I think when analyzing the FG% here, we need to take into account drive that leads to FTs. I think Harden's slightly lower FG% is due to him trying to draw fouls and he does draw a lot fouls which should balance out his slight lower FG%. That is why his PPD is 0.86, in comparison to Lin's 0.61. Not to knock on Lin, but more to be fair to Harden.
and how does having Asik and Howard in the lineup with Beverly, Harden, and Parsons have such a bad defensive rating?
I think you're missing the point. you only have FG% when you actually take shots so his FG% is correct. if you want, perhaps the OP can add a chart for effective FG% which includes free throws. the other way to look a PPD is that Harden doesn't pass the ball when he drives as much. that's why his own PPD is higher than Lin and Parsons. again, the whole notion about "playmaking".
Drive (continued) Since the player tracking system record not only the number of drives, but also points the player earn through drive, as well as the points the team earns through drive. So I took the simple calculation with Player point/drive number per game or Team point/drive number. To my surprise, Jeremy's drive efficiency fall into the league medium here. And James Harden really stands out for points per drive in terms of player points. Took me a long time trying to figure out why is that, isn't Jeremy has the best FG% on drive? The fact that James Harden got very high player points per drive let me think about maybe that's because James drive in and look for his own shots more, thus could be more efficient, and Jeremy might be different. So I did another calculation, since when you drive in a look for your own shot, only 2 pt shots is there, so I took the player points/2 and then divided that by their FG% on drive to roughly estimate how many drives a player need to get that point production for their own shot, and then normalize that with the player's drive to get the percentage of drive player take for their own shot over their total drive per game. That's an rough indication how many times they drive in to shot and how many times they drive in to create for other people. Indeed, Jeremy is the one in the team that took the lowest percentage of shot from his own drive. He is pretty much a 50-50 split to shot for himself vs pass to somebody else to finish. On the other hand, James Harden is in the similar level as T. Jones to look for his own, 82% of the chances when he drive, he will shoot. The difference is significant. To me, that's the difference of player mentality, James Harden as much as people are saying he is a willing passer, or good ball handling, he is still play like a SG. (Which I think he should.) And Jeremy, as much as people saying he's a SG in PG's body or a scoring PG, his play style is more like a PG, even he did played a significant time as a SG. So then should Jeremy look for his own shots more when he drive? Before we try to answer this question, let's think about what ways could affect the drive efficiency. I'm list a several here: 1) draw fouls, since most our driver have better FT% than their FG%, by draw fouls, you are converting the score% to FT%, which has much better chance. 2) and 1s. Obviously changing a 2pt play to a 3pt play, that's a no brainer. 3) Pass out for a 3pt shot. That would rely on a good 3pt shooter. (With Jeremy's 58.7%, you need to pass to a shooter with higher than 39% 3pt% to worth it over Jeremy shot himself. But for person who are not that good with drive FG%, this is an option.) 4) Pass out to an at rim dunk. As usually dunk has 90% success rate, much higher than normal finish, (even higher than FT). 5) Decrease TO. As turn over basically results in unsuccessful drive, which wasted the effort the most, and has the biggest impact in decrease drive efficiency. So, looks like James Harden is trying to emphasis on the first two points, which he is good at, that's how he got his driving efficiency. And in order to do that, he does need to look for his own shot more than look for pass, since he is so good at drawing fouls, the way he is doing it fits his strength. Thus before we call him ball hog here, he is pretty smart in doing that, use his strength. On the other hand, for Jeremy, he don't get enough respect from the referee as James, he would not be able to get the calls with the same contact as James draw, so that route does not works for him. I think that's why he looks for pass more, and hoping his teammate would get higher %shots than what he got. Hypothetically, with his 58.7% FG% on drive, if he shot every drive by himself, he would get 1.17pt/drive, and that would be the number for the team too. That does not sounds too much over 1.13 team pt/drive he is getting now, but that would move him to the Parsons level, which is currently the highest for the team. But how significant that difference is? Well with 0.04 pt/drive difference, that means for every 100 drive you get 4pt extra, which is, based on current high number drive/game Jeremy has, he will earn 4 pts more every 10+ games, that's really insignificant. However, to Jeremy, I think the most important for him would be the number 5 point, try to decrease TOs when he drive. Since he got hacked a lot with no calls, he might as well shot himself more, as a foul is more likely to be called if it is during a shooting motion. Especially with his current FG% on drive, pass out to 3pt shooting over his own shot with current team 3FG% is not a really good idea. Plus that would also decrease TO from a bad pass. On the other hand, Jeremy is not bad already at current way already, as I pointed out above, compare to Parsons who is the best in efficiency in the team, it is pretty much a 4pts total in 10 games difference, not that significant. But Jeremy is doing one thing great, that is he has the volume of drives per game. Jeremy not only lead in the team in drives per game, but also lead in the league. He is creating high % shot for himself and also for his teammates. That's a skill set P.Beverley or A.Brooks could not replace yet.
This is how it defines a drive: "Any touch that starts at least 20 feet of the hoop and is dribbled within 10 feet of the hoop and excludes fast breaks." Lin will very often drive in, probing for an opportunity to score or find an open man, and if its not there he'll dribble back out. When James drives, he's much more assertive, looks to create contact and is more aggressive in his shot attempts.
You nailed it. that's exactly my feeling is, that Jeremy is a good facilitator, and the team is currently trying to convert him to a scorer, which is more emphasized on by playing him as SG in a big chunk of time. It is not like Jeremy could not do that, he is performing in that role well, but I do feel that is some kind of under use Jeremy's talent. On the other hand, the more I look into this, the more I feel that James Harden on the other hand is a great scorer. But pair him with a defensive guard who do not shoot well, do not playmaking well, don't involve in team offensive much, is pretty much converting James into a facilitator, and yet anticipate him to perform that on top of his own scorer's role, that's a bit over use James talent.
thank you. the last paragraph is my take on Harden. I don't think any Rockets fans have an issue with Harden being a scorer and scoring a lot of points. the issue is that he can't be the playmaker for the entire game. so let go of the playmaking and save it for when it is really needed. a final shot or critical phase in the game. (if the critical phase is the entire 4th quarter, Houston we have a problem)
Great work. How do you guys get this stuff? Very impressive and repped. Bev doesn't have a lot of turnovers b/c he doesn't really make true passes. He will dribble the ball up the court and pass of to Harden or dribble around the 3 point line and pass off to Lin or Parsons or he will dump the ball into Dwight. But he really doesn't make passes in transition or any passes that create any offense. Hence why his assist numbers are so low too.
Not often, he's doing more and more the "Steve Nash" dribble into the lane and keeping the dribble alive and kicking out or shooting the short fade-away jump shot in the paint. He used to pick up the dribble a lot more last season.
That's exactly what I see the difference of James' drive from Jeremy's drive. James is more assertive since his goal of drive is for his own shot, however, it is hard to stop James without foul him, he got his way. Jeremy on the other hand, is less assertive as he drive to look for an open man, or his own opportunity, when you have these two option in mind, it is hard to be as assertive as James, he pretty much made up him mind before he drive. However, that's Jeremy's way of keep defenders hesitate, as they don't know whether he will shoot himself or pass out, so they could not just leave their man and all collapse on him. Since Jeremy is not as strong and crafty as James, that he don't get as much calls as James, I think it is good that they are different there.
I think that Harden isn't shooting as well b/c last season Lin played the PG and actually was able to control the ball more and assist more. That resulted in Harden getting better looks and also not expending as much energy. This season Harden has been the guy running the offense a lot more and especially when Bev is the PG. So he is not only more tired but he is also taking Harder shots. When Lin plays point and draws the defense, it leaves Harden more open and he gets better looks. Harden just doesn't want to accept that.
Reading this thread just makes you question why Bev is starting and not Lin. Seriously. How can you look at these numbers and not question what McHale is trying to do by starting Bev. He's better off as a spark off the bench who pressures the opponent PGs, but to be a starter, facilitate the ball and draw the defensive pressure off Harden and Howard is definitely why Lin should be starting. Lin is showing his defense is good enough, but when he struggling and making mistakes thats when Bev should come in with his high energy. Instead we get the opposite from McHale.
Lin has always been a scoring type of pg. It was only last year that his facilitating role was hammered in. I guess because of how our bench currently is, this year Lin's role has been changed yet again. It is believe by some that he would facilitate our bench. Now recently he has to become to scorer again but with slightly more sg mentality. With another injury he was move back up to the starter position and he has to remold himself. That isn't to say the injuries have not affected the other players. Having to change pg with drastic playing styles back and forth does take a hit to how others play as well.
Wow. Very high quality analysis and effort. I like how you didn't just take the stats at face value (in which alot of people here do, and proceed to tout their less than competent findings as fact), but proceeded to rigorously investigate root causes.
I don't think I'm missing the point. Harden tries to draw a lot of fouls, while it is mostly a good thing, sometimes he takes a wild shot when he thinks he was fouled to exaggerate it. If a foul wasn't called, that hurt his FG% during driving, at 50% it is still impressive though not as amazing as Lin's 58.7%. I disagree with the part about he doesn't pass the ball. If you look at the his team PPD at 1.17 is higher than Lin's 1.13 actually. OP didn't give out actual numbers passes during drives. So your claim isn't valid. You can argue from other stats that he hogs the ball, like the Pass stats, but not from this Drive stats.
Shooting efficiency This set of data is from player tracking system. summarize: 1) as a team, they overall is more efficient with catch and shoot FG% than pull up FG%. 2) Jeremy is pretty good at catch and shoot, impressive 3FG% in catch and shoot of 45.6%. Notice that Jeremy has around 10% higher than Beverley in catch and shoot category. 3) Jeremy is pretty bad at pull up shots, especially bad in pull up 3s. Beverley is even worse than Jeremy in pull up shots. 4) In terms of FGA, James Harden take similar amount of shots to other players at catch and shoot. But a significant higher volume at pull up shots than the rest of the teammates. 5) For James, even though his pull up shots within the team is pretty good, but it is still lower than his catch and shoot FG%, more so with 3pt shots. Looks like it would be more efficient for him to shoot catch and shoot, rather than he try to work it out himself. 6) This shows why it is very important to have ball movement and increase team assist number. Pretty much everyone shoots better in catch and shot than pull up. The following data sets are not from player tracking system, but just general player stats from NBA.com. Player shot efficiency based on shot type. Jeremy's FG% within the restricted area is really impressive. 74%, with a reasonable FGA though, even higher than our bigs, and ranked top 5% in the league. But he is not that great in the paint. Parsons and James are the only ones that could shoot okay from mid range. Casspi is great at corner 3s, but he did not shoot too much. Jeremy and AB are leading the team at above the break 3s. James shoot the most above the break 3s in total in the team, but with not so impressive FG%. Opponent shot efficiency should be an indication about a player's defensive results. However, since this data was not from player tracking system, I'm not so sure how they define the opponents, whether it is based on position or not. Take home message, I don't see much difference in opponent FG% between Jeremy Lin and Patrick Beverley though.
I think you mixed up the definition a little bit. For team points, that include the points obtained by the driver too. It is not the point only contributed by the teammate. So for James 1.17 point per drive, that was composed of 0.86 of his own points and 0.31 of points contributed by his teammates. Yet for Jeremy's 1.13 point, that was split into 0.61 points from his own, and with 0.52 points from his teammates. Thus you could tell James has much higher % drive was for his own shots.
I think the other factor you have to look at is in what situation does Harden pass the ball? In the first half of the Knicks game he was doing a good job of mixing it up- passing to teammates but taking it on his own sometimes. In the second half, he started to ignore his team and mostly passed after he had already held on to the ball until only a few seconds remained. Sometimes this works and he gets an assist but usually it results in a bad shot.
