Statistical Trivia

[Crow]

By VORP, Scoot Henderson had the worst impact in the league. 572nd place and only 1 guy was close.

Poole 3rd worst, Keyonte George 4th, Coulibaly 11th, Sochan 13th, former Euro-League MVP Micic 15th worst.

B Miller almost bottom 10%. A. Black, bottom 15%. A. Nembhard, bottom 25%.

Quit after 1 year Euroleague MVP Vezenkov, slightly above median at 279th.

Huge new contract Anunoby, 153rd best VORP. (Though, Darko has him 30th.)

[Crow]

Other career leader board trivia:

Harden probably joins top 10 on VORP in '25-26. Top 7ish likely eventually.

Jokic probably passes Curry on VORP in '25-26.

C Paul may or may not be 3rd in reach 100 career VORP. Durant may or may not make it.

Westbrook 30th, probably doesn't get to top 25.

Hard to say how high Giannis A. and AD get. Kawhi may or may not reach top 25.


9 of 16 best career BPMs are currently still playing.

Or career usage rate, it is Westbrook 4th, D Mitchell 5th, LeBron 6th. Booker 10th. On ts% it is Westbrook not in top 250 and nowhere close, Mitchell 132, LeBron 59, Booker 88.

Tim Hardaway Jr., lowest qualified career TO%. Oubre 9th lowest.

5 of 9 best total rebound%s active.

LeBron passes Kobe for most regular season missed shots in 1st or 2nd game next season. Westbrook probably into 10 most next season.

Curry, all-time leaders of 3pt attempts likely will eventually go over 10,000. May go over 4,000 makes in a year or a bit longer. No one else yet over 3,000. Harden close, Lillard will get there, Thompson probably.

[Crow]

By Bref, 6% of shots are dunk attempts. Layups 27%, corner 3s almost 10%. 30% are other 3s.

37% are listed as mid-range but 9-10% are apparently dunks or layups cuz it doesnt add up to just 100 without this assumption. So I think it becomes 27% in this accounting unless something else is happening.


Barely 2% of "heaves" are made and no team made more than 1.

[Mike G]

Last year about 300 players made 100+ FG. For 17 of these guys, at least 2/3 of their buckets were either 3's or dunks.

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%3+D   Player          Tm   %3fg   %Dk
.91   Sam Merrill      Cle   .91   .00
.83   Sam Hauser       Bos   .79   .04
.83  Garrison Mathews  Atl   .83   .00
.81   Doug McDermott   tot   .76   .05
.76   Luke Kennard     Mem   .76   .00

.75   Trey Murphy      NOP   .61   .14
.74   Royce O'Neale    tot   .73   .01
.73  Julian Champagnie SAS   .62   .12
.73   Isaiah Joe       OKC   .66   .07
.72   Keon Ellis       Sac   .65   .07

%3+D   Player          Tm   %3fg   %Dk
.72   Malik Beasley    Mil   .70   .02
.71   Nicolas Batum    tot   .63   .08
.70  Matisse Thybulle  Por   .63   .06
.70   Quentin Grimes   tot   .66   .03
.68  Donte DiVincenzo  NYK   .64   .04

.68  Taylor Hendricks  Uta   .49   .19
.67   Jordan Hawkins   NOP   .63   .04
.66   Dorian F-Smith   Brk   .54   .11
.65   Grayson Allen    Phx   .60   .05
.64   Jonathan Isaac   Orl   .29   .36
.64   Dereck Lively    Dal   .00   .64

At the top, a couple who do not dunk; at #21 a rookie who doesn't take 3's (except in playoffs).

You might say these guys don't have much mid-range game. But they certainly vary in versatility.
If we don't add the dunk + trey fractions but rather multiply them, we get a different list. Single-skill guys disappear.
It's the square root of %3fg * %Dunk

Code: Select all

%3xD    Player         Tm   %3fg   %Dk
.320   Jonathan Isaac  Orl   .29   .36
.310   OG Anunoby      tot   .36   .27
.306   Obi Toppin      Ind   .31   .30
.304  Bilal Coulibaly  Was   .34   .27
.302   Wendell Carter  Orl   .29   .32

.301  Taylor Hendricks Uta   .49   .19
.298   Derrick Jones   Dal   .34   .26
.291   Trey Murphy     NOP   .61   .14
.287  Ziaire Williams  Mem   .39   .21
.272  Lauri Markkanen  Uta   .41   .18

%3xD    Player         Tm   %3fg   %Dk
.267 Julian Champagnie SAS   .62   .12
.265   Cam Whitmore    Hou   .37   .19
.264   Anthony Black   Orl   .32   .22
.264   Josh Green      Dal   .40   .17
.264 Victor Wembanyama SAS   .23   .30

.263   Chet Holmgren   OKC   .26   .27
.260  Patrick Williams Chi   .37   .18
.259   Keegan Murray   Sac   .41   .16
.258   GG Jackson      Mem   .42   .16
.255   Larry Nance     NOP   .20   .33
.255   Kr. Porziņģis   Bos   .28   .23

The 3*D list looks better to me. Here it's limited to guys with 300+ FG:

Code: Select all

%3xD    Player          Tm   %3fg   %Dk
.306   Obi Toppin       Ind   .31   .30
.272   Lauri Markkanen  Uta   .41   .18
.264  Victor Wembanyama SAS   .23   .30
.263   Chet Holmgren    OKC   .26   .27
.259   Keegan Murray    Sac   .41   .16

.255 Kristaps Porziņģis Bos   .28   .23
.241   Kelly Oubre      Phl   .26   .22
.240   John Collins     Uta   .22   .27
.239   Rui Hachimura    LAL   .27   .21
.232   Jalen Johnson    Atl   .20   .27

%3xD    Player          Tm   %3fg   %Dk
.218   P.J. Washington  tot   .37   .13
.215   Brook Lopez      Mil   .40   .11
.211   Jaden McDaniels  Min   .28   .16
.211   Jabari Smith     Hou   .37   .12
.209   Aaron Nesmith    Ind   .44   .10

.209   Jayson Tatum     Bos   .34   .13
.208   Aaron Gordon     Den   .10   .43
.203   Jeremy Sochan    SAS   .21   .20
.200   Max Strus        Cle   .55   .07
.200   Naz Reid         Min   .42   .10

Obi was the player who made me wonder about such a ranking.

Letting in guys with at least 5 FG:

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%3xD    Player           Tm   %3fg   %Dk
.471   Jordan Walsh      Bos   .33   .67
.375   Mouhamed Gueye    Atl   .38   .38
.373   Mãozinha Pereira  Mem   .28   .50
.346  Admiral Schofield  Orl   .60   .20
.346   Jacob Toppin      NYK   .20   .60

.337   Ousmane Dieng     OKC   .43   .27
.330   Andre Jackson     Mil   .34   .32
.325  Olivier-M Prosper  Dal   .33   .33
.320   Jonathan Isaac    Orl   .29   .36
.310   OG Anunoby        tot   .36   .27
.306   Obi Toppin        Ind   .31   .30

Jordan Walsh had 2 treys and 4 dunks -- one from the 3-10' range.?
Yes the younger Toppin had 5 FG.

[Crow]

On an apparent regularized rTS% combined scoring "factor" at craftednba.com, nearly 60% of minutes qualified playoff leaders were "bigs". Only 5% were SFs and decidedly role players. Guards were moderately under-represented.

Usage would affect impact along with rTS%.

Trivia or important? Could be the latter, assuming quality data understood properly. Value derived from looking at, shaping the data into findings. Use analytic products for analysis.

Only 40% of top 10 were "stars".

Pacers and Bucks each had 3 of top 20, Celtics only Luke Kornet. No Luka in top 20, in fact only 66th and slightly negative.

But Celtics pull up with 6 of top 31 and 7 of 41. Cavs 2 of top 40, under-represented. Suns just 2. NYK, 1. Sixers 2 but Embid 40th. Mavs, 2 role players. Nuggets 3 but not Murray this time. Heat, 3 bench players. Pacers 4 of top 40. Thunder 2 role players. Magic 1, headed to none if Fultz is gone. Lakers 2. Clippers 2 but not Kawhi or PG.


Jokic just 23rd. LeBron 19th. SGA 49th. Not the enhancement level you'd want / maybe expect. Booker 7th and Durant 10th is noteworthy given modest star appearance rate.


Regular season rTS% leading 10? 8 centers, 1 PF and Grayson Allen. Only players with 1500+ minutes over +5%. It is not a common indication and may be fairly random outside players with high frequency shooting at the rim.

A start, fwiw.

[Crow]

Playoff VORP leaders (descending):

Doncic, Jokic, Edwards, White, Haliburton, SGA, Tatum...

Doing it mostly by means other than rTS%.

[Mike G]

Pacers and Bucks each had 3 of top 20, Celtics only Luke Kornet. No Luka in top 20, in fact only 66th and slightly negative.

Pacers and Bucks each with DRtg of 119 in playoffs.
Luke Kornet. ok.
Mavs were +4.8 with Luka and -2.2 without him. Whatever.

[Mike G]

2024 WNBA totals by position (kinda) :

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pos   min   %min    WS   WS/40
G    34745   .46   62.5   .072
F    29294   .39   82.3   .108
C    11915   .16   45.0   .145
tot  75954  1.00  189.8   .100

https://www.basketball-reference.com/wn ... anced.html
F includes G-F and F-G
C includes C-F and F-C
Without this shift, the minutes-distribution is even more skewed away from bigs.

WS*40/min actually summed to .0971; so it's really WS per 38.3 minutes, to get .100 avg
No league mvp has averaged >5.2 Ast/G (C. Cooper 1999). The last 20 have been <4. Scorer-passers are super rare.

[Crow]

Looked at rTS%, to see what it shows.

Doubt more than a few have.

Player impacts show in various places. Some metrics are better or more proven than others.

Better to look around than not.

[Crow]

WNBA by WS/40 and position is an interesting look.

Says something about the metric, the league and / or relative player value.

Also would be useful to see by better metric but availability and ease are factors.

Would like to see same comparison of NBA.

[Crow]

By WNBA SRS, the top 4 seeds should wipeout their opponents in upcoming playoffs. That likely includes Fever and maybe Sky.

And in 2023, they went 8-1.
Then the top 2 seeds went 6-1 in 2nd round. After that the top seed went 3-1 in finals.

That was far far from parity.

Didn't realize 1st round series length went from 1 win required to 2 just last year.

Slightly more wins by losing squads in other recent years but usually only 1-2 series saw the winners drop more than 1 game.

Will compare to NBA.

Last time 7 of 15 NBA series saw the losers get 2+ wins. 2023, 8. 2022, 10. 2021, 9. 2020, 7. Longer series played a role in results, providing more opportunity and less pressure; but overall way more competitive series results.

[Crow]

Of 36 2024 WNBA draft picks, 15 have played at all so far and just 7 have averaged 3 pts per game. Of 11 playing 10+ minutes per game, when available / playing, just 4 are over .060 ws/40.

But the league is expanding.

A near 1st rounder has 0 pts and 1 assist total for the season and a horrendous ws/40.


For the 2023 draft class, 21 of 36 have played at all with 9 averaging 3+ pts / gm. 5 are over .060 ws/40 and nobody else is anywhere close.

For the 2022 draft class, 25 of 36 have played at all with 11 averaging 3+ pts / gm. 9 are over .060 ws/40 and nobody else is anywhere close.

[Crow]

Probably a common statement around league but last season's Laker had highest offensive efficiency in team history. Just 15th best last season.

7 of 9 highest in team history remain 80s Showtime Lakers though with '86-7 team having 2nd place now. They barely stayed #1 over '22-23 but finally fell.

However last season Lakers also had worst defensive efficiency in team history.

So hire a Coach without coaching experience but with a playing record as completely an offensive player.

[Crow]

Last regular season was best in LeBron era Lakers on assist rate. Way down in playoffs but apparently that is common in addition to 6 possessions slower pace. Lost most of their regular season edge on assisted 2pt rate, which was 4th highest in league.

Surprising to me at first glance, the Spurs had the highest assisted fg% in regular season on both 2s and 3s. But I guess that means least self creation, so maybe that shouldn't be surprising.

Pacers went from 7th highest on 2pt assist rate in regular season to by far highest in playoffs. For possible good and not.

Nuggets went from 3rd rs to 2nd in playoffs.

More time should be spent on researching and thinking about this never before mentioned to my knowledge aspect of play.

Thunder 28th in rs, 15th in playoffs. Mavs were only conference finalist below average in playoffs after being 21st in rs.

Celtics were 26th in rs but rose to 6th in playoffs. Timberwolves went from 9th to 4th.

Trend at top is to go high.

Bucks went from 25th rs to 9th in playoffs.

Thunder not rising was not surprising given SGA dominant style but is this an issue, a giant issue or not? More to research.

2023, Nuggets were highest here among conference finalists and 4th in playoffs. 2022, Warriors 1st, Celtics 3rd. 2021 Bucks clearly below average, Suns barely above. 2020, Laker 4th, Heat 3rd.
Not an absolute trend but there is a trend. Fyi Thunder, who traded away Giddey for yet another small wing defender.

2014 to 2019, Warriors 1st in playoffs 5 times, 2nd once.


2012 Thunder, 12th of 16 in playoffs, only time in finals.


Just one aspect of team play but worth knowing, possibly changing. Some evidence Giddey was not the right guy (though it was still pretty early to decide that), but do they need a strong passer to help 2pt assist rate? Could be. What will it be this season and playoffs?

[Crow]

Average playoffs 3pta rate for last 5 champions: slightly below average. Celtics this last time were first and by large margin but only 1 of the other 4 was high. Average would be clearly below average without 2024 Celtics.

2014 - 2019 Warriors were twice tops and very high on average but modestly less later. By choice, happenstance or because of copycats?

Which route to select here or just do whatever you've been doing?

Mavs 4th, Thunder 5th, Timberwolves 8th, Pacers 11th? Who changes?

Nuggets 12th, Bucks 13th, Knicks 14th, Lakers 15th, Suns shockingly last. Lots of low paths, intentional or not?

Is there one right answer or go your own way?

2012 Thunder were 6th but Heat were modestly higher.

Both assisted 2pt rate and 3pta rate are probably important. Maybe the combination is more important than either alone.

By combined rank on these 2, 2024 Celtics were far ahead of the other conference finalists. They were high on many other things but the only other major stats I see where they were #1 in playoffs was lowest fouling rate and lowest on frequency of 10-16 foot shots (an aspect related to the 2 shot distribution details focused on). This is news. I'd say important. Who knew it previously? Who else values it?



The value of intense custom data tracking and engineering can be uncovered from detailed study of it.

The value of public stats can be uncovered and optimized from detailed study of it.

Teams should have as many or more analytic positions or hours devoted to study (and explanation & advocacy) as production. Imo.