3 Things I Learned At HoopData.com Today

I went to college at Wake Forest University but I grew up a Tar Heel fan. As a kid I watched their basketball games and scribbled each player's scoring tallies inside my floppy Trapper Keeper. I owe a lot of my early education to watching those games. For example, I learned the meaning of "oaf" by watching Serge Zwikker as he moved around the court like a wounded giraffe. He was the best. But mostly I learned about the value of data and keeping track of it. You could say that Shammond Williams played a large role in my fascination with statistics.

However, as I got older I got bored with the same old basketball statistics. I came to realize that box score statistics served as a poor proxy for what actually happened on the court. It was Daryl Morey, the GM of the Houston Rockets, who so eloquently told us that "someone created the box score and he should be shot." He's right, the box score holds our analytical senses hostage. I longed for new stats that would unlock the game and improve the way I think about it.

Those days are long gone. Enter the new school of quantitative scouting. These students of the game flex their muscle by merging their love of hoops with their computer programming and database management skills. They track the game the way it should tracked in the 21st century. Shooting percentages by distance from the basket. Optimal player tandems. A team's best five and worst five. Ball distribution and types of assists. 82games.com is the pioneer of this field and still is a must-see for any basketball fan. But for the still-starving NBA fan, there's a new goldmine that hit the InterWebs this year: HoopData.com.

I've spent a lot of my time getting lost in the HoopData site and they seem to roll out new bells and whistles every day. Today, I found myself perusing the player assist percentage column. Assist percentage, under the Scoring tab, calculates how often a player's shots are assisted on. Here are three lists that I put together.

NBA's Five Least Creative Scorers Who Play A Lot (30 mins per game)
Highest Ast %

1) Anthony Parker, CLE. 22 made shots. 22 assisted. 100.0 Ast%
2) Channing Frye, PHO. 37 made shots. 34 assisted. 91.9 Ast%
3) Andrei Kirilenko, DAL. 23 made shots. 22 assisted. 91.3 Ast%
4) Raja Bell, CHA. 13 made shots. 11 assisted. 84.6 Ast%
5) Thabo Sefolosha, OKC. 17 made shots. 13 assisted. 82.4 Ast%

Perhaps "least creative" is a little harsh but these players don't dribble or drive to create their shot. However, there are several ways a player can help create his shot without having the ball in his hands like using off-the-ball screens effectively, identifying open spaces/creases in the defense, being aware of developing double-terms, etc. Notice that these players are not their team's go-to scorers but benefit from having superstars or elite ball distributors as teammates. I wonder who...

NBA's Five Most Creative Scorers Who Play A Lot (30 mins per game)
Lowest Ast%

1) Chris Paul, NOH. 65 made shots. 6 assisted. 10.8 Ast%
2) Steve Nash, PHO. 46 made shots. 6 assisted. 13.0 Ast%
3) Russell Westbrook, OKC. 41 made shots. 6 assisted. 14.6 Ast%
4) Tyreke Evans, SAC. 37 made shots. 6 assisted. 16.2 Ast%
5) Raymond Felton, CHA. 28 made shots. 6 assisted. 21.4 Ast%

Point guards dominate this list which comes as no surprise. Kinda odd that they each have six assisted shots though, isn't it? Chris Paul is a gifted scorer as well as a world-class distributor but his scoring independence (some critics might call it ball-hogging) is remarkable. He's twice as independent as the fifth place scorer Felton. Not all point guards post a low assist percentage, however. Teammates assist Jason Kidd on 64.3 percent of his buckets and this shouldn't surprise anyone who has seen Kidd try to blow by his defender.

Let's take a look at what this list would look like if we stripped away the point guards.

NBA's Five Most Creative Swingmen Who Play A Lot (30 mins per game)

1) Hedo Turkoglu, TOR. 29 made shots. 9 assisted. 31.0 Ast%
2) Dwyane Wade, MIA. 54 made shots. 17 assisted. 31.5 Ast%
3) LeBron James, CLE. 62 made shots. 20 assisted. 32.3 Ast%
4) Joe Johnson, ATL. 57 made shots. 21 assisted. 36.8 Ast%
5) Ben Gordon, DET. 53 made shots. 22 assisted. 41.5 Ast%

These shot artists cause a world of matchup problems for their opponents. Not only that, they often have the ball in their hands as hybrid floor generals. At six foot ten inches, Turkoglu's rare shooting ability and quickness creates a nightmare for defenders. Turkoglu's Ast% in Toronto this year is actually about 10 percent lower than it was in Orlando. Dwyane Wade and Ben Gordon, each about 6'4", are too quick for two-guards but long enough to take advantage of shorter point guards. And LeBron, as you know, keeps coaches awake at night.

And this is just one nook of the website. I'll be sure to discover more gems like this and when I do, you can find it all right here.

For more great basketball stats and analysis resources, check out the following sites:

http://www.82games.com/
http://www.basketballprospectus.com/
http://www.basketball-reference.com/
http://www.basketballvalue.com/index.php
http://www.basketballgeek.com/
http://www.countthebasket.com/blog/
http://www.popcornmachine.net/

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