How Many Shots are Available to the Rockets Starting Power Forward?

This post is intended to be instructional as to how to use arithmetic and information readily available from the web to arrive at revealing new insights into the NBA.

Today I took a look at how many shots were available this season for the power forward position. Unfortunately I was egged on by a continuing barrage of posters advocating for LMA, who, IMHO would be about the worst dollar for dollar addition to the Rockets short of Stoudamire. (3)

To calculate how many shots are available for the power forward we need the following information:

• 
  The average number of shots the Rockets attempted per minute last season.
  The number of shots the Rockets (probable) starters took last season.
  An estimate of the number of minutes the Rockets starters will have this season.

All of the information is readily available from the web. This analysis only uses arithmetic.

So I retrieved the total number of the Rockets FGA per game from stats.nba.com. 82.5 shots per game for the Rockets (1). This is a middle of the pack number. Simple arithmetic says that the Rockets will have ~1.72 shots per minute next season (82.5 shots per game divided by 48 minutes per game). So then I looked at the Rockets top four players to find out how many shots per game they used last season:

Dwight Howard 9.91
Jeremy Lin 10.94
Chandler Parsons 11.45
James Harden 16.30

Next I need to know how many shots per minute those four players need. Therefore I need the number of minutes they are going to play. I am going to approximate that number as 33 minutes per game. As a group the margin of error is most probably under 5% for that number. Barring injury it should be fairly accurate.

So, add them all up and divide by 33 and we arrive at the conclusion that the four (almost) sure starters will take 1.47 shots per minute. The arithmetic then is 1.72 (available shots per minute) - 1.47 (shots per minute by Howard, Harden, Lin and Parsons) = 0.25 (shots per minute for the power forward). If we multiply that by 33 minutes (the amount of time Howard, Harden, Lin and Parsons will average as a group per game) we get 8.15 shots available to the power forward.

To sum it up the PF may have 8.15 available shots per game. However this does not take into consideration Howard who will likely eat up 3 of those shots. Do not expect him to only get less than 10 shots a game like last season. In the 2011-2012 season Howard got 13.4 shots per game. Taking Howard into consideration the power forward position will only have 5.15 shots per game next season.

The Rockets PF position only gets 5-6 shots per game when playing with the starters. Otherwise he will be taking shots away from Howard, Harden, Parsons and Lin. How can that be good?

(1) One might leap to the conclusion that more FGA per game is a good thing. Actually the exact opposite occurs. Only 1 out of the top 8 teams in FGA per game made it to the playoffs. The bottom 4 FGA per game teams made it to the playoffs, led by the Heat with only 77.2. I will leave the why up to the readers. (2)

(2) This leads to the interesting conundrum that, with the addition of Howard, I expect the Rockets total shots per game to drop next season.

(3) LMA is really good at the worst shot in basketball, the mid-ranged shot. From beyond the rim LMA averaged 0.25 points per shot less than the Rockets team from beyond the arc. This is one of the most basic tenants of advanced stats, and Morey has made it his mission to drive mid-ranged jump shots down as low as possible. Please see
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=243116
for more information.

Notes:

The only source for information used in this post was stats.nba.com.

There is absolutely no power forward in the league short of Love and LBJ that averages more points per shot than any of Howard, Harden, Lin and Parsons.

It would have been more accurate if I had used the actual player minutes from last season.

I have calculated the cumulative error of each of the above steps. It is within +/- 1.4 shots a game for the power forward.

Some of the paragraphs of this post would be better served with a "show spoiler". How do I include it? Thanks.

 

No it does not. I looked at including it, but I wanted to keep the post as direct and simple as possible. I may have been wrong with that decision.

 

Thank you. An expensive great power forward would not hurt the Rockets, but it falls under the category of diminishing returns. How could the Rockets possibly justify spending ~$13M on Love when he would have so few shots available without taking them away from players just as productive as him?

 

I believe that the reason Howard decreases the Rockets FGA per game is that he is unbelievably efficient. If you look at OKC and MIA they have the lowest FGA per game because they have the highest FG% in the league. An unexpected piece of information from a basic study. I love it.

 

Words of wisdom. I could not have stated that as well as you did.

 

I find it immensely interesting that the Rockets have four players who could be all stars. Howard and Harden, if healthy are shoe ins. We all expect them to be the best at their position in the NBA for years to come.

Lin makes the all-star team as an alternate if he shoots 38% from beyond the arc, subtracts 1 turnover a game and adds 2 assists per game. Howard and a summers work may get him there.

Parsons only needs to add 15% to all of his positive stats to get to the all-star game. 17.7 PPG, 6.4 RPG and 4 dimes per game. OK, if he does that he has a decent chance.

 

Honestly if I had a pick, on a dollar for dollar analysis I would choose Ersan Ilyasova. Otherwise, I am good with our current power forwards. Except possibly Smith. I think Asik brings more to the table for 7 or so minutes a game. But this question is so up in the air that until we see Howard and Asik/Smith combo that I will not hazard a prediction.