Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Team Shooting Tendencies

Team shooting tendencies are found at the bottom of each coach's profiles. They have a far greater impact on how a team plays than anything else.

Let's look at 3pt TT tonight since it's fairly easy to collect data on. Below, I have 2008 season stats from basketball-reference which we can use to measure 3pt rates.

2008 Team Stats

There are two ways we can go about this. We can look for threes per game (OT discrepencies will be minimal), or we can look for the percentage of FGA that were 3PA.

3PA/Game
26.6 Warriors
25.3 Magic
24.6 Pacers
21.7 Grizzlies
21.5 Suns

The first thing I notice is four of those five teams were among the NBA leaders in pace, with Orlando subbing for Denver. This gives us a pretty good idea of what the percentage data is going to reveal.

3PA/FGA
32.1% Magic
29.4% Warriors
28.9% Pacers
26.4% Grizzlies
26.0% Suns

Nearly a third of all shots taken by Orlando last year were of the 3pt variety. Clearly they should be among the leaders in 3pt tendency (if not the leader), right?

3PT Team Tendencies
96 Knicks
96 Suns
71 Warriors
65 Pacers

63 Thunder
60 Raptors
57 Lakers
56 Grizzlies
55 Rockets
50 Cavaliers
50 Jazz
48 Bucks
48 Bulls
47 Nets
45 Pistons
45 Mavericks
43 Heat
42 Blazers
42 Wizards
40 Hornets
40 Kings
40 Magic
36 Spurs
35 Wolves
32 Celtics
31 Bobcats
20 Hawks
16 Nuggets
11 Sixers
10 Clippers

2K has Orlando in the bottom third of the league as far as attempting threes is concerned. It doesn't get anymore backward than that.

The Suns btw, clearly do not deserve such a high tendency here as they were no longer the long bombing team of the initial Nash days (a trend that has continued even further this season). Should have been obvious that a team sporting Hill/Amare/Shaq wouldn't pump as many threes as one with Nash/JJ/Q-Rich/Marion/Barbosa or Nash/Bell/Tim Thomas/Marion/Barbosa, or that this number would have gone down just by removing D'Antoni as coach.

So let's test in game. 12 minute quarters, Hornets vs Magic on Superstar.

Scor was 50-41 Magic through the first quarter.

Howard: 14 pts (7-9 FG, 0-0 FT)
Pietrus: 13 pts (6-7 FG, 1-1 3PT, 0-0 FT)
Turkoglu: 9 pts (3-3 FG, 0-0 3PT, 3-4 FT)
Nelson: 8 pts (3-6 FG, 0-2 3PT, 0-2 FT)
Lewis: 6 pts (2-2 FG, 0-0 3PT, 2-2 FT)

Turkoglu and Lewis did not attempt a three. They attempted 6 FTs on their 5 FGs as they pounded the paint. Interestingly enough, the three players who take it to the rim least got to the line 8 more times than Howard did.

Pts from...
Paint: 36 (72%)
Line: 7 (14%)
Mid: 4 (8%)
Three: 3 (6%)

Only six percent of Orlando's points were on threes. Only 3 of their 27 FGA were threes - a mere 11% of their shots (and its not like I fouled them on any of their jumpers either).

It's not just their 3pt tendency that's a problem though. They have the highest close tendency in the league with 77, so simply raising their 3pt tendency doesn't fix things.

Tomorrow I'm going to get started on rectifying this problem and establishing a scale for the teams.

19 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you, Rashidi. This should help a LOT!

Anonymous said...

there are some players missing still, e.g. marcin gortat, louis amundson, thomas gardner, othella hunter ..

Rashidi said...

Those players are all missing from the official update by the 2k insider. They are all in my update.

Anonymous said...

If Lewis and Turk didn't shoot any threes, the player tendencies should be changed. Just add nogster tendencies to your rosters and every will be perfect!!!! He is the best at what he does and you are the best at what you do.

Anonymous said...

I'm just throwing this out there do you think Monte Ellis would be a good fit with the Grizzlies? Or someone like Marbury? Al Harrington? Good trade ideas please.

Notque said...

Thank you very much Rashidi. It's annoying that the Pacers shoot so many 3s, and their tendency is so low. this year, we should have increased even from last year.

Anonymous said...

I have a question, should the lakers defensive pressure be higher than the Celtics?

Also, is it right that the Celtics play at an 85 tempo, while the Mavericks play at only a 40?

Rashidi said...

Celtics are at an 80 tempo. They were 3rd in pace at the time of submision however they are now down to 8th. I suspect Boston's instability is just due to the amount of garbage time they've played so far, as all the other teams haven't moved much.

Dallas is only 16th in pace, however I think you are implying Dallas should have a high fastbreak rating since they look to run. Tempo is the speed the offense operates and the energy spent at that end, whereas fastbreak is sacrificing defensive boards to create easier offensive opportunities.

I just reviewed and tweaked every team's tempo rating, Big movers were Grizz went up 15 pts, Celtics went down 15 pts.

I also just found out that I left all the Defensive Pressure ratings at default when I have my own ratings for them. That will be fixed in 3.1.

Rashidi said...

Also, none of those players fit for the Grizzlies (except Monta). They are rebuilding and have no need for 30 year old mercurial vets who won't be part of the long-term plans (Marbury/Harrington).

Ellis is an upgrade over Conley at this point but I'm not sure he'd be a good fit with O.J. Mayo since both are scorers first/second/third, passers fourth. And given his high price tag, they'd have to give up too much for him. It's tough to advise trading for Ellis anyway when he's still recovering from his severe ankle injury since there's a chance it affects his play.

Anonymous said...

oh, awesome I misunderstood the ratings, and I thought you were basing them off of like last years but if you are doing them in real time that's even better.

Keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

So hows the simulated stats looking now?

Anonymous said...

You said you've worked on your coach tendencies, yet on the games you've played both teams are shooting crazy numbers. 50 and 41 are not scores you want to see after the first quarter, even your best friend 'stats' will back this up.

Rashidi said...

Each difficulty generates different stats.

The CPU shoots a higher percentage on SS than it does on Pro. You assume I am actually good enough to play on SS, and that I wasn't rushing shots to get a larger sample size of data for the CPU.

Notque said...

I'd think the Pacers would go up quite a bit on Pace. Did you already have them corrected? 2k has not updated their pace or 3 point shooting since Rick was coach.

Anonymous said...

Does anybody I mean anybody know where I can buy a custom painted controller with a keypad on it online? Please help.

Anonymous said...

Quiet, you.

Anonymous said...

Hey Rashidi, great thing you are doing, BIG THUMBS UP!!!
I got a question, could u edit the shoes from every player that is on the 30 Teams, i did it, but than updated it with your roster and the time i spent was gone, would be super if you could do it.

Look forward if u can fix the points in the paint problem, cause the CPU is scoring way to much down there, that sucks.

Thanks for the time!

Anonymous said...

You stated that the 2K Insider doesn't understand sample sizes and/or scaling, but if you remember rightly. . . The intent of the 2K rosters are to increase/decrease ratings based on how players are doing within the league (the whole 'hot potato cold potato' milarky).

Obviously, the change in J.J.'s steal rating was a little generous but you both have different business. The 2K Insider to my knowledge believes the rosters are already 90% correct, there is no attempt on his part to correct it. Whereas this is what you do/have done.

Are you out to just prove you're 'better'? :S

Anonymous said...

Oh nice, wrong post. *Head-desk*

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