...in this article about big men and bully ball. Lots of statistical info from a site I hadn't visited before.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
DMC in top 3
- Thread starter VF21
- Start date
Well...
He's top three in contested FGs attempted within 8 feet. It appears that the premise of the article is that some players "bullyballers" have a major advantage against shorter "mouse in the house" mismatches. In that stat (size of bullyball advantage) he comes in at #51 of 76 qualifiers. He also comes in #50 in terms of percentage of attempts against a mismatch, #68 in FG% against a mismatch, and #64 in FG% against bigs.
I really truly do believe he's better than that. Some of it will have to do with his being the offensive focus of his team, and some of it may be a bit of a weakness in the analysis itself (when your top-ten bullyballers include Zaza Pachulia, Cole Aldrich, and Brandan Wright, maybe it's not such a useful measurement) but maybe he needs to bully a bit more down there.
He's top three in contested FGs attempted within 8 feet. It appears that the premise of the article is that some players "bullyballers" have a major advantage against shorter "mouse in the house" mismatches. In that stat (size of bullyball advantage) he comes in at #51 of 76 qualifiers. He also comes in #50 in terms of percentage of attempts against a mismatch, #68 in FG% against a mismatch, and #64 in FG% against bigs.
I really truly do believe he's better than that. Some of it will have to do with his being the offensive focus of his team, and some of it may be a bit of a weakness in the analysis itself (when your top-ten bullyballers include Zaza Pachulia, Cole Aldrich, and Brandan Wright, maybe it's not such a useful measurement) but maybe he needs to bully a bit more down there.
And this is another example of having access to a new wealth of stats allowing greater in-depth analysis but only if utilized properly.
Quite simply you could look at it this way. If James Harden got switched on a pick and had to guard a big, would you feel more confident tossing the ball into the post if that player were Boogie or Faried? The numbers say Faried. The numbers also say you'd be better off taking Mbah a Moute in the post over Anthony Davis.
Here are the questions that aren't asked. If you did have Harden guarding Faried or Mbah a Moute would you send a double team? What about Cousins or Davis?
And how many of those baskets are coming as a result of drop offs and/or lobs? DeAndre Jordan shoots a great percentage overall because of the shots he chooses to take - almost all dunks off lobs and drop offs. Of course his percentage on those shots is only going to go up against smaller players. Does that make him a good post player? Not necessarily. And in Jordan's case he isn't. He's very good at what he does, but if he actually had to catch the ball, back his man down and utilize a drop step or jump hook on most possessions his effectiveness (and his FG%) would drop significantly.
Cousins absolutely has to shoot a better percentage. 50% is usually basketball's equivalent of the Mendoza line for traditional bigs and Boogie has yet to crack that barrier once in his five seasons, peaking at 49.6% two years ago and dipping as low as 43% his rookie year. But he is the most skilled offensive center in the NBA and the notion that Cole Aldrich is a more reliable go-to offensive player in the post makes it hard to look at this analysis as anything other than an interesting collection of stats.
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Have a few friends who write for Nylon Calculus and they do great work. And as Partnow said at the end of the article, it shouldn't be taken as gospel, but it does shed some light on a few things and confirm what we already know. Boogie does struggle in the post at times when he's matched with someone just as strong as him. We know that, and the numbers here illustrate that.
There's also a sample size issue with the rankings as far as FG% vs bigs and FG% vs mismatches. Yea, Jordan shoots 68% vs bigs, but he also had 220 less attempts. That's going to skew the FG% results pretty heavily.
There's also a sample size issue with the rankings as far as FG% vs bigs and FG% vs mismatches. Yea, Jordan shoots 68% vs bigs, but he also had 220 less attempts. That's going to skew the FG% results pretty heavily.
That's not what this is saying though. As you pointed out, there isn't any Usage or sample size numbers affecting where these guys are ranked, just raw FG% numbers with those 2 qualifications (FG% vs bigs FG% vs mismatch). Doesn't say how they scored either.
Just have take the data set for what its saying. Aldrich shot great percentages vs mismatches and decent percentages vs bigs in the post. To find out why or how he did it, you'd have to look at different numbers.
Right. The point is that there isn't enough context for these stats, rendering them relatively pointless.
Well, with any one stat, there's never enough context. That's the point of advanced stat. You use a whole slew of them to come to a more informed conclusion.
bajaden
Hall of Famer
You beat me to it. Your dead right. How many of those shots were assisted? There are so many things that go into a stats like that, that if you take them on the surface, they're meaningless. I don't remember the exact percentages with DeAndre Jordan, but something like 70 or 75% of his shots are assisted. Cousins on the other hand, at least up to now, creates most of his own shots. It stands to reason that someone living off of assisted shots will shoot a higher percentage than someone that's creating his own shots. Anyway, while interesting, it's also somewhat flawed.
