Disclaimer: I did a lot of digging on the new SportVU camera data, and I will be posting some interesting results throughout the night.
Now that the NBA has SportVU cameras in all 30 arenas, fans and writers have unprecedented access to stats that have otherwise been nonexistent beforehand. Advanced stats can be used too often, and those that lack context can really misrepresent situations. Nonetheless, it’s really interesting to see.
One of the new stats that we get from the cameras is distance traveled. It measures how many miles players have ran on the court throughout the season. So one would probably assume that it would be a point guard who leads a fast-paced offense, right? Wrong. Chandler Parsons leads the NBA in distance traveled through the first 8-9 games of the season with 28.2 total miles. If you wonder why NBA players have to be in such great shape, there’s your reason. The Rockets have the 5th fastest offense in the NBA at just over 100 possessions per game. That means that this team runs at every opportunity.
The top 10 goes as follows:
- Chandler Parsons (HOU)- 28.2 miles
- Gordon Hayward (UTA)- 24 miles
- Tristan Thompson (CLE)- 23.9 miles
- Jeremy Lin (HOU)- 23.9 miles
- Evan Turner (PHI)- 23.6 miles
- Dwight Howard (HOU)- 23.6 miles
- Andre Iguodala (GSW)- 23.5 miles
- Steve Blake (LAL)- 23.4 miles
- Aaron Afflalo (ORL)- 23 miles
- Bradley Beal (WAS)- 22.8 miles
The Rockets have run a lot of miles. This is such a small sample size, but you can pick out trends in these stats.
Stats via NBA.com. Listen to the Fansided NBA Podcast here.