Statistical Trivia

[Mike G]

Progression of the record for 3-pointers in a playoff game (since 1984)

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3FG   player         yr   tm   opp
3 * Ricky Sobers    1984  Was  Bos
3 * Rob Williams    1984  Den  Uta
4  Darrell Griffith 1985  Uta  Hou
5   Brad Davis      1986  Dal  Uta
6   Michael Cooper  1987  LAL  Bos
7   Chuck Person    1991  Ind  Bos
8   Dan Majerle     1993  Phx  Sea
9   Rex Chapman     1997  Phx  Sea
11  Klay Thompson   2016  GSW  OKC

* It may be that someone made 3 or more before 1984.
Three others hit 9 in a game: Vince Carter '01, Ray Allen '01 and '09, Jason Terry '11
Ray in '01 hit 9 of 13 and matches Klay in going 3/12 inside the arc.

Most playoff 3's thru age 27-ish:

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3FG   3fg%   player
203  .406   Steph Curry
181  .328   Kevin Durant
169  .412   Klay Thompson
159  .312   LeBron James
146  .350   James Harden
136  .429   Danny Green
135  .329   Kobe Bryant
126  .385   Robert Horry
118  .358   Paul George
117  .357   Mario Chalmers

[Mike G]

Players who have averaged at least 25 pts, 6 reb, and 10 ast in a postseason:

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playoffs   yr    G    Pts   Reb   Ast
Oscar     1962   4   28.8  11.0   11.0
Magic     1990   9   25.2   6.3   12.8
Westbrook 2016  18   26.0   6.9   11.0

At 25-5-10, there's also one by Isiah (4 G).
http://bkref.com/tiny/Eqekd
Westbrook actually hit 25-6-10 in each round of playoffs.

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vs.   G    Pts   Reb   Ast
Dal   5   26.0   7.2   11.2
SAS   6   25.2   6.5   10.5
GSW   7   26.7   7.0   11.3

Playoff averages of 24 pts, 8 reb, 7 ast, and 2 stl, in any number of games:

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playoffs     yr     G    Pts   Reb   Ast   Stl
Bird   Bos  1986   18   25.9   9.3   8.2   2.1
LeBron Cle  2016   15   24.5   8.9   7.1   2.2

Remove the Stl qualifier and you get also Cousy, Oscar (3x), Havlicek, Ruland. Bird is there 3 times, LeBron 5.
Just 10 entries of 24-8-7 that are beyond 1st round, LeBron with half of them.

[Mike G]

Most Finals minutes without a turnover (1984 -)

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. Zero TO      yr    Min
Dale Davis    2000   177
Daniel Gibson 2007   139
Derek Fisher  2012   128
Tr. Thompson  2016 * 110

Tristan could wind up 2nd to another guy in similar situation: PF forced to play C against a superior opponent.
http://bkref.com/tiny/eq8i7

Most Finals minutes with nary a Stl, Blk, or FTA:

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0 Stl/Blk/FTA  yr   Min  Pts  Reb  Ast
Scott Wedman  1984   73   37   21   10
Iman Shumpert 2016 * 69   11    8    1
Antoine Carr  1997   59   18   10    5
Craig Hodges  1991   53   19    3    1

Hodgie was on nearly his last legs here. These others at least did something on the court.

Most Finals minutes with nary a Stl, Blk, or FG:

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0 Stl/Blk/FG       yr   Min
Sasha Vujacic     2009   22
Shelden Williams  2010   18
Jason Caffey      1997   17
Anderson Varejao  2016 * 17
James Jones       2016 * 16

Channing Frye matches Shane Battier '14 in most minutes without a FG (33 min.)

Here's everyone (since '84) to avg at least 22 Pts, 9 Reb, and 7 Ast in a Finals:

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Player         yr    G    Pts    Reb   Ast
Larry Bird    1986   6   24.0    9.7   9.5
LeBron James  2012   5   28.6   10.2   7.4
LeBron James  2013   7   25.3   10.9   7.0
LeBron James  2015   6   35.8   13.3   8.8
LeBron James  2016 * 4   24.8   11.0   8.3

http://bkref.com/tiny/V8WNx
Note these last 2 LeBron appearances are well above the qualifying averages.

Most offensive rebounds in fewest minutes:

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OReb-Min.         yr   Min  ORb
Dennis Rodman    1996  225   41
Tyson Chandler   2011  224   24
Tristan Thompson 2016* 110   22
Z. Ilgauskas     2007  103   18
Rodman           1989   94   13
Scott Wedman     1984   73   12
Aaron Williams   2003   71   10
Swen Nater       1984   60    9
Andrew Bogut     2016 * 52    8
Kevin Willis     2003   22    7
Ervin Johnson    1996   20    6
Anderson Varejao 2016 * 17    5
Hank McDowell    1986    9    4
Chuck Nevitt     1988    1    2

TT seems to have the highest OReb/Min rate, above 50 minutes. (Bogut+Varejao) is close.
There's Scott Wedman again! Career ORb/36 of 2.1 -- and 1.6 in '84 -- in those Finals he got 5.9

May as well finish the Wedman story. Progressive record for 3-ptrs in a Finals game:

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3FG Finals G    yr  3FG
Scott Wedman   1984   2
Scott Wedman   1985   4
Michael Cooper 1987   6
Kenny Smith    1995   7
Ray Allen      2010   8

Showing only those who set the record. Curry hit 7 last year, twice; once this year.

Progressing team record:

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3FG   yr    tm
3    1968   NOB
5    1968   PtP
6    1970   Ind
9    1970   Ind
10   1993   Chi
14   1995   Hou
16   2011   SAS
17   2016 * GSW

There are 46 times that a team has hit 10 treys in a Finals game; half are in the last 5 years.
http://bkref.com/tiny/uIbbu

[Crow]

All 16 playoff teams had a PG in top 21 on RPM estimate in current dataset output. More than for any other position. But at the other positions all but a few (generally 3) teams had somebody in the top 21. Not all were starters. Some playoff teams had multiple players in positional top 21s. But RPM is just random, error-riddled fantasy, huh? Those estimates seems pretty compatible with actual team results. Assuming no explicit tweaking of the order to line things up to match results or expectations, that seems pretty good. At minimum I haven't seen evidence presented that the top player RPM ratings are out of line from team results on a frequent / random / major basis.

[Mike G]

Where do you find current RPM? Copy/paste 21 pages from ESPN site?
Is there a (playoff + RS) edition ?

... I haven't seen evidence presented that the top player RPM ratings are out of line from team results...

A curiosity of mine is checking correlations between a player's minutes (or mpg) and his RPM, WS/48, BPM, etc. At least by team, it should indicate something. Not all coaches are equally clueless.
League-wide, this could be done with (min)^n, where the exponent may be near 0.5 -- Big minutes for a good team should infer a better player than the same player for a weak team.

[Crow]

Where do you find current RPM? Copy/paste 21 pages from ESPN site?

Yes.

Is there a (playoff + RS) edition ?

JE told me on twitter that what we see now is RS plus playoffs. I have a saved version from mid-April that is free of 2016 playoffs.

[Statman]

Where do you find current RPM? Copy/paste 21 pages from ESPN site?

Yes.

Is there a (playoff + RS) edition ?

JE told me on twitter that what we see now is RS plus playoffs. I have a saved version from mid-April that is free of 2016 playoffs.

That seems to me a little dishonest or at least weird if all the other data they are including in the RPM pages are regular season only (games & MPG) while the RPM data includes playoffs.

Why in the world wouldn't they combine the "other" data (ie, Green played 103 games) to avoid confusion? It would be a little intellectually dishonest if they (not JE per se - I kinda assume he doesn't put those pages together) were allowing people like myself to pull the data and check playoff correlations (maybe relative to other metrics), when playoff data is included making the test very biased. I copied all the data, now I'm pretty sure it's a biased sample. This also makes testing the previous last two "regular seasons" against other metrics worthless if their data includes playoffs while all others don't.

Let's just say I don't trust ESPN all that much after doctoring all those historical Chad Ford draft pages using hindsight to make themselves look so much better in terms of identifying future star players. This isn't something quite like that obviously, but it seems sneaky allowing their sample to possibly seem unbiased when testing playoff results when it definitely is not.

[Crow]

I might of misunderstood.

I asked him about some specific data on GSW on his tweet timeline. https://twitter.com/bballstrategy/statu ... 7609487364 Maybe it was special limited run data. But there is no reason I can see to constantly update RPM after end of RS unless your adding something and so I assumed playoffs were in for the whole dataset. There is no indication on RPM page that they are doing it. So I dunno.

[Mike G]

After 6 games in the 2016 Finals, top GameScores for a Finals (updated from previous page)

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GmSc    Finals   yr    G    Pts   Reb   Ast   Stl   Blk
30.6   Shaq     2000   6   38.0  16.7   2.3   1.0   2.7
30.1   Shaq     2002   4   36.3  12.3   3.8    .5   2.8
29.6   Jordan   1993   6   41.0   8.5   6.3   1.7    .7
29.4   Jordan   1991   5   31.2   6.6  11.4   2.8   1.4
28.3   Magic    1987   6   26.2   8.0  13.0   2.3    .3

27.4   Shaq     2001   5   33.0  15.8   4.8    .4   3.4
27.1   LeBron   2016 * 6   30.2  11.5   8.5   2.7   2.2
25.8   Jordan   1992   6   35.8   4.8   6.5   1.7    .3
25.4   Wade     2006   6   34.7   7.8   3.8   2.7   1.0
24.6   LeBron   2015   6   35.8  13.3   8.8   1.3    .5
24.5   Olajuwon 1995   4   32.8  11.5   5.5   2.0   2.0

These are per-game averages.
While LeBron's scoring and rebound avg's are down from last year's Finals, his TS%, Stl and Blk are way up.

EDIT: LeBron ended up with avg GmSc of 26.5 -- still 7th best in the last 33 Finals.

[Mike G]

Draymond Green had the best Finals Game 7 known to modern man, by Game Score

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GmSc  finals    yr    tm opp  Gm  Pts  Rb  As  St  Bk
42.5  LeBron   2016  Cle  GSW  6   41   8  11   4   3
40.8  Duncan   2003  SAS  NJN  1   32  20   6   3   7
39.2  LeBron   2016  Cle  GSW  5   41  16   7   3   3
38.9  Jordan   1993  Chi  Phx  4   55   8   4   0   0
37.9  Shaq     2000  LAL  Ind  1   43  19   4   0   3

37.0  Barkley  1993  Phx  Chi  2   42  13   4   1   1
36.9  Jordan   1992  Chi  Por  1   39   3  11   2   0
35.9  Draymond 2016  GSW  Cle  7   32  15   9   2   0
35.6  Barkley  1993  Phx  Chi  4   32  12  10   3   1
35.0  Magic    1987  LAL  Bos  3   32  11   9   1   0

GmSc  finals    yr   tm  opp  Gm  Pts  Rb  As  St  Bk
35.0  Worthy   1988  LAL  Det  7   36  16  10   2   0
35.0  Iverson  2001  Phl  LAL  1   48   5   6   5   0
35.0  Shaq     2002  LAL  NJN  2   40  12   8   0   1
34.7  Jordan   1991  Chi  LAL  2   33   7  13   2   1
34.2  Malone   1998  Uta  Chi  5   39   9   5   1   1

34.1  Shaq     2001  LAL  Phl  1   44  20   5   1   0
34.0  Jordan   1997  Chi  Uta  2   38  13   9   2   0
34.0  Wade     2011  Mia  Dal  2   36   5   6   3   1
34.0  Isiah    1988  Det  LAL  6   43   3   8   6   1
33.9  Drexler  1990  Por  Det  4   34   8  10   2   0

Green eclipses Worthy's G7 1988 effort that won him Finals mvp. Also better than Isiah's G6 that year, in deciding (or potentially deciding) games.
http://bkref.com/tiny/hVGkk
Data is from 1984 to present.

edit: When facing elimination, they rank: LeBron, LeBron, Draymond -- all this year -- then Worthy.

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Gm7 Finals   TS%  TRb%  Ast%  Usg%  ORtg DRtg
Worthy '88  .682  21.8  41.0  32.0   127  105
Green '16   .955  17.6  44.4  19.4   172   97

[Mike G]

Since 1974, players who have registered below minus-1 Win Shares and VORP in a season:

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player     yr   tm   Min   PER  WS/48   WS   BPM   VORP
B Averitt  77  Buf  1136  11.2  -.046  -1.1  -7.7  -1.6
Ch Scott   80  Den  1860   7.4  -.037  -1.4  -5.9  -1.8
W Boynes   81  Dal   757   6.1  -.091  -1.4  -8.2  -1.2
A Houston  94  Det  1519   9.0  -.038  -1.2  -6.8  -1.9
A Avent    96  Van  1586   6.9  -.037  -1.2  -6.4  -1.7

Sh Wright  97  Tor  1009   7.4  -.076  -1.6  -9.5  -1.9
A Daniels  98  Van  1956   9.9  -.032  -1.3  -6.2  -2.1
G Wilkins  98  Orl  1252   5.4  -.048  -1.2  -7.2  -1.6
C Carr     99  Chi   624   5.1  -.089  -1.2  -8.8  -1.1
R Mercer   02 Ch-In 1716  10.2  -.032  -1.1  -5.1  -1.3

player     yr   tm   Min   PER  WS/48   WS   BPM   VORP
A Morrison 07  Cha  2326   7.9  -.030  -1.5  -5.5  -2.0
D Greene   09  Sac   725   5.2  -.074  -1.1  -7.8  -1.1
S Pavlovic 10  Min   877   5.4  -.063  -1.2  -7.0  -1.1
J Flynn    11  Min   983   7.1  -.064  -1.3  -7.2  -1.3
C Higgins  12  Cha   423   4.1  -.150  -1.3 -11.6  -1.0

M Beasley  13  Phx  1554  10.8  -.047  -1.5  -6.1  -1.6
A Rivers   13  NOH  1418   5.9  -.038  -1.1  -5.6  -1.3
E Mudiay   16  Den  2068   9.9  -.049  -2.1  -4.3  -1.2

http://bkref.com/tiny/oGrNi
Many were rookies; most played for bad teams -- thus the combo of higher minutes / weak performance.
Mudiay has one of the better PER and the least terrible BPM; his -WS shatters the previous mark.

The WS+vorp record seems to belong to Morrison, also with the most minutes.
Houston went on to all-stardom; Antonio Daniels was pretty good, and Rivers is working out somewhat.

[Mike G]

Same format, for playoffs: WS < -.3 and vorp < -.2

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playoff    yr   tm   Min   PER  WS/48   WS   BPM  VORP
H Porter   74  Chi   150  10.2  -.112  -.4   -9.9  -.3
B Weiss    74  Chi   251   7.2  -.069  -.4   -6.0  -.3
P Chenier  79  Was    97  -1.4  -.179  -.4  -10.2  -.2
R Reid     87  Hou   431   5.1  -.041  -.4   -5.1  -.3
Jim Paxson 88  Bos   188   2.2  -.089  -.3   -9.1  -.3

S Vincent  88  Bos   251   8.3  -.059  -.3   -5.8  -.2
G Rice     92  Mia   119   8.1  -.152  -.4   -8.8  -.2
A Gilliam  00  Uta   132   2.9  -.147  -.4   -9.9  -.3
L Hunter   01  Mil   289   5.1  -.068  -.4   -4.8  -.2
Jo Howard  08  Dal   171   7.7  -.101  -.4   -7.3  -.2

playoff    yr   tm   Min   PER  WS/48   WS   BPM  VORP
T Outlaw   09  Por   170   6.3  -.089  -.3   -7.4  -.2
C Butler   12  LAC   268   6.2  -.067  -.4   -5.4  -.2
G Neal     14  Cha   104   3.1  -.165  -.4  -10.4  -.2
JJ Barea   16  Dal   100   2.0  -.241  -.5  -12.2  -.3

In 100 minutes (4 G), Barea had 25 Pts, shooting .358; 20 Ast and 11 TO; 6 Reb. Opponent (OKC) ORtg was 122.

[rlee]

Wade/Rondo combined for fewer 3-pointers last season than Steph hit in his first 14 games.

[Mike G]

Wade made 7 treys all season, then hit 12 in the playoffs.
That may be some kind of record.

Rondo hit 62 last year, more than doubling his previous high. Hitting .365 was .102 above his career norm going in. He had hit .333 midway thru the season, .393 in the 2nd half.
Both guys are on the upswing! from the arc.

[Mike G]

Nobody has ever averaged 10+ points, rebounds, and assists per 36 minutes for a whole season (of more than 7 minutes).
With last night's 35-14-11 (and previous games of 27-18-14, 17-13-15, 36-11-17), Russell Westbrook is deep into uncharted territory.
Here's everyone who's averaged 8-8-8 in more than a 44 minute season:

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3D man    year   min.    Pts   Reb   Ast
Westbrook 2017    714   31.4  10.6  11.3
Oscar     1962   3503   25.0  10.1   9.2
Magic     1982   2991   17.4   9.0   8.9
Magic     1983   2907   16.4   8.5  10.3
Magic     1981   1371   21.0   8.4   8.3

Boerwinkle 1975  1175   10.3  11.6   8.3
Oscar     1961   3032   25.7   8.5   8.2
Westbrook 2016   2750   24.6   8.2  10.9
D Walker  1990   2883    9.6   8.9   8.1
LeBron    2017    539   23.6   8.1   9.4
Kidd      2007   2933   12.8   8.0   9.0

http://bkref.com/tiny/yvdku
Ranked by best lowest number. Westbrook actually has the highest rate in all 3, except for ranking behind the center Tom B in Reb/36.
Oscar is the only player with a full season at 9-9-9
Jordan's closest approach was 1989, when he hit 7.2 in Reb and Ast. He had to give up his 30 Pts/36 rate to do that.
LeBron has his career highest Ast and Reb rates, along with lowest Pts/36 since year 2.