With all the talk about our lack of offense this season I decided to do some comparing. As my basis for comparison, I used the following formula: Efficieny = Good Possessions / Total Possessions Good Possessions = FGM + 0.5*3 pters made + FTM / 2 Total Possessions = FGA + FTA / 2 + turnovers - off reb What did I find out? I just looked at the western conference... Last year LAL Dal SA Utah ROCKS Port Sea Min Sac Den LA clips Phoe Griz GS This year Minn SA Phoe Lakers Sac Clips Den Port Dal Sea GS Jazz ROCKS Griz If the Rockets could only make their shots they would have an efficiency better than last year. Are they taking different shots than last year? Getting worse looks? Getting to the FT line less? From the games I have seen, the answer to these questions is no. They are just not making their shots. If they can make their shots at the same % as last year, keeping everything else the same, they will be fine. We have historically decent/good shooters on our team. My money is on them to pick up the shooting % as the season progresses. Then we won't be complaining about the offense anymore (well, at least most of us won't).
The team just above us on both lists happens to be the Jazz. Their record is 2-5. For my part I'm stoked that we've won the 5 games with such pathetic shooting! Let's put the shots in and watch the team continue to perform well!!
A couple of questions about the formula: (great work, btw.) In the 'good possessions' part of the equation, is FGM total field goals, or just the 2pters? Why de-emphasize the FTM and FTA by dividing them in half? I always thought a possession that results in FT's is as good as a possession that gets you a FG. In the total possessions part of the equation did you mean: FGA + FTA / 2 + turnovers - off reb or: FGA + FTA / 2 + (turnovers - off reb) ? or: FGA + FTA / 2 + opp. turnovers - opp. off reb If you meant the original, why add our turnovers and subtract our offensive rebounds? Do you have a database where you can work equations like this relatively easy? If so, that's pretty sweet. Despite the numerous complaints here, I think our offense is getting us a lot of open looks. A lot. Glen and Walt and Moochie and Cat have all gotten some nice open looks from downtown. The shots just aren't falling. But I think more importanly than that, the guys don't know exactly what to do once the ball comes out of a double team or penetration. I don't think they're incompetent, they just don't have the confindence that comes with repetition. KT is a very obvious example here. He is just now learning how his ability to get to the hoop gives him space for the jumper, and how his jumper lets him get to the hoop. I think as he gets more and more games under his belt he will hesitate less and less when he gets the pass on weakside or after setting the pick for Wink/Cat. I think the plays have very good and clear high-percentage options after the first one fails (usually penetration by the guards), but the boys just have to gain confidence and comfort and trust in each other and I think that will only come with repetition and experience. The entire team is in a shooting slump. Except Kenny. Everybody is due to start hitting shots eventually. When they do, things are going to change damn quick.
Nolen, You can't count a possession with a shooting foul twice, that is why you must divide by two. You are trying to count shooting fouls. Of course, this has no way of handling FTs from 3 point plays....but it is the best we can do. If you want to give teams extra credit for a 3-pointer, we do this: change FGM in the numerator to be 2ptFGM + (1.5 x 3ptFGM) BayouRocket, I don't agree with FTM/2 in the numerator, because a good possession should be any shooting foul...so it would be FTA/2 just like the denominator. Now if you want to get FT% into play as an efficiency measure, then the way you have it I guess is as good as any.
Crispee, The way I have it ... FGM + 3 pters*0.5 ... yields the same thing as what you propose ... 2 pters + 3 pters*1.5 Originally I put (FGM - 3 pters) + 3 pters*1.5 but it is the same thing. I like the idea of having FTM/2 in the numerator because it rewards teams that shoot well from there. I realize that as a coach you try to get your team a high percentage shot or free throws, however, you still have to make them. If a team is penalized for not being able to make a FGs (Rockets) then a team should be penalized for not making FTs (Lakers). You are right about not counting possessions yielding a shooting foul twice. Nolen, I meant FGA + FTA/2 + turnovers - offensive rebounds this is because turnovers indicate that we had possession of the ball and did nothing with it. I subract the offensive rebounds because I think each trip down the court should only count once. Subtracting them means that you get a "free" missed attempt and can try again. Nope I just used Excel and data from ESPN.com and CC.net
gottcha...somehow I didn't see that in your forumla....and your way is easier to do from a boxscore. cool. I agree with your FTM/2 as well. I like your way better now all around. so, do you think this is the formula that Rudy was talking about a week or so ago? btw: it is very telling that we are next to last. So, do you want to run the Opponents Effeciency agaist each team?
crispee, I don't know if this is what Rudy would calculate or not. I would suspect that he has access to better data than we do as well (how many times each team made the bucket and got fouled). I think this is probably as good as we can get though. I would like to try more analysis with this formula. The data gathering is just tedious and time consuming.
Yeah, I'm sure Rudy T doesn't cut corners. If a FT is part of a 3 point play, I imagine he's got it worked in there somehow. He probably also works up a ratio of points scored per possession for the team, as well as doing some individual comparisons as well. If you're into numbers, you can really go crazy making up off-the-wall stats. But I thought that's what baseball's for? Now we do it with basketball too???
bayuo and toast...I totally agree this is not what Rudy's measure. I just don't think his real measurement is something that he applied to the whole league, either. I think his statement in the paper about running numbers was a simple stat manipulation, though. Rudy has coaches measure the team exactly by charting every possession far beyond anything stats could do. Charting his own team is one thing. He can be perfectly accurate in his own definition of efficiency. My point is that Rudy mentioned two weeks ago that he wanted to measure us against the league. I think it is very doubtful he has detailed charts for every possession of every team, nor would it really be objective like his coaches can do for him, nor would it really matter versus studying player tendencies and team strategy. Subjectivity comes into play because in real charting of efficiency by coaches, they count all busted plays as bad. How are you going to do that against the league? And does it really help to? Two weeks ago, I believe that Rudy was talking about running stats from readily available objective criteria that he doesn't use to measure the Rockets. This really serves little purpose to him. These types of stats are done to make believers out of his players. And I think it is fun for fans to follow, since we don't have charts. But when it comes down to real measure, he's going with his scouting charts, not any type of manipulation of the scorer's table official stats, that he seems to have been talking about when he said...."We ran different variables, and were 5th in the league...by one measure." This isn't baseball. These coaches don't chart efficiency of other teams. They chart where their shots are coming from, player tendencies, type of plays, defensive sets, options...how often they use different options...inbounds plays...etc. They don't chart fancy off efficiency for the whole league....maybe fancy efficiency of certain players, but not everything.
It'll be a sad day in the NBA when we start seeing stats like, "In games played before 7:00pm, Kenny Thomas has been making 72.1% of his free throws." Or, "Against Eastern Conference teams, after a flight of 3 hours or less, the Rockets score an average of 91.6 points a game." Sometimes stats can just get out of control.
Who gives a **** about effeciency! The bottom line is we score less points than the Grizzlies right now which is unexcusable. We score 90pts and give up 91 but we are 5-2. People can pull stats out their ass all they want, but the bottom line is to have more point than your opponet. Who cares, those are like the 48 minute stats. Who plays 48 min in the nba? Since no one plays 48 min, why compare the total at 48 min. Lets see, If Eddie avg 6pts and 4 rebs in 12min, then he would avg 24pts 16 rebs for 48 min! Give me a break. The offensive effenciency is another way of Rudy saying we are not scoring enough points, period!
leebigez, You are missing the point. If we begin shooting the ball like the players on this team have shown they can do historically then we will be fine. Our offense will be easily as good as last year and should be better. I think everyone can see that our defense is better than last year. That is obvious. Lets see... better defense (already being displayed) & same or better offense (will come with average shooting %) and we are back on track. Are we lucky to be 5-2? Maybe, but if our offense comes together like it will when our open looks start falling, then we will be much improved and there should be no more of this "our offense sucks" type ranting. Are we forcing shots more than last year? Are we shooting harder shots than last year? Are the players worse shooters than last year? I say the answer to these questions is "no". Don't worry, we will be fine.
Who cares what offense we use as long as we score more points than the opponent? Who cares what defense we use as long as we score more points than the opponent? Who cares who we start as long as we score more than the opponent? Who cares who comes of the bench and at what times as long as we score more than the opponent? Come to think of it... why discuss anything? All that matters is that we score more than the opponent, right? Shut this bbs down; this board is pointless. The problem with your statement is all you seem to care about is if we scored more points or not. The fact is, there are reasons why we aren't scoring more, and several people on this board are interested as to why. Stats play a role in that. If anything stats allow you to ask more questions and not necessarily answer more questions -- and that's not a bad thing.
leebeegeebee is just bad at math and can't follow these simple stat formulas, most likely. Damn, you'd think if any math a sports fan would learn is stats math. He is really trying to say we are book worm dorks, but he knows that insult doesn't work after 8th grade.
