Offensive Efficiency, Pace, and More Stats from Rising Stars Challenges

Feb 14, 2014; New Orleans, LA, USA; Team Weber forward Anthony Davis (23) dunks the ball against Team Hill guard Bradley Beal (3) during the 2014 Rising Stars Challenge at Smoothie King Center. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

This weekend will mark the 21st Rising Stars Challenge, which has showcased some of the best first and second-year players since 1994. In anticipation of this, I crunched some numbers from the previous 20 games[1. Remember, no game took place in 1999.]. There was no luck finding play-by-play logs, but Basketball-Reference has box score totals and when combined with sites with statistic calculators like at Sactown Royalty, we can find stats typically found in regular season games like estimated pace and scoring efficiency[2. But you can find exact totals at our stats page.].

Before going over some stats, though, a quick summary of the different stages of the Rising Star Challenge may be helpful. This year’s U.S. vs. World format is now the fifth major change to this event which in its infancy featured just eight rookies per team, 15-minute halves, and an overtime where the first team to three points was declared the winner. Charts further down were split to point out each stage of the Rising Stars Challenge up to 2014, but here’s a look at each:

• 1994-1995: Rookies only, eight per team. There were 15-minute halves with, as mentioned above, sudden death as overtime. First team to score three points in overtime won. This actually happened in 1995.
• 1996-1998: Eight rookies per team again, but pitting the Eastern Conference versus the West. Halves and sudden death overtimes stayed the same.
• 2000-2011: The Rookie-Sophomore era. With no all-star weekend in 1999, the game changed to pit first-year players versus those in their second-year. In 2000, there were 15-minute halves with a two-minute overtime, but from 2001 and on the halves were increased to 20 minutes.
• 2012-2014: The Chuck-Shaq and Webber-Hill era where teams were drafted from a first-year and second-year player pool by the former pairing in 2012 and 2013, and the latter duo in 2014.
• 2015: Ten first and second-year players on two teams in a U.S vs. World format. A high school showcase called the Nike Hoop Summit may come to mind.

Despite the changes over the years, estimated offensive efficiency during these games are far higher than typical league-averages over the regular season, save for the first two games in 1994 and 1995 that finished below-average. Below is a chart of each team’s offensive rating[3. There were some typos in Basketball-Reference’s box scores, mostly team minute totals. This was all fixable here and easy to double-check with video footage. One that wasn’t solved was the 1994 Sensation’s free throws, which were logged as 11-for-10. For this post and calculating O-Rating, pace, etc. I changed it to 11-for-13 since Chris Mills is currently listed as shooting 3-for-0.], though it was a little complicated to visualize because of the changes to the game and changes to team names[4. I attached Grant Hill and Chris Webber to 2012 and 2013 squads because of Chuck assisting Grant Hill in his drafting.] like in 1994 and 1995.

With one-game samples each year, it’s a little weird that the 1996-98 East and West had steady offensive ratings. Maybe there was something to the 15-minute half or a player pool consisting of only rookies? It took a while but offense took off during the middle of the Rookies-Sophomores years, and for whatever it’s worth eight out of 11 sophomore squads were more efficient than their rookie one. As for the most recent games, we don’t need a chart to know that they’ve featured little defense.

Charles Barkley’s 2013 squad holds the highest offensive rating, currently second best in Rising Stars Challenges in offensive rebound percentage (55.3) and turnover percentage (7.3), and eighth in three-point rate (29.6). Though it feels silly to analyze why Team Chuck was so dominant because the game plays out like an all-star one, some of their performance looked to have been helped by Shaquille O’Neal’s team starting three wings and two point guards, and his only bigs were Tyler Zeller and Andrew Nicholson[5. Andre Drummond was initially on Team Shaq, but was replaced by Andrew Nicholson.]. Barkley drafted not just the game MVP in Kenneth Faried but Anthony Davis, Nikola Vucevic, and Tristan Thompson. Chuck’s team shot 17-for-32 from the arc, but size and rebounding looked to have helped too.

Meanwhile, the 2007 Sophomores, highlighted by David Lee’s 14-for-14 shooting, hold the most lopsided victory as they outscored the 2007 Rookies by 41 points. They simply couldn’t miss, though a shot chart would probably explain more. Their 81.3 effective field goal percentage is easily the best so far[6. It’s unfair to compare these two performances to any regular season game, but the offensive rating of Chuck’s 2013 squad would be second best and the effective field goal percentage for the 2007 Sophomore’s would’ve easily been the best mark ever.].

Defensively, the 1994 Phenoms with Chris Webber and Isaiah Rider, among others, are still the most efficient. The Sensations, featuring Penny Hardaway, shot just fine at 27-for-55, but the Phenoms recorded a fourth-best 77.8 defensive rebounding percentage and helped force one of the highest turnover rates (22.1 percent) in Rising Stars history, though in an all-star like format it’s hard to tell how much the latter stat was from their defense and how much from highlights turned into bloopers. Given how these games are scoring-heavy, it looks like the Phenoms’ defensive efficiency will stay the best for a while longer.

Another thing likely obvious about these games is that the estimated pace is much faster than league-averages over a season. Rising Stars teams have never fallen under an estimated 110 possessions per 48 minutes even during the first handful of years.

2003 recorded the highest estimated pace at 133.9. The victorious Sophomores rank 14th in total points in a game and 18th in offensive efficiency, but had one of the best defensive marks. Pace in these games looks to have dropped a bit after 2003, but then picking up over the last five years.

Comparing the pace of a Rising Stars Challenge to a single regular season game might be unfair. Coast-to-coast uncontested dunks or alley-oops aren’t exactly as frequent, but at least there’s a decent dose of quick shots in each. For single-game samples this season, there have been 14 NBA games where at least one team has played 110 possessions, but all of them went to overtime. For an entire season, only teams from the ‘70s and ‘80s can match the Rising Stars pace, as well as the 1991 Denver Nuggets who top league history at 113.7. According to nbadleague.com, the Reno Bighorns and Rio Grande Valley Vipers are two d-league squads currently with a pace of over 110, the former at a mark of 119.1.

Two other statistics I looked at were free throw rate and three-point rate. With the exception of a couple games, free throw rate in Rising Stars Challenges were often much lower than average. Three-point rate hasn’t gotten out of hand probably thanks to layup and dunk opportunities, but it’s been on the rise since 2010.

You can find those stats and others in a Google Doc. With the U.S. vs. World format this year, it’ll be interesting to see if there’s a change from the norm in scoring efficiency, pace, or any stat that can be found on Basketball-Reference or calculated. There’s something about the World’s roster, featuring Rudy Gobert among others, that looks like they won’t record a defensive rating north of 140. It’s all-star weekend, though, so who knows?

Stay tuned for a similar post on all-star games, and with play-by-play data available I was able to explore a little further into those than I could for Rising Stars Challenges.

As a reminder, statistics were calculated from Basketball-Reference and with the help of Sactown Royalty’s statistics calculator.