Nylon Calculus: Exploring early season trends with usage charts
After the first few games in the season, it’s become apparent that Giannis may be the favorite for the MVP this season. Currently, Basketball-Reference has him as the leader in their MVP award tracker. While we’re way too early in the season to separate the games played from preseason projections, we can still appreciate the fact that Giannis is currently averaging almost 37 points a game through the first four games and has scored 31 more points than the second-place point-scorer (Steph Curry).
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Giannis’ season is how he’s doing his scoring. In a season when the league average pace is at it’s highest point since the 1980s and where there are more 3-pointers attempted per shot than in any time in history, Giannis is bucking the trend.
The Bucks have played at a surprisingly slow pace, although their average length of possession isn’t as slow (even after accounting for turnovers where they are quick to get out in transition) which has bucked the trend of the league as a whole. Without the added benefit of turnovers creating more offense (they rank only 15th in forced turnover percentage this year), they’ve had to be more efficient in the halfcourt. Often, this has meant relying on Giannis. And he’s absolutely delivered: he’s averaging 1.191 PPP in halfcourt offense which ranks in the 86th percentile. This has been a big leap up from last year where he ranked in the 68th percentile in halfcourt offense.
What’s stunning is that he’s been able to remain highly efficient in the halfcourt despite rarely venturing outside of the paint (106 of his 147 points are in the paint.). How has he done this? By drawing the most shooting fouls in the league. And it’s not even close: his 21 shooting fouls drawn are four more than second-place Eric Gordon.
Of course, it’d be great to be able to visualize Giannis activity in the paint with a “shot” chart. Traditionally, we’ve always visualized only makes and misses in our shot charts. However, I was excited to find out that the NBA has added rebound and turnover location data to their play-by-play stats. We only have this years’ data so the research we can do at the moment is very limited.
However, what we can do is develop some spatial charts that track more than just shots. There are many different types of charts we can develop: a leaguewide look at turnovers, a liveball versus deadball turnover chart, a rebound location chart, an assist to turnover chart and to drill it down even further, an assist to bad pass turnover chart. But here, we’re going to focus on looking at usage charts (you’ll see why they’re called this in a moment) which will demonstrate how active Giannis has been in the paint.
As we can see here, he’s drawn plenty of shooting fouls in and around the paint. Additionally, he’s assisted on many of the Bucks 3-pointers. And what about all of those green dots you see? Those are his unassisted makes which have often come at critical times in the game. According to Inpredictable, Giannis leads all NBA players in kitchen sink Win Probability Added. Part of the reason for this is his league-leading 19 shots taken that have an elevated impact on win probability. And he’s got a 71.1 effective goal percentage on those 19 shot attempts.
Let’s explore some other leaguewide trends with usage charts.
The Houston Rockets are actually doing it
The Rockets have actually taken more than half their shots from beyond the 3-point line. One other fascinating thing you’ll notice about the Rockets: many of their turnovers have taken place in the mid-range area.
The Cavs stunning transformation
Despite the entire league shooting more 3s, the Cavs are one of the few teams to shoot less this season. And it’s a lot less: they were shooting nearly 10 percent less 3s compared to last year entering Tuesday night’s game versus the Bulls. Here’s their usage chart entering Tuesday night’s game:
When you compare the Cavs usage chart with the Rockets, you can see there’s a lot more activity in the mid-range area. However, with J.R. being reinserted into the starting lineup and Wade being moved to the bench, the Cavs got back to their more 3-point heavy ways on Tuesday night: they attempted 38 3s for a 3-point rate of 45.8 percent. That moved them back up to 13th in the league in 3-point rate. We can see how their usage chart changed on Tuesday night:
The Magic’s main man: Nikola Vucevic
The Magic are a surprising 3-1 which includes a stunning blowout road victory over the Cavs. The main man behind the Magic hot start has been Nikola Vucevic, who has led the Magic to the third best offense in the league (and he also boasts the fifth-best Box Plus-Minus in the league). The team has needed him badly: the Magic have been 50.6 points per 100 possessions worse with him off the court, including 18.1 points worse on offense.
As expected, most of Vucevic’s damage has been done in the paint.
Aaron Gordon’s incredible night
The Magic still struggled without Vucevic on the court Tuesday night but a huge night from Gordon helped offset a pretty pedestrian night from Vucevic. How did Gordon get his 41 points?
As we can see, Gordon made five 3s (four of them were assisted) and he drew six shooting fouls, including two and-1s. He had only one shot from mid-range, which was unassisted. The rest of his baskets came either 3 or near the basket. He had a very Moreyball-esque game last night.
Steph Curry: Lots of free throws?
Steph hasn’t really been a major story. I mean he’s produced at MVP-level, which isn’t surprising but what is surprising is how he’s done it. He’s drawn 13 shooting fouls (including a league-leading three on 3-pointers) which has led to him attempting 39 free throws, just one behind the leader (Giannis).
Next: OG Anunoby is fitting right in with the Raptors
Unsurprisingly, he’s made all 39 free throws (Actually, it probably IS surprising. Even in spite of Steph’s prolific free throw shooting, the probability that he’d make all 39 of his free throws is just 1.9 percent). Last year, Steph was nowhere to be found among the free throw attempt leaders so the fact that he’s drawn so many shooting fouls IS surprising.
Costly Turnovers: Westbrook and Oklahoma City still adjusting
The Thunder are off to a rough start. And while the defense has been good, it could be even better if not for some costly turnovers by Westbrook: 75 percent of his turnovers have been of the live ball variety and he leads the league in live ball turnovers. We can see that distribution here:
However, Westbrook is leading the league in assists per game. And we can see that while his assists have remained high, his shot usage has dropped a lot.
As we play more games in the season, it’ll be interesting to see which of these trends hold up. Will the Rockets continue to jack up 3s at over a 50 percent rate? Will Curry continue to draw a lot of shooting fouls? Will Vucevic continue to lead the Magic to a surprise season? Will Giannis lead the league and scoring and ultimately win MVP? How will Westbrook and the Thunder continue to adjust? Will their offense get on track?