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Advanced Stat Talk

Advanced Stat Talk – A Different Way to Look at Strength of Schedule

by Tim Donahue on February 14, 2010 at 12:04 am · 13 comments

In the NBA, Strength of Schedule (SoS) is a relatively simple calculation. As shown on this ESPN Page, it is merely the compilation of the current win-loss records of a team’s opponents. Each opponent’s record is added for each game they played. (As an example, the Pacers have played the Hawks twice, so they contribute 66-36 to Indiana’s SoS calculation.)

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

LossFactor

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.

WinFactor

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.

SoSHR Remaining

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’.

celebrity-pictures-shaw-foo

We’re gonna need a bigger boat.

Related Topics: Advanced Stat Talk, SoS, Strength of Schedule, WinFactor

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The Pacers and the Four Factors

by Jared Wade on February 2, 2010 at 6:13 pm · 2 comments

For a while now, Hoopdata, which has quickly become an indispensable site for basketball fans, has been looking at the “four factors of winning” for every team in the league in comparison to one another. And today Tom Haberstroh posted their fifth edition, which had and interesting note about Indiana.

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

hoopdata nba four factors

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.

Related Topics: Advanced Stat Talk, Hoopdata, Tom Haberstroh

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The Numbers Behind “Going Small”

by Tim Donahue on January 28, 2010 at 12:49 pm · 5 comments

If the games against Philly and LA are any indication, the pairing of Roy Hibbert and Troy Murphy could be a thing of the past. To back up his new commitment to “Going Small,” O’Brien said:

“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:

BigsPie

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:

smallpie

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):

RoyTroy

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.

beggars choosers

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

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Looking at VORP with Colorful Charts, Vol. 3: Matt Moore on Usage and PER

by Jared Wade on January 25, 2010 at 12:27 pm · 2 comments

For those of you who don’t know, in addition to the leaguewide NBA writing I do over at Both Teams Played Hard, I also chime in from time to time over at Matt Moore’s Hardwood Paroxysm. It’s a great site to check up on the rest of our association and certainly much more educational than BTPH.

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.

Pacers PER Usage

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:

Pacers PER Usage 2

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.)

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