2017 Kings Stats

[kb02]

I've been working on some Kings-centric stats for fun. Here's some of the in progress stuff that may interest you.

2017 Kings NBA stats normalized against relevant peers: Skal shows up well as a perimeter defender. Zbo is horrible as an interior defender. Look at WCS vs. Capela.

2017 NBA Team Defense and Speed: Notice that bad teams tend to have greater defensive speed? They're scrambling.

2017 NBA Team Shooting: Kings suck at driving. The main culprits were our guards. Ferrell and Bjielca were signed because of the driving stat--I'll show why later in a follow up post.

Feel free to discuss. Going forward, I'm posting all of my data stuff here instead of STR.

 

[Kingster]

I've been working on some Kings-centric stats for fun. Here's some of the in progress stuff that may interest you.

2017 Kings NBA stats normalized against relevant peers: Skal shows up well as a perimeter defender. Zbo is horrible as an interior defender. Look at WCS vs. Capela.

2017 NBA Team Defense and Speed: Notice that bad teams tend to have greater defensive speed? They're scrambling.

2017 NBA Team Shooting: Kings suck at driving. The main culprits were our guards. Ferrell and Bjielca were signed because of the driving stat--I'll show why later in a follow up post.

Feel free to discuss. Going forward, I'm posting all of my data stuff here instead of STR.

I like the stats, but it would be more helpful to have minutes played for each of the players so that they can be put into perspective.

As an example, last year WCS played a total of 2044 minutes, Skal 1240 minutes. So WCS played 64.84% greater minutes than Skal. If you sum up the deflections and loose balls of each player to get their total "activity", you get 137 for Skal, and 206 for WCS. But when you multiply Skal's 137 by 1.6484 to equalize the minutes, Skal has 226 in deflections and loose balls in comparison to WCS, which means Skal was 9.7% more active.

 

[ESP47]

Awesome job. I agree with the minutes thing and it actually makes Skal look better and ZBo look even worse. ZBo's amount of contested shots is pathetic. What is he even doing out there?

 

[bajaden]

I like the stats, but it would be more helpful to have minutes played for each of the players so that they can be put into perspective.

As an example, last year WCS played a total of 2044 minutes, Skal 1240 minutes. So WCS played 64.84% greater minutes than Skal. If you sum up the deflections and loose balls of each player to get their total "activity", you get 137 for Skal, and 206 for WCS. But when you multiply Skal's 137 by 1.6484 to equalize the minutes, Skal has 226 in deflections and loose balls in comparison to WCS, which means Skal was 9.7% more active.

I've never agreed with the idea that if a player pulls down 5 rebounds in 14 minutes, then he'll pull down 10 rebounds in 28 minutes. However, it does happen with some players. The problem is figuring out which ones. I think the scenario you propose is more likely this coming season with Skal looking significantly stronger. But it's not a given. I myself am prone to use per 36 numbers at times, but when I do, I like to use them on players that are already playing over 25 minutes a game. Just my personal way of looking at it.

In short, I'm not disputing your observation as a possibility, but I'am saying it doesn't always work out that way. There are players that have shot around 40% from the three while taking 2 shots a game from there, but when they starting taking 5 or 6 shots a game, they only shot 34 to 35 % from there. On the other hand, I've seen players who have shot 33% from the three while taking only a couple of shots a game, who suddenly starting shooting over 40% from the three when they doubled or tripled their shots from the three. Go figure!

If Skal outplays Willie this coming season then that's on Willie. Willie has more physical tools at his disposal, but that's all they are if he doesn't use them. He says he's committed to consistency this coming season, so I'm hopeful his words will be backed up with actions. The Kings need a committed and focused Willie. No excuses this season....

As a side note, while everyone is on the Skal bandwagon, and that includes me by the way, if consistency is the main concern with Willie, I think we all have to remember that Skal's main problem was consistency. He'd have a great breakout game, and then disappear in the next couple of games. If were honest, we have to admit that Skal was more inconsistent than Willie was. So I'd like to see commitment and focus out of both players. If we get that, along with improvement from Buddy, Bog's and Fox, then I think the Kings have a chance to win 33 to 35 games. A lot of if's there though....

 

[kb02]

The hustle stats were normalized relative to the rest of the players. Normalizing meant the following:

1. Took the average minutes played for the 20 or so players.

2. Then adjusted each hustle stat relative to the minutes. So for someone who played more minutes, his numbers were adjusted down while for someone, like Skal, who played less minutes, his numbers were adjusted up.

I understand that it’s not a given that someone will keep the same rate of play, if given more minutes. But it was the only fair way to do an apples to apples comparison of the selected group of players.

I’m working on some catch n shoot vs assists stats, which I hope to throw out there in the next week or so. Preliminarily, think it’ll make the Ferrell n Bjielka signings look much more favorable. And may also serve as an early signal that Zbo will play more than most hope n Mason may be more of a lost cause than I thought.

Also want to drop Temple, Carter...from and add Ferrell n Bjielka plus the kids to the 2017 stats to see how the Kings will look in 2018.

My early thoughts are we’ll likely never see a poor man’s version of the early 2000 Kings—a team that works (runs n cuts) for each other—from this current batch of players. Not sure yet.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

The hustle stats were normalized relative to the rest of the players. Normalizing meant the following:

1. Took the average minutes played for the 20 or so players.

2. Then adjusted each hustle stat relative to the minutes. So for someone who played more minutes, his numbers were adjusted down while for someone, like Skal, who played less minutes, his numbers were adjusted up.

I do see that the bottom of that sheet indicates that the stats are normalized, but in general it's probably a better idea to express stats like that in terms of per-36-minutes or the like. The reason being that people don't always read all the way through, and it's easy to come away with the impression that Skal contested 277 three-pointers last season (clearly he did not), or worse, the impression that since he would have done that in fewer minutes, that he would be contesting an incredible number of three-pointers as a full-time player.

 

[Kingster]

I've never agreed with the idea that if a player pulls down 5 rebounds in 14 minutes, then he'll pull down 10 rebounds in 28 minutes. However, it does happen with some players. The problem is figuring out which ones. I think the scenario you propose is more likely this coming season with Skal looking significantly stronger. But it's not a given. I myself am prone to use per 36 numbers at times, but when I do, I like to use them on players that are already playing over 25 minutes a game. Just my personal way of looking at it.

In short, I'm not disputing your observation as a possibility, but I'am saying it doesn't always work out that way. There are players that have shot around 40% from the three while taking 2 shots a game from there, but when they starting taking 5 or 6 shots a game, they only shot 34 to 35 % from there. On the other hand, I've seen players who have shot 33% from the three while taking only a couple of shots a game, who suddenly starting shooting over 40% from the three when they doubled or tripled their shots from the three. Go figure!

If Skal outplays Willie this coming season then that's on Willie. Willie has more physical tools at his disposal, but that's all they are if he doesn't use them. He says he's committed to consistency this coming season, so I'm hopeful his words will be backed up with actions. The Kings need a committed and focused Willie. No excuses this season....

As a side note, while everyone is on the Skal bandwagon, and that includes me by the way, if consistency is the main concern with Willie, I think we all have to remember that Skal's main problem was consistency. He'd have a great breakout game, and then disappear in the next couple of games. If were honest, we have to admit that Skal was more inconsistent than Willie was. So I'd like to see commitment and focus out of both players. If we get that, along with improvement from Buddy, Bog's and Fox, then I think the Kings have a chance to win 33 to 35 games. A lot of if's there though....

It's not an observation, it's not an idea, it's just a calculation. I agree that it doesn't necessarily infer Skal is more "active" than WCS. To me it suggests that they are roughly comparable in their "activity." And "activity" as I have defined it is just one component of the total assessment of a player. In any case, I think we can agree on my main point - statistics that do not incorporate time played can't convey much when you do a comparison.

As far as Skal is concerned, I'm a big fan because he takes the game seriously, really wants to improve, and continually plays hard. I'm totally behind those kind of players, especially if they are 6'11" and can hit 3s.

 

[ESP47]

A lot of people are still going with the "Skal is lost all the time" narrative on defense so I'm glad the stats this last season have been backing up the fact that he played a lot better this year on that side of the ball.

 

[kb02]

Here's the raw stats with the minutes. I've left the normalization calcs for your reference: Raw Numbers

Here's a few new iterations relative to Gobert (the top "hustle" big in this data set): De Andre Jordan is decelerating as a defensive anchor

 

[sactowndog]

I've been working on some Kings-centric stats for fun. Here's some of the in progress stuff that may interest you.

2017 Kings NBA stats normalized against relevant peers: Skal shows up well as a perimeter defender. Zbo is horrible as an interior defender. Look at WCS vs. Capela.

2017 NBA Team Defense and Speed: Notice that bad teams tend to have greater defensive speed? They're scrambling.

2017 NBA Team Shooting: Kings suck at driving. The main culprits were our guards. Ferrell and Bjielca were signed because of the driving stat--I'll show why later in a follow up post.

Feel free to discuss. Going forward, I'm posting all of my data stuff here instead of STR.

Fox doesn’t suck at driving. He sucks in his decision making on the drive. Fox improving in that area alone could make a huge difference. Instead of taking low percentage contested shots we would get open 3 point shots which we hit at a high rate.

 

[Cojc]

I always thought it was a problem with comparing starters stats with people coming off the bench players. Granted for a part of last season our bench was much better than our starters and that is sad.

I saw it year after year the kings trade or pick up some backups from another team because they thought they saw a star and make them a starter. Yeah there were a few exceptions but that did not change until the Divac, Webber, Bibby days and then we saw a start of a different kings team.

What I like now is we are getting our players from the draft good and bad and hopefully the players we bring in will help even the rotation out and become a more consistent team.

I believe if we creep closer to high 30 win season we just maybe be able to get a quality free agent to come aboard and then we may actually see a playoff game again.

 

[ESP47]

Fox doesn’t suck at driving. He sucks in his decision making on the drive. Fox improving in that area alone could make a huge difference. Instead of taking low percentage contested shots we would get open 3 point shots which we hit at a high rate.

I don't know what his exact driving numbers were but to my eye test, he drove about 1/3 as much as I was expecting him to drive. I thought he was insanely misused for a guy with his skills.

 

[ppine]

Basketball is over analyzed as it is. The best way to evaluate a player is to watch him for a couple of games. Just focus on a single player.
Statistics are useful for the big picture or when two players have a similar rating. Defense is the hardest part to quantify.

 

[Cojc]

One of my favorite kings was Dennis Hopson. Man he looked great when he went in for the starters. But didn’t last in the NBA.

 

[Kingster]

I do see that the bottom of that sheet indicates that the stats are normalized, but in general it's probably a better idea to express stats like that in terms of per-36-minutes or the like. The reason being that people don't always read all the way through, and it's easy to come away with the impression that Skal contested 277 three-pointers last season (clearly he did not), or worse, the impression that since he would have done that in fewer minutes, that he would be contesting an incredible number of three-pointers as a full-time player.

Per 36 minutes, Skal is 1.1 deflections and 1.3 in loose balls recovered; WCS is 2.4 deflections and 1.3 loose balls recovered on a per game basis.

 

[Kingster]

Interestingly, Buddy led the team in loose balls recovered per 36 min., with 1.7 and Bogs led the team in deflections with 2.8. Fox only had 1.5 loose balls and 2.0 deflections per 36 minutes. Based on his athletic talent, he should get those numbers much higher in the future.

 

[kb02]

Here's the Kings 2018 guards & wings (with Yogi and Bjelica) relative to a bunch of players. 2017 numbers. There's hope for Justin. Focus on Yogi vs. Mason and DeAron. Look at his drive vs perimeter/mid scoring splits. He's a different kind of player than either guard, which makes his signing much more understandable now. Buddy, Justin, and Bjelica need to drive more. Warriors are good, because they use pretty much every inch of court on the offensive side of the ball.

BTW, Green = Top 10%; Red = Bottom 10% within that column.

See here: Balance