These pictures show the offensive and defensive effectiveness. The Rockets are the worst team in the league in terms of possesions per game, but not bad at points per possesion. On offense on the other hand, we are pretty damn good. Not new to us, but I think that the graphs make it very clear.
Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1ccd9i/visual_representation_of_20122013_teams_defensive/
Why such a huge disparity between own and opponent possessions per game? Are possessions calculated in a different way in these cases?
Why would possessions per game be a variable for offensive or defensive effectiveness? All you need is points per possession.
Opponent possessions per game isn't on a scale from "best" to "worst". There's nothing objectively good or bad about playing at a fast pace or slow pace. This data isn't new, but I do like the way he labels each quadrant. Nice touch.
One thing to ask is how the creator of the graph defines a "possession." It seems that a team may not have the same # of offensive possessions and defensive possessions. MIA, for example, has 90.5 possessions on offense but close to 94 on D.
Good point. The horizontal axis for defense is near 94, but for offense its close to 92. Assuming that represents the average across all teams, it should be the same.
Right, I'm not really seeing the value in this graph, especially the way its pace variable is treated as "high possessions = good" on offense and "high possessions = bad" on defense when it's literally the same variable. For analysis of this type, you get more info out of simply saying "Rockets - fastest pace in the league. 6th in offensive efficiency, 16th in defensive efficiency". From there you can easily see that the Rockets have a nice offense, and keep it relatively tight on D despite the frenetic pace, but that they're a step or two away from elite either way.
