Catching up on Magic Beans

In early August, I looked at games from players recording a usage rating of 0 and no assists in at least 12 minutes of playing time.[1. As a reminder, “using” a possession involves a made or missed shot, free throw, or a turnover.] These instances, thanks to Seth Partnow, were named “Magic Beans” thanks to Andris Biedrins’ 2012-13 campaign when he used just 3.7 percent of Golden State’s possessions when on the floor. Since 1986, only about 16 Magic Beans happen across the league each season but Biedrins, despite logging just 495 minutes in 2013, finished the season with six.

As a reminder, Manute Bol leads all players since 1986 in Magic Beans with 15, but Biedrins is in second place with 13. He’s only 29 years old. There’s still plenty of time, so much time, for Beans to log a few more Magic Beans. Below are the players to attain this achievement at least once this season:

Just like lists of Magic Beans from last season, the names for this one aren’t too surprising. Every player here could be characterized as low-usage this season, or in Sasha Vujacic’s case should probably be low-usage.[1. D.J. Augustin’s typically around league-average but he’s played a lesser role with Oklahoma City. His usage rate with Denver has been about 20, though. Also, Willie Cauley-Stein has a usage of 16.7 in his last seven games, but it’s really hard to complain when he’s draining lefty floaters and Euro-stepping.] Mike Miller recorded all three of his Magic Beans in a span of three weeks. This would be impressive if Biedrins hadn’t done the same in 2013 but in only eight days.

There have also been some tantalizing near-misses. The seldom-shy Gerald Green played nearly 25 minutes against the Warriors on Wednesday night with no shooting attempts or assists, but did pick up one turnover for his only “used” possession.

Admittedly, the minute requirement to record a Magic Bean makes this bizarro club a rare one to get into, but I kind of like it that way. Lowering the bar kind of opens the floodgates, but given a quarter’s worth of playing time even limited scorers should come across a scoring opportunity either for them or their teammates. However, there’s room in a Tableau project to mention players this season who couldn’t quite log 12 or more minutes while recording a usage of 0 and no assists. As a reminder, that’s not true usage mostly because I left out potential assists, but that’s not exactly something available since 1986. Using Basketball-Reference’s available data to add the previous 30 seasons to Tableau may be on the to-do list for this summer. Maybe.

For a post about pretty much the opposite of Magic Beans, check out Devin Kharpertian‘s work last month on the anti-trillion.

All stats are according to Basketball-Reference.