Jan 22, 2015; Milwaukee, WI, USA; Milwaukee Bucks guard Brandon Knight (11) shoots around Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert (27) during the third quarter at BMO Harris Bradley Center. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports
Freelance Friday is a project that lets us share our platform with the multitude of talented writers and basketball analysts who aren’t part of our regular staff of contributors. As part of that series we’re proud to present this guest post from William Guo. You can follow William on twitter @wmguo.
Since the Milwaukee Bucks and Brandon Knight were unable to agree to a contract extension before the Oct. 31 deadline, Knight’s had an undeniable career year, touted by Amin Elhassan as a deserving all-star, and Zach Lowe thinking his market value has risen from $7 million or lower, to $10-12 million per season, Kevin Pelton saying that he would pay Brandon Knight the “market max,” and Bradford Doolittle’s gushing about his play.
Obviously, part of that is the TV deal’s effect on the future salary cap, but I would argue that Knight has not improved dramatically on offense.
Any comparison from last year to this year is not quite apples to apples, because:
- The Bucks were terrible last year (15-67), and are firmly in the playoff hunt this year (22-22 at time of this writing).
- The Bucks changed coaches, from the widely regarded to be a below-average NBA coach in Larry Drew, to Jason Kidd, who’s receiving much credit for the Bucks turnaround.
- A small bit of roster turnover — although the top 7 guys by minutes played from last year are all still on the Bucks, the additions of Jared Dudley, Jerryd Bayless, and Jabari Parker undoubtedly presents some change.
- Knight is used almost exclusively as a point guard now, instead of sometimes playing off the ball to Luke Ridnour
Color me skeptical of Knight’s improvements. In this article, I want to go into detail about Knight’s improvements and see if they are real or not.
Knight as a Scorer
There are three ways to improve one’s own offensive production:
- Quantity — Take more shots
- Shot Selection — Take shots from more efficient parts of the floor
- Effectiveness — Hit more shots
I will break each of these down in order.
Quantity
Has Knight taken more shots? No. Moving on then… (I promise the analysis gets more interesting than this)
Those are his shot charts from this year and last year.
Ignoring how well he’s shooting, but instead focusing on his shot locations, it seems clear he’s shooting much more from the corner, but it’s hard for me to draw much of a conclusion from such charts.
Let’s try in table format instead. Below is the shot distribution of Knight last year and this year, combined with his Expected eFG%, which is the eFG% we would expect if he was hitting the same distribution of shots he actually look, but at the league average rate for each of those locations.
His Expected eFG% would be ever so slightly higher — 50.3%, up from 50.0%. This doesn’t seem like the source of Knight’s improvement either.
Effectiveness
Since there are only three ways to improve one’s production, this must be where his improvement has come from. Knight has improved his eFG% from 47.3% to 50.7%, and his TS% from 52.3% to 56.0%.
Let’s break down his shots by location.
Just about all of his improvement has come on three-pointers. This is a worrisome development. Darryl Blackport’s research found that 3PT% stabilizes at roughly 750 attempts. Knight is obviously well short of that — he’s taken 546 threes combined the last two years. For reference, here are the total number of shots Knight has taken:
Let’s dig a little further and see why his three-point shooting is so much better. Here is what Expected eFG% would be if Knight shot his mix of catch-and-shoot and pull-up threes, but at the league-average rate, rather than his own percentages.
As shown above, while there has been a shift in the mix of his shots such that he’s shooting more threes as catch-and-shoot rather than pull-ups, Knight is hitting catch-and-shoot threes at a much higher clip — 10 percentage points higher than last year. This is obviously a tiny sample size, but that 44.8% catch-and-shoot percentage would rank him tied for eighth in the league among players with at least two catch-and-shoot 3PA per game, who have played more than 10 games.
Foul Shooting
There’s an additional component of personal offensive production that isn’t included in eFG% — foul shots. Knight is not drawing as many foul shots as last year, but is hitting his free throws at an incredible 88.7%, ranking him eighth in the league. That would be almost 10 percentage points higher than his career average, and I wonder whether that is sustainable.
Regardless, even his career average of 80% on free throws would be very good, and it may be a good general strategy to encourage Knight to drive more, seek out contact, and take advantage of his superb free throw shooting. Unfortunately, while it seems he is driving about 15% more per game, his personal and team efficiencies per drive have both fallen off to the point where he’s below league average on both metrics.
Efficiency vs Usage
Is this a result of the well-known usage-efficiency tradeoff — is he being forced to drive more as a result of taking a greater burden of his team’s offense and, as such, his efficiency has naturally declined?
His USG% suggests only marginally — it’s increased from 26.8% to 27.0%. But this is a statistic that lies. He has less touches per minute, less frontcourt touches per minute, and less ball possession% (here, calculated as time he possesses the ball divided by minutes played).
So why has his USG% gone up? Simple — look at what he does when he has the ball. A player can do one of three things when he touches the ball — shoot it, pass it, or turn it over. Knight has a higher USG% solely because he is turning the ball over more. Not an encouraging sign.
Knight as a Facilitator
Knight is shooting slightly less often than last year, and shooting basically the same mix of shots as last year. His improvement comes almost solely down to greater efficiency on three-pointers and free throws. He’s been phenomenal on both catch-and-shoot three-pointers and free throws, both top-10 in the league and miles ahead of his career rate. It could be possible that his work ethic makes this a sustainable increase, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
That his higher usage is a myth is also slightly bothersome to the narrative that Knight has greatly improved — his usage has increased only because of his increased turnovers.
Regardless, Knight using the ball himself is only a small part of his role as the point guard of the surprising Bucks, and maybe he has improved his point guard skills to make the Bucks offense better.
Assists & Opportunities
Assists, as a statistic, are a bit messy — great passes where the shooter misses an open layup aren’t rewarded. There’s not much we can do with existing statistics besides look at Assists Opportunities. First, we need to correct for Knight getting about 6.5% less frontcourt touches per minute — he can’t make as many assists with less touches. Below are relevant statistics regarding his passing.
Happily, Knight has greatly improved his assists, assist opportunities, and secondary assists when adjusting for his lower number of frontcourt touches. The frontcourt touches per FT assist is so low so as to not be that relevant, so that downtick shouldn’t be used to criticize.
Team Shooting
But even assist opportunities, secondary assists, and the like aren’t that useful — playmaking and ball movement is a means to the end of scoring more buckets. How do the Bucks score when Knight is on the floor?
Last year, when Knight was on the floor, the Bucks scored about two more points per 100 possessions, and the assist rate was about 2% higher, perhaps suggesting better ball movement. Good sign. Surely with his higher assists and assist opportunities, the Bucks offense would be even better this year?
Um, no. For reference, the Clippers 1.136 PPP leads the league, the 76ers are last at .931, but the second-to-last Hornets are at 1.008. So Knight turns the Bucks into the second-worst offense in the league, while the Bucks without Knight would be the highest scoring team in league history. This is obviously an unfair comparison and a small sample size, so let’s dive further into the splits.
First up, shot distributions. It’s pretty commonly accepted that close range shots and threes are the most efficient shots in the game, and it doesn’t look great for Knight here. Less shots close, less threes. (Note: I ignored threes from above 30 feet in the below tables).
Oh, should add in free throws — the most efficient way to score.
Nope, doesn’t help Knight either — the Bucks get to the line more often without him.
Let’s see how the Bucks do while shooting these shots, which is the only thing that matters is this “make or miss” league.
This is … astounding. With Knight on the floor, the Bucks shoot worse from … everywhere. I’m not saying he’s at fault, and this could be him being unlucky, but … no, I’m pretty sure he’s at fault.
He doesn’t seem to negatively affect everyone — Knight does help Dudley (very marginally), Ilyasova, and O’Bryant. I am not familiar enough with the Bucks to understand why that would be — could be just a matter of small sample size for the latter two, or he could be good at making the pass to the big who pops off a screen.
Conclusion
These statistics are all backwards looking, summarizing his performances last season and this season to date. Any future contract extension would be paying for future performances, not this current season, and the Bucks are rumored to love Knight’s work ethic and attitude. Teams betting on young players with good attitudes to further develop is not a bad one, with Demar DeRozan and Mike Conley as notable examples of contracts that look like an overpayment that ended up working well in hindsight. But I fail to see the All-Star or player deserving of a max-contract. Can someone enlighten me on what I am missing?