2018 Kings on/off stats

[ESP47]

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/SAC/2018/on-off/

I was checking this out today and found it to be fairly interesting and figured it might give us something to talk about during this slow period.

Some things that jumped out at me.

Kings On/off ORTG (basically an estimate of how many more points per 100 possessions the Kings score when these guys are playing)

Skal +4
Mason +3
Buddy +2.9
Vince +1.2

Fox -1.6
Temple -1.7
JaKarr -2.1
Koufos -4.3

Opponents On/off ORTG (same stat, but this time it's the opposite. the guys in the negative are better because the opponent scored less with them on the court)

Jakarr -10.5
Mason -4.8
Buddy -4.6
Vince -3.3

Bogie +3.7
Fox +4.1
Randolph +8.3

Cumulative On/off ORTG (taking the difference between the Kings and the Kings opponents rating when said player is on/off)

Jakarr +8.5
Mason +7.9
Buddy +7.4
Vince +4.5
Skal +3.9

Bogie -3
Fox -5.8
Randolph -7.7


So there's a few things at play here. The 5 best guys didn't start a whole lot. The 3 worst guys started the majority of the time. There wasn't really a big difference for the rest of the players. They were mostly somewhere between -1 and +1.

My take is that there are a few reasons for this. The 5 best guys didn't play against the other teams starters nearly as much so their ORTG will be higher due to playing against inferior defenders and their opponents ORTG will be lower due to playing against inferior offensive players. Buddy is the outlier here since he played a lot of minutes against both. Another obvious take is that the guys with the highest difference are the ones who come in for the guys with the lowest. ZBo and Fox being our worst players doesn't surprise me at all but Bogie being clumped in with them was a bit surprising. As you can see, Jakarr, Mason and Buddy all back them up so their on/off numbers are going to look better due to replacing the worst players as far as ORTG goes. Vince and Skal also backed up ZBo a lot, which is probably inflating their numbers as well. Basically, ZBo should not be seeing the floor at all next year.

One thing that surprised me was Justin Jackson. His difference was -.4 which was right in the wheelhouse of WCS and Temple. Temple and Jackson shared a lot of minutes at the SF position and I would have expected Temple to outshine Jackson by a fairly wide margin but for whatever reason he didn't. The team was slightly worse on offense and slightly better on defense with Temple out there, but not by much. Maybe it means that Jackson with a 37% 3 point shot might not be a bad rotational player?

 

[kingsboi]

too many stats are ruining the way we view the game and the players IMO. Sometimes you just have to use the eye test and it was obvious as day that for many times through out the season, a lot of bad line ups were thrown out there and for too long before being yanked. The funnest line ups when it was all the youngins going out there and playing care free without looking over their shoulders that they will get subbed for a vet.

 

[The Effort Police]

too many stats are ruining the way we view the game and the players IMO. Sometimes you just have to use the eye test and it was obvious as day that for many times through out the season, a lot of bad line ups were thrown out there and for too long before being yanked. The funnest line ups when it was all the youngins going out there and playing care free without looking over their shoulders that they will get subbed for a vet.

The stats back up that Zbo's play was vomit-inducing, and that he shouldn't be getting minutes next year (but he will). But you didn't need stats to figure that out; they just confirm it.

 

[ESP47]

too many stats are ruining the way we view the game and the players IMO. Sometimes you just have to use the eye test and it was obvious as day that for many times through out the season, a lot of bad line ups were thrown out there and for too long before being yanked. The funnest line ups when it was all the youngins going out there and playing care free without looking over their shoulders that they will get subbed for a vet.

The stats back up that Zbo's play was vomit-inducing, and that he shouldn't be getting minutes next year (but he will). But you didn't need stats to figure that out; they just confirm it.

I agree. The problem is that ZBo's offense isn't that bad. He's at +.7 when he's on the court but his defense is literally 10x worse than that. I feel like he's relied too heavily on being the guy that gets them a bucket when they go through a dry spell, but Joerger isn't taking into considering the fact that he gets that bucket but he gives up much more than that. They'd be better off just not getting that bucket and playing better defense.

I know you don't like stats kingsboi but StR has an article on Skal with some interesting stats. Basically shows that he's in the 90th percentile on defending the pick and roll as well as isolation defense. I never would have guessed either. I know his defense improved but I didn't think it improved to that extent. If he can ever wrap his head around team defense better, Skal might wind up being the defender we thought WCS was going to be.