NBA Week in Review 22: Time Marches On

The NBA season is winding down, but there’s still basketball to see and dissect. For how wild and unpredictable the NBA playoffs can be, every game is important for analysis — at least the ones without the 76ers or Lakers. There’s also a large group of NBA players heading into free agency or fighting for their next contracts or even their future in the league. Even the last day of the NBA season could have repercussions felt for years. And with that, let’s review the past week in the NBA and make sense of the league.

The Sixth Man

Since Andre Iguodala got injured, there’s been no consensus for who should be the Sixth Man of the Year. Usually there’s some high scorer off the bench who grabs the media’s attention, but no one’s standing out. Jamal Crawford, perpetual Sixth Man candidate, is a top contender for some people, even though his on-court performance has not been stellar despite the points. The other candidates mentined usually include Will Barton, who’s more of a surprise and an electrifying League Pass guy than anything; Ryan Anderson, providing value through his shooting alone; and a few others like Enes Kanter[1. I am in no way endorsing Kanter, as the Thunder do not actually play well with him on the court.]. But no one really sticks out, besides Iguodala, who got injured, and Anderson, whose defense is atrocious.

However, going by a couple different advanced stats, one guy stands on top: Gorgui Dieng, ranked first by basketball-reference’s BPM among eligible players and by ESPN’s RPM[2. You cannot sort by starter/role, but I did not see another bench player ranked higher via their wins metric.]. No offense to Dieng, who’s a fine player off the bench for Minnesota, rebounding well and scoring efficiently, but I imagined a more exciting case. Oddly enough, Ed Davis is ranked highly too, and I doubt a sizable number of people are even considering him for the award. Noah Vonleh has been starting for Portland despite his ineffectiveness, so Davis has been stuck on the bench; presumably they’re grooming Vonleh for a long-term role for the team given his skillset of length, athleticism, and shooting range. Big men usually get ignored in these discussion since scoring is the headlining stat and defense is often ignored, but at some point we can perhaps break that cycle. Saying, “It’s always been done that way,” is not a proper justification.

But there’s a better solution. Last season, the Atlanta Hawks shared a player of the month award. Like the player of the month award, the Sixth Man of the Year award doesn’t hold high historical significance, so it doesn’t matter if we have a little fun with it and reflect reality, rather than steadfastly adhering to the rules we’ve set. The San Antonio Spurs should receive the award as a team — their bench kills people. They have former sixth man Manu Ginobili, Patty Mills, David West, Kyle Anderson, and, of course, the unstoppable Boban Marjanovic. Via NBAWOWY, the Spurs still outscore opponents by over 2 points per 100 possessions without any of their starters on the court. That’s a rare accomplishment, and it’s a large part of why they have one of the best point differentials ever.

In the end, a few key games may swing the race for the Sixth Man. Maybe Crawford has a big game on national TV and that seals things. Or maybe Warriors mania will pave the way for Iguodala to snag the award — but it’s wide open now.

Rookie Alternative: Nikola Jokic’s Case

I’d just like to remind people that the awards voting isn’t over until the results are leaked by Adrian Wojnarowski. Karl-Anthony Towns is a fascinating, talented player, but it’s a deep class. There’s a real argument for Nikola Jokic due to his well-rounded stats, plus the Denver has been better on the court with Jokic than the Wolves with Towns. The biggest advantage for Towns is his greater minutes load, but we should at least have a discussion about Jokic’s value and who’s been better — or at the very least we should think of a better nickname than “Big Honey.”

Nerlens Noel and the Comparison of Stats

I still think there’s an interesting argument coiled within the question of whether or not Noel is a bad passer. As seen below from a game last week, he’s creative and while that pass wasn’t clean — he was mid-air, so I’ll forgive him — I think he can pass well for a center. His assist stats aren’t great, but assists are a function of your teammates and the 76ers are one of the sorriest offenses in NBA history. Certain stats are highly dependent on the interaction of several players, tangling the possible interpretation, and thus it’s up to us, as NBA viewers and analysts, to divine significant meaning from those stats. When environments change, stats change — that’s the real cat to chase here.

Swan Song on a Watery Grave: the 2016 Lakers

The Lakers have been getting trounced recently — the Jazz recently demolished them. Last week, they lost three out of four, and their one win was over a Grizzlies team so derailed by injuries Ray McCallum and Chris Andersen were starting. Sadly, they lost the non-76ers loser bowl game against the Suns by 12 points — that’s one of their (many) low points on the season. The Phoenix guards faced absolutely no resistance, and Kobe Bryant led the Lakers’ starters into ruin. In fact, on the year so far, opponents have been scoring at a ridiculous 116 points per 100 possessions rate with Kobe on the court — that’s the kind of rating you only see from teams like the Warriors or other historically great offenses.

This Laker season is dead, dead, dead, but that’s not entirely a surprise and they have a handful of intriguing young guys on the team. But as a fan, I would have legitimate concerns about how the franchise will recruit in the future because their flagship, Kobe Bryant, is retiring and they have failed recently and epically in luring quality free agents. The Dwight Howard fiasco does not make the team look inviting, and people have short memories — if you want success or to chase a ring, you go to Golden State, San Antonio, etc. The warm weather and the city life may pull in a few other players, but the Clippers share the arena and they have a trio of stars and a real playoff track record now. The Lakers front office needs to beat everyone with intelligence, not brute force through stacks of cash and prestige. That won’t work anymore.

Michael Jordan’s Geography Degree

I’ve criticized the Lakers and Kobe Bryant specifically as much as anyone, so I’ll be glad to write about something positive: last week he had a magnificent quote about the age limit and the NBA. Seen in the below tweet, Kobe elucidates on the broken link between college and education, as well as the absurdity of needing a degree in, say, geography as a precursor to playing basketball. Coming from one of the smartest players in the league and one of the greatest in history, this quote should have some weight to it. The bleeding edge of the high school generation is fading into the dark recesses of retirement, and they’ve been a remarkable bunch. Any further age limit is silly.

Keep Your Eye Upon the Sparrow

The NBA fans who frequent this site are the obsessive sorts who want to debate the relative merits of, say, Dwight Powell versus Mike Scott. But these details matter, and in the playoffs one game could be everything — and one game can be swung by a single role player. All these arguments people have on Twitter about a signing made by a contender do indeed matter in some form because the franchise itself made the same arguments within. The playoffs can be battles of attrition among the top contenders, and every piece matters.

More specifically, a few moves will come into the foreground. The Cavaliers chose not to bolster their perimeter defense but instead added Channing Frye — he’s yet another frontcourt player they have to fit in in a league dazzled by the Warriors’ small-ball. The Thunder decided to surround Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, two of the most electric and effective scorers ever, with Dion Waiters, a ballhog who can’t shoot, and Enes Kanter, an all offense/no defense big man. The Clippers humorously added Jeff Green, who’s a solution to nothing in particular unless you want a minutes sponge. The Spurs zagged when most zigged — they picked up not one but two all-star big men who rely on midrange jumpers in LaMarcus Aldridge and David West[3. Aldridge is not a small move, of course, but David West is and it’s interesting they targeted his type rather than something else.]. How will that fare against the Warriors? And the Warriors, of course, don’t need tweaking but they did add Anderson Varejao, who has not provided the team with much of anything. I would not imagine him as the downfall of their dynasty, but if they come up short — and it’d likely be by a hair — one could point to a specific stretch where they needed, say, another shooter or a different backup point guard. Keep your eye on the sparrow — every player matters.

Redefining the 50-40-90 Club

The NBA has few statistical clubs, unlike baseball, but one that’s stuck around for some reason is the 50 FG% / 40 3P% / 90 FT% club. It has its own detailed Wikipedia page including a list of all the near misses by percentage and volume. Every season we usually see a few progress reports on players who have a chance at joining the club, and it’s an accomplishment listed next to serious, tangible ones like the MVP for the careers of guys like Larry Bird. But the parameters are arbitrary, based on nothing more than a round number, and the use of FG% is erroneous because players who take more shots at the rim have an unfair advantage.

For instance, hitting 90% from the line or better would put a player into the 98th percentage — that alone is a rare occurrence every season[4. At least 100 attempts in a season from 1997 to 2016.]. Yet hitting 40% or better from behind the three-point line is only in the 82nd percentile. Field goals are even worse: 50% from the field has a 84th percentile without an adjustment for the type of shots and it’s double-counting three-pointers. This is an untenable system, and a correction is pretty simple.

I wanted a solution that was pretty straight-forward and non-wonky so I’m using percentiles again as well as whole numbers. The biggest change is that instead of field-goal percentage I’m using midrange percentage via stats.NBA.com, which is publicly accessible and easily searchable. Also, I’m trying out three different sets of filters — 85th percentile, 90th, and 95th. But when I refer to this new “club,” I’ll be using the 85th percentile. While exclusivity is more impressive, it’s more interesting when there are two or more candidates a season with a longer list of alumni.

Without further ado, the below table has all members of said club going back to 1997. The required minimum attempts are 100 for every category. There are a few surprising names on the list, like the point guard Chris Whitney who had just one good full shooting season or Carmelo Anthony who’s not known for his accuracy; but there a handful of legendary shooters from Steve Nash to Dirk Nowitzki to Glen Rice along with a plethora of point guards. I don’t think anyone expected, say, Jarret Jack or Darren Collison, but it’s a position that demands skill and has a larger subset of the population to drawn from due to their size.

The asterisks denote players who had hit the other thresholds. The single asterisks — the 90th percentile — are a good dividing line for elite shooters because most of those players have that reputation except for Joe Dumars, who’s a Hall of Famer anyway, the underrated shooter Luke Ridnour, and Brian “the Janitor” Cardinal. It’s the type of season that happens roughly once a year. Even rarer, the 95th percentile has only six members: Jeff Hornacek, Luke Ridnour, Stephen Curry, JJ Redick, and Steve Nash (five times.) Nash completely dominated this club, and while Curry has taken over the greatest shooter discussions Nash can’t be forgotten — and I think he still has a good case for greatest shooter ever for his ridiculous stretch from 2005 to 2010. Jeff Hornacek, by the way, is a great example of the failure of the 50-40-90 club. In his last season, he shot a blistering 48% from behind the arc and 95% from the line (one of the best marks ever.) But he “only” shot 49% from the field and was thus excluded.

Currently, only two players are on track to join the club this season: Stephen Curry, of course, shooting about 90% from the line, 45% from behind the arc, and just 44% from the midrange area, which is right on the edge; then there’s JJ Redick with 89 FT%/48 3PT%/ 47 midrange% splits. Darren Collison is within striking distance as well — and all those of those guys have had a season qualify before. One player to watch, however, is Karl-Anthony Towns, who, if he develops a consistent three-point shot, could be one of the very few big men who join the club.

The 50/40/90 club is antiquated. There’s nothing more important about a factor of ten — and field-goal percentage is a terrible measure of shooting skill, unless one thinks DeAndre Jordan is one of the greatest shooters ever. With different parameters, like 84/40/44, you cover shooting more accurately. It’s just about how stringent you want the standards to be — or how we should find another way to frame Stephen Curry’s prowess.