Dean Oliver

Players with the biggest difference in offensive performance between wins and losses.

I've highlighted the players with some consistency with last year.

Mitchell, Harden, Curry are commonly known. MPJ and Hield hadn't registered with me before.

Newcomer slump? Why Bane, Turner and others were off to slow starts on new teams New research by Ben Alamar and ESPN's Dean Oliver helps explain why players get off to such slow starts after swapping teams.

I linked to this yesterday, but it's worth bringing up again.

When I first started doing analytics, it was the base assumption that players are, on average, the same. Now I am more interested in what *changes* them. This highlights one cause.

www.espn.com/nba/story/_/...

Newcomer slump? Why Bane, Turner and others were off to slow starts on new teams New research by Ben Alamar and ESPN's Dean Oliver helps explain why players get off to such slow starts after swapping teams.

Wrote today about how novel research from @benalamar.bsky.social and @deanolytics.bsky.social on the impact of teammate chemistry helps explain why Desmond Bane and other high-profile newcomers got off to slow starts, as well as the implications going forward: www.espn.com/nba/story/_/...

Not as sexy as his 20+ points scored run, but SGA has 7 games of 10+ total net points in his last 12 games.

There were only seven players who had that many 10+ games for all of last year and one was SGA. (Can you name the others?)

espnanalytics.com/nba-player-g...

I knew Kevin Durant was a mid-range monster, but I didn't realize that he was top 3 each year in Net Pts/G from mid-range from 2020-21...

...until this year, where his mid-range game is actually negative.

espnanalytics.com/nba-award-le...

(On that page, go to Best: Mid-range)

I was looking through what is improving for Cooper Flagg. A big part is that he's better at the rim, where the black line below moves farther right going up (more recent).

You can look at categories like turnovers, drawing fouls, floaters, etc. here espnanalytics.com/nba-player-g...

Last night, the Lakers' big three posted -8.2 total net points. LeBron had -5.3, Reaves had -3.4, and Luka had +0.5.

That was their third worst combined game since Luka joined the team. Their worst was a 29-point loss to OKC on 11/12 when they had -14.3

espnanalytics.com/nba-box?id=2...

I knew that Nikola Jokic was the best passer in the league, but I didn't know that Davion Mitchell was passing it so well this year.

ESPN Analytics Net Points Award Leaderboard:
espnanalytics.com/nba-award-le...

Something I didn't know and learned from the ESPN Analytics Award Leaderboard:

Deuce McBride has been the best offensive player in late clock situations.

KD was best last year.

espnanalytics.com/nba-award-le...

After a shaky start, Desmond Bane's game log shows a steady increase in performance.

See this and all players with our new game log tool.

espnanalytics.com/nba-player-g...

The NBA Players of the Week with total net points gained
- It can't be SGA and Jokic every week
- Eastern Conference has spread the wealth
- One win is about 30 net pts, so some players adding more than one win per week by themselves

Cup MVP candidates
- SGA and two Lakers are the clear leaders thus far.
- There are some other 30+ ppg scorers who are farther down the list: Curry, Brunson, J Murray, Spida, Ant, Harden.
- Given that point differential matters, guys may run up the numbers some.

This is Cooper Flagg's running total net pts through last night
- He's basically average over the last 3 weeks
- No statistically significant improvement yet
- Has 4th highest usage among rookies - behind Harper, Fears, Queen
- He (+ other Mavs) helped by having a PG on the floor

Post-Thanksgiving Sophomore update

- Zach Edey is healthy and takes the top spot
- Mitchell in 2nd with Sheppard right there
- 14 positive players: 4 lottery, 5 late first, 5 second-rounders
- Avg improvement per player is about +1.0 from last year at this time

Post-Thanksgiving Rookie update:

- Harper is back and holds the top spot
- We have only five positive rookies: three lottery, two second rounders.
- Flagg is moving up
- Maxime Raynaud hit the leaderboard fairly high
- Knueppel has the most games of +1 or better with 10

There is bound to be some regression to his norms, but not enough to fully get back.

He's now out with injury and there are rumors that he doesn't like the system/coaching in SAC. Not good.

3/3

On defense, his fouls are way up, his matchup is shooting 10% better, shot quality up ~4% (GeniusIQ)

His paint protection is worse, too, with fewer blocks and fewer contests.

2/3

Domantas Sabonis has the biggest change in performance from last year to this year, declining from +2.4 to -5.2. What happened?

On offense, he's shooting badly from layups to 3s, down ~10% overall. His assists to the perimeter are way down.

1/3

A rookie update, this time looking across a variety of metrics.
- Coward is pretty consistently chosen at the top, Knueppel, too.
- More inconsistency on Richard, Gonzalez, Harper, Kalkbrenner. Net Pts tends to like these guys more, probably because it has no prior baked in.

I wanted to see if there were any defenders who are particularly good at contesting catch/shoot 3s. Incorporating number of shots, percentage, & quality of shooter, I get ~45 of each good and bad contesters (over last 2+ yrs) that are statistically significant.

Using GeniusIQ.

These players have the highest cost of defensive fouls and D3s violations in terms of Net Pts.
- Indiana centers!
- And-ones, techs, transition takes can really hurt. Jokic has 6 D3 violations
- Dillon Brooks was top 10 the prior two years, not this year (yet).

In Basketball on Paper, there is a chapter called The Problem with Scorers that addresses this. Basically, what players can maintain their efficiency as they take on a bigger role in the offense?

It is NOT summing +/-. It is the sum of individual net points, which is a player metric, for who started every game.

This is not +/-, to be clear, so it mostly separates the context from performance. These 3 play better D with SGA off the floor and a little better O with him (though not statistically significant).

Now here are the best individual players off the bench.

Kinda depressing (for competitive balance) that OKC - with the best starters - also has the top three players off the bench.

(Minimum 8 Gs off bench. Or Coby White's 2 G would have led.)

NBA starter vs bench update
- Best bench is Houston
- Best starters at OKC
- Biggest diff between starters and bench is DEN, though there is competition
- Memphis, SAC, and CHI getting more from bench than starters by good amount.

Good call, though Sasser hasn't played. Not sure how Robinson fell off, but he's here now.

On the ESPNAnalytics NBA Daily Summary page, we list Daily Awards for lots of categories, like Speed Demon (most net pts in transition offense) and Glass Cleaner (most net points on rebounding).

Coming soon is a tool to look at all categories for the yr.

espnanalytics.com/nba-daily-su...

The Pistons are about 16 net pts/G better this year than 2 yrs ago.

About 60% is improvement in players still there, which is mostly core - Cade, Duren, Stewart, Ausar.

But the new guys are also dramatically better - Harris, LeVert, Reed, and the two-way Jenkins (?!?).

HOU allows a man advantage in front court at about an average rate (GeniusIQ)

Net pts associated with defensive transition puts them 0.9 pts per G below average, but they gain +4.9 on offensive boards.
espnanalytics.com/nba-team-4FA

Many definitions of transition require this broad look.
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