Massive Midseason Musings on Bobcats Guards
01/22/2009
42 games into the season, the mid-way point has come and gone, and the time has come for an overview of the team as it currently exists. Today, we will be looking at a plethora of numbers and charts that focus on the guards of the Bobcats. Who is the best defender? The best offensive player? The best combination of the two? Perhaps most importantly, who helps them win? I do not promise to provide definitive answers to these questions. But I have a few things for your consideration that should help in drawing tentative conclusions.
The first thing I want to look at it is the last question I mentioned: Who helps the team win? The simplest answer to this question is to look at +/- numbers or net efficiency, so that is where we start. Below are 2 charts - one for players who have spent time at the point and the other for all the shooting guards (still employed by the team). Two items to keep in mind when looking at the numbers: Quality of competition faced and total time spent at the position. Raymond has faced tougher opponents than D.J. (or anyone else) because of starting this year, and so on down the depth chart. Small samples (say, 17 minutes of game action) do not tell us much about actual results - good to remember when seeing the best number on the PG chart.
What grabs me about the 2 charts is this: Raymond is neither the team's best PG or SG, based on efficiencies. While his numbers are decent at both (and I imagine better if only looked at since the arrival of the former-Suns), D.J. handily tops him at PG and Raja surpasses him at the SG. Important note: I am not saying that Raymond's efficiency numbers are entirely about him - we also have to consider who his teammates are, who is manning the other positions depending on what position he is at, etc. This is not an attempt to bash Raymond - there are a lot more numbers to come and I had to start somewhere.
Also of interest: D.J. has a very high defensive efficiency number. You may think that is to be expected, because the concern since the Bobcats drafted him was about his ability to be a passable defender. I have to ask though: Why is it such a big concern about D.J. and not Raymond? D.J. and Ray are somewhere between 1 and 1.5 inches different in height (depending on the height of their shoes) - is there a huge difference between 5-11 and 6-0? (If you want to protest, go to DraftExpress and look up their pre-draft camp measurements - I'll wait).
With that said, it is time for a couple of more charts: These look at net stats. I have calculated each player's production by position and that of the man he was (probably - based on the lineup on the court at the time) guarding. The numbers you see are the difference between the Bobcats's player's stats and his opponent's. Positive means he out-performed in the category - negative, the opposite. I included WinScore per Minute as a way to get a feel for total contribution, beyond just the standard boxscore numbers. A big surprise is in store:
The big surprise: D.J. outperforms Raymond - in net field goal % and net true shooting %. For the year, Ray and D.J. are pretty comparable as far as their own field goal numbers - so this number shows that D.J. has allowed/forced his man to shoot a lower % than Raymond has been able to manage. Important Note: Time to remind everyone - Raymond has played against starters. But even with that important note, it was a bit surprising to me when the numbers worked out this way. Does the team do a better job helping D.J. contain, assuming that Ray can handle himself? Or does it purely come down to competition faced? That I can not answer - but I do have something else to consider in regards to it.
Before I get to that - the SG chart gives a hint why Shannon Brown has seen so few minutes this year - he is outscoring his man, and little else - fewer rebounds, assists, and a far worse true shooting %. We have all seen him play great defense - but overall, he has a ways to go yet, it would seem.
All right, to the last charts...which are too big to embed here. For your consumption, I have created charts that break down a player's defense, offense, and net performance, by position and overall. For the defensive numbers, I created the cumulative opponent faced and compared that to the numbers actually surrendered.
To go back to the competition question: D.J. and Raymond faced a very similar cumulative opponent - and D.J. held this theoretical counterpart to significantly lower numbers than Ray, though both of them do a solid job. So, how to match that up with the fact that D.J. has a higher defensive efficiency number than Raymond? Well, in Raymond's shooting guard numbers, you will notice that he is not able to contain SGs the same he handles PGs: At the Point, Ray manages to hold his man to -0.007 below their normal WS/min mark, but at SG, they get the better of him to +0.017 over their average score. D.J. plays a lot of point with Ray at the 2 - do his defensive efficiency numbers take a hit from Ray being focused on by the opponent, while simultaneously holding D.J.'s defensive stats down? Hmm...and remember, I did not promise definitive answers.
Quick summary:
Best offensive guard: Raymond Felton (but only when at the point) - when actually playing the point, Ray has very solid numbers - about 13 points and 8 assists per 40 minutes, while shooting 41.3% from the field (pretty good for him). The sort of frustrating part - Ray shoots better when playing the 1, but shoots less. That was what gave him the edge over DJ for this spot for me: Raymond created a lot more for his teammates, while shooting a reasonable % from the field.
Best defensive guard: D.J. Augustin - this pick is probably just as surprising as the Ray pick above, but I am going by the numbers. D.J.'s marks against his cumulative opponent were head and shoulders above the rest of his backcourt mates, so I feel compelled (yet conflicted) to give him the nod. I was a bit surprised that Raja did not have better marks, considering he was brought in as the defensive stopper. He does have a couple of interesting numbers to his credit - he has allowed 2.3 fewer points per 40 minutes than expected at SG, yet his opponents are shooting a 50.5% against him. Rather counter-intuitive, I imagine the field goal % will start to move back towards the norm as he gets more time under his belt in CLT.
Best overall guard: I am going to take the easy way out, and just give it to D.J. based on his net numbers. He comes the closest to matching what he gives up, so he gets the invisible trophy.
I know there are a lot of numbers to digest and charts to sift through, but take some time and go through them - I am sure they tell a lot more than I have pulled out of them so far. But I am also sure they could tell even more - are there fields that you would also like to see covered that I may have left out? Let me know in the comments - and I will try to incorporate those suggestions into a similar breakdown of the bigs that will be coming soon.
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| Morestuff Says: | |
I've actually been dabbling with statistics myself recently, trying to quantify the team's improved performance since the big trade. Assuming I haven't screwed anything up (a big possibility), there's some interesting wrinkles that might be interesting for you to look at.
In terms of team stats, I was curious to see which team "won" the trade. Using the Detroit game as the beginning of the new era, the Bobcats saw a Net Efficiency increase of 4.95 (going from -4.9 to .05). As far as I can determine, this stems mostly from an additional 1.86 possessions a game, increasing their scoring by 3.5 ppg and reducing their opponents scoring by .5 ppg (straight PPG, not by possession).
The Suns improved as well, but not as drastically. They increased by a net efficiency of 3.07.
I originally intended to look mostly at the play of Wallace, Felton and Okafor pre- and post-trade, but I've been unable to find a lot of the forumlas for defensive and offensive efficiencies for players online, at least in a comprehensible manner. I've generated a few interesting stray bits of information (Wallace's FG% is up around 7%, Wallace and Okafor have increased their assist to turnover ratio, Felton is shooting 9% better in 3P%), but the individual player efficiencies is something that I'd love to see. |
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| Thu Jan 22, 2009 7:07 pm |
| Brett Says: | |
Morestuff - I agree, player offensive and defensive efficiencies would be useful...but I do not have that for you yet. It should be coming in the next couple of weeks though. |
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| Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:19 pm |
| statmonkey Says: | |
While this is all very interesting I am not sure that the sample size is large enough to draw serious conclusions. Statistics are great when properly utilized but can be pretty damaging when other things are not considered. These numbers do not take into account how woefully horrible the bigs played at the start of the season, the adjustment time needed to learn Brown's system, time when key players were hurt, etc and I would think that these issues would have some impact. I also think that (while I like DJ) his numbers are boosted by his being in the game during cream puff minutes early on and Felton hurt by having to adjust to a new role.
The bottom line for me is results and the results lately have been telling. With Felton on the court and DJ off it they are winning, competitive in nearly every game and he has hit more than a few key shots to win those games. Admittedly I am a Ray defender and think the guy gets a bad rap. I really don't have anything to support my opinion other than the results on the floor. But then again, although stats are nice all I really care about are the results in the win column and at the moment the Bobcats are delivering and so is Ray.
Interesting analysis and really appreciate the analysis but these type of numbers tend to cause knee jerk reactions and assumptions. I would rather not spend the rest of the season adjusting to yet another new player if it is not truly warranted. |
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| Fri Jan 23, 2009 10:46 pm |
| Jalen Says: | |
Cool stuff.
Maybe say where the data is from. 82games? |
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| Sat Jan 24, 2009 3:15 pm |
| Brett Says: | |
Jalen - It is from QueenCityHoops.com. I store numbers for every game (and every team) and used all the data I have accumulated to do this analysis. |
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| Sat Jan 24, 2009 3:32 pm |
| Joe Says: | |
I like all of this stuff, but all in all, I like Felton better so far on the court. Threw the season, he's been getting nothing but better. Think he just had to get used to the system and so did the other players. Well we'll see how it plays out when it's all said and done. The team is finally starting to get it together under Brown. |
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| Sat Jan 24, 2009 4:54 pm |
| Brett Says: | |
Due to the heavy interest, I will re-run Felton's numbers with only the games since Diaw and Bell were added. I will try and post the results in the next couple of days. Thanks everyone for the feedback. |
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| Sat Jan 24, 2009 5:24 pm |
| Rich Says: | |
Do you stat games live at the arena or get your info later? I was wondering where you can get stat sheets for keeping score at the game (similar to baseball) |
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| Sun Jan 25, 2009 12:41 am |
| Brett Says: | |
I use play by plays and a program I wrote to gather the data. There are not enough hours in the day for me to chart every game. Sorry, but I do not know the answer for that one. |
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| Sun Jan 25, 2009 12:44 am |
| CF Says: | |
I waited a few days to make any comment, to make sure my head was level. I certainly agree that based on the stats used, DJ appears to be better. But there are other stat passibilities I would wonder about and even more importantly, things I don't see how you could prepare stats on, intangibles. Like heart desire to win, performance in the last few minutes of a tight game and just plain will to win. I am not suggesting that DJ doesn't have those things, just that in my personal view, Raymond has more. He loves the game, loves to play, will attempt to do whatever is asked of him and he wants to win. I believe he is a valuable but sometimes underappreciated asset to this team (or to any other team he may become a part of. |
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| Sun Jan 25, 2009 11:16 am |
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