There seems to be a disconnect between the conclusions drawn and what the stats in the OP are actually saying. The conclusion here (correct me if I’m wrong) seems to be that more effort needs to be made on behalf of the team in order to get Rudy his points. And yes, while its true that the Kings are generally more successful when Rudy reaches that 20 ppg threshold, that isn’t completely indicative of whether the Kings are consciously making an effort to get him his touches or not. Rudy not getting 20 points in a particular game could be that he’s not getting his touches, or it could be that he’s not necessarily making the best use of them. It’s a mistake to assume that getting Rudy above the 20ppg threshold, come hell or high water, is congruous to better offense.
If you want to break down our offense, a better stat to use would be Usage% as it relates to offensive rating since that’s the percentage of possessions we’re pumping into an individual player on any given night. Points per game? Thats usually up to the Basketball Gods to decide whether someone is playing well or not on a particular night.
So I went ahead and crunched the stats. Our wins look like this:
Offensive Rating: 115.4
Defensive Rating: 101.7
Cousins’ Usage: 28.5
Gay’s Usage: 27.3
Thomas’ Usage: 24.0
Our losses look like this:
Offensive Rating: 104.7
Defensive Rating: 116.5 (!!!)
Cousins’ Usage: 34.3
Gay’s Usage: 22.5
Thomas’ Usage: 24.3
The stats seem to say that Isaiah is mostly the same in both wins and losses (0.3% difference), but the difference in Cousins and Gay is really stark. In losses, Cousins uses significantly more possessions (5.9% more) and Gay uses significantly less possessions (5.2% less) than in wins.
Its really tempting to conclude that for the Kings to have a better offense, we need less Cousins and more Gay, but I’m not going that far. Mostly because I can see as clearly as day the ridiculous chasm between our defense in wins compared to our defense in losses (We allow *15 more points per 100 possesions* in losses than we do in wins). That’s obviously the #1 factor contributing to our wins and losses. Especially considering that bad defense can drag down an offense, its obvious that our defense is holding us back. Not only does bad defense leave less opportunity to get out in transition, bad defense is also demoralizing, and a demoralized team is less likely to execute good offense. Hence we see Cousins’ usage rate explode in losses because of the temptation to go to our #1 option and completely stagnate.
That conclusion doesn’t also take into account that Gay is much worse in losses as compared to wins, meaning that the usage rate is curbed because Gay isn’t necessarily doing anything worthwhile with those possessions anyways. Cousins is the magnet (as he should be), so when the team is struggling he puts it upon himself to try and produce, which isn’t exactly ideal for an efficient offense.
Overall, this entire exercise is ridiculous. There’s no glaring issues with our offense outside of execution issues in crunch time and against elite defenses, which has more to do with experience considering the team was put together 20 games ago and is still fairly young. Anybody looking to offense as something that’s holding the team back is looking in the wrong place. Since acquiring Gay, our offensive rating is at 109.49, which if it holds up is good for *8th in the NBA*. Our defensive rating since then is 109.85, which would be good for *28th in the NBA*.
So, sorry OP, but that’s a swing and a miss.
If you want to break down our offense, a better stat to use would be Usage% as it relates to offensive rating since that’s the percentage of possessions we’re pumping into an individual player on any given night. Points per game? Thats usually up to the Basketball Gods to decide whether someone is playing well or not on a particular night.
So I went ahead and crunched the stats. Our wins look like this:
Offensive Rating: 115.4
Defensive Rating: 101.7
Cousins’ Usage: 28.5
Gay’s Usage: 27.3
Thomas’ Usage: 24.0
Our losses look like this:
Offensive Rating: 104.7
Defensive Rating: 116.5 (!!!)
Cousins’ Usage: 34.3
Gay’s Usage: 22.5
Thomas’ Usage: 24.3
The stats seem to say that Isaiah is mostly the same in both wins and losses (0.3% difference), but the difference in Cousins and Gay is really stark. In losses, Cousins uses significantly more possessions (5.9% more) and Gay uses significantly less possessions (5.2% less) than in wins.
Its really tempting to conclude that for the Kings to have a better offense, we need less Cousins and more Gay, but I’m not going that far. Mostly because I can see as clearly as day the ridiculous chasm between our defense in wins compared to our defense in losses (We allow *15 more points per 100 possesions* in losses than we do in wins). That’s obviously the #1 factor contributing to our wins and losses. Especially considering that bad defense can drag down an offense, its obvious that our defense is holding us back. Not only does bad defense leave less opportunity to get out in transition, bad defense is also demoralizing, and a demoralized team is less likely to execute good offense. Hence we see Cousins’ usage rate explode in losses because of the temptation to go to our #1 option and completely stagnate.
That conclusion doesn’t also take into account that Gay is much worse in losses as compared to wins, meaning that the usage rate is curbed because Gay isn’t necessarily doing anything worthwhile with those possessions anyways. Cousins is the magnet (as he should be), so when the team is struggling he puts it upon himself to try and produce, which isn’t exactly ideal for an efficient offense.
Overall, this entire exercise is ridiculous. There’s no glaring issues with our offense outside of execution issues in crunch time and against elite defenses, which has more to do with experience considering the team was put together 20 games ago and is still fairly young. Anybody looking to offense as something that’s holding the team back is looking in the wrong place. Since acquiring Gay, our offensive rating is at 109.49, which if it holds up is good for *8th in the NBA*. Our defensive rating since then is 109.85, which would be good for *28th in the NBA*.
So, sorry OP, but that’s a swing and a miss.
