Expected possessions per player for the 2013-2014 season

As some talk has already started about the expectations for next season in terms of points/assists/rebounds etc., I thought it'd be interesting to approach the discussion from the context of possessions and how they might be distributed across the new team. What I did initially was to calculate possessions per game for each player using last years' stats and this formula:

Code:

Possessions = (FGA - ORb + TO + (.44*FTA))

Which gave the following results:

Code:

[B][U]2012-2013 Houston Rockets[/U][/B]
[B]Player			Possessions	Possessions per game[/B]
James Harden		1918.48		24.5958974359
Chandler Parsons	1075.2		14.1473684211
Jeremy Lin		1222		14.9024390244
Omer Asik		643.56		7.8482926829
Carlos Delfino		698.64		10.4274626866
Patrick Patterson	445.56		9.48
Marcus Morris		423		7.8333333333
Greg Smith		261.2		3.7314285714
Toney Douglas		414.92		8.467755102
Donatas Motiejunas	236.44		5.3736363636
Patrick Beverley	206.04		5.0253658537
Francisco Garcia	109.08		6.06
James Anderson		112.36		3.8744827586
Terrence Jones		86.48		4.5515789474
Thomas Robinson		87.72		4.6168421053
Daequan Cook		61.32		3.8325
Cole Aldrich		48.96		1.632
Aaron Brooks		16		2.2857142857
Scott Machado		14.88		2.48
Tim Ohlbrecht		7.44		2.48

If you normalize across the entire season (divide possessions per player by 82 instead of games played), this formulation comes up with 98.649 possessions per game for the team, which matches Hollinger's Pace stat.

To simplify this analysis, let's only look at the players that will/could get regular playing time on the Rockets next season and lump the extra possessions required to get to the 98.6 possessions per game mark as "Other Possessions":

Code:

[B]Player			Possessions per game[/B]
James Harden		24.5958974359
Chandler Parsons	14.1473684211
Jeremy Lin		14.9024390244
Omer Asik		7.8482926829
Greg Smith		3.7314285714
Donatas Motiejunas	5.3736363636
Patrick Beverley	5.0253658537
Terrence Jones		4.5515789474
Other Possessions	18.4737487972

Obviously, the team for next season will not be the same as last season (so pace could be significantly different), and the final roster is still up in the air, but if we assume that pace stays the same, how might possessions be shifted around to accommodate Howard and any other new acquisitions?

Again from last season:

Code:

[B]Player			Possessions per game[/B]
Dwight Howard		14.5294736842
Josh Smith		18.6347368421
Ryan Anderson		13.5827160494

*NOTE:	These numbers are unadjusted for their respective teams' 
	paces, but Josh Smith would still stand out regardless.

Hypothetically, if just Howard comes in, and no more major moves are made (i.e. other signings are bench filler), I would expect something of a 9-man rotation with possessions broken out like this:

Code:

[B]Player			Possessions per game[/B]
James Harden		24
Chandler Parsons	15
Jeremy Lin		14

Dwight Howard 	 	17
Omer Asik		5
DMo+TJones	 	12

Whoever backs up 
Harden/Parsons 
(James Anderson?):	5

Here, I'm basically expecting Dwight Howard to pick up some combination of the touches that went to Delfino/PPatt/Morris/Garcia, while Asik would see his minutes (and consequently possessions/game) reduced. Similarly DMo+TJones would see minutes & possessions increased between the two of them at the PF slot. While this may not be ideal, this is in the context of a scenario where no more major moves are made (leaving us with a front-court heavy roster) and I have a hard time imagining a starting front-court of Howard/Asik. But all in all, I'd expect a similar number of touches for the remaining members and consequently a similar level of output (points-wise). If there is a significant change in raw output in this scenario, I would be more inclined to attribute that to a change in efficiency.


A second scenario where Josh Smith comes in and replaces Asik in the 9-man rotation requires much more significant shuffling of possessions though. I wouldn't be surprised to see a rotation like this:

Code:

[B]Player			Possessions per game[/B]
James Harden		22
Chandler Parsons	13
Jeremy Lin		12
Patrick Beverley	5
Dwight Howard 	 	17
Greg Smith		4
Josh Smith		17
DMo/TJones	 	4

Whoever backs up 
Harden/Parsons 
(James Anderson?):	4

In this situation, I expect Greg Smith to enter as the backup C, with only one of DMo/TJones duo receiving minutes as the backup PF (though if DMo takes the backup PF minutes, then maybe TJones can slide over and take some backup SF minutes). However, Smith's touches have to come from somewhere, and I'm expecting Smith to still get a bunch of them next season. To accommodate that, I ended up shaving a couple possessions from Harden/Parsons/Lin.

Not to overstate the obvious, but I'd expect that adding another major scoring option in Josh Smith would result in a decrease in (point) production from Harden/Parsons/Lin (again, assuming a similar level of efficiency).

I think Ryan Anderson would slot in much more easily in terms of keeping the rest of the team's touches the same. That's not to say that a team with Ryan Anderson is better than a team with Josh Smith, just that less needs to change in terms of the flow of the offense to fit him into the rotation.



So Clutchfans, what do you think? How would you expect possessions to be distributed in these (or any other) scenarios?

 

Copy-paste error, left out Beverly in one of the scenarios:

 

For additional context, here were their possessions per minute on the floor last season:

Code:

[B]Player			Possessions per minute[/B]
James Harden		0.6427068677
Chandler Parsons	0.3898477157
Jeremy Lin		0.4628787879
Omer Asik		0.2611850649
Greg Smith		0.2353153153
Donatas Motiejunas	0.4394795539
Patrick Beverley	0.2889761571
Terrence Jones		0.3133333333
James Anderson		0.3659934853


Dwight Howard		0.4056722998
Josh Smith		0.5278568766
Ryan Anderson		0.439552537

 

Also, it does seem like Dwight's possessions were lower than I expected, but maybe that makes sense given how he was used in LA. So here are the same calculations from the past 3 seasons for Dwight (and the others):

Code:

2012-2013 Houston Rockets
[B]Player		Season	Possessions per game	Possessions per minute[/B]
Dwight Howard	2010-11	18.1671794872		0.4056722998
Dwight Howard	2011-12	17.6422222222		0.4602318841
Dwight Howard	2012-13	14.5294736842		0.4056722998

Josh Smith	2010-11	16.1433766234		0.4699584121
Josh Smith	2011-12	19.2527272727		0.5455903821
Josh Smith	2012-13	18.6347368421		0.5278568766

Ryan Anderson	2010-11	7.7575			0.3486516854
Ryan Anderson	2011-12	10.9055737705		0.3387169043
Ryan Anderson	2012-13	13.5827160494		0.439552537