Shot Creation and Half Court Offense

Last week, Peter looked into how his measure of “Value to Contract” illustrates several different models of team construction. While he correctly points out there is no one “right” way, it’s probably fair to say “draft a star and go from there” is the preferred method. The reason for that preference is somewhat intuitive in that building from a star outward is simpler than trying to piece together a Hawks-Voltron. Specifically, having the so-called alpha in place removes the question facing the more egalitarian up-and-coming teams: who makes our offense go?

Any number of ways one looks at it, a plays being finished by a different player than the one initiating action tend to be far more efficient. Whether looking at shooting efficiency on assisted vs. unassisted shots or comparing the effectiveness of Synergy play types, catching the ball and finishing an opportunity is simply easier than if a player has to do something in between to free himself for the chance.

Of course professional defenses don’t simply let you catch and score. Sure there are breakdowns by every team, every game, that give up clean looks without the offense doing much to earn them. But those tend to be few and far between, especially against the higher level defenses faced on the way to a championship. No, for a player to be able to catch and shoot a three, or finish off a pick and roll, another player or combination of players first has to draw the defense out of position. In the crudest possible form, if you can make two players guard the ball, then someone else is open. Profit!

Drawing that second or third defender to the ball becomes vital, and to do that, someone has to do something with the ball to induce that attention. Which is why isolations and post-ups[1. As well as looking to score as the ball-handler in the pick-and-roll.] remain important. Without the “send help or I score” threat, all the ball movement in the world isn’t going to do much than cause desperation contested jumpers as the shot clock expires[2. AKA the Utah Jazz offense for much of 2014/15.]

To look deeper into this, I looked into Synergy play type data[1. Note, this is all from the very top level version of data available on NBA.com, the full Synergy data set would allow for much deeper analysis, but I’m pretty confident the overarching point of the analysis would hold true using that information even if some of the particulars of which teams and players best translate creation into production.]. Defining “Creation Plays” as those where the guy initiating the action ends up trying to score, i.e. those isos, post ups and plays from the ball handler in the pick&roll I touched on above, and comparing them to teams’ abilities on “created for” plays, the relationship is fairly clear:

While some of this is intuitive – players who are better at creating tend to be better overall and thus probably better at finishing as well, this still does illustrate some of the importance of creation. The ability of of Chris Paul and to a lesser extent Blake Griffin and Jamal Crawford, to make things happen with the ball contributes to the ability of dependant scores like J.J. Redick and DeAndre Jordan to be as effective as they are finishing plays.

It’s still possible to have a decent half court offense with averagish creation as the Hawks and Pelicans show, but both teams have some elite finishing ability such as Kyle Korver and Anthony Davis, who can make the most out of even limited opportunities. Similarly, strong half-court creation isn’t the only way to win – this analysis doesn’t include such things as getting out in transition, or hitting the offensive glass. But to my mind, those are separate components of an offense than halfcourt execution and ability. Also note that the volume of those created plays appears less important than their efficiency, as the following chart measuring proportion of half-court[1. Non-transition or offensive rebound.] plays against a team’s half court productivity:  

So, for teams trying to break through like the Jazz, or Orlando Magic[1. One of my preseason picks to surprise this year…if they can create enough offense!], the importance of finding that creation either in one player or among several will be of utmost importance in the coming season.