Saturday, February 25, 2012

More Special Rookie: Irving or Rubio?

In today's ESPN TrueHoops, the question is asked whether Kyrie Irving or Ricky Rubio is the more special rookie in this year's NBA.  The question is subsequently addressed with traditional statistics, though no definitive conclusion is reached.  This is understandable, given that an analysis utilizing alternative statistics also reaches an equivocal conclusion.  Please refer to the Basketball I.Q. archives for the derivations of the statistics used here: Successful Possession Rate (SPR); Turnover-Adjusted Points Per Shot (TAPPS); Turnovers per Touch (TOT); and Shot Selection Index (SSI).

Rubio: SPR .598; TAPPS .754; TOT .113; SSI .402
Irving: SPR .584; TAPPS .958; TOT .110; SSI .286

Keep in mind, when analyzing these stats, Rubio has a Shot-to-Assist Ratio (SAR) of 1.40, putting him in the Primary Distributor ("point guard") category, whereas Irving has an SAR of 3.30, making him a Combination Distributor ("combi-guard" or "off-guard").  Rubio and Irving, therefore, fulfill different roles on the court.

The SPR assesses the ability of a player to create a successful possession for his team, given the opportunity.  The slight edge here (.598 vs. .584) goes to Rubio -- though the margin is quite small.  When one considers that the statistical skew created by assists favors a Primary Distributor over a slightly less willing passer (or, depending on how you  look at it, a more intent finisher), the SPR evaluation is either a dead heat between Rubio and Irving, or slightly in favor of Irving.

The TAPPS assesses the ability of a player to finish an offensive possesion successfully on his own, and favors the more intent scorer (in this case, Irving) because of their generally lower turnover rates.  In this case, however, there is a wide chasm between Irving and Rubio, despite the fact that Irving turns the ball over at a similar rate to Rubio: Irving's TAPPS of .958 is excellent, and an ocean away from Rubio's .754 (this is due to Rubio's much poorer shooting).  The advantage here is clearly in favor of Irving.

The TOT is a turnover rate in relation to a player's meaningful touches.  This appears to be a dead heat between the players (Rubio .113 vs Irving .110), but this actually favors Rubio: it is expected that players with very high assist totals should turn the ball over more, since passes toward the basket are inherently risky.  Combination Distributors should have TOTs that are below 10%, and Irving does not.  The slight advantage here is to Rubio.

The SSI assesses the likelihood that a player will get fouled when he shoots, suggesting that a high SSI means a player has good shot selection.  This STAT is more qualitative, as opposed to quantitative, than the other stats mentioned here.  With an SSI of .402, Rubio has an excellent shot selection, whereas Irving, at .286, is merely average.  However, the traditional stats bear out that Irving is the much better shooter, and so he may be allowed wider leverage in his shot selection.

In conclusion, Irving can take a game over all by himself, whereas Rubio is more likely to help his teammates do so successfully.  Both players need to take better care of the ball.  Rubio needs to work on his shooting, Irving should work on his shot selection and get to the free throw line more (and hit his free throws more accurately).  Though it is close, and any team would be happy to have either player, the edge here goes to:

Kyrie Irving.


Thursday, February 23, 2012

Kyrie Irving vs. Derrick Rose: A Comparative Analysis of Rookie Seasons

Though the last Basketball I.Q. post promised that today’s entry would compare Jeremy Lin with Minnesota’s Ricky Rubio, our Editorial Board had a last-minute change of heart and over-ruled our Managing Editor.  Instead, the Board decreed, it was time to turn our attention to another up-and-comer who does not benefit from the bright lights of New York City: Kyrie Irving.  Specifically, the Board wished to challenge the assertions of one of our own staff writers, who, prior to this year’s draft, ranked Irving as the number one prospect coming out of college, and boldly compared Irving to the NBA’s reigning MVP, Derrick Rose.  As such, today’s post will compare Irving’s current rookie campaign to that of Rose, in his first year with Chicago in 2008-09.  To make such an analysis more accessible, I will start with a glossary of statistical terms, which can be referred to by the reader:

SPR = [2PFGM + 1.5(3PFGM) + (FTM/2) + AST]/[FGA + (FTA/2) + AST + TOV]
TAPPS = PTS/[FGA + (FTA/2) + TOV]
TOT = TOV/[TOV + FGA + (FTA/2) + TRB + STL + AST]
SSI = FTA/FGA
SAR = [FGA + (FTA/2)]/AST
3PR = 3PFGA/FGA
3PS = 3PFGM/FGM
E = SPR + TAPPS + (1 – TOT)
wCE = (MPG/48) x [SPR + TAPPS + (1 – TOT)]
P/E = Salary/[SPR + TAPPS + (1 – TOT)]
wP/E = Salary/(MPG/48) x [SPR + TAPPS + (1 – TOT)]
EG = (Present Year’s E – Previous Year’s E)/(Previous Year’s E)
wEG = (Present Year’s wCE – Previous Year’s wCE)/(Previous Year’s wCE)

Let’s begin today’s comparative analysis with a disclaimer: a comparison between the current Kyrie Irving and the rookie Derrick Rose, though not exactly apples and oranges, is nevertheless comparing two apples of different species.  Think McIntosh versus Golden Delicious, and you can decide who is who.  Though Rose as a rookie was clearly a Primary Distributor (with a Shot-to-Assist Ratio, or SAR, of 2.60), the rookie version of Irving is more of a Combination Distributor.  His SAR of 3.30 indicates that he is a willing passer, but nevertheless is looking for his shot a little bit more than the typical court facilitator.  This is not a value judgment on either player’s game – it’s just an acknowledgment that Rose and Irving have distinct approaches to the way they play a team game, and Basketball I.Q. tends to shun comparisons of players from different statistical quintiles (see our archives).
But there is not a continental divide between the two players, and the passing and scoring tendencies in their respective rookie years may reflect the extreme differences in the supporting cast around them more than anything else.  Let’s begin with a comparison of the alternative statistics, Successful Possession Rate (SPR), Turnover-Adjusted Points per Shot (TAPPS), Turnovers per Touch (TOT), and the Shot Selection Index (SSI), of the current Kyrie Irving and the rookie Derrick Rose:
                                    SPR      TAPPS   TOT   SSI
Irving (2011-12)          .584     0.958     .110   .286
Rose (2008-09)            .583     0.887     .083   .207
What stands out immediately is that the rookie Irving and the rookie Rose have virtually identical SPR’s, which means that each player could facilitate a successful team offensive possession with similar efficiency (the .001 difference could be considered a rounding error).  The difference in the two players’ SAR quintiles, however, suggests that the advantage in this category actually goes to the rookie Irving:  the lower one’s SAR, the higher you would expect that player’s SPR to be, since the relatively high assist totals of Primary Distributors tends to skew this statistic in their favor.  As such, the rookie Irving has been able to post a virtually identical SPR to the rookie Rose, despite his higher SAR and lower assist total – this is a significant accomplishment.
Of course, the reasons why Irving has been able to make up for lower assist totals than Rose (at the same stage in their careers) is easy to discern from their traditional statistics: Irving scores more than the rookie Rose did, and he does so more accurately.  Rookie Irving beats rookie Rose in points per game (18.6 vs. 16.8), field goal percentage (.487 vs. .475), and free throw percentage (.855 vs. .788).  Three-point shooting weighs heavily in the favor of rookie Irving: he has shot over 40% from beyond the arc, while Rose barely got above 20% in his rookie year.  These significant differences were diminished – evened out, as it were – by Rose’s superior assists per game stats (6.3 vs. 4.9) and lower turnover rate (discussed later).
The second alternative stat, TAPPS, which demonstrates how efficiently a player can facilitate a scoring opportunity for himself, also favors Irving, though by a significant margin.  Again, much of the difference in this statistic, from player to player, can be explained by SAR quintile.  All things being equal, you would expect the player with the higher SAR (Irving) to have the higher TAPPS.  But the reason for this skew in the statistic is that, on average, higher SAR players have lower turnover rates, and thus a decreased adjustment in their points-per-shot value.  But Irving actually has a significantly higher turnover rate than rookie Rose (again, discussed later), and he still manages a much higher TAPPS.
The explanation for this is shooting.  Rookie Irving is a much better shooter than rookie Rose was.  As mentioned above, Irving shoots field goals, free throws and three-pointers with more accuracy (the latter with an accuracy that is twice as good).  Not only that, Irving takes many more three-pointers than Rose – Irving has a Three-Point Rate (3PR) of .203, while rookie Rose’s 3PR was less than one-third of that (.060).  And, of course, Irving makes about 44% of his three’s, while rookie Rose made about 22%.  Even after adjustment for SAR quintile, Irving is the clear victor in the comparison of TAPPS.
The third alternative statistic, TOT, lies in clear favor of Rose, who has a much lower turnover rate (.083 vs. .110).  Rookie Rose’s TOT is very low for a Primary Distributor, and this has actually improved as his career has progressed (as has Rose’s shooting, which is why he is the reigning MVP).  Irving’s TOT is quite average for a Primary Distributor – however, Irving is NOT a Primary Distributor.  Irving is a Combination Distributor, and thus you would expect a lower TOT than he actually posts.  Irving, like many new NBA players, has to learn to take care of the ball better.  The advantage in this alternative statistic lies clearly with Rose and, because of the different quintiles inhabited by the two players, the gap between Rose and Irving in this category is actually quite large.
The last statistic discussed here, SSI, assesses the quality of a player’s shot selection by creating a ratio of free throw attempts to field goal attempts – the logic being that the higher percentage your shot selection, the more likely you are to be fouled.  Rookie Irving, at .286, hovers right around the NBA average (though, for a backcourt player whose offensive game is relatively distant from the basket, this is pretty good).  Rookie Rose, meanwhile, had a slightly below average SSI (.207), though it was right about the average for backcourt players.  In subsequent years, Rose has improved his SSI significantly (perhaps the by-product of becoming a better shooter in general), and now posts an above-average SSI of .335).
In conclusion, it is fair to say that the rookie Kyrie Irving compares quite favorably to the rookie Derrick Rose.  What makes Rose so special is that he never ceded his strengths (taking care of the ball, passing creatively), while he turned his relative weaknesses (shooting and shot selection) into formidable strengths themselves.  If Irving can do the same – keep up the excellent shooting and shot selection, but turn the ball over less – we might be seeing the emergence of another dominant backcourt player in the NBA’s Midwest.
It appears that the Basketball I.Q. analysts who evaluated Irving as a college player were spot on.  However, it should be noted that Irving and Rose, in their rookie years, project to be different kinds of players: Rose would have projected to be a Deron Williams-type player (and he has certainly achieved that), whereas Irving appears to be headed more toward a Dwyane Wade or Manu Ginobili style (which any GM would lock in in a heartbeat).

Monday, February 20, 2012

Is Jeremy Lin a Legitimate Impact Player?

After an extended hiatus, the researchers at Basketball I.Q. have returned with a topical analysis of New York Knick Jeremy Lin.  Specifically, today’s post represents a comparative analysis of Lin vis a vis the current professional game’s best point guards.  Today’s analysis looks to establish whether it is justified to consider Lin – at this point an international, cultural sensation – among the NBA’s elite point guards (or more accurately, in the parlance of Basketball I.Q., among the league’s elite Primary Distributors).  To make such an analysis more accessible, I will start with a glossary of statistical terms, which can be referred to by the reader:
SPR = [2PFGM + 1.5(3PFGM) + (FTM/2) + AST]/[FGA + (FTA/2) + AST + TOV]
TAPPS = PTS/[FGA + (FTA/2) + TOV]
TOT = TOV/[TOV + FGA + (FTA/2) + TRB + STL + AST]
SSI = FTA/FGA
SAR = [FGA + (FTA/2)]/AST
3PR = 3PFGA/FGA
3PS = 3PFGM/FGM
E = SPR + TAPPS + (1 – TOT)
wCE = (MPG/48) x [SPR + TAPPS + (1 – TOT)]
P/E = Salary/[SPR + TAPPS + (1 – TOT)]
wP/E = Salary/(MPG/48) x [SPR + TAPPS + (1 – TOT)]
EG = (Present Year’s E – Previous Year’s E)/(Previous Year’s E)
wEG = (Present Year’s wCE – Previous Year’s wCE)/(Previous Year’s wCE)

Jeremy Lin appears to have saved the New York Knicks’ season.  Struggling at 8-15, the team appeared to be heading toward one of its most disappointing seasons in the face of high expectations, and in so doing created an unusual agreement in perception shared by the team’s coach, Mike D’Antoni, and the New York sports media: that is, neither side could envision the team’s success without a capable point guard running the offensive end of the floor, especially given the nature of the coach’s ball screen-heavy offense – and the woeful start appeared to prove the point of both sides.
And then Lin arrived.  Quickly, the 8-15 team found itself at 16-16, suddenly challenging Philadelphia and Boston for their division lead.  And, everyone agreed, the missing ingredient all along had been Lin, the hidden point guard that had been buried on the bench and nearly cut by three NBA teams in the span of two months.  Beyond that, there has been cautious speculation (and, at times, not so cautious speculation) that New York is observing the ascension of one of the game’s premier players.
Today’s post will challenge that claim – at least in terms of Lin’s comparison to the game’s premier Primary Distributors (Basketball I.Q. prefers to not use the term “point guard,” which most commonly refers to the shortest player in a team’s starting line-up; rather, we use the term “Primary Distributor,” which refers to those players in the lowest quintile of Shot-to-Assist Ratio, or SAR, and represents those players most likely to pass the ball to his teammates.).  The formula for SAR is summarized in the glossary above, with a detailed explanation of this alternative statistic found in the Basketball I.Q. archives.
The best Primary Distributors in basketball, defined as those players with an SAR less than 2.77, would include Chris Paul (1.86), Deron Williams (2.52), Rajon Rondo (1.51), Steve Nash (1.04) and Derrick Rose (2.51).  With an SAR of 2.27, Lin easily falls within the Primary Distributor quintile, with a passing tendency that is not quite as generous as Nash, Rondo and Paul’s, but more generous than the generally unselfish play of Rose and Williams.
Today’s post will compare Lin to these five excellent players in four alternative statistical categories, all defined in the glossary above, as well as in previously archived Basketball I.Q. posts: Successful Possession Rate (SPR); Turnover-Adjusted Points per Shot (TAPPS); Turnovers per Touch (TOT); and the Shot Selection Index (SSI).

                        SPR      TAPPS TOT    SSI
Lin                   .564     0.894   .134     .503
Paul                 .601     1.001   .065     .266
Williams          .577     0.873   .110     .318
Rondo              .611     0.816   .109     .416
Nash                .656     0.943   .125     .207
Rose                .613     0.982   .082     .335

Each of the above statistics sheds a slightly different light on the game of each player, but for Lin, the statistics that seem to corroborate what everyone can tell just by watching him are the last two, TOT and SSI.  For all of Lin’s heroics, his box scores and late-night highlight reels are all tempered by his turnover rate, and his TOT substantiates this: at a rate of approximately 13.4% of all of his meaningful touches, Lin has the highest TOT of all the players recruited for this comparison.  Lin’s TOT is not that much higher than Nash’s (.134 vs. .125), and only moderately higher than that of Williams (.110) and Rondo (.109).  But it is considerably higher than Paul (.065) and Rose (.082), who take care of the ball with uncommon diligence for players who touch it so much and send it flying in so many different directions.  Perhaps it is unfair to compare Lin to those two players, who might have the best handle on the ball in the history of the game, since you would expect a Primary Distributor to turn the ball over approximately 10% of the time – but this is the only statistical category in which Lin is an outlier.  The subsequent alternative statistics will demonstrate that Lin is in fact “hanging” with the greats of the game – but if he wants to elevate his game to the level of the elite, he will need to take far better care of the ball and improve in the TOT category.
What redeems Lin of his recklessness with the ball is his uncanny shot selection – another point which even a casual observer could note with simple observation.  Lin takes the ball right at the basket, and he does so aggressively and without apology – which is why greater than 50% of his shots are free throws (.503).  This remarkable SSI demonstrates that Lin consistently gets himself open looks within a few feet of the basket, in which it behooves the defense to play him aggressively and perhaps even foul him, since the shots he takes are so high-percentage if not fiercely contested.  Lin’s knack for finding the lay-up lanes does not only cause the defense to collapse on him and open up the floor for his teammates – it results in several trips to the foul line, with lots of completely uncontested shots awarded to him for his effort.
No other player on this list comes close to creating so many high quality shots, where the defense would essentially prefer to foul you rather than just let the ball go up, with the possible exception of Rondo (.416).  But Rondo is a terrible free throw shooter – about 20% worse than the average player on this list – and it is possible that Rondo is fouled so often because his free throw shooting is actually lower percentage than much of his field goal shooting.  Williams, Paul and Rose all have SSI’s that hover around the NBA average, whereas only Nash is well below such an average.
The first two statistics, SPR and TAPPS, looks at a player’s ability to execute a play that results in his team’s ability to score in relation to his own missed shots and turnovers (SPR), and a player’s ability to score the basket himself in relation to his own missed shots and turnovers (TAPPS).  Lin has the lowest SPR on this list, though it is close to that of Deron Williams, and clearly this is the result of his low assist-to-turnover ratio.  This stat demonstrates that Lin would not only help his own game, but that of his entire team, if he can learn to make wiser decisions with the ball (and perhaps dribble it a little more effectively).
For TAPPS, Lin is right in the middle of the pack, ahead of Williams and Rondo, nipping at the heels of Nash, but well behind Paul and Rose (who, again, take remarkable care of the ball).  In this regard, if Lin were looking to improve his own ability to score with efficiency, he would not only reduce his turnovers, but he would also improve his free throw shooting: with the exception of Rondo, Lin is the poorest free throw shooter on this list (though, at 74%, it is not terrible).  If he could improve his free throw shooting by about 6% (not unusual for a player early in his career) and reduce his turnover rate by about 2 or 3%, he would be a legitimate back-up to Rose on the Eastern Conference All-Star team.
A Basketball I.Q. composite statistic that takes into account SPR, TAPPS and TOT is Earnings (E), whose derivation is listed in the glossary above, as well as in archived posts.  Here is a list of the aforementioned players’ earnings, in descending order of value:

                        E
Paul                 2.537
Rose                2.513
Nash                2.474
Williams          2.340
Lin                   2.324
Rondo              2.318

Looking at this list, there appears to be a top tier of Primary Distributors, consisting of Paul, Rose and Nash (two of these players have been MVPs, and Paul is in the perennial discussion).  Then, there is a slight drop-off in performance, and the emergence of a second tier – with Lin solidly ensconced in the middle of that tier.
The initial assessment of Lin, only two weeks into the essential birth of his professional career, appears to be favorable – he is, indeed, an impact player at the NBA level, performing at a level just below that of an All-Star.  If he indeed turns out to still be on the steep part of the learning curve, then we may be witnessing the ascension of a backcourt player that will one day be mentioned alongside Frazier, Monroe and Barnett – but first he’ll have to hold on to the ball more, and practice his free throws.
Next post: Jeremy Lin vs. Ricky Rubio.