A statistical analysis of TY and why he needs to attack

A statistical analysis of Ty Lawson

So we are about 10 games into the season and have enough data to kinda look at some trends for Ty especially If we take into account his previous seasons. The thing I want to start with is his shooting and more importantly where he is shooting from. In the past Ty has taken around 75 % of his attempts from 2 point range. Breaking it down further, in his first 4 seasons upwards of 37 % of his attempts came from 0-3 feet so he was getting lots of layups. There is a sharp downward trend to that over the next 3 seasons ( including this one ) where he takes about 25 % of his shots from 0-3 feet and increased the % of shots from 16 feet to 3 point range. These are generally considered inefficient shots.

However, this season is where it all had stated to unravel. He is only taking 67 % of his shots from 2 pt land and is taking 33 percent from 3, by far the highest in his career. His actual fg %’s are down across the board except for his 0-3 feet % which he is hitting at a 67 % clip…. This will regress but his career percentage from this range is still quite good hovering above .600. His 3-10 ft percent and 16 ft to 3 pt percentages have tanked and hopefully will recover some.

The issue at hand though is not the percent shooting but the distribution of shots. HE MUST go into the paint more , and look to score when he does. Yes , our system values the 3 point shot , however because he is so reluctant to shoot in the paint defenders are not sagging off the 3 point line making those shots contested and much harder.

Another issue is the overall downward trend in his willingness to attack. At this point I don’t know how effective he is at attacking , his true shooting, EFG , offensive rating have gone down every year he has been in the league. How much of this is due to increased defensive attention and usage? How much more efficiently can he play next to Harden ? These questions remained to be answered, but what is overwhelmingly clear is that Ty needs to get back to attacking the basket for his sake and for the Rockets’.

The good news is that statistically at least, Ty’s defense hasn’t dropped off over his career. He is still just as good/bad as ever. This means that his offensive troubles may not be correlated with athletic or skill decline and rather more dependent on strategy and team chemistry. One other positive note is that while Ty’s turnover rate is way up this year, this is likely due to small sample size and chemistry issues and should regress to his career norms as he plays more games.

TLDR … Ty’s % of attempts from 0-3 feet is on a downward trend from his early years in the league … and in a small sample this year is still going down. Furthermore his attempts from all of 2 point range have fallen off from almost 79 !! percent rookie year to 67 percent this season. Over the rest of his career this number is around 75-76 %. Long story short , in order to get his efficiency back and help open up the rockets offense he needs to attack more.

 

Oh and i know its bad to post twice in a row , but a quick look at Harden's BKREF page will lead to similar conclusions . His % of driving is way down too and he needs to pick it up and attack more . Then again everyone here watched harden play last year and knows this , Lawson we don't know much about ( having seen him play very little if you only watch the Rox )

 

Lawson has had plenty of time when Harden is not on the floor, furthermore this is a trend , not exclusive to this year with James. Even when playing with James , TY has successfully gotten into the paint and then instead of trying to finish at the rim ... decided to pass out for the 3.

 

his usage percent and fga per game stay relatively the same over his career . Yes he could be attacking and dishing , he is , he is doing that too much . Right now he is substituting shot attempts from 0-3 to 16-3pt and from 3 pt . The decline in his % of fg from 0-3 feet is drastic .

In 2011-12 he shot 35 % of his fg from 0-3 and then the next season shot 37% from that range . However his assists went up from 6.8-7.2 so I'm not sure you can make the assumption that the only reason why his attempts have gone down is because he is dumping those off or dishing them .

 

Lol I'm not gonna analyze anything to that level with the crap data I have access to.