The Magic Beans: Big Minute, Zero Usage Performances

Any box score will reveal something out of the ordinary when looked at long enough. After one Kings game in late March, Michael Gallagher pointed out the stat lines from Jason Thompson and Reggie Evans:

In minimal action like what Reggie Evans was faced with, it’s normal to accumulate multiple zeroes in the box score, but a typical game has 90 to 95 possessions for each team. Given, say, at least a quarter’s worth of playing time, even the most limited scorers should come across a scoring opportunity either for them or their teammates, as messy as those chances may be.

But even with ample time, a player will sometimes fail to tally a shot attempt, assist, or turnover. That isn’t a total donut in True Usage because I left out potential assists, but Basketball-Reference doesn’t exactly track those back to 1986. Since then, about 16 of these instances happen each season while logging at least 12 minutes of play.[1. I went back and forth about whether 12 minutes was too high, but, going lower starts to open the floodgates, and personally I like a rare, bizarro club.] Seth Partnow, the Editor here at Nylon Calculus, called these games “Magic Beans” particularly because of Andris Biedrins’ stellar 2012-13 campaign. He finished that season with a 3.7 usage rate in 495 minutes,[2. It depends on how low you want to set a benchmark, and he just missed out on a popular one of 500 minutes, but that 3.7 usage rate is the lowest ever minimum 100 minutes.] but despite the small minute total he managed to record six Magic Beans and ranks second over an entire career. Below are the top 12, which make just about one-fourth of all totals since 1986.

For those who record no shot attempts, assists, or turnovers in less than 12 minutes, a name for those related to Ryan Bowen would be fitting. He did this 66 times from 2004 to 2006, and his career total of 89 with no minute filter ranks first. Biedrins currently has 43.

To go back to Gallagher’s tweet, Jason Thompson fit the criteria for the Magic Bean as he didn’t tally a single assist either. He was one of eight players last season to accomplish such a feat, and his 20 minutes made him the player who was on the floor the longest.[3. When looking at the last 30 seasons, Ervin Johnson logged the most minutes while recording a Magic Bean with 34.]

Below are the eight players, sorted alphabetically:

Like most seasons, the names from 2014-15 were hardly surprising. Every player here could be characterized as low-usage, either at the bottom of the components that make up True Usage and time of possession percentage or not far from it.[4. 1997 John Wallace had the highest usage rate in season (21.1) to record a usage rate of 0 in a single game. Only three players in this club had usage rates over 20, and the typical rate was between 7.5 and 15.] In particular, this adds yet another layer to the drop-off from Tyler Hansbrough, who appeared on the list twice:

Another player with two Magic Beans last season was Bismack Biyombo for the third and fourth of his career, slowly rising up the all-time ranks. Nobody recorded back-to-back Magic Beans,[5. Since 1986, the only players to go consecutive games are 1986 Charles Jones, 1988 and 1992 Manute Bol, 1997 Harvey Grant, 1998 Michael Cage, 2011 Omer Asik, 2013 Ronny Turiaf, and 2013 Andris Biedrins. Legends.] but the Lakers had two different players join the club in consecutive games.[6. In the last 30 years, Milwaukee did this in 1987 with Junior Bridgeman and Marvin Webster, Miami in 2013 with Joel Anthony and Chris Andersen, and Toronto in 2004 with Michael Curry and Corie Blount.]

So if those eight players didn’t use up possessions, who did? For the other four players on the floor, that meant an average usage rate of 25 percent, plus any assists dished out. I split usage into those two terms, and I added these usage rates up myself since estimated statistics will be slightly off when working with samples as small as ~25 possessions.

Not surprisingly, DeMarcus Cousins and Russell Westbrook carried their teams while the Lakers evenly split possessions between Jeremy Lin, Nick Young, and Carlos Boozer.  The list on the right looks about as normal as the one on the left.

This was all just meant to be silly, but silly stat lines could use a name for themselves. The “Trillion” is a classic example,[7. Here is a media guide that included the leaders in Trillions.] Zach Lowe coined the term “Voskuhl” for when a player’s combined fouls and turnovers exceeded his points and rebounds,[8. I would link to where I found out about this, but his blog years ago, called Be The Three, was unfortunately wiped clean a couple weeks ago.] and Ian Levy’s Anti-Awards can be found right here at Nylon Calculus.

For a list of Magic Beans box scores since 1986, here is a file of all 471 games.

Statistics from Basketball-Reference unless noted otherwise.