Team 3pt FGA / mid-range FGA ratios

[Crow]

Chicago and Memphis worst playoff teams on effective_FG% shooting_factor. Golden State and Memphis worst playoffs teams on shot_selection_factor.


Evan Zamir has lots of good articles / datasets on shooting efficiency topics at his site thecity2.com.

I recently stumbled back on his adjusted offensive inside PPS (x100) data. Makes a strong case for Amir Johnson and Turiaf and shines glaring light on folks like Carl Landry and Tyler Hansbrough.

[deepak]

Morey did an AMA on reddit recently. He was asked about the the Rockets not taking mid-range shots. His answer:

"One interesting thing is that folks think we are proscribing mid-range shots, which is not the case. Our transition based attack and open sets give us the best chance to win with our personnel and generally this type of offense leads to high quality shots"

[Mike G]

proscribe (v.) : to prohibit, banish, denounce, forbid, exclude

I don't know anyone who uses this word.

[v-zero]

Rarely used but a good word. There are many words like that which are merely a slight adjustment to a word meaning the opposite, but are rarely used in comparison to the other.

I think Morey is probably obfuscating, though.

GSW are shocking - making no use of Curry's floor-stretching skill.

[AcrossTheCourt]

With how modern defenses are changing, they're packing the paint and closing out hard on three-point shooters. Sometimes they're even urging the opposing team into taking midrange jumpers. You could see this during the Nets-Bulls game where Brook Lopez was given a ton of open jumpers. Of course, this strategy makes sense on the general level where average midrange jumpers have expected values around 0.8 to 0.9 points.

However, is the counter to this strategy having an elite midrange shooter? Guys like Nash and Nowkitzki can hit midrange shots at 50% with high volume, even while contested. If teams trend toward giving more space and less attention to midrange jumpers, then those percentages will probably increase. If you can hit plus 50% from that distance, then you're looking at an offensive efficiency greater than 1, something that's more competitive with typical rates. Transition plays also inflate offensive efficiency. It'd be better to compare this to halfcourt efficiency. Since turnovers are less common and these jumpers are often easier to create, it's not a terrible shot. (I don't exactly believe this; I'm just presenting a hypothesis.)

How do elite midrange shooters fare against defenses that concede the midrange jumper? (This might be difficult to study because many of these shooters are the focal point of the offense, so they're being closely guarded by elite defenders and often swarmed, like Chris Paul versus the Grizzlies.) What's the value of having an elite midrange shooter on the weakside, where modern defenses pay less attention especially in this dead man's zone? (Bosh is a great example, and he was 52% this year from 16 to 23 feet on a team nearly tied for the best offense.)

On a related note, is there a place with half-court offensive efficiency for teams?

[Jacob Frankel]

On a related note, is there a place with half-court offensive efficiency for teams?

I believe the advanced version of Synergy has this.

[Crow]

Morey did an AMA on reddit recently. He was asked about the the Rockets not taking mid-range shots. His answer:

"One interesting thing is that folks think we are proscribing mid-range shots, which is not the case. Our transition based attack and open sets give us the best chance to win with our personnel and generally this type of offense leads to high quality shots"

I do not know how much managment and coaching are directing things and can't. But...

.... in the first 2 playoff games the Rockets 3pt FGA / mid-range FGA ratio is over 3-1 )based on b-r advanced boxscore info). I am pretty confident that this is very rare or unprecedented to occur beyond a single game.

[Crow]

Looks like the Rockets' 3pt FGA / mid-range ratio was still very and unusually high in game 3 but not quite as extreme as the first two games.

I had wondered aloud here some time ago about whether a team might experiment with a rigid or pretty rigid no mid range shot policy to see what would happen, possibly in practice or the pre-season. I didn't expect something pretty close to this experiment in the playoffs.

It would obviously help a lot if they weren't shooting the 3 pt shot so badly. How much of that is associated with pressing to take so many 3 pointers is obviously important and may come out in the wash of further games, this playoffs or in the future, if the "strategy" or shooting guidelines / suggestions produce similar games.

[schtevie]

...I decided to look at each team's eFG% and see how much is gained or lost from shot selection and how much is gained or lost from just simply being a good shooting team...

...So the shooting factor represents how much above/below average a team's eFG% is as a result of their shooting ability and the shot selection factor represents how much above/below average a team's eFG% is as a result of their shot selection. I realize there is more to a team's eFG% and this is a pretty basic way of looking at this but I still found the results pretty interesting.

dblack, neat stuff! A few additional thoughts and observations.

(1) There was no correlation across teams between "shooting factor" and "shot selection factor". Not sure what might be made of that, but I find the fact interesting.

(2) If you might be similarly motivated, the defensive counterpart figures can also be calculated. Just off the top, I see that Memphis' locational shortcomings on offense do not translate to their defensive efforts. To the contrary, their opponents shooting disproportionately from mid-range. Perhaps strange.

Is it reasonable to suppose no correlation between offensive and defensive "shot selection factors"?

(3) And for an extension, it should be straightforward to incorporate free throw shooting, making it a TS% decomposition - at least take a first stab at it. The 82games story I referenced previously (http://www.82games.com/locations.htm - what is quite excellent, by the way) suggests that the vast majority of shooting fouls occur within the paint. Assigning ratios to each zone, as suggested by this article, should yield a pretty good estimate.

(4) One factor that needs to be taken into account is the "James Harden effect". A significant bit, but not all, of Houston's "optimal" behavior this year is embodied in the predilections of James Harden (vs. those whose minutes he replaced). If anyone is ambitious, team shooting factors could also be decomposed into individual and team effects.

[dblack]

(2) If you might be similarly motivated, the defensive counterpart figures can also be calculated. Just off the top, I see that Memphis' locational shortcomings on offense do not translate to their defensive efforts. To the contrary, their opponents shooting disproportionately from mid-range. Perhaps strange.

Here are the defensive numbers. Same method as the offensive numbers. Negative numbers are good here.

Code: Select all

team   effective_FG%  shooting_factor  shot_selection_factor
Ind             45.3            -2.9                  -1.5
OKC             46.9            -2.8                   0.1
Mem             47.5            -1.8                  -0.3
Chi             47.7            -1.1                  -0.8
SA             48.0            -1.0                  -0.7
Bos             48.2            -1.8                   0.4
Was             48.3            -0.8                  -0.5
GS             48.6            -0.4                  -0.7
Mia             48.7            -1.3                   0.4
LAC             49.2            -0.2                  -0.3
Dal             49.2            -0.7                   0.2
Mil             49.2            -1.2                   0.8
Den             49.3            -0.9                   0.6
Phi             49.5             0.2                  -0.3
LAL             49.6             0.2                  -0.3
Atl             49.6             0.0                  -0.1
Tor             50.0             0.5                  -0.2
Uta             50.1             0.4                   0.1
Hou             50.2             1.1                  -0.5
Bkn             50.3             1.0                  -0.3
Det             50.5             0.3                   0.5
Orl             50.8             1.3                  -0.1
NY             50.8             0.7                   0.5
Min             51.1             1.8                  -0.3
Pho             51.2             1.7                  -0.1
Por             51.2             1.1                   0.5
Sac             51.7             2.3                  -0.2
NO             52.0             1.3                   1.0
Cle             52.3             2.3                   0.3
Cha             52.4             1.3                   1.4

(3) And for an extension, it should be straightforward to incorporate free throw shooting, making it a TS% decomposition - at least take a first stab at it. The 82games story I referenced previously (http://www.82games.com/locations.htm - what is quite excellent, by the way) suggests that the vast majority of shooting fouls occur within the paint. Assigning ratios to each zone, as suggested by this article, should yield a pretty good estimate.

It looks like the data I'm using from cnnsi actually has the coordinates of shots on shooting fouls so I should be able to do this with the real locations instead of estimating. I plan on doing something with this when I have some free time.

(4) One factor that needs to be taken into account is the "James Harden effect". A significant bit, but not all, of Houston's "optimal" behavior this year is embodied in the predilections of James Harden (vs. those whose minutes he replaced). If anyone is ambitious, team shooting factors could also be decomposed into individual and team effects.

I have previously done some looking into team shot locations with players on and off the floor so I was able to make some small changes to that to get the Rocket's shooting factor and shot selection factor with James Harden on/off the court. Here are the numbers:
Harden on floor: eFG% 52.4, shooting factor: -0.2, shot selection factor: 3.0
Harden off floor: eFG% 52.8, shooting factor: 0.9, shot selection factor: 2.2

[Crow]

Defensive shooting_factor is 362% of shot_selection_factor for the ten best teams on eFG% allowed. I think it is fair to say from this that the best teams are doing far more to effectively pressure shots than change shot selection.

Worse 10 teams on eFG% allowed have a positive (giving away extra points) Defensive shooting_factor that is 402% of the shot_selection_factor.

[Crow]

When we talk about using analytics it is almost always focused on the activity of or directed at management (GMs, consultants, coaches). Another pathway is by players perhaps independent of team action. I have wondered how much agents are aware of and using the available (or possible) data with their clients and not just using it for contract talks with management but using it to shape their player's behavior and best "position" them for future contract talks. I know some are using it, I just don't know how aggressively. A simple example: Harden's shot distribution chart (pretty low on mid-range shots and very high on at the rim / foul shots and 3 pointers) would seem to be a good model for many wings to try (really hard and disciplined) to emulate. But players and agents could benefit from being pro-active in many more detailed ways. There could be conflicts over how a player plays with the benefit of analytics. The way that is best for the team and the way that is best for the player. The conflict is no surprise but it might be discussed / fought somewhat differently with more and better analytic data.

Recent Sports Illustrated article says Kevin Durant has his own basketball "analyst".