The Truth Behind the Ball-Stopper: A Look at the NBA’s Most Productive Players

Mark L. Baer / USA TODAY Sports

“Ball-stopping” has become a bit of a swear word among certain evaluators of NBA talent. “Yeah, he’s got game, but he’s a bit of a ball-stopper” is a common way for people to subtly diss the skills of players who happen to employ a style of play that requires the ball in their hands.

It’s a product of our era – ball movement is currently king. The last three coaches to win championships – Gregg Popovich, Erik Spoelstra and Rick Carisle – are all praised for their offensive systems that emphasize unselfishness and frequent passing. If any player dares to go against that paradigm, they’re headed for a sure conviction in the court of public opinion.

Even some of our biggest stars are not immune to this phenomenon. James Harden, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony – all are enormously productive scorers and playmakers, but they’re also all frequently criticized for their styles of play. Once the ball moves to them, according to conventional wisdom, it inevitably sticks. Sticking is bad.

The great thing about our modern era of fandom, though, is we now have the data to go back and check these little bits of convention for factual accuracy. Is it true that the guys we’ve long branded as “ball-stoppers” deserve that label? And if certain players are using up huge chunks of their teams’ possessions, is that necessarily a bad thing?

Thanks to NBA.com’s SportVU player tracking stats, we now have information on precisely how long each player controls the ball. The league’s “time of possession” stat boils it down to a single number – minutes per game, simple as that.

“Time of possession” is a funny thing. In other sports, like football, it’s undoubtedly a positive stat for your team – if you control the ball ad infinitum and don’t let the other team play offense, you’re guaranteed to come out ahead. Basketball’s different, though. Because of the existence of a shot clock, your time is a finite resource on the hardwood – waste it, and your team will suffer.

So that leads us to a fascinating question – who wastes their time in the NBA, and who makes the best of it? I decided to spend my morning breaking down the numbers. Below is an analysis of 60 players – I took the league’s top 50 in touches per game, then made the executive decision to add Al Horford, Anthony Davis, DeMarcus Cousins, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwight Howard, Goran Dragic, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Rudy Gay and Tim Duncan because they’re awesome, and analyzed their productivity on a “per minute of possession” basis. Let’s explore the findings.

First of all, here are the leaders in the basic stat. Without further ado, here are your top 10 players in the NBA this season in time of possession. The stat is average minutes per game, in decimal form (i.e., 8.6 refers to 8 minutes and 36 seconds):

Unsurprisingly, all 10 players atop this list are point guards. Since the pointmen are generally the ones bringing the ball up the floor and initiating many pick-and-rolls as the ball-handler, this is pretty obvious stuff. But once you scroll down to find the non-point guards with “ball-stopping” tendencies, you do indeed find Harden first, at No. 20 overall. LeBron James ranks 22nd; Kobe is No. 31 and surprisingly, despite his reputation, Carmelo is all the way down at No. 41 out of the 60 players studied. Perhaps his reputation is an unjust one after all.

Now that we’ve established the statistic we’re working with, we can begin to do fun things with it. Let’s ask some questions about players’ efficiency on a per-minute-holding-the-ball basis, shall we?

Who scores the most per minute of possession?
Every team wants to have an “easy baskets guy” – a player you can simply drop the ball off to in the post and have him get you a quick bucket. A scorer you can trust, whether there’s two seconds on the shot clock or 20. Here’s a look at the 10 guys who put up the most points in the least time:

Moral: Anthony Davis is friggin’ amazing, people. The kid manages to put up ridiculous scoring numbers despite playing in an offense that’s often dominated by Jrue Holiday and Tyreke Evans – yes, that we knew from the eye test. But now we know just how ridiculous AD can be! One point for every four seconds he touches the ball – that’s pretty astounding. Dirk is obviously great too. Note the alarming dropoff between the top two guys on this list and everyone else.

The “fast scorers” list is dominated by big men, obviously. You have to scroll pretty far down to find the first guard – Monta Ellis is 20th out of the 60 guys in points per minute, averaging 5.76.

Carmelo, the much-maligned ball-stopper, ranks 15th on this list, by the way. Not so terribly shabby.

Who scores the least per minute of possession?
Sorry, I had to do it. Here’s the bottom 10:

Kind of hilarious. Rondo and Rubio are both known for being great passing point guards and absolutely terrible scorers – and we can see here from the numbers that that reputation is not incorrect. They are indeed the two least productive scoring players out of the 60.

Calderon’s inclusion at No. 6 on this list is somewhat surprising, as he’s a capable catch-and-shoot guy in the right offense, but it’s not working for him too well this season, apparently. John Wall at No. 10 – also an intriguing one. Wall is a fantastic floor leader, but he’s only averaging one basket for every 60 seconds he controls the ball. Makes you wonder about his place in that Washington offense.

Who assists the most baskets per minute of possession?
Hint: Not point guards. Because the men at the point “waste” so many minutes bringing the ball up the floor and initiating plays, they’re not going to have as many assists on a per-minute basis. The guys who get quick assists are big men who know how to pass.

Noah is a fitting No. 1. Along with Gasol and Duncan, also top-6 guys here, he’s widely considered one of the best passing bigs in the game – he’s carried the Bulls’ offense for years ever since Derrick Rose’s injuries began necessitating his role as “point center.” He can make plays for teammates out of the high or low post, and he’s a high-energy player who gets the job done quickly.

A couple of interesting names on this list – Josh Smith in third place is a little weird, as he’s not usually known as an amazing passer. But what’s even weirder is that he’s fourth in most turnovers per minute at the same time. Smith’s a high-impact passer, apparently. When he moves the ball, something’s going to happen.

The other notable name here is Rondo – the only point guard to crack the top 10. Maybe he’s not as ball-dominant as we think.

Who makes the most 3-pointers per minute of possession?
Again – not guards, at least not for the most part. To top this list, you need to be a skilled catch-and-shoot player who can get the ball in the flow of the offense and get your shot quickly.

Yup, Dirk and Love. Exactly what I meant.

You’ll notice that just like the points list above, there are two top dogs followed by a huge dropoff. Nowitzki, impressively, is one of the two prohibitive leaders in both points and 3-pointers per minute of possession. The fact that the Mavs’ living legend manages to be a dominant scorer despite only touching the ball for 1.3 minutes a night … it’s quite something, I must say.

Patrick Beverley is a fun inclusion here, and deserved – the man’s having a career year shooting the trey, and it shows. Along with Steph Curry, he’s one of only two guards on the list. (Though, not pictured: Harden, Calderon and Damian Lillard are 11-12-13.)

By the way, there are eight guys tied for dead last on this list with zero 3-pointers. Rubio is ninth to last with 0.029. He makes a trey once every 2,000 seconds, give or take.

Who get to the free throw line the most per minute of possession?
Field goals don’t tell the whole picture, right? The other way to be productive with the ball in your hands is to initiate contact and get to the line. Here’s who does it the most:

Good for you, Dwight – you’re No. 1. Except you’re also shooting a career low of 46.3 percent from the line this season, so those 5-plus free throw attempts are only translating to about 2.4 points for the Rockets. Dirk actually scores more points at the line than Dwight with half the attempts. If you redid this list using free throws made rather than attempted, Dwight would be 10th instead of first.

As for the bottom of this list, it’s pretty unsurprising given the other data here. The men ranked 60th through 58th are Calderon, Rondo and Rubio.

This is just the beginning of what we can learn from looking at “per minute of possession” data. It’s valuable stuff – while metrics like PER are a good overall measure of player productivity, they sometimes make it hard to parse whether a player is really skilled or if he’s just getting a lot of opportunities. This way of measuring players bypasses that issue, instead asking the question of how much a player does with each opportunity. It’s enlightening.

There are plenty more questions we can ask. Be creative – who misses the most shots? Who turns the ball over the most? Who has the ball in his hands for the highest percentage of his total time on the floor? Possession data holds the key to all of these answers and more. Try poking around the numbers yourself if you so desire, or hit me up on Twitter with any follow-up questions about the data revealed here. There are a lot of conversations to be had about these eye-opening numbers – let’s get started.