Basketball Free For All

When discussing the best shooters in the game today, two names are commonly mentioned more often than others: Steve Nash and Ray Allen. Both are proficient from virtually anywhere on the court, including from the free throw line and from downtown. They are often in the games during clutch situations and both players have an impressive portfolio of clutch shots on their resume. Even more telling, both players are often heralded for their jump shots by coaches and analysts alike.

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Before we get to the good stuff, I just wanted to mention that we’ve experienced some trouble on the website as hackers thought we were an enviable target.  We have to assume they were unhappy with Plonden’s advice, but regardless, we lost Deebo’s post/comments and I’ve had to redo this week’s preview (that’s why it was late).  Regardless, lesson to be learned – BACK UP everything you do somewhere!

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Everything that follows is said with the utmost respect, as a true fan of Amare Stoudemire and the Phoenix Suns. After all, he has recovered from both the dreaded microfracture and an even more devastating freak eye injury, either of which would probably cause some players to consider retirement. The guy has been through a lot in his eight years of service on the front lines of the NBA. That’s what makes everything that has to be said that much more difficult.

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Against all odds, it appears the Memphis Grizzlies are no longer one of the worst teams in basketball this season. Wednesday’s overtime victory against the Cleveland Cavaliers showed exactly how far this young team has progressed since last year. As evidenced by his performance against the Cavs, Zach Randolph (34 points on .526/1.00 percent shooting, 1 three on 1.00 percent shooting, 14 rebounds including 7 offensive boards, 2 assists, 4 steals, 1 blocks and 1 turnover) has emerged as one the Grizzlies’ primary weapons and leaders on the court.

Gulp.

Anyone who watches basketball knows that over the years, Randolph has accumulated quite a rap sheet from his off the court antics. Shoplifting, battery, underage drinking, fighting with teammates, driving while under the influence of marijuana, reckless driving, etc. On the court, Zandolph has also built up a solid resume of selfish play and boneheaded mistakes that has caused him to bounce around since the Jailblazers era. He is a lock for 20 and 10 almost every night but his quest to “get his” has often come at the expense of wins for his teams.

Exhibit A: Worst. Possession. Ever.

On young teams, veteran leadership is crucial to team success. At 28 years of age on one of the younges teams in the league, Randolph has to be considered a veteran leader, for better or worse. Take a look at the ages of the other starters for Memphis: Mike Conley (22), O.J. Mayo (22), Rudy Gay (23) and Marc Gasol (25). In addition, the rotation also includes two rookies in DeMarre Carroll (23) and Hasheem Thabeet (22), second-year project center Hamed Haddadi (24) and fourth year point guard Marcus Williams (24). The only other main rotation player older than Randolph is Jamaal Tinsley (31) who also comes with his own set of on and off the court baggage.

When a front office takes such a young and promising roster and makes Randolph the primary veteran leader on the floor and in the locker room, it raises more than a few eyebrows. Most people (myself included) expected an absolute train wreck from day one. In reality, just the opposite has occurred. The Grizz so far have improved their winning percentage from last season (.293 in 2008-09 compared to .429 this season). They’ve managed to win eight out of their last twelve games including wins over quality opponents such as Cleveland, Dallas and Portland.

But why should we think Randolph is a major reason for the Grizzlies’ success this season?

First, the Grizzlies have had a relatively stable roster since last season with Z-Bo being the main addition. The Grizzlies added a couple of rotation rookies via the draft this offseason, but certainly not immediate impact players, like Tyreke Evans or Brandon Jennings. The Grizzlies also dabbled in free agency, including Jamaal Tinsley and Allen Iverson (spectacular fail), and trades (Z-Bo). But Memphis’ main core was largely intact. Last season, the combination of Mayo, Gay, Gasol, Conley, Darrell Arthur and Haddadi accounted for 64 percent of Memphis’ minutes. This season, that same crew is responsible for 58 percent of the Grizz’s minutes, with the difference being Arthur’s 7 percent out of the rotation due to injury. Randolph represents the single biggest addition this season and has logged 15 percent of the team’s minutes.

Second, there has been a strong correlation between how Randolph performs and whether the Grizzlies win. It seems that every team has at least one “barometer” player that they depend on to play well in order to win basketball games. For example, for the Suns it is Jason Richardson; for the Thunder it is Jeff Green. For the Grizzlies this season, it has been Zach. In the ten games in which Randolph has tallied twenty or more points, Memphis is 7-3. Clearly there is some anecdotal evidence supporting the claim that Randolph is a major reason for why the Grizzlies have improved this season.

So what does Randolph bring to the table and has his game changed this season?

Randolph brings a legitimate scoring threat from the four position, which the Grizzlies sorely lacked last season. It is also important to note that Z-Bo can create his own shot in iso situations, which again Memphis lacked from it’s big men ranks. About half of his shot attempts are jump shots and half are close (at the rim and tip-ins). His close attempts are largely a result of his excellent work on the offensive glass (ZR currently ranks first in total offensive rebounds and fourth in offensive rebound percentage). He also ranks among the league leaders in field goals (12th), field goal attempts (19th), total rebounds (8th), points (20th), rebounds per game (10th), PER (17th) and total rebound percentage (15th). Zach is clearly an asset on the offensive side of the floor, although it should be noted that he has ranked among the league’s worst outlet passers when it comes to igniting the fast break.

Zach’s liabilities are exposed on the defensive end of the floor. This season, the Grizzlies have allowed opponents to score 1.5 more points when Randolph is on the floor than when he sits. In addition, he doesn’t really do anything exceptionally on the defensive end. He doesn’t steal the ball (0.7 steals per game, career), he doesn’t block shots (0.3 blocks per game, career) and he doesn’t draw many charges (0.05 charge rate; for reference Steve Nash has a charge rate of 0.50). One of his positives on the defensive end of the floor is that Z-Bo rarely fouls (2.4 per game over his career). It is clear that Memphis did not bring Randolph in to be a defensive game-changer.

This season, there have been some noticeable changes to Randolph’s game. His usage has dropped considerably from his career average of 28.1 percent to 23.7 percent this season, which represents his lowest usage since 2002-03. Most surprisingly, he has accepted this lower usage rate gracefully which has no doubt contributed to better team chemistry on and off the court. His shot selection has also experienced minor changes; most notably he has cut down on three point attempts (down to 0.2 per game this season from 1.9 last season) with positive effects on his field goal percentage.

It is also interesting to note that his field goal percentage is over .500 on the season for the first time since 2002-03, the same season in which he saw his lowest usage percentage. This combination of lower usage and less three point attempts has allowed Randolph to score more efficiently this season, which is always a good thing. These two trends can most likely be attributed to the influence of Coach Lionel Hollins as it is doubtful that Zach would make these changes on his own. The result has been a net positive for Zach and the young Grizz squad.

But what about team success? We’ve always known Randolph could ‘get his’ but is it leading to more wins this season?

To evaluate team success, Dean Oliver provided us with a simple and powerful means of breaking down offensive and defensive efficiency numbers in his seminal book on advanced basketball statistics, Basketball on Paper. If you haven’t read Dean’s book, I highly recommend it, as he is largely responsible for kicking advanced basketball metrics into high gear. The Four Factors Oliver came up with to explain team success (or lack thereof) can loosely be thought of as shooting (eFG%), turnovers (TOV%), rebounding (ORB%) and free throws (FT/FGA). Oliver used these simple categories to analyze teams on both the offensive and defensive end of the floor.

Let’s examine Memphis’ Offensive Four Factors from last season and compare them to this season.

2008-09 Offensive Four Factors
eFG%: .486 (23rd)
TOV%: .148 (27th)
ORB%: .258 (20th)
FT/FGA: .249 (9th)

2009-10 Offensive Four Factors
eFG%: .496 (16th, better)
TOV%: .148 (26th, same)
ORB%: .319 (1st, MUCH BETTER)
FT/FGA: .245 (10th, same)

On offense, it appears that Randolph did help make the Grizzlies better. In particular his .505 effective field goal percentage (on 15.1 attempts) has helped provide modest increases in Memphis’ team effective field goal percentage. Z-Bo has had the biggest effect on the offensive glass, as we would expect from his league leading numbers in offensive rebounding. However, Memphis leaping to the number one spot in the league from 20th overall last season is what is really impressive. Obviously, Randolph is not solely responsible for the increase (Marc Gasol?) but he is no doubt a key player in these two improvements to the Grizzlies’ offensive efficiency.

Thus, the argument that Randolph has helped the Grizzlies on the offensive end appears to be backed up by the offensive efficiency numbers. Now take a look at the Defensive Four Factors for Memphis.

2008-09 Defensive Four Factors
eFG%: .515 (26th)
TOV%: .141 (7th)
ORB%: .265 (16th)
FT/FGA: .247 (19th)

2009-10 Defensive Four Factors
eFG%: .531 (29th, same)
TOV%: .129 (24th, MUCH WORSE)
ORB%: .267 (13th, same)
FT/FGA: .201 (5th, MUCH BETTER)

On the defensive end, it is more of a mixed bag for the Grizz. On the positive side, Memphis has been better about not fouling on defense. As mentioned earlier, Randolph does not foul very much, which has had a positive effect on the team as a whole. He is most likely only partly responsible for this improvement but you can probably also credit the progression of the young Grizzlies players in general. Learning how to play defense in the NBA without fouling takes experience; simple as that. They area in which the Grizzlies regressed defensively this season is in forcing turnovers, something which Randolph does not do very well at all. Randolph is most likely partly culpable as he doesn’t steal the ball, take charges or force defenders into making bad passes.

Some concluding thoughts.

It appears that this season, Z-Bo’s personal success is finally starting to translate into more team wins. Randolph’s skills fill a need for the Grizz; they needed a guy that can create his own shot and clean up the offensive glass. In the end, it appears that the gains on the offensive ends have outweighed the losses on the defensive end. With Gasol and Randolph beasting it for the young Grizzlies squad, maybe Grizzlies general manager Chris Wallace might be a bit savvier than most people have given him credit for?

Legends are born the same way fortunes are made in basketball: through clutch late game heroics. Among active NBA players, Hedo Turkoglu has a reputation for being a late game assassin who will take and make big shots. After all, his nickname is the Michael Jordan of Turkey as a homage to the League’s undisputed king of clutch.

Since winning the Most Improved Player Award for the 2007-08 season, Turk’s stock has risen steadily, culminating in last season’s deep post-season run complete with an NBA Finals appearance. Along the way, Hedo has steadily become known for being a guy that can be relied upon to hit the big shot.

Shots like that game winner against the Celtics last season stick in our collective memory banks further reinforcing Turk’s mythical clutch status. They also helped Hedo get a nice payday from the Toronto Raptors, who paid a premium (over $50 million over five years) to obtain the six-foot-ten forward’s services.

Take a look at the following quote that was taken from a post from Hoop Doctors, as it is fairly representative of Hedo’s Turk perceived status as a clutch shooter. The post lists the NBA’s most clutch shooters and has Turk ranked fifth overall, ahead of truly clutch players such as Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony (neither of which make the list’s top fifteen clutch shooters).

Last season, Turk probably hit more clutch shots than anyone, but with a new home and a new team this season, it will be interesting if he still gets those same opportunities to be a game-saver. In the ’09 playoffs, Turkoglu showed he understands the moment by increasing his free throw, field goal, and 3-point percentages.

With that in mind, let’s first examine Turk’s shooting efficiency numbers.

Hedo’s shooting statistics are important because clutch shooting doesn’t only occur in the fourth quarter when the game is on the line. On the contrary, there are a number of important moments throughout a game that can be considered clutch. Coming out of a timeout in a must-score scenario involves clutch play whether in the first quarter of fourth. In fact, considering how precious each and every possession is in a basketball game, each play is rather significant and affects the outcome of the game.

So what do Hedo’s shooting statistics tell us about Hedo the shooter?

A lot actually.

In general, Hedo is not an elite shooter, no matter how you slice and dice the numbers. Looking at the raw shooting statistics, Turk is actually a below average shooter from the field, shooting .439 from the field this season this season and .413 last season. From deep, Turk is a fairly average shooter relative to all players that play over 30 minutes a game, shooting .398 this season and .356 last season. The raw numbers don’t look so hot but couldn’t that be a function of Hedo taking a large number of threes (4.6 three point attempts this season and 4.9 attempts in 2008-09)?

To control for three point attempts when considering shooting efficiency, consider effective field goal percentage. Effective field goal percentage compensates three pointers by weighting them according to their value (1.5 times a normal field goal). This season, Turk’s effective field goal percentage is slightly higher than the league average for players playing over 30 minutes a night (.523 versus average of .501). Last season, Turk was slightly below average (.478 versus an average of .506). Nothing mind blowing here and Hedo can probably be considered an average shooter amongst NBA starters.

If you divide the NBA shooters loosely into tiers, Turkoglu would not qualify for elite status. For comparison’s sake, let’s take a look at two of the league’s leading shooters this season to have a benchmark for what elite shooting statistics look like. When talking about great shooters, there is no better poster child than two time MVP Steve Nash. The Canadian Kid’s raw shooting statistics this season are .529/.431/.942 percent shooting. He is on track to join the extremely selective 50/40/90 club (again). If you consider effective field goal percentage, Nash’s shooting looks even more impressive at .595 percent. For a more recent member to join the top tier of shooters in the NBA this season, look no further than sophomore swingman Anthony Morrow. Morrow’s raw statistics are extremely impressive at .529/.514/.885 percent. His ridiculous three point percentage is the main driver of his equally ludicrous .641 eFG%. Compared to top tier shooters, Turk pales in comparison.

So he may not be an elite shooter but what about Hedo the clutch shooter?

With that in mind, let’s boil Turk’s down to the most clutch of all moments: fourth quarter/overtime scenarios when the game is on the line. Using 82 Games’ clutch criterion, clutch play is furthered narrowed down to the last five minutes when neither team is ahead by more than five points. These plays are the essence of clutch and provide an objective way of sorting fact from fiction.

The data from 82 Games has not been updated for this season so we can only go off of last year’s data. Much of the data is provided in per-48 minute form, meaning the statistics are scaled to 48 minutes of clutch time (as defined earlier). In these 48 minutes of clutch time (based off of a sample size of 134 minutes for Turk), Hedo averaged 26.6 points, which was good for 51st overall. Not terrible, but certainly not elite. More damningly, however, is Turk’s efficiency from the field during clutch time (.357), which was significantly worse than his season average and was good for 156th overall.

Compare these clutch numbers to a player like Lebron James and the contrast is startling. In his 48 minutes (compiled from a sample size of 111 minutes), James averaged 55.9 points on .556 percent shooting from the field, which represents a marked improvement upon his normal field goal percentage of .489. A truly clutch player rises to the occasion and elevates their performance to another level when the game is on the line. Turkoglu’s statistical track record just doesn’t mesh with people’s percetptions of Hedo the fourth quarter assassin.

It appears Hedo’s clutch shooting might have been a bit overblown. How can you explain that?

At risk of getting too philosophical, the problem lies within each of our minds as humans (don’t say I didn’t warn you). People have selective memories where we remember events that coincide with our preexisting beliefs and ignore events that contradict our beliefs. When we see Turk hit a buzzer beater on Sports Center it reinforces the idea that he is a clutch shooter. When we see Hedo miss a clutch three, it goes down as a non-event because it doesn’t gel with our preexisting perception that Turk is a clutch shooter.

For a real life example, check out the following quote from the New York Times that was written during the 2008-09 NBA Finals.

The line between success and setback blurred again for Turkoglu, who has developed into a clutch shooter for the Magic. With little time left in the game, Turkoglu has come up big for the Magic. His résumé includes a game-winning shot in the first round against the Philadelphia 76ers and several game-winners the past two regular seasons.

On Sunday Turkoglu delivered everything but the win.

“I saw an opening and threw it up,” Turkoglu said of his inbounds floater to Lee. “It would have been great for us because we played good.”

In this quote, you’ll notice that the author is paying homage to Turk’s reputation as a clutch shooter in a game that Turk didn’t even hit the game winner. In fact, the final shot wasn’t even put into his hands. Instead, the play was drawn up for Courtney Lee who infamously missed the wide open alley-oop. If Hedo was the clutch shooter as advertised, you can guarantee Coach Van Gundy would have drawn up the final play for Turk to shoot and not pass.

In the end, a lot of the blame for Turk’s inflated reputation as a clutch shooter lies with the media, who glorifies his late-game heroics (event) but ignores his failures (non-event). Once designated clutch, the media picks up the story and runs with it, creating a feedback loop. It parallels the talk from before this season’s draft, which had fans, announcers, coaches, players and everyone in between talking about what a weak draft pool it was. With Brandon Jennings increasingly the next anointed superstar, Tyreke Evans putting the Kings franchise on his back and first pick overall Blake Griffin having not even played a single minute yet this season, it is clear that the draft class of 2009 had bona fide superstars in its midst despite the media writing the entire class off as weak.

Before declaring Turkoglu one of the top five clutch shooters in the NBA based upon glowing accounts in the media, analyze the empirical evidence and make your own informed decision.

Players earn their fantasy value in different ways. Some players provide well-rounded stat lines that are more or less without weakness. Other players’ fantasy value is derived from strengths in a few categories or even just one category. The flip side is that some players can hurt a fantasy team with large negative values in one or more categories. These large negative values often occur in the efficiency categories (shooting percentages and turnovers).

Over the past few years, no other player has embodied the spirit of the Cat Carrier and the Cat Killer than Orlando’s own superhero, Dwight Howard. D12 is a Cat Carrier for three categories; rebounds, blocks and field goal percentage. At the same time, Howard is also a Cat Killer in two categories; free throw percentage and turnovers.

When constructing a winning Roto or Head-to-Head team, it is important to build a cohesive team while finding value throughout the draft. In H2H it is much easier to overcome weaknesses than it is in a Roto league, thus allowing for managers to take on Cat Killers without completely destroying their team’s chance of success. In Roto leagues, the Cat Killers are much harder to handle.

But in determining which Cat Carriers to draft or which Cat Killers to avoid, it is important to have a method of comparing Carriers or Killers in different categories to each other. Enter player valuation systems such as Basketball Monster or Ziguana.

Player valuation systems commonly rely on Z-Scores to allow us to compare apples (counting statistics, such as blocks) to oranges (efficiency statistics, such as field goal percentage). Since all counting statistics are on different scales, they also allow us to compare one type of apple (rebounds) to another type of apple (threes). Z-Scores do this generally by using standard deviations to rank all players against the average of a particular category. These individual Z-Scores are aggregated to assign an overall value for each player.

In trying to predict future fantasy production, past production is one of the biggest factors that comes in to play. As with most statistics, the more data you have the more reliable your conclusions. Thus, by using multiple years of data, you can better control for suspensions, injuries, down seasons and other outliers.

What follows is a list of the largest Cat Carriers and Cat Killers based on cumulative values over the past three seasons based on Basketball Monster’s Player Rankings in the nine standard categories. To eliminate any fringe players, a minimum of fifty games played was enacted. I relied on BBM’s valuations over Ziguana’s because BBM has a simple filter to limit the data to the past three seasons. Three seasons of data was used to help control for anomalies while also allowing some of the younger players to make the list.

And now, the rankings.

*Table is sortable. Click on column headers to sort data.

Over the course of the last three seasons, the single largest positive contributor to any one category has been Marcus Camby in blocks (averaged 3.1 blocks over the past three seasons). The next three top dogs were a trio of elite point guards in Steve Nash (10.8 assists), Chris Paul (10.2 assists) and Deron Williams (10.1 assists). Rounding out the top five is Amare Stoudemire with his highly efficient scoring from the field (.572 percent shooting on 14.1 attempts per game) due in part to Nash’s aforementioned dimes.

In simply perusing the top five players on this list, it becomes apparent why punting assists is so popular in H2H leagues. If you miss a top shelf point guard in the draft, you will have trouble competing against the managers that get one of the assist Cat Carriers. If you broaden the scope to the top ten players, Jason Kidd makes an appearance at seventh overall for assists as well (9.3 assists).

If you re-sort the data to put the values in ascending order, Dwight Howard takes the top spot, also know as the best of the worst. Howard’s free throw percentage (.590 percent on 9.9 attempts per game) is the single biggest category contributor in fantasy basketball over the past three seasons, period. Unfortunately for Howard and his Roto owners, this contribution is negative. In a close second is Shaquille O’Neal’s free throw percentage impact (.524 percent shooting on 6.5 attempts per game).

To reiterate, these two values are by far the biggest single category contributions in fantasy basketball, whether positive or negative. Either of these two negative free throw percentage contributions dwarfs Camby’s positive value in blocks in comparison. For rookie managers, the lesson should now be crystal clear. When dealing with percentages, attempts matter. A lot. That is why Andris Biedrins‘ free throw percentage (.565 percent shooting on only 2.6 attempts per game) is not nearly as damaging as Howard’s or Shaq’s. It still hurts a team, but is much more managebale than Howard’s.

Another lesson that managers of all experience levels can learn from examining Cat Carriers and Cat Killers is that Cat Carriers that are not also Cat Killers are always in high demand. These players are much easier to move than Cat Carriers that are also Cat Killers. For Roto leagues, and to a lesser degree H2H teams, Cat Killers are difficult to incorporate into a team after the draft because teams need to have a specific means of moderating the impact of a Cat Killer. Thus, targeting Cat Carriers can give you lots of trade value because these players can almost singlehandedly make a team competitive in a certain category. Oftentimes, managers are looking to trade for players that help deficiencies and not players that provide solid across the board value.

By looking at these values and comparing them against each other, it is apparent why winning a Roto league with Dwight Howard is such a difficult task that few have accomplished in competitive fantasy leagues. Moreso than any other player in the league, Howard was built for H2H play and should only be drafted in Roto leagues by managers who have a clear-cut plan in place of reducing the harm caused by Superman’s free throw shooting and the chutzpah to take the plunge.