Deep Dives: Fancy Dribbles

One of the new items this year in the NBA.com version of SportVU[1. Almost obligatory reminder that the SportVU stats and metrics on NBA.com are only the tip of that particular iceberg in terms of what the visualing tracking data can provide with sufficient imagination and skill. As examples, check out this by Hannes Becker or this guest post from Alex Lee based on his NESSIS presentation.] is Dribble Per Touch. Since we also know number of touches, we can get a reasonable estimate of each player and team’s number of dribbles and go from there. Though it’s tempting to succumb to basketball fundamentalism and decide that dribbles = bad, it is a tool much like the pass that can be used an misused. Much as there is a great distinction between simply passing the ball and productive passing[2. Closed circuit: Utah Jazz offense.], dribbles that are reasonably likely to lead to something good are good. Those which don’t, and result in pounding the ball in place as the shot clock ticks down aren’t. In general, it doesn’t appear to be any sort of consistent correlation between dribbles per possession and offensive rating[2. Note that I’ve excluded the 13/14 and 14/15 seasons for the 76ers who had both the fewest as they were the only two team-seasons featuring below 7 dribbles per possession, paired with the two worst offensive seasons. The inclusion of Philly single-handedly skews the results to make it appear as if there might be a positive correlation between dribbles and offensive rating, when that correlation relationship doesn’t hold considering only the 29 other teams.]:

However, by examining the propensity of players and teams to put the ball on the deck over time, it might be possible to pick up indications of stylistic changes. For example, the 2013/14 Golden State Warriors averaged over 12 dribbles per possession – for sake of comparison, the NBA average has been around 9.6 each of the two full years for which we have data. As you might recall that was the last season of the Mark Jackson era, wherein the Warriors hunted mismatches in isolation and generally made poor use of their wealth of passing talent. Shift forward a year, and they were 27th in dribbles per possession, as Steve Kerr’s renewed focus on ball movement helped them blitz the league on the way to the title:

To rephrase, number of dribbles can be a good check for the eyetest on changing offensive styles. Is part of Washington playing much faster reflected in them pounding the ball less? Indeed it is. Through Saturday’s games, the Wizards are averaging around 7.3 dribbles per possession, down from 9.3 a year ago.

The effect can be seen in changing roles of individual players. For example, Kobe Bryant is handling the ball less the season, dribbling only about 30% as often this season. In 2014/15 he dribbled 7.3 times per minute on the floor, he’s down all the way to 2.3 this season. Other players with big drops include Ty Lawson, to this point deferring almost completely to James Harden as Houston’s primary ball-handler, John Wall in Washington’s grab-and-go scheme and surprisingly LeBron James, who even with Kyrie Irving out has ceded major control of the offense to Mo Williams and a rejuvenated Kevin Love among others. After dribbling 8.8 times per minute in 2014/15[4. And 13.3 times per minute in the Finals!], James is doing so 5.7 times per minute this season.On the other side of the ledger, Jimmy Butler, C.J. McCollum and Cory Joseph are dribbling significantly more often this season than last.

Below is a quick snapshot of player and team changes. Both are current through games of Saturday, November 7, 2015: