Summaries of Vantage Sports Analytics Halfway Through the Season

Great post!

TOs are an issue, and probably will continue to be with Harden and Dwight dominating the ball.

Harden is turnover prone, its kind of part of the package of a SG with PG duties.

Howard needs to be decisive in the post and learn from DMo.

 

What do they consider a "non-open" attempt? Would a post-up be considered non-open? A driving lay-up?

 

the most frequent open look is the jump shot taken by the 4 or 5, and we don't have a 4 or 5 who should be taking jumpers, open or not.

 

If we had Dirk, I'm guessing that we would be okay with shooting more midrange shots...

 

Just because Josh Smith is one of the best facilitating big mean does not mean he should be used more at it.

He also turns the ball over at a high clip due to his Jeremy Lin passing.

Also, does the data support that Josh Smith is better in transition than our guard and wing players at distributing. Because I hate when he takes the ball out of Harden/Brewer's hands on the break.

 

The two stats that stand out to me are concerning but very fixable IMO.

Bad passes - this is just focus and putting a premium on the value of possessions.

Beat back - this is just effort and somewhat goes with being good at offensive rebounding

 

We've ranked 29th or worse in turnovers the past 3 years. Just a guess but I imagine McHale leads all active coaches in turnovers per game.

 

Teams are not allowing us to shot wide open 3's they are now allowing us to throw into the post and let Dwight (28.8% conversion rate) go one on one. Everyone stay with the shooters, which spells trouble for us. Instead of posting up Dmo against an overmatched PF or James against a smaller 2 guard.

I can't understand the following:
1. Why do we continue to post up Dwight who can't finish
2. Why the coaching staff doesn't force him to run PnR
3. No movement in the offense to free up more 3 pointers instead of taking forced 3 pointers
4. Defense is now worse with Dwight on the floor

 

I've been telling myself for 3 years we'll clean up the turnovers. Not expecting it anymore. It SHOULD be fixable but we're not fixing it anytime soon

 

Very nice post.

Morey ball back-fire. Better competition knows how to optimize their defense against Morey ball.

 

I don't know about you guys but majority of the time I can clearly tell it's going to be a turnover even before it happens.

Case in point is some of Harden's wreckless or overly difficult passes and Dwight post ups where he doesn't make the move right away.

Not sure why the coaching staff and team have not been able to fix this despite McHale repeatedly saying we had too many turnovers.

 

The GSW blowout losses already made me feel bad. This info makes me feel even more depressed about our chances.

I don't think we shun the midrange. Harden posts up his man. DMo unleashes his hooks from anywhere in the paint. Problem is we don't have enough guys who are good shooters even from midrange.

Harden, DMo, and Terry can score from midrange. But that's about it. If we want more ball movement to get more open shots, we need to change the rotation--get more PT for guys who do move the ball like Papa, Shved (it seems), Brewer, Terry. It's not Rocket science. Howard and Smith kill the ball movement. They should have very specific instructions how to attack like just do pnrs, alley-oops.

There's a breakdown of discipline on TOs and transition defense. Anyone who causes multiple TOs should be pulled from the line-up. And someone needs to be designated in charge of transition defense on each unit. It seems that's the only way they will care again. Coaches should hold players accountable.

 

McHale - clap clap, player harder.

I doubt they practice entries pass to Dwight. Or if they did, they aren't doing it right.

 

Yes, but this year we are playing a slow offensive.

 

So the stats do line up with the eye tests.

I would like to see at least some of a mid-range game, but the team really needs better shooters in general. They don't even shoot 3's especially well considering how many they take, but perhaps that also goes back to them being better defended on the outside because everyone knows that's what they're going for.

 

Great OP post.

1. Offensive rebounding and transition defense are inversely proportional in general.

2. I've been saying for a long time that mid range shot is like the running game in football. It's inefficient but you need it to keep the defense honest, opening up the more efficient passing game. I've noticed that Harden has been shooting more mid range shots. Just my eye test, not from data.

3. In the past two seasons, we were a running team. That was how we got to be one of the best offensive teams (at least in the regular season). This season, we turned around 180 degree, becoming a great defensive team but we don't run anymore. We used to attribute the high TO rate to our running style. Now that excuse no longer exists.

 

Regarding the Easy Points vs Morey Points article, I posted a similar argument on TDS right after game 6 against the Blazers last season.

There's a number of iterations of that very point in Economics, from Goodhart's Law to the Lucas Critique: a statistical observation passively holds true under the conditions of said observation, and by attempting to actively invoke the statistical relation, it is likely that one will end up changing the underlying conditions, often to the point that the relation no longer holds true.

Any observed statistical relation must be backed up by underlying theory before attempting to manipulate the underlying explanatory variables. You cannot simply observe the statistical relation and draw a conclusion from it; you have to understand why and how the relation is occurring.

This is the problem with Moreyball. Simply observing that certain shots are relatively efficient is not enough. It still needs to be backed up by basketball fundamentals before it can be used for constructing an entire team philosophy.

 

It's not unproven though, and extreme version of the "Moreyball" principles have been proven in the D league with the Vipers and a more moderate version has been proven in the NBA in that the Rockets were in the top 5 of the league in offensive efficiency the 2 previous seasons.

Now that offensive efficiency is down a bit this season, but that's understandable given that we went from having 3 capable ball handlers in Harden, Parsons, and Lin in the starting lineup to only one this season. Despite that, I think it's pretty well proven that "Moreyball" works when you have the players to run it. If we had a few more ball handlers, we'd get more open shots and things would work better.