October 24, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Clippers guard Chris Paul (3) controls the ball against the Portland Trail Blazers during the second half at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
With the NBA regular season starting on Tuesday, there are simply too many possible statistical trends to keep an eye of for each to get their own post in our Numbers to Know series. In addition to the ones we’ve identified already, here are five more quickies:
5.57%: Chris Paul commits a turnover on just over 1 out of every 20 Clippers offensive possessions he influences. This 5.5% True Turnover rate was, by a decent margin, the lowest such mark of any high usage point guard in the NBA last year:
This ability to ensure the Clippers get shots, any shots every time down the floor is a big part of the reason the Clips led the NBA in offensive efficiency last season. It’s also one of the big factors differentiating Paul from the some of the other contenders to the league’s fictitious Point Guard crown. Here is Paul compared with some of the other highest usage PG’s in the league last season:
With new backup Jordan Farmar almost twice a susceptible to turnovers as Paul (9.9% Truue TO% in 2013/14 with the Lakers), keeping Paul on the floor is of course vital to the Clippers offense matching last year’s production.
1.8 – Everybody loves Giannis Antetokuonmpo, wants the best for him, hopes he succeeds, etc. His combination of ball-handling, length and athleticism have drawn comparisons ranging from Scottie Pippen to Kevin Durant.
First of all, stop that right now. But more importantly, the “Point Giannis” experiment Jason Kidd wants to conduct might be ugly. Admittedly, it’s not the best frame of reference, but between 2014 Las Vegas Summer League and NBA Preseason play, “Alphabet” is averaging 1.8 assists per game. The vision of GA as a primary faciliator is more hope than wish at this point. During his up and down rookie season, he had an assist usage of 9.5%, which was slightly above average for NBA wings, but a far cry from the 15-20% rates put up by wings who were actually placed in a primary creation role such as Manu Ginobili, LeBron James or even some secondary creators like Nic Batum or Andre Iguodala. Still, Point Giannis is probably a worthwhile experiment in accelerating his learning curve, given how far behind he is in terms of meaningful reps against top level competition as compared with young American players. Just don’t expect a wave of triple-doubles in Milwaukee this season.
62.3%: The combined FG% allowed at the rim by Cleveland and Minnesota last year. The biggest obstacle to LeBron returning to the finals in his first year back with the Cavs is defense in general and this lack of rim defense in particular. Neither of the Cavs returning bigs in Anderson Varejao and Tristan Thompson were especially effective on this front, with Thompson grading out as one of the very worst in the NBA, allowing an estimated 1.9 more points at the rim than would an average defender. Kevin Love is notoriously, not a rim protector either, giving up .8 extra points per game. This puts a lot of pressure on James, Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters to keep opponents from driving to the basket.
1016: Pull up midrange jump shots taken by John Wall and Bradley Beal, most of any duo in the league by an enormous margin. Five teams (Houston, Philly, Atlanta, Miami and Chicago) took fewer total. Only the Cavaliers took more of what is by every indication the worst shot in the modern NBA. Wall especially is overly reliant on this shot in the pick-and-roll, much to the detriment of the Washington offense.
29.9%: Percentage of opponent’s shots taken at the rim contested by Anthony Davis while he was on the floor in 2013/14. Despite leading the NBA in shot blocking, Davis was not able to use his length to good enough effect in the paint. In fact, Pellies’ opponents shot 61.3% at the rim overall, but actually increased this number to 62.9% when Davis was on the floor. The addition of Omer Asik will be vital to any hopes New Orleans has of crashing the Western Conference Playoffs this season. When healthy, scoring the ball was never ever a problem when New Orleans was able to put it’s favored lineups on the floor. For example, according to NBAwowy.com, the threesome of Davis, Tyreke Evans and Jrue Holiday scored at a rate of 115 pts/100 in just under 300 minutes last season. While playing Asik and Davis together probably means Ryan Anderson is on the bench, perhaps that big man tandem is stout enough defensively for New Orleans to run out more three guard lineups, featuring Evans, Holiday and Eric Gordon.