The Pacers currently have six young, quality players under contract. Each brings something to the table and building around continuity and chemistry is a good way for a small market team to gain success. Part 3 of this series offers a quick overview of these players’ pros and cons.

Five of the six players have proven to be capable of reasonably efficient, double-digit scoring in the NBA. Paul George should follow course in the near future. Most are capable rebounders and defenders. All six of these players should reasonably expect usage rates of 19%-26% and they cover an array of positions and talents.

(Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference, 82games, BasketballValue, HoopData and ESPN.)

Danny Granger

Danny Granger will be 28 next year and has proven capable of being a quality NBA scorer. He peaked in 2008-09, with 25 points per game, a PER of 21.8, and true shooting percentage (TS%) of 58.4, (compared to NBA average for a SF of 54.2). This was great for a player using 3 out of every 10 of his team’s possessions.

Granger scored so much largely on the strength his outstanding long-distance shooting. He took 62.6% of his shots from outside of 16 feet and was an above-average shooter from mid-range and beyond; hitting a suburb 40% of his threes even while launching seven a game.

Due to minor injuries and other struggles, however, Granger has tailed off statistically. Last year, he notched 20 points per game and a PER of just 17.8. His shot distribution has not changed significantly; last year he still shot 59.7% of his shots from outside 16 feet. His free-throw attempts per field goal attempt also remain steady between 0.36 and 0.38 over the past three years.

Basically he has just become less effective as a shooter. His TS% was still slightly above average among small forwards in 2011, but his effective field goal percentage (eFG%) was below league average. He is also having increased trouble getting shots off, as 8.1% of his shots were blocked in 2010-11 (compared to 6% in 2008-09).

The amount of his field goals that were assisted has dropped from 55.7% in 2009 to 51% in 2011 (average for a SF is 65%). The proportion of Granger’s assisted shots is unexpected considering his usage rate dropped 3% from 2009 to 2011; if he’s shooting less frequently, it seems reasonable he was forcing less shots of his own creation. Instead he was scoring 3.5 assisted field goals per game last year compared to 4.7 in 2009.

When it comes to unassisted field goals, Granger has decreased only from 3.8 per game to 3.3. As discussed in Part 2, the Pacers were a very poor passing team last year. So if that could improve team-wide, thus increasing Granger’s amount of “easy” shots, perhaps his efficiency would rebound. Granger will likely never get back to his past scoring efficiency, but even last year he scored 20 points a game with an above-average TS%. This is not easy to find in a player who is a capable defender, an adequate defensive rebounder and a solid team player.

As we all now know, Granger will never be a #1 option for a contender. But he’s a high-level NBA player and the best the Pacers have available.

Roy Hibbert

Roy Hibbert has been the Pacers most promising and most disappointing player over the last two years. He stands 7’2”, weighs 280 pounds and shows flashes of offensive potential. He will only be 25-years-old next year, and over three NBA seasons has always sported an above-average PER of 16. But he also plays “soft,” disappears for stretches and had some large statistical red flags last season.

He struggled offensively with TS% (50.7%) and eFG% (46.1%) that were 5 points below average for a center. This was a decrease from 2009-10, and part of that may be due to the Pacer’s use of Hibbert.

Two years ago, Hibbert had true shooting of 53.7% with a usage rate of 22%. In both 2008-09 and 2010-11, Hibbert’s usage was approximately 23.5% and his field goal percentages were low. While surely not the only reason for the decreased efficiency, this is typical of most players; the more offense a player is expected to create (Hibbert is assisted on 54% of fields goals, an average center on 65%), the less efficiently they do it.

Furthermore, there are few centers capable of efficiently scoring at the rate the Pacers use Hibbert. Hibbert’s usage is 8% higher than average for a center, and most teams that frequently use their center have poor offenses. Last year, Hibbert had the 5th-highest usage rate among centers; the offensive ranks of the four teams above the Pacers in this category were 20th, 27th, 10th and 14th.

On the other end of the floor, Hibbert made great strides as a defensive rebounder last year, becoming an above-average rebounder for the first time in his career (28th of 60 qualifying centers). Per 40 minutes, he blocked 2.5 shots (an average center blocks 1.8 shots per 40) while only committing 4.5 fouls (the average center commits 5.8) to anchor a top-five NBA defense in FG% at the rim.

Overall, lowering Hibbert’s offensive usage to encourage increased efficiency should greatly improve his outlook as a player. Hibbert may not have the “toughness” to be as proficient as either player, but this year’s most-sought-after free agents are low-usage centers (Nene and Tyson Chandler) who score efficiently, rebound and defend the paint. One final note on Hibbert is his excellent passing for a center; he ranks in the top ten for assists per minute and was 3rd for assists at the rim per minute.

Darren Collison

Collison will be 24-years-old next year and may be the Pacers third best player. He is very fast and capable of getting into the paint, but struggled with his shooting and also running the Pacer’s offense. He was almost a perfectly average point guard with a PER of 15.6 and TS% (53.4%) and eFG% (48.1%) within 0.1% of league average for point guards. His turnover rate and assists per 40 minutes were also nearly at league average.

Collison struggled defensively last year. He has trouble defending in isolations and also in the pick-and-roll; the Pacers defense was 5.78 points per 100 possessions better when he was off the court. He needs to improve this aspect of his game and also re-find the shooting touch he showed in 2009-10 when he hit 45% of his shots from 16-23 feet and 40% of his threes (compared to 39% and 33% this year). Without these improvements, he will not be more than an average NBA point guard.

Tyler Hansbrough

Tyler Hansbrough will be 26 next year and really came on strong last season. In March and April, he averaged 15.6 points per game while shooting 49.5% in just 29 minutes. Oftentimes, he was one of the lone bright spots for the Pacer’s offense.

Here are some reasons to not get overly excited about Hansbrough as more than a 6th man though: over these breakout two months, his eFG% (49.5%) and TS% (54.3%) were both slightly below league average for a power forward. And as discussed in Part 1, these metrics are the most likely to correspond with effective team offense.

Hansbrough’s rebounding also dropped during these two months, from 9.0 to 8.1 rebounds per 36 minutes. He is an above-average offensive rebounder, but out of 79 PFs who played 500 or more minutes last year, Hansbrough’s defensive rebounding rate ranked 59th. And since defensive rebounding correlates well with defensive efficiency, utilizing a power forward that can’t protect the glass hurts the defense.

In better news, he turns the ball over infrequently. But part of this is due to not making difficult passes, as he averaged just 1.0 assist per 36 minutes and his assists per used possession ranked 75th among PFs (out of 79 remember).

And he is below average as a defender. The Pacers were 3.5 points per 100 possessions worse on defense with him on the court. Perhaps worse still, for the months of March and April, he totaled 2 blocked shots. Hansbrough gives great effort and is definitely an offensive asset off the bench. He was effective from 16-23 feet last year, shooting 43%. If he could improve that accuracy to a David West/Kevin Garnett-level (47%) and improve his defensive rotations, his ability to efficiently contribute to a successful team would be improved.

Paul George

Paul George may be the only Pacer’s player with a “ceiling” of All-Star. At age 20 and as the 10th pick in the draft, George caught people’s attention last year with his athleticism and defense, particularly on Derrick Rose in the playoffs. Given his youth, we’ll start by focusing on what he did very well last year. Of 107 “swingmen” that played 40 games last year (as per HoopData), George ranked 15th  in defensive rebounding rate and 7th in defensive plays per 40 minutes. These are both items that correlate reasonably well with team defensive efficiency. The Pacers’ improvement at defending three point shots after George started seeing more minutes is also encouraging. Offensively, George was one of a handful of Pacer’s players that finished effectively at the rim with 65.6% shooting. This is even more impressive due to only 37% of these field goals being assisted (league average is 54% for a swingman).

George does have things to work on though. His three point shooting percentage of 29.7 needs to be improved. The poor long distance shooting offset his solid play from mid-range and at the rim, and resulted in true shooting (54.2%) and effective field goal rates (50.5%) very near league average (definite pattern of league average scoring efficiencies). There is hope though; George shot 45% on threes his freshman year at Fresno State. Finally, he turns the ball over too frequently and is a below average passer. As George gets older hopefully he can cut down on his turnovers and improve his shooting, because he has the tools to be a very good player in the NBA.

George Hill

As the team’s newest addition, Indiana native George Hill increases the team’s perimeter depth and gives the Pacers three solid players in the back court who are 25-years-old or younger. He will play either guard position (last year for the Spurs, he logged 1,122 minutes at PG and 1,026 at SG), and is a great replacement for many of the minutes played by Brandon Rush and AJ Price.

With usage between 18%-19%, Hill was a well-used role player for the Spurs. So the Pacers now have a “core” player capable staying efficient even with a relatively high usage; Hill’s TS% was 5 points higher than an average NBA guard while being assisted on only average amount of shots.

While he is an average rebounder for a point guard, he is well below average for the most traditional point guard statistic; the last two years he has ranked in the bottom five of all point guards for assist rate. He does avoid turnovers, however, ranking in the top ten in turnover rate for point guards the last two years.

One interesting item regarding his point guard play is the Spurs performance last year. Overall, the Spurs were 3 points per 100 possessions better with Hill on the court — pretty impressive for a player on a 61 win team. Furthermore, with him at point guard, the Spurs were even better, improving by 4 points per 100 possessions — very impressive for a team with Tony Parker starting at PG.

Related posts:

1. The Pacers’ Recent Past & Near Future: Part 2, How the 2010-11 Team Stacked Up
2. The Pacers’ Recent Past & Near Future: Part 1, What Makes an NBA Team Effective?
3. ESPN Likes the Long-Term Future of the Pacers

Looking at the Pacers, it is easy to see the makings of a good team. They are young, have cap flexibility and play at a fast pace. They should continue to be a team on the rise. With George Hill in tow, they have six players under contract who most NBA analysts would consider viable members of a quality eight-man rotation (Danny Granger, Hill, Darren Collison, Paul George, Tyler Hansbrough and Roy Hibbert).  Most are 25 or younger and Granger is the senior-citizen of the bunch at 28.

This core can likely keep the Pacers as a 45 to 50 win team for several years.

In this post series, we will be analyzing exactly how the team can improve on its 2010-11 performance. But to start, we won’t be looking at the Pacers. We will first look at some of metrics that we’ll be using throughout the analysis.

The goal in every basketball game is to score more points than the opponent. It’s a simple game. And the best way to measure the effectiveness of a team at scoring and defending is offensive and defensive ratings, aka, points per 100 possessions (pts/100). This in and of itself doesn’t tell you how a team scored or defended effectively — it just tells you whether or not they did.

To find out the how, we look at a few other metrics. Specifically, we’re going to look at how well these other metrics have correlated with pts/100. (Correlations, and all trend data in this article series, are based on leaguewide stats from the past three seasons). The higher the correlation, the more likely it is that an improvement in the statistic will lead to improved rating. (A perfect positive correlation is 1.0, a perfect “negative correction” is -1.0 and something found to be independent is 0.) For instance, making a team shoot a low FG% is a better way to become a better defensive team than blocking a lot of shots is. Thus, defensive FG% has a correlation much closer to 1.0.

By far, the highest correlations to offensive rating are the shooting percentage statistics. Over the last three years, effective field goal percentage (eFG%, which is basically FG% that accounts for the fact that three-pointers are worth three points) has correlation of 0.864, true shooting percentage (eFG% that also accounts for FT%) has correlation of 0.859, and good ol’ fashioned field goal percentage has correlation of 0.771.

This isn’t really revelatory; if your team shoots well, they will likely be a good offense. The most interesting aspect may be that eFG% had better correlation than true shooting (this is true with defensive rating also). Logically, many consider TS% to be a better stat since it incorporates the ability to get to the free throw line (and make those freebies). However, teams were (very slightly) more likely to be effective with increases in eFG%.

Something more interesting is where the best offenses shoot from. Of all shooting ranges tracked by Hoopdata.com, percentage of field goals taken as threes had the best correlation with offensive rating at 0.411. This is not shocking; leaguewide, the eFG% for three-pointers is higher than any shot besides those at the rim. So, teams that create good looks from three-point range are more likely to  have a good offense than teams that can’t. As this suggests, three-point shooting percentage also has good correlation (0.627).

More surprising is that percentage of shots taken at the rim had negative correlation with offensive rating. The negative correlation was small enough to effectively be independent (-0.083), but a reasonable assumption is that teams shooting more shots at the rim would fare better. This wasn’t the case. Average FG% at the rim has been 60%–64% compared to an average eFG% of around 50%; but oddly, teams shooting more often at the rim are slightly more likely to have worse offenses. Increasing a team’s proportion of shots from 3–9 ft, 10–15 ft, and 16–23 ft is more likely to correspond with decreased offensive efficiency (-0.097, -0.169 and -0.287, respectively).

Assist-related stats also offer some insights. Percentage of possessions including an assist had reasonably high correlation with offensive rating (0.474), but this is tied to other factors. Obviously, teams that don’t turn the ball over and make shots at a high percentage are more likely to have possessions with an assist.

This can be seen in the fact that the percentage of field goals that were assisted only had a correlation of 0.182. An interesting aspect of this is that increased percentages of field goals assisted from 3–9 ft, 10–15, 16–23 ft and three-point range had small negative correlations (from -0.097 to -0.198). Only percentage of assists on field goals made at the rim had a positive correlation (0.253).

These numbers reflect the importance of players who can create shots for themselves. If a team is relying on the offensive system to create a bucket from anywhere outside of three feet, it is likely to result in worse offense. The correlation of percentage of assists for various shooting ranges may also provide some insight into the importance of strong guards and wings, as opposed to big men. This conclusion is based on assisting for easy opportunities at the rim is the only area of assisting that appears to support good offense.

As for other statistical areas, reducing turnovers and getting to the free-throw line (in terms of FTAs per FGAs) had decent correlations of 0.427 and 0.326, respectively. Actual free-throw shooting percentage had minimal positive correlation of 0.169. Pace was completely independent from offensive efficiency (-0.021 correlation). And offensive rebounding rate (ORR) was independent from offensive rating with correlation of 0.025. This doesn’t mean that offensive rebounds aren’t important — just that a great offensive rebounding team is as likely to be a good offense as a bad offense.

In summary, improving a team’s offense is most easily performed by finding players that can create and make shots, first for themselves and secondarily as shots at the rim for teammates. Creating good three-point attempts is important. Reducing turnovers is more likely to result in improved offense than getting to the free throw line. Building a strong offensive rebounding team should be a GM’s last concern.

The other side of the ball not-so-surprisingly has some similar results. Like on offense, forcing opponents to miss shots is most important on defense. The correlation is even higher here, however. Opponent eFG% has correlation of 0.92, TS% is at 0.917, and FG% is 0.906.

One trend that is more pronounced is how well certain shots are defended. Opponent’s FG% at the rim and from three-point range both had very high correlations of 0.712 and 0.706. Opponent FG% from 16–23 feet was important (0.55 correlation), while defending better from mid-range was less so (a correlation of only 0.21).

The range of correlations for shot locations on offense was tightly packed from 0.35 to 0.65; shooting well from anywhere was comparably likely to result in quality offense. The wider range of correlations defensively likely highlights the importance of contesting shots in the paint and closing-out on shooters.

Unlike with offense, there was minimal correlation between reducing three-point attempts and better defense (0.157). But there was decent correlation for forcing opponents to shoot long twos and defensive rating. Percentage of opponent’s shots from 10–15 feet had correlation of 0.515 and percentage of shots from 16–23 feet was at 0.378. In sum, it was more important to ensure opponents shot from this range than to make them shoot a below-average percentage from there.

Defensive rebounding was a lot more likely to result in good defense than offensive rebounding was for offense. The correlation of rebounding to defensive efficiency was 0.649. Percentage of blocks and defensive plays (block, steals, charges) had relatively low correlation with defensive rating (0.314 and 0.37, respectively) while reducing free-throw attempts and forcing turnovers had even lower correlation (0.247 and 0.177).

Finally, passing stats were more indicative of defensive performance than for offense. On defense, lower rates of assisted field goals had positive correlation with defensive efficiency for all shooting ranges. Additionally the positive correlation on defense is higher than the negative correlation for offense. Reducing the percentage of assisted field goals has correlation ranging from 0.118 (16–23 feet) to 0.426 (at rim). On offense, it seems that is important to have players who can create their own shots; and on defense, it appears vital to ensure that opponents are forced to create their own shots. Make of that what you will.

To summarize, on defense it is important to contest shots at the rim, close out on shooters, and control the defensive boards. The correlation of defensive efficiency to FG% at the rim and on threes, and to lower assist rates; demonstrates the importance of the defensive system and quality rotations for defensive efficiency. More traditional individual and team stats like blocks, fouls and turnovers have lower correlation to defensive efficiency than stats reflecting good team defense (shot locations, assist rates). Good one-on-one defense is important, but good rotations, consistent effort and keeping the opponent acting as five individuals instead of as a cohesive unit are more important.

Related posts:

1. The Pacers’ Past, Present and Future Records Against 2011 Playoff Teams
2. Game 52 Recap: Pacers Slingshot Past the Bucks in the 4th Quarter
3. ESPN Likes the Long-Term Future of the Pacers

Obviously, the further and further we get into the season, the more such numbers can be trusted to properly depict reality. Even now, after 18 games, the sample size is still too small for us to really know if the numbers we see will be similar to those we see in the future. Are the Pacers really the the 7th best defensive team in the NBA? Or are there a few anomalies in there skewing the data?

We will see in time.

It’s even more important to realize such things when looking at individual player numbers. It’s only December 5. The team has only played 18 games. We can’t forget that. One or two really good or really bad nights can skew the following stats we will look at dramatically.

With that caveat, here are how all the Pacers players have done so far statistically. For the traditional per game individual stats through 18 games, check here. Those are interesting, but I think we already knew all that.

Instead, we’ll focus on some less obvious numbers.

Production Per 40 Minutes

Here’s are the numbers all the Pacers players put up per 40 minutes. We focus on this rather than the per-game numbers so that we can see which players are making the most of their minute. Obviously, some guys will give you diminishing returns if asked to play 40 mpg (although, historically, most guys have come pretty close to their extrapolated totals when thrust into larger roles), but the point here is mainly just to neutralize things to a per-minute basis rather than presuming anyone could do exactly these numbers in 40 minutes.

To more prominently illustrate who is doing what in which categories, I have highlighted the numbers with green and red to show whether the player is higher or lower than the league average. Green means the player has a higher number except in the case of turnovers and personal fouls.

Here are the five things that stand out the most to me.

1. Quantitatively, TJ Ford pretty much does nothing while he’s on the court.

2. Mike Dunleavy grabs a significant number of more boards than Danny Granger. It would be nearly impossible for someone who had never seen them play but just looked at them side-by-side to understand how this could happen.

3. This team could really use someone who could get to the line.

4. The way the assists are so well-distributed suggests that (a) the ball movement is pretty good, or (b) the team’s guards are not setting many people up for easy buckets.

5. Solomon Jones fouls a ton.

Advanced Stats

Again, the green in the next chart also means “above average” aside from with turnover rate, for which it means “better” (that is, lower). Additionally, we see even more here that the red/green demarcation is really a rough barometer. Roy Hibbert’s assist rate, for example is 14.8% compared to a league average of 15.3%. Obviously, a center who is just a hair below the league assist average for all players in no way deserves to have a giant red shadow over his number. But all it means is that it is lower. I trust that you’re educated enough to understand that a more nuanced look at these can tell us more than any red/green highlight can.

Here are the eight categories in the chart below:

• Usage Rate (USG) – The percentage of offensive possessions a player uses
• Percent of Field Goals that Are Assisted (%AST) – Self-explanatory … can help show how often players create their own shots vs. just “finishing” plays
• Assist Rate (AR) – Percentage of the team’s possessions that end in the player getting an assist
• Turnover Rate (TOR) – Percentage of the team’s possessions that end in the player turning the ball over
• Offensive Rebound Rate (ORR) – Percentage of possible offensive rebounds a player grabs while on the floor
• Defensive Rebound Rate (DRR) – Percentage of possible defensive rebounds a player grabs while on the floor
• Total Rebound Rate (TRR) – Percentage of possible total rebounds a player grabs while on the floor
• Player Efficiency Rating (PER) – John Hollinger’s attempt at a singular metric to define a player’s stat value.

Here are the five things that stand out the most to me.

1. Roy Hibbert is an advanced stat beast. Those rebounding numbers are as impressive as they are unexpected. If he can keep this up it will represent a huge step forward for him on the glass. It’s very rare to see a guy go from a total rebound rate of 12.4% to 17.3% in one offseason.

2. This chart shows why Brandon Rush is so poorly respected by the NBA media that like stats. He is below average in every category here aside from turnover rate (which makes sense cause he doesn’t handle the ball much) and … you guessed it … minutes per game. That makes people scratch their heads. Obviously, he plays good on-the-ball defense, however, and as we’ll see below, he shoots rather well.

3. TJ Ford’s assist rate is considerably higher now than it was in his first two years in Indy. He was around 24% that past two seasons and his current 29.7% compares favorably to the 31-32% he posted in Toronto. His PER is obviously gross, however (and we’ll see later that his shooting is just as bad).

4. Mike Dunleavy, James Posey and Solomon Jones have almost never created their own points. All three score more than four out of every five buckets right after catching a pass — with Posey’s 86.7% rate suggesting that he might not even know how to dribble.

5. Solomon Jones can’t catch passes, turning the ball over on a ridiculous 17% of his possessions.

Shooting Accuracy

(UPDATE: The charts in this section were a little off for the first few hours this post was live. Not sure what happened, but the numbers were not all correct. All has been fixed. Here are the updated charts.)

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Again, green is above average, red is below average. (Note, however, that while Granger and Mike Dunleavy and Darren Collison’s FG%s are technically below average, we’re talking about one percentage point over 18 games. In reality, they are both shooting just fine from the field. Nuance remains important.)

The only things you need to know about the metrics is that eFG% (effective field goal percentage) is FG% adjusted to recognize that threes are higher risk/reward shots that are worth one more point than shots closer in and that TS% (true shooting percentage) is FG% weighted to include both threes and free-throws.

The last category measures how good the player has been at getting to the line. It’s free-throw attempts per field goal attempt — and the whole team is really poor at getting the line outside of two big men that don’t play a huge number of minutes. Good on Tyler and Solo though. At least someone is getting some freebies once in a while. Would be nice if more people did since ten guys shoot em at an above-league-average clip and, collectively, the Pacers are the 9th best FT shooting team in the NBA.

Perhaps more interestingly, below is a look at how each guy has shot from different spots on the floor. All this data comes from the invaluable site HoopData.com and their shot location data is their crown jewel. Most of this other statistical stuff can be found at various sites, but we have only had this location data publicly available for about a year or so since HoopData emerged. Thank you, kind sirs.

One thing that stands out is that Roy Hibbert isn’t very effective outside of 10 feet. We probably could have guessed this, but he has been a more willing outside shooter this year and it has seemed (to me anyway) like he has improved. Well, he hasn’t. He’s basically steady from 16-23 feet so far this year and has been comparatively abysmal from 10-15 feet (28.6% this season compared to 41.5% last year). Fortunately, however, Danny has been money from basically everywhere aside from the 10- to 15-foot range … but he doesn’t shoot much from there so no big deal. Rush, too, is looking good across the board. , only needing to dial in better from behind the arc. Josh McRoberts, on the other hand, can’t hit water from a boat no matter the distance. (UPDATE: I’m leaving this last line even if it’s hyperbolic given the updated, slightly improved numbers. He hasn’t shot particularly well aside from behind the arc is the point.)

Related posts:

1. Where They Are Statistically — A Look at the Pacers’ Production Through 17 Games
2. Pacers Player Word Cloud
3. ESPN Experts: Pacers Will Win 33 Games

ESPN’s resident stat guru John Hollinger devoted an entire True Hoop post this afternoon to a dubious honor that Rush is about to earn.

If he manages to maintain his lead, he’ll claim the dubious distinction of being the worst player ever to lead his team in minutes. My search through the record books unearthed only two other players in the post-merger era to lead their team in minutes with a single-digit PER: Bruce Bowen with San Antonio in 2003-04, and Jason Collins with the Nets a season later.

Brandon’s PER of 9.96 is well below 15, the benchmark for average.  Additionally, only Solomon Jones, Jeff Foster, and Travis Diener have posted worse PER’s for the Pacers this season.

Mr. Hollinger’s not making a lot of friends in either the Pacer front office or the fan base, but how right is he?  Well, PER by itself is far from definite proof on the quality of the player.  Even Hollinger admits this, so he’s being a bit casual here.   Still, when you think of it from the perspective of all of the players who have led their team in minutes, you have to believe that Brandon is a whole lot closer to the worst than he is to the best.

The one thing that many in Pacer land love to give Rush credit for is his defense.  It is true that Brandon is the best defender on the team, but that’s not exactly what you’d call a towering accomplishment.  However, Hollinger even took issue with that.

But those were two of the best defensive players of the decade (if not ever, in Bowen’s case), so it’s obvious why they played so much. Rush is just an average defender, making his usage more perplexing.

I can hear the “harumphs” echoing through Conseco now.

This isn’t the first time recently Brandon has received a less than glowing review from a national media member.  Chad Ford recently tweeted:

Tournament draft busts? Ed O’Bannon, Sean May, Chris Wilcox, Brandon Rush, Christian Laettner, Mateen Cleaves, Patrick O’Bryant …

Then, in response to @pacersdigest, who was protesting that Brandon was not a bust:

If NBA games were played only in March & April that would be true

Harsh words.  So, what do you think?

Related posts:

1. O RLY? Brandon Rush
2. TJ Ford & Brandon Rush for DJ Augustin, Gerald Henderson and Nazr Mohammed ??????????????
3. Cap & Trade: Options Picked Up on Roy, Rush

It’s not something that gets a great deal of attention.  SoS carries more weight in college basketball, where rankings affect seeding in the tournament, and in college football, where rankings largely determine a mythical national champion.  Since the NBA playoffs, seedings, and champion are all decided on the court, SoS has less utility.

However, it can be of some use when you’re sitting in the middle of the season, trying to figure out where teams stand, and where they are going.

Exhibit A – NBA Strength of Schedule 2/13/2010

This chart shows the current SoS for the NBA, ranked in descending order.  Utah, Houston, and Miami all have had markedly tougher schedules than the rest of the league.  Meanwhile, your Indiana Pacers have played the second “weakest” schedule at .483, nestled in between the Knicks and the Sixers.  However, there are some limitations to the simple S0S.  Specifically, it ignores the question of where the games have been played.

Weighted Strength of Schedule – Home/Road

A couple of weeks ago, I did a rough projection of where I thought the Pacers would finish.  That got me to start looking at the types of games they had won, and the types of games they had lost.  In the midst of this, and another project I’m working on (and hope to get up in the next week), I decided I wanted to cut a little deeper into this area.

The adjustment I made was relatively simple.  Instead of using the opponent’s overall record, as the normal SoS does, I varied the record based on the site.  Therefore, if the Pacers played Atlanta in Atlanta, I used the Hawks’ 21-6 home record.  If they played them in Conseco, then I used Atlanta’s 12-12 road record.

Why does this matter?  Well, the home team generally wins more than 60% of the time.  Through the All Star break, there were only six (6) teams with winning records on the road, and another three at exactly .500.  Meanwhile, there were 22 teams with winning records on their home floor.  Last season, there were 21 teams with winning records at home, but only seven (7) with winning road records.  Home court advantage is a real thing in the NBA.

Like I said, this seems so simple that I’m sure somebody, somewhere has done this before, but I can’t find it anywhere.  Therefore, this gave me three new (to me) metrics that I get to name.  The first is “Weighted Strength of Schedule – Home/Road” or SoSHR.  This is exactly as I described in the previous paragraph.  I use the same basic math as SoS, but substitute an opponent’s road record for a team’s home games, and their home record for a team’s road games.

Exhibit B – NBA Weighted Strength of Schedule – Home/Road 2/13/2010

Granted, it doesn’t make a huge amount of difference in Indiana’s case (.480 SoSHR vs. .483 SoS), but it does have a dramatic effect on some teams.   The New Jersey Nets, as an example, move all the way up to first or “toughest” with a .537 SoSHR.  Of course, the Nets’ schedule will always be somewhat tougher than anyone else’ simply by virtue of the fact that they don’t get to play themselves.  Exhibit C illustrates the comparative SoS vs. SoSHR for each team.

Exhibit C – SoS vs. SoSHR (Sorted in descending order of SoS)

Here, you can see some of the dramatic swings.  The previously stated New Jersey example is on the right, but it’s also important to take a look at Utah on the far left.  They were looking pretty good with the 6th best record in the league against what appeared to be the “toughest” schedule.  However, digging little deeper shows that their schedule is nowhere near as tough as it first appeared.

In fact, both Utah and New Jersey’s SoS were skewed by an imbalance in home vs. road games.  The Jazz have played seven (7) more games at home than on the road.  The Nets have played five (5) fewer home games than road games.  Of course, some could say that I could get the same answer simply by looking at net home vs. road games.  To those people, I say, “Ehhhh…leave me alone.”  Besides, this particular metric wasn’t the one that I was trying to quantify when I wandered down this path.

I was really more interested in the next two.

The “LossFactor” (LF)

What I was really trying to do was come up with a sense of quality of wins.  The SoSHR is really an amalgam of the other two metrics.  The “LossFactor” (LF) and the “WinFactor” (WF) are two sides of the same coin.  In effect, they are the SoSHR in losses (LF) or in wins (WF).  For the Pacers, it’s the WF that I’m more interested in, but the LF deserves some discussion.

Exhibit D – NBA LossFactor 2/13/2010

The LossFactor is something that is probably of more interest in looking at top teams, or at least playoff teams.  It can give you an idea of how good a team is at “taking care of business.”  The league-wide LF is about .580, and no one has an LF of less than .523 (the Knicks).  The teams towards the right hand side of the chart, particularly those to the right of the red LG AVE bar, can be said to be leaving a lot of games on the table.

Meanwhile, this chart shows why many consider the Lakers to be hands down favorites to win it all this year.  They have an LF of .674, which is well above anyone else in the league.  Of their 13 losses, only one has come to a losing team (the Clippers), and that was on the road (yeah, I know).  Of the four losses at home, two of the teams (Dallas and Cleveland) have winning road records, and the other two (Denver and Houston) are within one and two games of .500 on the road, respectively.

The Pacers are below average, but not horribly so.  They are getting hurt by road losses at Golden State and Minnesota, and home losses to bad road teams like the Knicks, the Bucks, the Sixers, and, just before the break, the Bulls.  The real bad news is what comes next.

The “WinFactor” (WF)

The thing that has bothered me all year long about this team is that I have never seen them show any sustainable success.  Throughout the first part of last season, there was a sense that they were letting games slip away.  All the games, all year long, seemed close and competitive.  In fact, they had the fewest games decided by double digits (24) in the league last year.  The 2010 Indiana Pacers have already lost 22 games by double digits (and played in a total of 33.)

A quick glance at the WinFactor (WF) chart tells the depressing story.

Indiana’s .317 WF is worst in the league.  Even worse, it is way-out-of-whack low.  The difference between the Pacers and the Bucks (.043), who sit at 28th, is greater than the difference between the Mavs and the 18th place Bobcats (.042).  While the Pacers are not the bottom of the food chain, they’re awfully close.  More importantly, they’ve shown precious little ability to defend themselves against the predators further up on the food chain.

Even during the heady days of the now legendary “Five-game winning streak” in November, there was nothing of substance.  The one quality win was in Conseco over Boston.  That game was an anomaly even for the streak, being won at the offensive end in a rare display of firepower.  Additionally, it was Boston’s third game in four nights, and the Celtics have a worse LF than the Pacers, indicating a tendency to “leave games on the table.”  The other four teams in that streak presented a WF of .265.

The Pacers are an awful road team, winning only six times in 26 tries.  All of their road wins have come against team with losing home records.  There are only eight of those in the league, and one of them is the Pacers, so not a lot of sunshine there.  Two of the wins have come against the Nets.  They are a mediocre-to-bad home team, winning only 12 of 26 games.  Nine of these wins have come against teams with road records of .346 or less.

The Pacers have gotten 39% (7) of their wins against teams with worse records than their own, but those teams only accounted for 17% (9) of their games.  They’ve managed to win only one time in every four tries against teams with equal or better records.

What Lies Ahead

What do the remaining 30 games of the season have in store for the Pacers?  Nothing good.

The SoSHR for the remaining Pacers’ games is .523 – over 40 points higher than the first 52 games.  Either the Pacers WF is going to get a lot higher, or they’re going to have a lot of ping pong balls in the lottery this spring.

The sad truth is that the Pacers have won only two games this season where the WF would have been above .500 (Boston & Orlando).  Even more depressing is that there were only three other wins where the WF would have actually cleared .400 (on the road vs. the Knicks and the Pistons, at home vs. the Suns). It’s hard to even look forward confidently to a high draft pick, because teams like Minnesota, Golden State, New York, and Philly all have tougher remaining SoSHR’s.

This is shaping up to be a truly lost season.

There’s little question in my mind that Jim O’Brien has been far too erratic with his lineups, and I think he’s got to stop tinkering and go with a rotation for the rest of the year.  A large part of it is just for the sanity of everyone involved with the Pacers – players, coaches, management, fans, me.  However, the more basic reason is that it’s becoming more and more obvious that their success hinges a whole lot less on names on the back of the Pacer jerseys, and a whole lot more on the names on the front of the opponents’.

We’re gonna need a bigger boat.

Related posts:

1. Advanced Stat Talk: What XeFG% from the Bulls Game Tells Us About Indy’s Offensive Futility
2. Save the Dates: Analyzing Next Year’s Schedule
3. Hey Everybody – Listen to Me Talk

Here’s the chart (and for reference, green is good and red is bad):

And here are Haberstroh’s quick thoughts on the Pacers:

Indiana’s defense fouls way too much, so much so that their defense is merely average despite their excellent ability to keep opponent effective field goal percentage down.

We’ve been beating these efficiency stats into the ground all year, so I’m not going to go into any more detail. Those of you who are into this type of stuff can see where all the red is clear as day: It’s the offense.

No related posts.

“In regards to small vs. big lineup the margin is over +320 (favoring small) for the year. We’ll go with it for as many games as we can, as long as we can because that’s our best lineup.”

That +320 number is pretty dazzling, so I wanted to understand it a little better. Basketballvalue.com has some pretty detailed unit statistics that I use pretty regularly to help me understand things.  Though I couldn’t quite replicate the +320, the statistical differences still make a pretty damning case against any big lineups the Pacers have.

(Note: All analysis excludes Wednesday’s loss to the Lakers, unless specifically noted otherwise.)

What Constitutes a Big Lineup?

A “big lineup” is something of a misnomer when it comes to the Pacers.  Roy Hibbert is the only honest-to-God center on the roster, as well as being the only player over 7-feet tall.  The rest of the “bigs” on this team are really either ‘tweeners or straight power forwards.

Generally, when Obie talks about the big lineup, he’s really referring to the Roy/Troy combo.  For the purposes of this discussion, however, I’m going to expand that.  This roster has three guys whose primary roles are to play center: Roy Hibbert, Jeff Foster and Solomon Jones.  Admittedly, it’s a bit of a stretch to say Foster and Jones are true centers, but that is their role here.

“Big lineups” in this analysis will be defined as any lineup with Roy, Jeff or Solomon at center, alongside one of the other two or one of the more traditional power forwards: Troy Murphy, Tyler Hansbrough or Josh McRoberts.

All other units will be considered “small lineups,” including any lineups where Granger, Dahntay Jones or other smaller players are manning the power forward position.

Big vs. Small

Using these definitions, the Pacers have employed a big lineup for 1,202 minutes this season, which equals about 56% of all minutes. With a big lineup on the floor, the Pacers have been outscored by 252 points, resulting in a +/- per 48 minutes of -10.1 points. This is in stark contrast to when the Pacers have gone small this year.  In the 958 minutes of small ball, they’ve outscored their opponents by 34 points, translating to a 48 minute +/- of +1.7 points. This gives small lineups a +286 advantage for the year over big lineups.

(I’m not sure why there’s a discrepancy between these numbers and the +320 figure O’Brien used in the press, but it’s possible that he might be including the Murph/Hansbrough pairing as a big lineup.  That duo is -45, which would bring the total to +331.  I treated all lineups with Murph as a center as small.  Regardless, the difference doesn’t materially affect the conclusions.)

Offensively, small lineups are also much more efficient, scoring 6.6 more points per 100 possession than big lineups. Their 105.3 per 100 possession output isn’t anything to write home about (league average offenses put up 106.9), but it is at least significantly better than the big lineup offense that only generates 98.7 per 100.  That’s output isn’t quite “New Jersey” bad, but it’s certainly within spitting distance.

Defensively, the Pacers are a middle-of-the-pack team overall, allowing 106.6 points per 100, which puts them just a hair’s breadth better than the league average of 106.9 and ranks them 15th overall.  However, the smalls only give up 104.1 points per 100, which is a rate that would put them 7th in the league, while the bigs allow 108.4, which is worse than average but would still land them about 18th overall.

The generic conclusion here is that the smalls would be a good defensive team and a mediocre offensive team. If sustainable over 82 games, this type of performance probably results in a win total in the mid-40s and puts Indiana in the playoffs — in the Eastern Conference, at least.

By the same token, the numbers say the bigs are playing on a par with Minnesota and New Jersey.

However, averages can be deceiving.  Also, +/- is one of those stats that is really only useful if you continue to ask questions, and there are some good ones that we can still ask.

Breaking Down the Bigs

Unsurprisingly, Roy gets the lion’s share of the center minutes in the big lineup rotation. Here’s a breakout:

I’ve broken these units down into “BigHibbert,” “BigSolomon” and “BigFoster,” and the nomenclature is relatively self explanatory.  Each of these three groupings remain negative in terms of points produced and allowed.  The units anchored by Foster are the least negative, being outscored by only 15 points in 244 minutes (or -3.0 per-48).  Solo’s groups had the worst per-48 +/- at -13.4, while being outscored by 81 overall.  With Roy anchoring the big lineups, opponents score 156 more points than Indiana, or 11.2 points per 48.  For the year, the Pacers have only been outscored by 218 points, meaning the BigHibbert group has accounted for 72% of the team’s deficit while playing only 30% of the minutes.

Defensively, all three of these groupings are terrible.  BigHibbert and BigSolomon each give up almost 108 points per 100, while BigFoster gives up just a tick over 111.  BigFoster’s groupings have shown a little offensive punch by scoring 108.6 per 100, but the other two have been miserable offensively, with BigHibbert only scoring 97.4 and BigSolo scoring a measly 93.4.

However, it’s important to remember that just because these groups carry their names, it is not necessarily an indictment of Roy, Solo or Jeff.  The focus here is unit — and more specifically, the big man combos (PF & C).  It’s no surprise that Troy Murphy is playing the bulk of the power forward minutes in all these big lineups.  To be exact, Murph is on the floor for 62% of all big lineup minutes, and during that time, the Pacers were outscored by 220 points, or 14 points every 48 minutes.  They gave up almost 111 points per 100 while scoring only about 96.  (We’ll come back to discuss Troy a little bit later.)

As is relatively obvious from the bad overall numbers, there is not much good news here.  However, if you’re looking for a silver lining, you can find it in some of the numbers involving Buckaroo Banzai (aka Tyler Hansbrough).  In 197 minutes with Tyler at the 4 alongside either Hibbert or Foster, the Pacers were actually +9, with a respectable 108 points per 100 scored vs. 105 points per 100 allowed.

Small Ball

I’ve nce again broken down the lineups by who is playing “center,” and three groups (SmallHibbert, SmallMurphy and SmallSolomon) have accounted for 93% of the minutes.  So this is where we’ll focus.

Here’s the chart:

The Pacers fared pretty poorly with Solo at Center in small lineups, being outscored by over 13 points for every 48 minutes. The Solo units were bad at both ends, scoring 94 per 100 while giving up over 110. (Truth be told, the Pacers have fared pretty poorly whenever Solo has played this year, so I’m going to operate under the assumption that he’s only going to be an emergency backup going forward.)

In 343 minutes with Troy at the 5, the Pacers have basically held their own.  They were a -8 overall, or -1 for every 48 minutes. Oddly enough, the results with Murphy are somewhat counter to the conventional wisdom, as they were mediocre (to bad) offensive units at 103 points per 100, but a solid-to-good defensive units, allowing just under 105.

Small ball with Roy at center has been the most successful.  Overall, the Pacers have outscored opponents by 81 in these configurations — or about 10 points per 48.  Roy has been one of the few positives on the team, but here, again, it’s important to look at who is playing the four.  Doing it for these units makes one conclusion relatively clear: Danny at the 4 is the secret of their success.

As noted at the top, the smalls outscored their opponents by 34 points overall this season.  With Danny playing power, the Pacers have been +118 this season, over 10 points better per 48 minutes than the bad guys.  From an efficiency standpoint the “DannyPower” lineup scores 111 while only giving up 101 points in every 100 possessions.  Both of these numbers are outstanding.

So, the answer is: move Danny to the 4.

Right?  Right?

Ehhhhhhhh … I don’t know about that.

The DannyPower Lineup

Once again, we are hit in the face with exactly how poorly the pieces on this team fit together.  Roy Hibbert and Troy Murphy are the Pacers’ best big men.  They are, respectively, the best center and the best power forward on the roster.   However, it’s painfully obvious that they can’t play together effectively.  In 468 minutes of floor time, the Pacers have been outscored by 159 points.  That equates to just about a disgusting -16 points per 48 minutes.  In other words, the Pacers haven’t even been remotely competive when they play together.

Overall, the two of them have played in 98 rotations together.

Take a look at the results of their on-court stretches together, which are broken down by whether they outscore the other team (win), are outscored by their opponents (lose) or match the other squad exactly (draw):

Even worse than the negative results shown by this chart is the fat that the Hibbert/Murphy big combo has only had positive +/- for an entire game 9 times in the 34 games they played together.  They won 6 of those 9 games, with the only losses coming on the road to the Magic, the Spurs, and the T-Puppies. And they lost 23 of the 25 games in which they were negative, winning only in Washington and at home when they mounted that miraculous comeback against Toronto.

However, if you put either one of them at the 5 with Danny at the 4, it generates some real success.  The Hibbert/Granger big man combo has been +67 (or +11.6 per-48) so far this year, while a Murph/Granger combo has been +45 (or +14.7 per-48).  From an efficiency standpoint, Hibbert/Granger are better offensively (112.6 per 100 vs. 110.5 per 100), but the Murphy/Granger pairing has the edge defensively (97.3 per 100 vs. 100.4 per 100).  It should be noted, however, that all of the numbers are outstanding.

So, why balk at making Danny the permanent Power Forward?

Several reasons.

First, it’s important to keep perspective on things.  The minutes played by these units are substantial, comparable to most of the other units, but they’re still not huge chunks of time.  Combined, they only account for 20% of the 2160 minutes the Pacers have played this season.  It is fair to expect the Law of Diminishing Returns to kick in at some point, bringing these numbers back to earth.

Sustaining this level of performance over 70%-75% of the minutes would likely result in a team that was would win 70%-80% of its ames.  Surely, we all recognize that as wildly unrealistic.  It’s far more likely that raising the playing time on these combos would steadily degrade the result, creating a team capable of winning perhaps half — give or take — of its games.

Second, the Pacers can’t be too wild about the prospect of playing their All-Star Small Forward out of position, though the horse may be out of the barn on this one.  Coming into Wednesday’s night game against the Lakers, Danny had played more minutes at the 4 (549) than at his natural position, the 3 (466).  He’ll regularly be tasked with guarding bigger, stronger and sometimes quicker players like Chris Bosh, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett and Pau Gasol.  Add to this the fact that he’s a relatively poor rebounder, and neither Troy nor Hibbert even approximates a dominant inside force.  I’d have a hard time believing that anyone within or outside of the Pacer organization could see that as sustainable.

Third, the ripple effect exposes Indy’s lack of depth at the wing position.  Danny and Mike are the only true small forwards with size on the roster.  Dahntay, at 6’5″, is undersized for a 3, but lacks the shooting range requisite for a SG.  Brandon Rush brings nice size, but given the pace of play and the inconsistency of performance on the wing, we will potentially see a steady diet of Luther Head.  Plus, if you’re going small all the time, then Dahntay Jones will actually see some amount of time at the 4 — a position where he has logged more than 200 minutes this year.

Fourth, opponents must be taken into account.  The Hibbert/Granger combo got a little fat off of losing teams, getting 58% of their minutes and a +45 against them.  Even so, this story is an overall positive.  The Pacers played 207 minutes against winning teams with Danny at the 4, next to either Roy or Troy.  In that time, their offensive efficiency was a stunning 113 points per 100 possessions, and their defensive efficiency was just over 97.  And they outscored the opponent during that time by 69 points.

Finally, it could potentially interfere with playing time for Roy Hibbert and Tyler Hansbrough.  Assuming Jeff Foster isn’t going to return soon, a total commitment to small ball would essentially force Troy and Roy to split the 48 center minutes and never play the 4.

Against the Lakers, Hibbert played 28 minutes and Murphy played 27, but I wouldn’t expect that to be a common event any more.  Bynum and Gasol were killing the Pacers inside all game, but when Hibbert and Murphy started the second half together, the team was outscored by 7 points in the first four minutes — hardly a harbinger of good things to come.  Following that line of reasoning further says that Danny will chew up the majority of the PF minutes, leaving only scraps for Buckaroo Banzai (once he returns from his viral inner ear infection).

A Beggar’s Choice

Despite all of the things previously noted, I’m hard-pressed to disagree with O’Brien’s assessment of the situation.  While I can point out all of the bad things that may happen down this path, I can’t really point out any better alternatives.  I’m sure I won’t quite agree with the minute distribution between Troy and Roy, but I don’t really think that’s a huge game changer.

It really seems to me that the numbers basically indicate:

• Any combination of (quasi) traditional Pacer bigs = Bad
• Danny on the floor at the 4 = Better than the alternatives
• A big man combo of Roy and Troy = Death

So, looking tactically, small ball seems to be the most promising way to make this particular team competitive — or, at least, less un-competitive — in the short term.  If nothing else, maybe just settling in on one course of action and going with it will give the illusion of a little quiet.  It’s time for O’Brien to stop shuffling and just see if he can create a cohesive unit.

However, I really doubt it will make much difference — at least not in the standings.  The hole is too deep, and the cupboard is too bare.  Right now, this isn’t so much a case of confusing activity with accomplishment as it is a case of having activity when there’s simply no accomplishment to be had.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the Venn diagram.

Related posts:

1. By the Numbers: Recapping the Preseason
2. By The Numbers: October – November 2009
3. Going Small?

And as it so happens, Matt just did a mammoth post looking at PER and “usage rates” for every team in the league. I wasn’t planning to get into the advanced stat stuff for our “VORP Series” until later in the week, but we may as well fold his yeoman’s work into this whole talk. I’ll still bust out the rest of the advanced stuff and show the Pacers players vs. the league average in a future post that may speak more to the “VORPiness” of the team, but Matt has some even cooler and more colorful charts than I will, and this stuff all dovetails with what we’ll be talking about later, so let’s just run with this, too, eh.

(See also Looking at VORP, Vol. 1: Offensive Production and Looking at VORP, Vol. 2: Shooting Percentages for past breakdowns if you care to be caught up to speed on the whole VORP concept I keep rambling on about.)

For the uninitiated, PER and usage rate are two of the more useful advanced stats we have, with the former being the John Hollinger-created “player efficiency rating” and the latter being a less-contentious measure of the percentage of possessions a player “uses” while they are on the court. Guys like LeBron, Kobe and Dwyane who take a lot of shots, get to the line a lot and turn the ball over a lot typically have the highest usage rates, naturally, but how the stat often proves more insightful is by revealing which players who get less playing time tend to dominate the ball/shoot a lot.

That’s exactly what it shows us about this year’s Indiana Pacers.

Danny leads the team by using 29.0% of the team’s possessions when he’s on the floor. For reference/perspective, Dwyane Wade leads the league at 35.2% and guys like Kobe, LeBron and Carmelo all come in around 33%. On this team, 29% is probably about right for Granger, although it would be nice if he would use a few less of those possessions to chuck threes. (But that’s a discussion for a different post.)

The more interesting thing is that the next two biggest “ball hogs” on the team are both rookies, with Tyler Hansbrough and AJ Price gobbling up 25.2% and 23.5% of the team’s possessions when they’re out there, respectively.

The rest of the curve isn’t too unsurprising, but three things do stand out:

• Roy Hibbert probably deserves more looks at the hoop given his (relatively) high FG%.
• Brandon Rush never shoots.
• Troy Murphy, the team’s most accurate shooter (and second most efficient player), doesn’t use many possessions.

Here is Matt’s assessment of Indy’s usage curve:

Price’s confidence is admirable, and he’s playing well. Granger should be the top, Tyler should probably not be that high, but who else, really? Uh… free Jeff Foster?

Step 2 in the Hardwood Paroxysm analysis was to look at whether or not those players “deserve” to be using as many possessions as they do. PER is a highly contentious stat among many NBA fans (again, a different discussion for a different day), but — at worst — it is a good crude measure of general statistical production, so it should help illustrate some stuff we might not otherwise notice.

So what Matt did was overlay each player’s PER on top of the usage curve.

Here is what he came up with for the Pacers:

While those of us unfortunate enough to have suffered through every Pacer game this year may have some more nuanced things to infer from this chart, it’s safe to say that Matt’s quick assessment is pretty much exactly what anyone familiar with these stats would see:

SIMMER DOWN, ROOKIES

For perspective’s sake, it might help to look at the PER/usage overlay charts for all the teams, but basically what we’re seeing here is that Tyler and AJ both have used a boatload of possessions, but haven’t used them particularly efficiently. Both have very high usage/middling PER. The spots where the interior yellow blob-thing (PER) juts out closer to the edge of the blue seashell-looking mass (usage rate) illustrate the players whose PER is more closely aligned with their usage. These are the guys whose shots are more “just” or “deserved.” (See, Troy Murphy, or to lesser degrees, Hibbert, Watson and Danny.)

Thus, Tyler and AJ’s low productivity calls into question whether they should be taking so many shots.

Should somebody (whether it is the coach or the other players on the floor) reign in the rookies? Or is what we’re seeing here — like it seemed to be with Jarrett Jack last year or Dahntay in November — a situation where the two rookies are simply the two guys more willing to attack while everyone else stands around passively?

And regardless of the answer to either of those questions, is it ultimately a good thing that these young guys are getting so many more reps than projected, even if they aren’t really using those reps to help the team score (given that, ya know, Tyler is shooting an embarrassing 36.0% from the field and AJ is shooting a not-all-that-much-better 40.8%)? (This last question obviously also needs to be prefaced by the fact that both players’ “high reps” have come in curtailed minutes — Tyler due to his ongoing and more-worrisome-by-the-day injuries and AJ due to only making his way into the rotation recently.)

A few other observations:

• Troy Murphy has the best-looking PER/usage distribution on the team and his “high PER/low usage” suggests he deserves more looks.
• Roy Hibbert’s overlay looks pretty good for a second-year center who was expected to develop slowly.
• Mike Dunleavy has not bounced back to pre-injury production rates and, since he is still such a big part of the offense, that fact is really not helping the offense.
• Luther Head has shot a lot more often than he probably should.
• Ditto Dahntay Jones.
• TJ Ford’s benching wasn’t statistically unwarranted.
• Brandon Rush has been reluctant to do much on offense so far this year — and with good reason.
• Earl Watson looks to be filling his role as he should.

Interesting stuff. Thanks to Matt for his serendipitous timing on this and helping further color our analysis. (Get it? Color … whatever … your mom’s not funny either.)

Related posts:

1. Looking at “VORP” With Colorful Charts, Vol. 2: Shooting Percentages
2. Looking at “VORP” With Colorful Charts, Vol. I: Individual Offensive Production Per 40 Minutes
3. Sometimes Matt Bonner Dreams, That He Is Reg

When is it hot shooting and when is it bad defense?

Overall last night, the Bulls shot 53% from the floor with an eFG% of about 57%. But, as I tweeted last night, I wanted to look at the XeFG% for the teams, because I thought there was a whole lot of settling.

(Explanatory note: XeFG% is short for “expected effective field goal percentage,” which measures the “expected effectiveness of a team’s shot distribution, assuming they shoot league average percentages from every area on the floor.” Basically, different areas of the floor have different levels of effectiveness. For example, dunks/layups are the best to take, corner threes are the second best and midrange jumpers from 16-23 feet are the worst. So if you look at, say, the XeFG% of the Bulls 3PT% last night and see that they shot way better than league average from that distance, they likely either (a) got and made a lot of open threes, or (b) were extra hot from long-range and made a lot of well-contested threes. Also, you can look around on HoopData.com for more fun with XeFG%.)

For the Pacers, it wasn’t all that bad. Their XeFG% was 49.0%, and the league average is 49.5%, so it’s not like they were jacking up an abnormal amount of bad shots (leaving aside the fact that almost all Pacer shots are bad). But they ended up at shooting 46.6% for the game, so they were pretty inaccurate. Every team has bad shooting nights, so this in and of itself isn’t revelatory.

However, last night they weren’t any more inaccurate than usual, unfortunately. Using their YTD numbers, their XeFG% was .469, which will tell you how far below average they are as a shooting team.

Meanwhile, the Bulls took an insane 53% of their shots from 16-23 feet, which is the least effective range.  Using league averages, their XeFG% was 45.3%. Using Chicago’s YTD shooting averages, their XeFG% was 41.9%. Meaning they shot about 12 percentage points above the expected league average, and 15 percentage points above what even they would normally do.

So, in a game decided by 9 points, the Pacers submitted their typical shooting performance from the floor on pretty reasonable shot selection, and gave away 4 points to the league average.  Meanwhile, Chicago’s shot selection was an opposing coach’s wet dream, but they managed to pick up 21 points against the league average (and 25 against their own standard) simply by hitting shots.

So, is this a function of “Pretty much everybody in the NBA can shoot, so if you give them uncontested jumpers, they’ll hit them,” or “As poorly as the Pacers played, Chicago would lose with that shot selection way more often than they win?”  Hard to tell, but probably some of both.

More importantly, it underscores the crucial nature of being able to hit shots.

For all of the “there’s no hustle” and “the team has quit” and “Jim O’Brien is evil” stuff we hear from fans, what’s really making this team bad-to-hopeless instead the marginally mediocre squad that we all expected them to be is painfully simple.

They.

Just.

Can’t.

Shoot.

To be a top team, you need to be able to do more than just shoot, but it is next to impossible to even compete if you can’t shoot.

Consider the following chart:

I took all of the teams since 1980, and ranked them based on their eFG%, put them into “rank buckets” where all the Top 5 eFG% teams get Bucket One, the 6th-10th eFG% teams are in Bucket Two, etc. (The earlier years when the NBA had fewer than 30 teams were prorated to match a 30-team rank scale). Then I charted the calculated the combined winning percentage of all the teams in each bucket and plotted them on the graph above.

The 2009-10 Pacers currently rank 26th in the NBA in eFG%, which puts them in the lowest group. Since 1980, there were 140 teams that finished in this “bottom bucket” during this time period, and that collective of poor eFG% shooting teams posted a combined winning percentage of only .315. This is the rough equivalent of 26 wins over an 82-game season.  Only 11 (8%) of these teams managed to post a winning record.  Meanwhile, 95 (68%) finished with 30 wins or fewer, and 75 (53%) finished with 25 wins or fewer.

A healthy, vintage ’08-09 Danny would help, but not enough to get them to the playoffs. Even before the season, I was afraid that the offense would drop off this year, but I never could have imagined how bad it has become.

Now, granted, even if they could shoot, they still wouldn’t be athletic enough to deal with teams like the Hawks. But if this team could just match last year’s shooting (which wasn’t outlandish with an eFG% of 50.1%, which was just above the league average of 50.0%), they would score 5.2 more PPG. Add in the fact that they’re down from 81% to 76% at the line, and that’s another 1.2 points.

OK … So their shot selection is poor and their XeFG% overall is only about 48.6%. Thus, let’s bring ‘em back to earth and say that it would be more like a total uptick of 4-5 points per game. That doesn’t make them contenders, but it probably gets them closer to .500 — maybe 13-17 or 14-16.

The problem is, what the hell do you do to fix it?

Even if they had better shot selection, that would probably only account for 1/3 of their scoring problem. What do you do when you’re players can’t hit shots (and the opponent knows it)?

Change the offense? Trade for a play-maker? Have more shootarounds? Don’t play players battling injury? Just bite down on the stick and grit it out until 2011?

Leftovers:

• The Pacers rank 25th in FG% at the rim, and 22nd in eFG% from beyond the arc.  These are the two most important and most productive areas of the floor.

• Tyler Hansbrough shoots only 52.0% at the rim, which is well below the league average of 60.4%.  Unfortunately, Mike Dunleavy (51.0%) and Brandon Rush (49.0%) are worse. (So’s McBob, but he’s only had 4 attempts).  (Yes…that’s right.  If Brandon has a dunk or a layup, it’s less than a 50-50 proposition.)

• The ’09-10 Pacers have improved their defensive efficiency by about 3.5% since last year, which is roughly twice the league-wide improvement. And they’ve improved their defensive eFG% over last season by 3.2%, which is about 3 times the league-wide improvement. Unfortunately, their offensive efficiency in ’09-10 has dropped by a staggering 7.7% — or more than 4 times the league average. This is also more than twice the team’s defensive improvement. The shooting is also predictably worse, and accounts for the bulk of the overall decline in offensive efficiency. Their eFG% got worse by 6.5%, which would be 6 times the league-wide decline.

• As I type this, I’m watching the Pacers fall behind 66-47 to the Griz on at Conseco.  The shooting hasn’t been horrible, but dry spells have led to the Memphis spurts.  More to the point, it reminds me that I should probably do one of these things on Turnovers.  But I’m going to need to get drunk first.

Related posts:

1. Game #10 Recap: Defense and Danny’s Big Plays Can’t Outweigh a Late Offensive Drought
2. Hey Everybody – Listen to Me Talk

The first one, Episode 3 of my podcast Talking About Practice, is actually not Pacer-related at all, per se, but it does get into some subject matter that we have been and will continue talking about around these parts. Essentially, what it comes down to is efficiency.

See, basketball is a simple sport. On each possession, the offense tries to score. And the defense tries to stop them for doing that. The more times the offense succeeds, the better chances they have to win. So they are trying to maximize those possessions and use them as, wait for it, efficiently as possible. The defense’s goal would thus be the inverse.

No team has embraced this concept as much as the Houston Rockets and they have gone to great lengths to determine how NBA offenses can become more efficient and, conversely, how defenses can prevent them from doing this. Shane Battier is the poster child for this concept, and he has used the vast array of film, game charting data and advanced statistical analysis that the Rockets franchise — and most NBA franchises these days — now rigorously gather and crunch to significantly enhance the way he plays defense.

Basically, we’re talking about a whole new level of looking at the game and trying to figure out things like when (in the shot clock), where (specifically on the floor) and why (players do what they do to make) offenses succeed. Only it’s all much, much more complex than that and is so advanced that private game-charting/video companies like Synergy Sports and even teams like the Rockets really won’t even tell the outside world about everything they are doing. It’s too proprietary and too confidential.

Us mere mortals discuss this efficiency stuff in terms of eFG% and Defensive Ratings. And that’s what we do around here to some degree — while also fully realizing that these new stats are just tools to help us explain some of the stuff that happens on the court and not some sort of Holy Grail. In the grand scheme of things, even these more-refined resources are still too-blunt tools incapable of replacing the softer analysis that can only come from actually watching the game in depth.

So, all that was a long way of saying that me and Chris Ballard, who is a columnist for Sports Illustrated columnist and wrote the wonderful book The Art of a Beautiful Game talked a lot about this stuff. We start off talking about some of the other stuff in his book, but get into all that Rocket/Battier stuff about 20ish minutes in.

(You can also subscribe to Talking About Practice via iTunes and listen that way. Ratings/reviews appreciated.)

The second podcast was the latest edition of The 8th Seed. This is something me and seven other NBA bloggers have been doing since this summer. Most of it is irreverent jokes and genuine potty-mouth tomfoolery. But there is some actual basketball insight in there. The Pacers-relevant part about comes at the 64-minute mark and while I’d love for you to listen to the whole thing, that 5 minutes of me talking Pacers is pretty much my current feelings on the team. And I’m planning to explore the whole Dahntay Jones dynamic I get into there more in-depth in a column here whenever I find the time.

Related Links

If you’re into the Rockets/Battier/Ballard stuff, here’s a few other things you should familiarize yourself with. I’m still trying to figure out how to and to what degree we should include some of this stuff into the Pacers discussion at 8p9s. I mean, I don’t want to lose you guys who think all this stuff is stupid. But some of it is definitely valuable. So I suggest you check out a few of these things below. (Although Ballard’s book is just about the game in general aside from one chapter.)

• First up is Ballard’s book. The Art of the a Beautiful Game is really, really good and is probably the best, cheap present you could buy for yourself or any hoops head you know this holiday season. I did an extended review you can read here. Also, here’s an excerpt from his chapter on rebounding about Jeff Foster that you might like.

Jeff Foster, the Pacers’ relentless (and offensively challenged) center, had an unusual incentive. As a teenager at Madison High in San Antonio, his coach told the then thin and tall Foster that he wasn’t getting enough rebounds. So Jeff’s father, Stephen, made a deal with him. Instead of an allowance, he’d be paid for his board work: $1 for every rebound he got in a game, $2 for each one above 10 and $3 after 15. Soon enough, he was cleaning his dad out. Though, considering Jeff’s future, it was a bargain: In 2008-09, Foster made $6.175 million playing for the Pacers, or $12,156 for each of his 508 boards.

• The one article you need to read about advanced game charting/stats is Moneyball author Michael Lewis’ New York Times Magazine piece on Battier from last Spring. This article essentially took this whole discussion and exposed an underground world of hoops analysis to the common fan. I actually preferred Ballard’s chapter, but that is kind of like saying I prefer ice cream to birthday cake — both are excellent.

• Next up comes this NBA.com piece about how things like Synergy Sports, 82games.com, Basketball-Reference and all the other, similarly ambitioned endeavors are changing the sport. This stuff just gets crazier and more advanced by the day.

• Lastly is the stat page that Mike Kurylo of KnickerBlogger (who you might remember from the Pacers/Knicks preview on 8p9s) has dubbed his “Layman’s Guide to Advanced Statistics.” This guy has been focusing on this stuff for a long time now as anyone, and he really knows how to break it all down in (relatively) plain English.

Related posts:

1. Game #15 Preview: Stay Out of Monta’s Way or You’ll Pay. Listen to What I Say. How About I Just Go Eat Some Hay? I Could Make Things Out of Clay. Lay by the Bay. I Just May. What D’ya Say?