfway to run back to a defender might result in an illegal defense technical. Simply put, defenses these days are far more advanced. Also, Stephon Marbury looked out of control 99 percent of the time. It was maddening to watch him.

Minnesota held a 2-1 lead over Seattle at one point, but lost narrowly in Game 4 at home and lost by 13 at Seattle. 1997 probably would’ve been a similar result with small ball lineups , but it would’ve at least been interesting to watch them against Houston a year earlier, a roster of players in their mid-30s.

Unfortunately, lineups that small rarely appeared again.

1999 and 2000: The occasional frontline with just Kevin Garnett and Joe Smith

With the acquisition of Joe Smith, Minnesota routinely started both he and Garnett, but also Garrett or Rasho Nesterovic.

Doing some quick math of available minutes at the center position in each season, most of 1999’s went to Garrett, Tom Hammonds, Bill Curley, and a few bigs with tiny minute totals, leaving little room for Garnett to be placed there unless the Wolves somehow rolled with a Garrett/Hammonds combo or whatever.

2000 was a little different. With 3,936 available minutes at center over 82 games, Rasho Nesterovic, Dean Garrett, and Tom Hammonds took up only 2,699, leaving plenty of room for Garnett and Smith, the latter who came off the bench, to take up minutes there.

Basically, this comes down to when it’s just Smith and Garnett on the floor as the bigs, who would you peg as the center? Garnett has the height, but also the versatility.

2001 (0/45/55 SF/PF/C position percentages, via Basketball-Reference’s estimates) 

Not a fun year for Minnesota for multiple reasons, but in this post we’ll note that they lost Joe Smith and three first-round picks thanks to the procedure of his free agent deal. At this point, Nesterovic, Garrett, and Reggie Slater were the Wolves’ centers alongside Garnett with Wally Szczerbiak playing small forward.

Depending on where you position LaPhonso Ellis, the second-most common lineup from the Wolves in 2001 featured Ellis and Garnett together and the fourth-most common lineup had them with both Chauncey Billups and Terrell Brandon, and Szczerbiak. Unfortunately, that lineup had a net rating of -11.8 points per 100 possessions, but the Garnett-Ellis combo played 1284 minutes with a net rating of +2.6.

Looking back, a Brandon/Billups/Szczerbiak/Garnett combo could’ve done some damage, but Brandon’s injuries ended his career during the 2001-02 season.

Definitely not 2002 to 2004 (2/84/14, 6/81/13, 0/95/5)

With Joe Smith back, the 2002 Wolves played the three-man combo of Garnett/Smith/Nesterovic a little over 1,000 minutes, but with great success at +12.6 points per 100 possessions. A lineup with Billups and Szczerbiak at the backcourt gave them good size at each position, and Minnesota placed second in defensive rebounding percentage and sixth in offensive rebounding percentage. Gary Trent also played a few minutes alongside Smith and Garnett, but with break-even success.

In 2003, the Garnett/Smith/Nesterovic trio logged only 446 minutes, but Smith had missed a lot of action this season. A lineup replacing Smith with Trent logged 480 minutes. Both were small net positives. There were actually 11 games where Garnett started with Nesterovic and Loren Woods.

Despite those awkward lineups and a horrific three-point rate, Minnesota was in the top five in offensive efficiency both seasons. They even had the Lakers on the ropes in 2003, but ultimately fell in the first round in both playoff appearances.

2004 was Minnesota’s breakout season, and they had plenty of bigs in case they went up against Shaquille O’Neal again. Mark Madsen, Gary Trent, Ervin Johnson, Michael Olowokandi, and Oliver Miller combined for over 4,600 minutes. It is almost sad that the Wolves didn’t find a single big who traded considerable beef for floor spacing. A team like the Dallas Mavericks, who were terrible defensively but gave Dirk Nowitzki minutes at center, would’ve been a fascinating matchup for Minnesota, or even the Los Angeles Lakers with their shooting. The Mavericks torched the Timberwolves with it a couple seasons earlier.

The 2004 Wolves crushed a lot of teams despite frontcourt combos like Madsen/Trent, which was -10 points per 100 possessions over 218 minutes. Five of their seven most frequent lineups, all with a stiff at center to go with Garnett, Sam Cassell, and Latrell Sprewell, had a net rating of +10 to +20 points per 100 possessions.

The small ball lineups from the 1998 playoffs could’ve came back, though. A healthy 2004 Wolves squad had enough depth to deploy a Garnett/Szczerbiak/Sprewell/Cassell combo with a choice of Trenton Hassell for defense or Fred Hoiberg for shooting.

2005? (0/54/46)

The main thing to note from 2005 was Garnett with Eddie Griffin. Only 22 when he arrived in Minnesota, a healthy Griffin could’ve been a great long-term fit with Garnett. Griffin shot the three with break-even success, 4.9 attempts per 36 minutes on 33 percent, and averaged 2.8 blocks and just 1.3 turnovers per 36. The duo was +8.8 points per 100 possessions while the best lineups over 50 minutes featured them and at least one of Sprewell/Szczerbiak. The Garnett-Griffin-Spree-Wally-Cassell lineup was +27 points per 100 possessions, but only over 123 minutes.

There were also a few lineups with Garnett as the lone big and either Hassell or Szczerbiak playing as the power forward that yielded success over small samples. The small ball lineups finally came back.

2006 and 2007, if only (0/83/17, 0/71/29)

The dark ages, but the best lineups of 2006 featured Garnett as the center and Hassell or Justin Reed at power forward. However, the minute totals for each are between 30 and 60. In 2007, Garnett played most, if not all of his minutes with Mark Blount, Craig Smith, or Madsen. Sigh.

Though entering the slight downtick of his career at this point, Garnett at center during 2006 and 2007 could’ve been the best choice of attack. The Wolves were never going to be completely terrible with Garnett on the floor, but there was finally risk to pair him with a flawed center. The draft picks lost from the Joe Smith deal and the blown draft picks they kept caught up to them. They also lost the offense they typically got at point guard. There was no more Stephon Marbury, Terrell Brandon, Chauncey Billups, or Sam Cassell. There was only Marko Jaric, Marcus Banks, and Mike James.

Minnesota struggled on the boards despite their size. Going smaller may have forced a few more turnovers and led to jacking a couple more threes on offense. Still, Garnett carried these teams to near-.500 records going into February of each season. Eventually, they would fade, and sometimes they obviously tanked. With Garnett at center, maybe it would’ve only worsened their lottery odds, but it would’ve been more enjoyable to watch.

In Garnett’s second time around with Minnesota, he’s debatably played center with the starting lineup and would likely to do the same if he came back for the 2016-17 season. Garnett playing with Tyus Jones would be mindblowing, though.

Other Wolvesy notes from Garnett’s peak

  • The Gary Payton for Terrell Brandon, Wally Szczerbiak, and Rasho Nesterovic trade rumor in 2001. Minnesota’s depth, factoring in the effects of the Joe Smith deal, would’ve been cooked with that trade, but the defensive potential of Garnett and Payton before the latter aged would’ve been something. Especially if Garnett played center.
  • Speaking of defensive potential, switch Garnett and Tim Duncan with their teams and you get Garnett with an aging David Robinson, but the All-Defensive seasons from Bruce Bowen.

Other PFs playing SF or C during Garnett’s peak

  • It wasn’t just Garnett who started his career at small forward. During his rookie season, Duncan routinely started alongside both David Robinson and Will Perdue. Meanwhile with the Washington Bullets, one of Juwan Howard, Chris Webber, and, in 1996, Rasheed Wallace started at small forward alongside bigs like Gheorge Muresan, Terry Davis, and a young Ben Wallace.
  • Webber did not like playing center at Golden State, which might’ve been a lesson for teams with other franchise-changing bigs. It’s also worth noting that while Webber had some amazing years in Sacramento, he couldn’t stay healthy. Rick Adelman routinely played a young, frosted-tips Hedo Turkoglu in his place.
  • One example of power forwards playing one position up was in 1998 when Antonio McDyess played center for his one season in Phoenix. The Suns won 56 games that season but the statistics do not exactly match what you’d expect with McDyess at center with Jason Kidd, Kevin Johnson, Rex Chapman, and a stretchy power forward in Clifford Robinson. They were 10th in pace, 12th in offensive efficiency, and sixth in defensive efficiency.
  • As for McDyess, he averaged 6.7 attempts around the rim per 36 minutes, the highest of his career according to available data going back to 1998 on NBA.com. He made 69% of his attempts, one of his highest, nicest marks.
  • In 2004, Dirk Nowitzki logged time at center for the Dallas Mavericks. Dallas ended up having the most efficient offense ever, relative to league averages, but their defense fell off a cliff, from ninth in 2003 to 26th. It wasn’t just Nowitzki’s fault. Most of the roster was heavy on scoring and light on perimeter defense or rim protection. The following off-season was an overhaul, most notably losing Steve Nash, but the Mavericks bounced back to ninth in defensive efficiency and went from 52 wins to 58.
  • There are plenty of more examples scattered across the last 20 seasons, but the amount of space-eating centers who made a great deal of money to guard players like Shaquille O’Neal was too much to ignore. It wasn’t just Garnett who was held back by bad centers. Because of O’Neal, Greg Ostertag and Jim McIlvaine will live forever. So, too, will draft prospects compared to O’Neal like DeSagana Diop and Eddy Curry.

The 2015-2016 All-Bizarro Leaders in Minutes

2016 NBA Season April 21, 2016 Leave a comment

It’s about that time of the year to construct this season’s five-man team made up of unusual players who led their respective team in total minutes, though my last construction of one (or nine, going back to 2006-07) was in late-July instead of May. Whatever. In both situations, the season was already over and that’s all that really matters.

I started this mainly because guys like LeBron James, James Harden, and Jimmy Butler are likely to lead their respective teams in total minutes, but there are also a handful of players each season who are unusual sights at the top. Sometimes teams go into a rebuilding mode and need someone, anyone to be a key cog during that phase. For other teams, an aging player may have fresher legs than expected, and others may see their minutes rise due to injuries and/or depth issues.

For example, below was my 2015 squad:

2015 Tm MIN G MPG
Shane Larkin NYK 1,865 76 24.5
Ben McLemore SAC 2,670 82 32.6
Solomon Hill IND 2,381 82 29.0
Wes Johnson LAL 2,245 76 29.5
Pau Gasol CHI 2,681 78 34.4

Shane Larkin somehow led the Knicks in minutes with just 1,865, which has to be close to the record for least amount of time on the floor to lead a team. Solomon Hill went from 226 minutes during the 2013-14 season to 2,381 partly thanks to the freak leg injury to Paul George between those seasons. Meanwhile, Ben McLemore was one of the main constants for a Kings squad that was a playoff contender through the first five weeks before falling apart without DeMarcus Cousins. Wesley Johnson made the list, though just about any Laker who ended the season as the minutes leader would’ve looked unusual. Rounding out the squad was Pau Gasol, who at 34 years old played nearly 2,700 minutes, the most since logging over 3,000 in 2010-11 and the most minutes per game (34.4) since 2011-12.

So that’s a quick explanation and example of how these teams are formed. I also want to say that while I’ve started to ignore most counting and per game stats, minutes are still valuable to me. An easy example is a look at the Boston Celtics which have Jae Crowder, Avery Bradley, and Isaiah Thomas all under contract through the 2017-18 season for a combined $20-22 million, but all three provide above-average production for a combined ~95 minutes per game. That’s huge. Above-average production at, thanks to a booming salary cap, below-average salaries for that kind of talent. There will be some contracts next summer paying that much for just one above-average player. The salaries and minute load of that Celtics trio allow them to overpay for minutes at other positions, too, or for shooting off the bench.

Enough about all that, though, and a look into this season’s bizarro minutes squad. Here were my picks:

Jordan Clarkson, Los Angeles Lakers, 2552 minutes

Not every year gives me a wide variety of players to choose from, but I try to make these teams as realistic as possible with a point guard, a collection of wings, and a center. According to Seth Partnow’s playing time estimates by position, Clarkson played 42 percent of his minutes at point guard, so he’s my choice here.

He beat out C.J. McCollum, Portland’s leader because I thought there would be more in the way of Clarkson with the mix of veterans and rookies in the backcourt. Kobe Bryant, Louis Williams, and even Nick Young would get their minutes, but so would D’Angelo Russell. Clarkson ended up starting every one of the 79 games he appeared in, though, and Bryant played 98 percent of minutes at small forward. Williams played most of his 1,907 minutes at shooting guard, but Young played in only 54 games and saw his minutes per game finally drop below 20.

For McCollum, Portland traded Will Barton in the middle of last season for Arron Afflalo, who was also off the roster before this season got started. Of course, they also let Wesley Matthews go in free agency. A lot more available minutes opened up for McCollum. On a bad team like the Lakers, there were plenty available for Clarkson, too, but also veterans and developing players who needed to get their minutes.

Evan Fournier, Orlando Magic, 2,566 minutes

This spot was a toss-up between Fournier and Gary Harris. The former averaged 28.6 minutes per game in 2014-15, but the Magic had more likely choices to lead their team in minutes this season such as Victor Oladipo, Nikola Vucevic, Elfrid Payton, and Tobias Harris. For Gary Harris, he went from 719 minutes in his rookie campaign to 2,439, but just about any Denver Nugget would’ve made for an unusual leader in minutes including Danilo Gallinari, who averaged just 24 minutes per last season.

Someone on a lottery team has to lead their team in minutes, and I went with Fournier as the most unlikely between the two. Along with the teammates already mentioned, Fournier logged only his second of four seasons of over 70 games played, and it looks like there was something of a ripple effect to his minutes after Harris was traded to Detroit. The total games and minutes from this season should help Fournier this summer when, at just 23 years old, he’ll be looking for a new contract. That new contract feels more terrifying than other major raises in salary, but he shot 40 percent from three, is not a great playmaker but is at least decent, and has trimmed his turnover and foul rates since his time with Denver.

Wesley Matthews, Dallas Mavericks, 2,644 minutes

Matthews returned to NBA action less than eight months after tearing an Achilles tendon, then proceeded to log a minute total and per game rate right in line with the rest of his career. There’s value in that despite his usage rate being the lowest since his rookie season and his true shooting percentage the lowest since the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign. Hopefully 2016-17 brings upticks in three-point percentage (36 percent, down from 39 percent from 2010 to 2015) and around the rim (50 percent, down from 60 percent from 2010 to 2015).

Matt Barnes, Memphis Grizzlies, 2,190 minutes

Barnes is 35 years old, but his two highest minute totals in a season have been in 2015-16 and 2014-15, the latter when he logged 2,271 for the Clippers. This season’s total probably wasn’t what the Grizzlies planned. They cycled through 28 players and stayed afloat despite missing a total of 70 games to Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, and Zach Randolph. That trio combined for over 7,000 minutes in 2014-15 but about 5,600 this season. Courtney Lee and Jeff Green were also minute eaters, for better or for worse, who are now on the Hornets and Clippers, respectively.

Like Fournier, Barnes will be a free agent this summer, but at 35 his earning potential just isn’t the same. He should be able to make more than he did in 2015-16, though, which was $3.5 million and somehow the most he’s made in a single season. The minutes he’s been able to log should help with that.

Also, Barnes played 362 minutes at power forward. That’s enough to slot him here.

Anthony Davis, New Orleans Pelicans, 2,164 minutes

We need a possible center, so Davis makes the cut. There’s still reason to put him here despite being a top-10 player when healthy. The main one is that Davis logged only 2,164 minutes, which typically shouldn’t be enough to lead a team. Divide that by 75 games, a reasonable amount to get out of at least one player on a team, and that’s 28.9 minutes per game. Unfortunately for New Orleans, the only player to go over that 75-game total was Dante Cunningham, a gluey player and a constant for a team marred by injuries and the Matt Barnes for the Pelicans, or something. I have no idea. I have no idea about anything related to the Pelicans this season…

Honorable Mentions

Marcus Morris, Detroit Pistons, 2,856 minutes

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Andre Drummond, and Reggie Jackson seemed more likely to be the Pistons’ leader, but Detroit was top-heavy with their minute totals all season.

Paul George, Indiana Pacers, 2,819 minutes

Because, yeah, freak injuries and stuff. What a comeback.

C.J. McCollum, Portland Trail Blazers, 2,780 minutes

As mentioned above, quite a few minutes opened up for him this season, but 2,780 is still, well, a lot. Perfectly fine to swap Clarkson for him.

P.J. Tucker, Phoenix Suns, 2,540 minutes

It was just that kind of season for Phoenix, but Tucker’s 28th in total minutes since the 2013-14 season. Some bizarro names ahead of him are Jeff Green (23rd), Thad Young (21st), and Trevor Ariza (4th).

Gary Harris, Denver Nuggets, 2,439 minutes

Mentioned above and a very reasonable pick, especially after his rookie season when he had FG%/3P%/FT% lines of 30.4/20.4/74.5. Maybe he gets some votes for Most Improved Player?

Maybe I should change my pick from Fournier to Harris. Welp, too late.

Hollis Thompson, Philadelphia 76ers, 2,154 minutes

The Sixers’ leader was probably going to be weird no matter what. For that, Thompson’s penalized and dropped to the honorable mention. Still, he only started 17 games. 

Until next season. Hopefully Boris Diaw has 4,000 minutes in him.

Stats via Basketball-Reference unless noted otherwise.

Tweaking the Sixth Man of the Year Award

2016 NBA Season April 6, 2016 1 Comment

It’s award season in the NBA, helping pass time from now until the playoffs. Personally, I look forward to the All-NBA and All-Defensive teams more than the Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year, etc. The five-man teams offer a good look at who the best players were from season to season long after they’re over and its minor details have left our memory. The rest of the awards are fine, but they can mean multiple things to multiple voters. That shows itself each year in the voting results and sometimes, well, things happen.

The Most Valuable Player is an easy example, but I actually wish the Sixth Man of the Year was like that, too. It’s an award given out to the best player who starts under half the games they’ve played in. That’s the only benchmark that needs to be met in order to be eligible for the award, but the trend for who wins has been just as simple. Sixth Man of the Year winners tend to be high-minute, high-scoring, and high-usage players. This might be fine for most fans and voters, but when I think of the Sixth Man of the Year I think of some sort of sacrifice being made, a player thriving in a limited role that could very well be the best situation for him, but also one performed well enough to deserve some sort of promotion. Looking at the voting results, this often applies to players who score a lot of points, but not for the better “gluey” or “energy” guys who find other ways to make positive contributions to their team.

That’s bugged me for a while, and especially during a season where the Jamal Crawfords of the league aren’t doing too hot yet still might get heavy consideration for the Sixth Man of the Year. I’ll admit that not starting can be a big deal on its own despite getting similar levels of minutes, shots, and crunch time appearances. There’s a human element to a player sitting on the bench during the beginning of a game and not having their name announced before it. It’s something I obviously will never grasp from the couch but also because of my comfort level with anything like that kind of attention. A few retweets on Twitter is fun, but anything more is kind of scary. The same goes for a blog post like this getting some views and some feedback, but if it reaches Reddit I become terrified.

But the Crawfords of the league will still put up a ton of shots, typically play starter-level minutes which boost their point totals, and for better or for worse they might play in crunch time. Not every professional basketball player can play a role like Crawford, but not everyone can contribute across the board either, and this year the latter deserves to finally get more recognition, but I doubt it’ll happen. Year after year, points per game seems to overpower any other statistic when it’s an unfair way to measure most reserves.

So I hope a few suggestions for the Sixth Man of the Year help. Also, it has to be said that I have an irrational love for multi-positional players who don’t shoot a ton, and some of these players expend too much energy to log 30-plus minutes. Anyway, I’m hoping the first suggestion becomes more of a benchmark for the Sixth Man of the Year…

24 Minutes Per Game or Less

Using per game stats feels gross, but minutes per game still carries value and is especially useful during award season. For this award, though, it wouldn’t hurt to go the other way around. Instead of the requirement being starting less than half of the games, what if it was changed to playing less than half of the game? It’s a very simple cutoff, one that evens the playing field for starters who don’t log a ton of playing time.

For example, below is a look at Amar’e Stoudemire and Hassan Whiteside from February 3 to April 4. Try to ignore who’s started during the last couple months and decide who really is the reserve, or sixth man:

amare and hassan

This season is something of an outlier for situations like Stoudemire and Whiteside. 34 players have started over half their games while averaging under 24 minutes per, minimum 10 games played. That’s the highest amount in a season since 2006-07, around 10 more than any of those seasons except the lockout-shorted 2011-12. Meanwhile, 32 players who have started in less than half their games are averaging more than 24 minutes per.

If the 24 minutes per game ceiling made starters eligible for this award, they could pretty much replace the bench players who become disqualified.

So how would the Sixth Man of the Year race look if there was a 24 minutes per game ceiling? Below is a look at who the top candidates would be if this change was made, sorted by VORP (Value Over Replacement Player), via Basketball-Reference:

24 mpg

Not a bad group of players. When looking at VORP, the winner here is Nikola Jokic. When filtering out starters, the top player is Ed Davis. Both tables feature players who are solid but for health, age, or depth reasons have not cleared the 24-minute mark. Of course, this is only one statistic to measure by, but I’ve enjoyed fiddling around with it lately and it sounds cool, the latter reason about as good of a reason to judge a player by as points per game. Maybe. (This often seems so true for whenever Win Shares makes an appearance. It’s a darn good name for a stat.)

Going back in time, this minute benchmark would alter several Sixth Man Awards. Since 1983, only three averaged under 24 minutes per game: Bobby Jones, Bill Walton, and Corliss Williamson in 1983, 1986, and 2002. Here are links to the top players in VORP regardless of their frequency of starting games and a link filtering out players who started over half of their games.

Take Crunch Time Minutes Into Account

Just something to consider, but this could go either way in helping or hurting a player. Andre Iguodala, for example, may be penalized missing a decent chunk of games. Should he also be penalized for being a part of the Warriors’ death lineup or should that give him a boost? Is not starting as big of a deal as not being on the floor for the final minutes of a close game? Should players who neither start nor play in crunch time be given a boost or downgraded? What is life?

From the couch, it’s silly enough to decide what is sacrificing and what isn’t and it’s just as bad to decide which is more important for an NBA player between starting and finishing a game. My flaming hot take is that they both carry weight, but it seems like fans remember games and players by what happened during high-leverage moments at the end of games compared to how they started. There’s sacrifice when it comes to being fine with not starting, but it’s probably less of an issue if it means participating in crunch time. Especially in a contract year.

Dividing a player’s crunch time minutes (up or down by five or less points with five or less minutes remaining in a game) by a team’s total crunch time minutes is easy to find with players who have played in every game, but it’s kind of a hassle, at least for me, to calculate how many minutes a player like Manu Ginobili who get banged up or have frequent DNP-NAPs. So for this, I only took six eligible players who are at least something of a contender for the Sixth Man of the Year, whether it feels right or not. I also let the 24-minute filter slide because there are only so many players who have played close to 100 percent of the season so far, and only so many who happen to play less than half of the game and/or start less than half of their games. Crunch minutes are from NBA.com:

clutch

So maybe this graphic helps Enes Kanter, who does what he can without starting games or finishing them, but it hurts him because there are legitimate reasons for why he shouldn’t be on the floor against opposing closing lineups. It could go either way for him. Who knows? Just something to consider going forward.

Below-Average Usage

My last thing to consider is usage rate, but it’s probably a bit much. I only threw this out there, though, because points per game seems to be the biggest component of who wins the Sixth Man of the Year. Below is a look at players eligible for Sixth Man of the Year with below-average usage rates, and then another top 10 when applying just a 24-minute-per-game filter. Again, sorted by VORP:

usage

This all might be a collection of hot takes, and everyone is more than welcome to jump through their laptops and tell me to stahp and especially after writing the word “sacrifice” multiple times, but really I just hope for a better mix of players who make their way to the top of the Sixth Man each year. The key suggestion of 24 minutes per game or less would do just that. It might even be over the top, tilting things in favor of some players who can only be effective in so many minutes before they’re gassed, but we can fiddle with a minute ceiling. The bottom line is that it’s not just players who take a ton of shots who excel off the bench.

A player who fits well with all I’ve mentioned is Ed Davis. He doesn’t boost his stats by playing a starter’s amount of minutes, doesn’t log a whole lot of his minutes in crunch time (for better or for worse), and is a low-usage player who has found other ways to contribute while on the floor. It’s a weird year for the Sixth Man of the Year as Jamal Crawford hasn’t been his complete self, so hopefully that opens the door for Davis to get some votes that, in the past, haven’t really been there for reserves like him.

All stats are as of April 4, 2016.

RIP Embedded Excel Tables

2016 NBA Season, off topic March 29, 2016 Leave a comment

I have not published anything on here since September of 2015 (!!!) and have logged into my account maybe a handful of times over the season to check a few things. Well, about a week ago was one of those times and I noticed that all the embedded Excel charts included in blog posts were gone. The embed codes are still there, but the charts themselves don’t show up anymore. This has happened before, a longgg time ago back when there weren’t a lot of posts that relied on charts, so that was easy to fix. I think I just logged into OneDrive and pasted in the codes again, but now it would take too much time to correct each and every one. It’s not worth it given the subjects I used to write about.

So, yeah. Most blog posts look pretty awkward now. Sorry to those who thought they’d find a somewhat useful blog post about half-court heaves or non-conference records! The numbers probably don’t show up anymore. On the bright side, the last post before this one was taking the over/under on win totals before the season, and I know that was a disaster. The last time I checked how I was doing was a few months ago and it looked like I was going to end up 7-23 compared to 17-13 in 2014-15. They probably look even worse now.

This won’t be the last blog post on Chicken Noodle Hoop, so going forward there will be a substitute for Excel Online whether it’s with Tableau or just screenshots. Things will be fine, but yeah if an old blog post makes little sense and/or has huge blank spaces, well, now you know why, now you know I’m aware of it, and many apologies but now you know I’m not going to fix that.

Future blog posts won’t have that problem, though. That’s a better thing to keep in mind. 🙂

(Also, remember to tell everyone you know that Mo Speights, Boris Diaw, and Jae Crowder are the NBA’s finest players not just right now, but forever.)