Quick Hits: Stat Observations through 2.24.19 (Patreon)

So I often have random little thoughts that don't necessarily make it to publication, and I'm trying to find more ways to share them with patrons. Interested to see if you guys like this quick-hit content...

-As of this latest update, Giannis has overtaken James Harden in my BPM model. Harden had held the top spot since the last update in December. Giannis's current mark (+7.8) would be the 10th-highest regular-season peak ever in this stat. His previous peak was already 41st, so the model likes his statistical footprint. He's having a monster year and would make a worthy MVP. 

-Anthony Davis's BPM number will be artificially skewed by his weird playing situation. The model uses minutes per game as a small proxy of information and he will be dinged a bit by playing 15 minutes a night. Keep that in mind for the end of the year -- he was like +6.9 before the trade stuff.

-LeBron is 11th at +5.0. This would be his lowest regular-season number since 2007. 

-Trae Young debuted at -3.5 back in December. He's now up to -1.4. I'll have more on him in his upcoming video. 

-Finally, in my most recent video, I noted Luka Doncic's 3-pt shooting on wide-open shots. This threw a few people off. 

The idea behind looking at wide open shooting (or catch-and-shoot numbers) is to assess *off ball value.* Like Luka, players who take a large number of 3s off the dribble will have their catch-shoot value diminished or confounded by their self-generated looks. 

What's noteworthy here is that *good* wide open 3-point shooters shoot above their percentages, so much so that a 40% wide open 3 would rank 64th in the last 2 years (minimum 200 attempts). Lesser shooters hit the mid to high 30s when they are considered wide open (nearest defender is 6+ feet away). Some examples from the last 2 years of players who rank near the bottom of the list with at least 200 attempts:

-Bledsoe 37.5%

-Mitchell 36.6%

-Kuzma 36.0%

-Jeff Green 35.2%

-Jerami Grant 33.5%

-Embiid 31.8%

Whereas the best wide open shooters are low-to-mid 40s. Some examples:

-Hield 49.7% (1st)

-George 46.1% (9th)

-Tatum 46.0%

-Tobias Harris 45.1% (15th)

-Danny Green 43.5%

-Lillard 41.7%

So keep this in mind when running back-of-the-napkin calculations for shot quality or expected value of shots/possessions. Layups are still much better than the best of these -- thus my constant quibbling about passing up open 3s for wide-open layup passes -- and leaving most players WIDE open for 3 out of a half-court set defense is going to yield good expected value for the opposing offense.