Post number two in the fun with Synergy series is the test of a theory I've had for a while. There was some crowd participation,
for a little bit of background. After the jump, we'll take a look at three-point shooting, in particular, we'll isolate desperation threes at the buzzer from the total numbers.
The germ of this idea was planted in my head a few years ago when Tim Legler was doing a game. Essentially, he was bragging about how he never threw up a half-court shot at the buzzer because those misses hurt his three-point percentage. It struck me as one of the most selfish things I've ever heard, and probably goes a long way to explain why he only topped 1,000 minutes in 2 of his 10 seasons in the league.
Anyway, if you've watched the Sixers play, I'm sure you've noticed that Iguodala
likes to take those heaves as the clock expires, in fact he seeks the ball out in those situations (I'm talking about the end of any quarter, not only the end of the game).
My theory was that he takes more of these extremely low percentage attempts than most players, and these attempts make his overall three-point percentage look worse than it actually is. Does this matter? That's up for debate, obviously. I think it does. When I look at three-point percentage, I want to see a number that represents how good of a jump shot the player has. Is he enough of a threat to keep teams honest? Is it worthwhile for him to be taking any threes? Pulling out half-court shots should give you a more informed answer to those questions.
So, with those thoughts running through my mind, I looked at video of every three Iguodala attempted in the 2009-2010 season, and identified what I considered a desperation shot. This is the criteria I used:
- The shot had to be the final play of the quarter, half or game.
- The shot had to be a deep three (meaning at least a step behind the line), or an unusual three (on the run, off one foot, double-pump, etc)
- Dribbling the clock down to zero then jacking a shot did not count
Using these criteria, Iguodala attempted 24 heaves this season, making 2 of them. So it does seem that he attempted quite a few, heaves accounted for 7.9% of his total 3PA. If you remove these attempts, and makes...well, his percentage is still poor, but a bit closer to respectable: 92/279, 33%. Overall he shot 94/303.
This brings me back to the post from yesterday. I asked about other shooting guards because I wanted you guys to choose my control group. Essentially, I wanted names of a few other shooting guards, who are considered good three-point shooters, to see how many heaves they attempted. I did this because without some peers to compare Iguodala's number to, they really wouldn't mean anything.
Well, at this point I realized I may have bitten off more than I could chew. There was no way I was going to look at over 1,900 three-point attempts tonight. So what I did was condense it. For the most part, these heaves are classified as "Transition" three-point attempts. Synergy allows you to look at only transition threes, so I went back and looked at the 23 attempts for Iguodala (he was 1/12 on transition heaves), then I looked at the transition attempts for the following players.
Eric GordonOJ MayoJoe JohnsonLeBron JamesKobe BryantAndre Iguodala- 1/12 on transition heaves
I figured LeBron would be up there with Iguodala. He doesn't seem shy about taking half-court shots. I wasn't sure about Kobe and Joe Johnson. The other guys, I figured wouldn't be so high. You figure Baron Davis is taking those shots for the Clippers. Mayo has Rudy Gay. Still, Iguodala led this category by a wide margin. I'd love to be able to say you can multiply everyone's results by 2, because that was the ratio of Iguodala's total vs. his transition only numbers, but there's no way to prove that. The only thing I can say with any kind of certainty is that Iguodala took nearly twice as many transition desperation threes as the number 2 guy on this list.
So was my theory correct? I think it's probably safe to say part of it was. He does take more desperation threes than these other guys, and since we're looking at some of the best perimeter players in the league, I'd say it's a safe bet that he takes more than most players in the league. So my eyes weren't lying to me on that front. But the other part of my theory about his desperation heaves dragging down his overall three-point percentage, and therefore dragging down his three-point percentage more than other shooters who don't attempt as many heaves, well, that probably doesn't mean much. Like I said, if you remove Iguodala's heaves, he gains roughly 2% on his overall percentage if you count all of the heaves, if you only count transition heaves, it's only a 0.7% increase in his total 3p%. These other guys saw an increase of less than 1% across the board. In the end, though, removing the heaves doesn't magically turn Iguodala into even a league-average three-point shooter on what I'll call routine three-point attempts, which I guess was my hope going in.
The beauty of this exercise, though, is that I watched a ton of tape, a ton of plays beginning to end, and I noticed a couple of things. First, Willie Green brought the ball up the floor way too much. Second, the vast majority of Iguodala's routine threes came out of Princeton Offense sets, with those insipid dribble handoffs starting the play. Third, Iguodala rarely, and I mean very rarely took transition threes. He only attempted 23 total on the season, 12 of those were heaves. The other guys on this list were all right around 50 attempts, with Mayo leading the pack with 69.
I'd say I'm one for two so far in testing my theories using the video provided by Synergy. Up next, I'm going to compare who Lou Williams was guarding on isolation plays vs. who Jrue Holiday was guarding, and the results.
Awesome job Brian, very interesting stuff.
Definitely interesting. I wonder where Wade would lie amongst this group. I would say the Heat rely on Wade probably more than the sixers rely on Iguodala.
I'm so glad we won't be seeing any stupid dribble handoffs anymore (hopefully). Too many times this year the team dribbled 15 seconds off of the shot clock and looked to him to jack a contested jumper. That's not exactly a formula for efficient shooting.
Tracy McGrady was/is the same way as Legler. Eric Snow told me about it when he was a Sixer. I watched and, sure enough, McGrady would never shoot from the backcourt at the end of quarters because it would ruin his shooting percentage.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/126/2010/april/22/making-a-case-for-casey-to-coach-sixers-2.html
Nice piece Tom! Great candidate for the job. Again!
Tom,
Casey's an assistant under Carlisle right now, what other coaches has he served under?
Dwane Casey begins his first season on the Mavericks bench after most recently coaching the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Casey was named head coach of the Timberwolves on June 17, 2005. He was relieved of his coaching duties on Jan. 25, 2007 while in playoff contention with a 20-20 record. In his only stint as an NBA head coach, he earned a 43-59 record (.422).
In 2008, Casey traveled through Europe, attending Euroleague games, practices and studying various basketball concepts. Casey began his NBA coaching career as an assistant for the Sonics, where he served for 11 seasons (starting in 1994-95). He joined the Sonics for the 1994-95 season after spending five years as a head coach in Japan.
During his time abroad, Casey coached Japan’s National Team with basketball legend Pete Newell. In the summer of 1998, Casey coached the team to its first World Championship appearance in 31 years.
Prior to coaching in Japan, Casey was an assistant under head coach Eddie Sutton at the University of Kentucky from 1985-90. He also served as an assistant under Clem Haskins at Western Kentucky University from 1980-85.
Casey began his coaching career at Kentucky in 1979 as a graduate assistant. While at UK, he recruited and coached eventual NBA players Winston Bennett, Sam Bowie, Rex Chapman, LeRon Ellis, Shawn Kemp, Chris Mills, Dirk Minnifield, Irving Thomas and Melvin Turpin.
Out of high school, Casey’s decision to play at Kentucky for Coach Joe B. Hall helped the Wildcats register a 30-2 record his junior season and capture the 1978 NCAA Championship. Casey was named team captain his senior year and won UK’s all-academic award.
Born April 17, 1957, in Morganfield, Ky., Dwane earned a degree in business administration from Kentucky in 1979. Off the court, Casey’s enjoys reading, playing racquetball and listening to music. He and his wife, Brenda, have one daughter, Justine. dwane.casey@dallasmavs.com
via nba.com
and look an email address to back him to come coach the sixers :)
"Jordan tried to fit his system to the personnel, rather than the other way around. Despite having at least three core players ill-suited to the Princeton offense - Samuel Dalembert, Elton Brand and Marreese Speights - he tried to cram a square peg into a round hole."
I think you meant Jordan tried to fit the personnel to his system? Because he sure as he11 didn't adapt his system.
Yes, you're correct. My bad. Thanks.
good article nonetheless. if they were to bring in an assistant dwayne casey would be at the top of my list.
not sure that move "makes a splash" though. is stefanski looking in that direction?
Great post, Brian. I must say, though, that the modest increase in 3P% was guaranteed by your limiting it to shots at the end of quarters. I'm wondering if the breakdowns of the Princeton didn't result in Iguadala having to take a much greater than average number of contested desperation threes as the shot clock wound down? It seemed like it to me. And, if so, this would've had a much more significant impact on his percentage.
Yeah, I realized removing these chucks would definitely increase the 3p%, I just wanted to see by how much, and if he took more of them than comparable players.
I thought about end-of-shot-clock looks, but that's a bit more subjective and then you get into the blame game as well. If the offense sputters and he catches with 2 seconds left on the SC, that's not really his fault, but what if he's dribbling the ball for 6 seconds, then realizes the clock is at one and jacks one up? It seemed too subjective.
One thing I'd love to see is how plays ended depending on who brought the ball up the floor. I'm almost certain they ran PO sets 99% of the time when Willie was bringing the ball up the floor, a lower percentage when it was Lou, lower still when it was Jrue. I'd love to see % of shots that were jumpers in all three situations, not sure there's a way to do that, though.
You could avoid all the subjective assessments (save one) by including all the contested 3 attempts Iguadala took after receiving a pass with less time one the shot clock than is realistically needed to create his own shot (conservatively 3 seconds?? less conservatively 5 seconds??). This project would give a much better indication of his true shooting ability and would provide many, many hours of fun with Synergy.
And, yes, it would be great to have sophisticated indicators of point guard effectiveness.
Good post Brian. I think the PO and the dribble handoffs also hurt Andre's three point percentage. He was always on the move. I'd like him to pretty much take the three out of his game, but it would be interesting what he did just out of catch and shoot or just in a flat iso situation off the dribble. All the side to side movement seemed to throw him off his rhythm.
As for Dwayne Casey, he got absolutely jobbed in Minnesota, no question about that. I like the Dallas coaching staff, they always seem well prepared with a lot of solid communication amongst each other. I think terry Stotts is there too. I'm curious if Casey would let the team run though, Carlisle doesn't really care for it. Dallas has run it more this year though.